7 Rules for the Road Video #7:

Rule 7: Express Gratitude

GRATITUDE. Share your adventures.

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

- William Arthur Ward

Express Gratitude. How many of us arrive at our final destination in life without help? Expressing gratitude can heal our hearts and stimulate our minds and bring us peace. We become what we think about most. The most important conversation you will ever have will be with yourself everyday. Live as if you’ve already achieved your goals, and are grateful for their accomplishment.

Some powerful questions:

• Are you there yet? Probably not.
• What are you truly grateful for?

GRATITUDE changes everything.

7 Rules for the Road Video #6:

Rule 6: Change Yourself

CHANGE. Enjoy the journey.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.

- Charles Darwin

Change Yourself. The benefits of changing, improving and growing are as follows:

• You get increased self confidence and self-esteem.
• You get increased knowledge and self awareness. Remember, knowledge is power.
• You have the ability to learn, adapt and grow to succeed in life regardless of your environment.
• You’ll improve your ability to prioritize life’s demands.
• You’ll improve your ability to make good decisions in life.
• You dramatically improve the quality of your life and you maximize your potential or achieve your goals and dreams of life.
• You want small changes, focus on behavior.
• You want big changes, focus on your thinking.

Here are some powerful questions:

• What thinking is really getting in the way of your success right now?
• How will you accomplish your goals and dreams?

CHANGE is Power.

7 Rules for the Road Video #5:

Rule 5: Choose Love

LOVE. Choose your guides carefully.

Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.

- Barbara De Angelis

Choose Love. Surround yourself with positive, powerful people and you’ll soar. Love is the greatest motivator in the universe. To be loved is one of our greatest needs as human beings. Love can mean to look for the good. Understand that love is a choice. Choose love, or you’ll lose love. Let love always be behind your motivation.

Here are some powerful questions:

• Who do you love? Who really loves you?
• Can you find trusted friends, coaches and mentors to help you on your journey?

LOVE changes everything, and should be the motivation behind our actions.

7 Rules for the Road Video #4:

Rule 4: Use Choice

CHOICE. Pick your path and pack your bag.

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.

- Jimmy Dean

Use Choice. Unfortunately, bad things happen to good people every day. Good things happen to bad people. Sometimes bad things happen to us because we make stupid decisions. Other times bad things happen to us because of pure, random nature. Sometimes it’s a combination of the two. It’s what I call the mortality crap shoot. Sometimes life can deal you random blows. Our actions speak to what we believe. Live what you believe.

Over time, small choices everyday make huge differences in your destination. When an airplane is leaving Los Angeles, if it doesn’t constantly course correct, over a four hour flight toward Atlanta, will end up in New York. Your daily actions should always bring you closer to your goals. You need to make course corrections every day. Pack right for your trip. Ditch the excess baggage. There is freedom in forgiveness for yourself and for others. I forgave my mother, and became very grateful for the gift of life. That changed me forever and it also changed her.

Here are some powerful questions:

• What is within your control?
• What is outside of your control?
• How will you choose to use choice?
• What is in your bag?
• Does it limit you or liberate you?
• What do you want to accomplish this year and next year?

Remember, No Gap, No Goal.

Your CHOICES change everything. Without choice, CHANGE does not happen.

7 Rules for the Road Video #3:

Rule 3: Find Meaning

MEANING. Check your compass.

“It is in changing that we find purpose.”

- Heraclitus of Ephesus

Find Meaning. Living your life with a long view, or vision, keeps you moving forward. There is great power in purpose. The WHY behind our actions.

My mission is help people unlock the passion to change, learn and grow. Our values are found in our actions. Values can guide us. Not everybody is brought into this world in the same environment. However, our choices can determine our level of happiness and what we eventually achieve. You know, no matter how miserable you are in this life, chances are, with billions of people on the planet, you can find billions that are worse off than you. So, you need to get over it. Move forward.

The suffering that everyone shares is the great equalizer that connects us all. Empathy is one of the greatest gifts that we can give to one another.

Here are some powerful questions:

• What will you do with your life and why?
• What is your long view or vision?
• What is your mission?
• What are your values?
• What do they mean?

MEANING changes everything. Without meaning, CHANGE does not happen.

7 Rules for the Road Video #2:

Rule 2: Gain Awareness

AWARENESS. Find your ticket to ride.

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.

- Nathaniel Branden.

Gain awareness. Ignorance is the enemy of choice and change. You know, answers don’t come without questions and questions don’t come without thought.

Learning. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Great accomplishments don’t just simply spring up on their own, and hope is not a strategy.

My questions to you are:

• What are you good at?
• What do you love to do?
• What do you want to do with your life?
• How will you learn to do it?

AWARENESS changes everything. Without awareness and learning, CHANGE simply doesn’t happen.

7 Rules for the Road Video #1:

Rule 1: Ignite Desire 

DESIRE. Look around.

There is only one corner of the universe that you can be certain of improving and that’s your own self.

- Aldous Huxley

Remember to ignite desire. The odds are against you. Remember, only 1 in 9 changes even when faced with death. You need all the help you can get. Desire ignites when three things collide, like me on the dirt track at Woodbury Junior High. These three things are a bold new vision of the future, suffering or pain, and learning for life’s experiences. When you change yourself, you change your future.

Here’s a powerful question:

• Where are you at in your life right now, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually?

DESIRE changes everything. Without desire, CHANGE simply does not happen.

My Orange Duffel Bag Video #11:

Sam Bracken: Defining Moments

After my freshman year at Georgia Tech, everything turned out great, right? Uh, Wrong.

Six months later, everything changes for me. My mother is in a car accident and left in a coma. I remember getting a call from my younger brother, and he told me that mom was in this car accident, she was in a coma, and he asked me to come home and take care of her. I said, “No I can’t, I’m sorry. I have to do what’s in front of me.” It was still a very painful time. Spring football practice rolled around. I was in first string, outside linebacker and having a good spring. I noticed when I hit people, I’d get these stingers in my shoulders and it would just be terribly painful on both shoulders, on both sides. After a week or so, I found out what the problem was, my shoulder pads were broken in the back. We fixed the shoulder pads, and I thought that would make things better, but the stingers didn’t go away. Eventually, my shoulders started going completely out of socket and I was in massive, massive pain. The team doctor at Georgia Tech, Dr. Fred Allman, examined my shoulders and he said, “Sam, I’m sorry to tell you this, but your shoulders have been permanently damaged and I don’t think you can play football again.” I was just totally devastated. My whole self-worth was connected to my performance on the football field. I pleaded with him, I said, “There’s got to be a way.” Coach Curry fortunately said, “Sam, you don’t have to play another down, your scholarship’s fully paid for, everything’s good.” But my self-worth was so connected to my performance on the football field; I couldn’t bear the thought of not playing football. Doctor Allman said, “We can perform these radical surgeries and tighten everything down and put titanium screws in your shoulders, and you’ll have a chance to come back.” And I probably thought about that for one minute and I said, “Yeah, let’s just have the surgery, so let’s go forward.”

I remember waking up from surgery, and my arm is just immobilized like this, and there are tubes coming out of my shoulder, blood’s everywhere, I’m throwing up because of the pain. I’m like, “What did they do to me? Oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself into?” There are two people by my bed side; Bill Curry and Joan Conkey. Bill Curry assured me that everything will be fine, he was there, and it was wonderful to see him. Joan Conkey, I’d met Joan a year earlier. When I’d first got to Atlanta, I wanted to go to church and met Joan and Don at church. I remember going there in just blue jeans and a t-shirt and they came up to me afterwards and asked about me, where I was from, and I told them I was going to Tech and they invited me home for brunch to have breakfast with them. I’ll never forget this, when I came home with them, Don told me, he said, “Sam, you have family here and if there’s ever anything you need, just feel free to come here.” Out of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever, they just extended love and acceptance to me. They became a safe haven, a safe house, for me to go to, and I would go there periodically on the weekends when I felt stressed at school and just relax and enjoy their company. Well, Joan was there with me at the surgery, because she didn’t want me to be alone. The doctor told me, he said, “Sam, you can’t move your arm like this for a few weeks because if you do, it will ruin the surgery.”

After a few weeks from there, you know, I was barely being able to move my arm here, so what do I do, I have this one operated on. For some reason, I think that this is going to be different than this one. It wasn’t different. It was the same; it was just as excruciating, just as painful. As a result of this, I lost a bunch of weight, and my color got real yellow, I was jaundice, all the muscles I’d built up over the years atrophied and I was pathetic. For the first time in my life, I think, I fell deep into depression. My friends, they knew me as a lively, kind of lighthearted guy and I think they looked at me and they wanted to cheer me up and they said, “Sam, we know exactly what you need.” And I said, “What do I need?” And they said, “You need a road trip.” And I’m like, “Road trip?” And they go, “Yeah.” And it was just code for, “We need a designated driver who doesn’t drink to take us down to Florida, so we can party.”

All 13 of us pile into my friend Andy’s van, and we trek on down to Destin, Florida. I’m driving with this arm barely being able to move, this arm is in a sling, and I’m driving. We finally get to Destin, Florida and two of the guys go in and check in at the front desk, and I’m sure they don’t tell the person at the front desk that there’s 13 of us. They get one room. The whole college economy of scale kind of thing sets in. I remember while all my buddies are in the pool frolicking with these fine honeys and co-eds, and I’m over there in the sand or the dirt again in this lounge chair, like taking Percocet in this lounge chair, and I’m just looking around and I’m in absolute hell. I’m in misery, complete misery. I look at the ocean and I see the beautiful aqua blue water coming in, and as the waves are going out, my hope of a better life sort of waves out with it, you know? As the day went on, I got more and more depressed and sad, and finally I get to this point where I’m just sort of sick of it all. I see my friends having this great time with all these girls, and I literally say to myself, “My life sucks, and it can’t possibly get any worse than it is right now.”

At that very moment, yes indeed, a flock of seagulls flew overhead and they pooped all over me. Right here in the chest, man. Puny little chest, atrophied chest, poop hit me here, poop hit me in the head, I got poop in my eye, I had poop everywhere! I was crapped on–I was rendered a literal crapping stick! What do your friends do in a moment like that? They’re like, “Hey look at Bracken, there’s poop all over him,” ya know?

In the dirt, in that longue chair, once again for the third time, I made a decision. It became a defining moment. I realized something really powerful. I realized that if I go around feeling sorry for myself, thinking about how bad my life stinks, that I’m going to be rendered a crapping stick. The world will just poop on me. The world had spoken. I took that moment and I burned it in my head, and I went back to Atlanta, and I started getting up at 4:30 and 5 a.m. every morning. I would swim for an hour, then I’d run back over, then I’d climb the fence at Bobby Dodd Stadium, and I’d run the whole entire stadium stairs, it took me an hour. Before my friends were getting out of bed to go to dining hall, I’d already worked out for two hours. I would go to class. After class, I would go to physical therapy to work very hard to regain the strength and flexibility that I’d lost. And then I’d go to tutoring. And then, I’d start the whole thing over again. At the end of three months, everything worked out and it was all wonderful, right? No.

What happened was, at the end of three months, I was still having minimal gains, and it was really the first time in my life where the hard work thing didn’t quite cut it. It didn’t quite make it happen. I was very, very discouraged. I went to Coach Curry once again and I sat down with him and I said, “Coach Curry, no one wants to come back from these injuries more than I do. I’m working really hard. I just don’t know what to do.” Fortunately, Coach Curry saw me as someone other than just a football player. He saw me as a whole person. He listened very specifically to my concerns, and then he just smiled and he said,

Sam, I want you to do something for me. I want you to go to the bookstore, and I want you to get a 3-ring binder, and I want you to put four tabs in that 3-ring binder, and I want you to label them: Mental, Physical, Emotional, Spiritual.

And then, I want you to put paper behind each tab. After you do that, I want you to write down where you’re at in each of those areas right now. Take a personal inventory of yourself. Take a hard look in the mirror. Write down where you’re at mentally, and write down where you’re at physically and spiritually and emotionally. Then, I want you to turn the page in each tab and I want you to write down where you want to be a year from now. Be specific. Make sure your goals are narrow, that you have a good gap and that they’re clear. And then, I want you turn the page in each tab and I want you to write down why, a compelling reason that you have the goal. And then, I want you to do the same thing in each tab, and I want you write down how you’re going to get there. So, I want you to write down where you’re at, where you’re going, why you’re going there and how you’re going to get there. I want you to read that book every day. I want you to positively obsess about where you’re going and why you’re going there and focus on how you’re going to get there. Realize that I’m here to help you if you need my help.

I did exactly what he said. I went to the bookstore and I wrote down some crazy goals; some really, really hard ones. Physically, I wanted to come back from my surgeries. I wanted to start on a great football team. I wanted to learn more about spiritual things, so I spent a lot of time studying spiritual writings and religious writings. I put down a lot of very powerful goals. The other thing that Coach Curry told me to do was, at the end of two weeks, I want you to rip out the page where you’re at, really focus on where you’re going and how to get there. As I did what he said, I spent 15 or 20 minutes a day with this book, and it made all the difference. It helped me hold myself accountable to the change that I wanted. At the end of one year, every single thing I put in that book happened. Every single thing occurred. I regained a starting position on a great football team. I raised my GPA. I did all these wonderful things because Coach Curry introduced me to a process for change. I still do that today. It allows you to take big goals and chunk them down into small things.

Everybody has their day in the DIRT. Everybody SUFFERS. Everybody has PAIN.

It’s what you do with it that makes the biggest difference. We can take bad things that happen to us and we can leverage those things to make our lives better and to help other people and make their lives better. It’s the simple mission of the Orange Duffel Bag book. This is what we’re trying to do. We are trying to take all of life’s experiences and learn from them, and grow from them and help each other on our journey. It’s my hope and my prayer that somehow, someway, my story has helped you on your journey, and it will help you change, learn and grow from your experiences, regardless of what happens to you. Good luck on your journey, may it take you to places beyond your wildest dreams.

My Orange Duffel Bag Video #10:

Sam Bracken: Beating All Odds

Out of the millions of high school football players, only one-tenth of 1% of kids that play football in high school score Division 1-A Football Scholarships. I was fortunate enough to do that. But there’s a story behind it.

I remember, as I was sort of bouncing from place to place, to work, to school, and trying the best that I could to hide that from my friends and teachers, I had someone pop-up in my life that made all the difference. I met Brian sweeping the floor of my great uncle’s sports store and Brian became a very good friend. He would pick me up on Wednesday nights and Sunday’s and play hoops with me at the YMCA and just became a really, really dear friend of mine. The thing about Brian that was amazing is that he was a high school All-American; he was recruited all over the country. He settled on a smaller school because he didn’t have very good grades and was starting as a freshman, playing really, really well at this university and was getting letters from professional football teams and everything was going wonderful for him. Then, because of his grades and some of his behavior, he flunked out of school, and he was trying to rebuild his life again at the same time that I met him. He did a lot of things for me, just being my friend, reaching across the barriers that homeless kids have, and those kinds of environments. He just had faith in me. He helped me get closer to my vision and I’ll never, never forget him for that and I’ll always be grateful for it. And as a result, things continued to go well for me in high school. I got straight A’s and was also getting recruited at colleges to play football all over the county. I wanted to go to a school that tight end’s really excelled at and had the best chances of going to the NFL (National Football League).

At the time, I played tight end on offense and linebacker on defense. BYU Cougars Football had one of the best offenses in the country. They recruited me and offered me a scholarship to play there and I told basically everyone else that I wasn’t going to go anywhere but there because I just liked it. It was a wholesome environment; I thought I would be a positive thing. Near the end of my senior year, when decisions had to be made and final offers were given, BYU never offered me a scholarship, which left me sort of holding the bag. I didn’t know what to do. But fortunately, I had gotten good grades and I’d applied for some academic scholarships and so I said, “I’ll just go and walk on.” That’s what I decided to do.

I finished high school, was all state in football, all state in track, high honors and had a lot of accolades and did really well despite my unfortunate circumstance at home. What I did was, I packed my little orange duffel bag and I moved to Provo, Utah after I graduated and I worked out with the football team all summer and was very excited about it, was making great progress and came home to Las Vegas to play in a high school all star game. As I did that, because I’d worked so hard in the summer, I was really making a difference as we were practicing, getting ready for this all star game. I was starting both ways and just really killing it on the field. I’ll never forget one practice about five or six days before the game, I was doing a drill, and a kid by the name of Nick Bruno from our rival high school, dove into my knee and I heard this loud “pop”. It was excruciatingly painful and I fell down to the ground. I’ll never forget my knee was pointing up, and my foot was sort of flopped over like this, and I was like, “That is not good.” Once again, my dreams were completely crushed. I blew my knee out and I had no idea what to do.

After I hurt my knee, Doctor Andrew Welsh examined it and gave me the prognosis, and we repaired my knee and I did the best I could to get that healed as fast as I could, but I was basically forced with the decision not play football or start school. I got a job at the casino, and I just started focusing on my knee, and I went to work again. That principal my mom taught me. Hard work always pays off. In this particular case, I went back to work, would work with Dave Denim the athletic trainer, at Doctor Welsh’s facility to get my knee better and I also got a job working on the strip.

UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) was very well connected and they were interested in me playing football there, so they got me a job as a teamster on the strip making a lot of money. I figured it out that I could make a lot of money being a teamster and doing sort of homework and make more money than on scholarship. And through a series of a couple of events, I decided that, maybe I should just go to UNLV. I had no other choice, you know? UNLV’s the best place to go, given my circumstances. At the time, UNLV didn’t have a lot of accredited majors. It was known for one thing and one thing only and that was hotel administration. It wasn’t like, the academic powerhouse that you would hope to go to. My doctor, Andrew Welsh, found out that I was going to go to UNLV, and he set up a meeting with me, and he said, “Sam, why are you going to UNLV?” And I said, “It’s the only option I have. I don’t have any other option.” And he said, “That’s not true. I know coaches all over the county and we can get you looked at again and Dave and I have seen your workouts and the way you’re passionate and we’ve heard you’re a good student. Let’s help you.” And again, Dave and Doctor Welsh reached out to help me, reached across and helped me, just that one person, and he said, “I want you to write down all of your honors on a sheet and then I’ll write a letter and let’s just send it out to all the universities that are recruiting you.” And I said, “Okay.”

We picked 30 schools — Georgia, Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Arkansas. We picked some schools in the west, Oregon, those kinds of things, sent 30 letters out with some game films and not many of them were interested. About a handful were interested and most of them just declined any kind of offer to give me a scholarship. I’ll never forget this phone call I got from a guy by the name of Ken Blair. Ken Blair was from Georgia Tech, and he gets on the phone and he says, “Is this Sam Bracken?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Hey, this is Ken Blair. I’m from Georgia and I coach here at Georgia Tech and we like your game films and we want you to come out here and look at the school.” I was just completely dumbfounded. I was ready for the flush letter, you know? So I get on the plane, probably the second time I’ve ever been on an airplane in my life, we fly to Georgia, meet on the campus of Georgia Tech with Ken Blair, and he gives me the big tour, and as I met up with Coach Bill Curry, I was so very impressed. He had three Super Bowl rings, was coached by Don Shula and Vince Lombardi, was the president of the NFL players association, was a captivating, very powerful man. As he got to know me, and I got to know him in our conversation, he looked at me straight in the eye and he said, “Sam, we like what we see. We checked your knee out, it seems to be fine.” He said, “I want to ask you a question.” He said, “Why should we give you a football scholarship?” I looked at him, and I said, “Coach Curry, no one wants it more, no one deserves it more, than I do.” I said, “I promise you, you will not regret giving me a scholarship. I will make it work. I’ll be the best I can be.” He sort of got a smile on his face, and put out his hand and he said, “That’s good enough for me. You got a scholarship.” I’ll never forget how that felt. My whole future was changed by that one act of kindness, that one extension, reaching across the country, and extending a scholarship to me, just one kid.

I remember going home on the plane, looking at my national letter of intent and the scholarship and I just could not believe it. I got home, I put everything that I owned in that orange duffel bag, couple pairs of jeans, some t-shirts, some socks and some underwear, and I packed that bag with all of my hopes and dreams and I quickly left Las Vegas never wanting to return. As I got to Georgia Tech, my freshman year was awesome. I managed to secure a place on the football team. I was second string behind Lance Gelton, who was an all conference outside linebacker. I was playing in a lot of the games. As a matter of fact, our first game we played Alabama, they were ranked number one in the nation, and we beat them. It was huge. And then we lost every single game after that. But I played in a lot of the games. I played a lot. At the end of my freshman year, I was named to the ACC Rookie of the Year team. It was a big deal. I’ll never forget meeting with Coach Curry, and him saying to me, “You know Sam, we’re so glad you came.” And I said, “Not half as glad as I am.” He said, “The future is so bright for you. Barring injury, we see you as a top NFL draft pick and an all-American here at Georgia Tech.” I can’t tell you how much joy I had in my heart at that time. All my hard work had finally paid off.

My Orange Duffel Bag Video #9:

Sam Bracken: What Normal Looks Like?

After that day in the dirt at Woodbury Junior High School, I knew I wanted to change, I just didn’t know how to change. Interestingly enough, I was in Special Ed classes in school. I had a third grade reading level, and I was in eighth grade. I had some issues. Fortunately for me, I had a caring teacher that discovered all I needed were some glasses. That helped things a lot. I also had my mother, who worked two and three jobs her whole life, and I saw her work ethic and I saw that there are benefits to hard work, so I just went to work. The other thing I did was, I set some pretty high goals. I decided that I wanted to play pro football and that I wanted to go to law school. Pro football because I just loved football, and law school because I wanted to be rich, you know? I thought, “Hey that’s the way to do it.” The interesting thing though, I set those goals in place, and I was so passionate about them, it moved me to do things differently. It really did. Every day, every week, every month, I did things differently because I was so obsessed with those two things, and things started to change for me.

As I got into ninth grade, I went from a D or C student to a straight A student. I played football, basketball, and ran track. As a freshman, I played on the junior varsity, freshman team, the junior varsity team, and the varsity football team. That year, we went to state, and we won, and I actually got in the game. They handed me the ball and I got clobbered and I thought that was awesome. We went to state, and I started making a name for myself at the high school.

As things progressed, moving into my sophomore year, we started having a lot of family problems, a lot of tumultuous experiences at home. There were some bad things happening. My parents split, and my little brother and I were living with my mother and her boyfriend (who was a heroin addict). As we were living in this environment, even though it was sort of crazy and there was a lot of tumultuous things happening, I was still trying to hold it together at school and doing really, really well. I remember coming home one day, I was 15 years old, I remember coming home from school and my mother saying, “I got to talk to you.” And I said to her, “What do you need to talk to me about?” She goes, “I’m done.” I’m like, “What do you mean you’re done?” She goes, “I’m done with you.” I’m like, “What do you mean you’re done with me?” She goes, “I got to split. You and your brother need to find a place to stay.” I said, “No you’re not. You are not bailing on me!” She said, “Like hell I am, I’m totally bailing on you. You got to find a place to stay, I can’t take it anymore.” I was completely devastated. I had no idea what to even do. My little brother was 13, I was 15.

I did the one thing I always did when I had really trying things happen to me. I got some sneakers on and I went running again. This time, I went running in the desert. I ran and I ran and I ran. It must have been for hours. I didn’t know how long or how far or even where I was at. I ran to the point where I was utterly exhausted and collapsed, once again in the dirt. Lying in the dirt, I lifted my head up to heaven and I said, “What am I supposed to do? What is it I’m supposed to do?” A very strong impression came into my mind, and it said, “Call Brent.” I’m like, “Call Brent?” Brent was a friend of mine at school. I’m like, “Call Brent?” I’m like, “Okay.” I got up from the dirt, walked home, and I called my friend Brent. I said, “Brent, my mom’s kicking me out, I don’t what to do. I don’t know what to do.” Brent goes, “That’s okay dude just come live with us.” I’m like, “What?!” He goes, “Yeah, just come live with us.” I’m like, “No you don’t understand, I don’t have a place to stay and I don’t know what to do.” He said, “Yes, pack your crap and come live with us.” Okay, that sounds interesting. I had this little orange duffel bag that I got at football camp the year before. I packed everything I owned in that little orange duffel bag, and I moved in with Brent.

Interesting thing, on the surface, it seems really tragic that I was kicked out. My mom, she left, my little brother went and lived with my step sister, and she went and lived with the hessians motorcycle gang on the outskirts of Las Vegas. There’s 27 people in a three bedroom house and she was sort of like their den mother. It was crazy, but at the time she was having a nervous breakdown and that’s all she could do and those people loved and accepted her and she moved in with them. At the time, I never thought that … that would be one of the best things that ever happened to me, but as I went and moved in with Brent’s family, an interesting thing happened.

In the evenings, they would gather together and partake of food. They called it dinner. I’m like, “Oh, what’s this?” At dinner, there was a conversation. People would say, “Well, how was your day? My day was fine, how was yours?”  They were kind to one another, and they were looking at one another, and wanting to know how their day was. For the first time in my life, I’m like, “Wait a minute, maybe this is how a family is supposed to react. Maybe they’re supposed to love each other enough to listen to them, to understand them, to care for them.” Brent’s uncle, who we were staying with, he knew I needed some money, he’d say, “I want you to do a bunch of work in the backyard or on the roof” and he’d pay me money so I’d have date money. They had this back room in their house that was just full of food. I could go back there and eat whatever I wanted at any time, it was like a dream come true. It was amazing to me that “normal” was quite different than what I was used to.

Getting kicked out at 15, quite possibly, was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I spent the remainder of my high school years sort of bouncing from friends’ houses to school to work, doing my best to hide the fact that I really didn’t have a home, and excelling in school and sports the best I could, so that I could still fulfill my dream. It was Brent’s family that helped me do that, that helped me see that I could be someone better than who I was. I’ll forever be grateful for that. In the end, it wound up being one of the best things that did ever happen to me.

Trials happen to everyone. It’s what we do with the trials that make all the big difference. In this particular case, understanding what normal looked like changed everything for me.

My challenge to you is, when you have really hard, challenging things happen to you, ask yourself the question,

• How can this be the best thing that ever happened to me?
• How can I learn and grow from this? How can I help others because of what I’ve been through?

It’ll make all the difference.