whatever it is that you were born to do in greatness you can still get there even if you end up putting put on pause if your dreams look like they're interrupted if the Journey to Excellence looks like it got cut off there will always be a secondary path and when the path opens up you have to be willing to open up yourself to accepting [Music] it I was born in 1973 some of you think that's a long time ago but to me it feels like it was yesterday no it doesn't but it sounded good right
so watch this so I was born and it was excitement my mom was 18 my dad is 18 and they were excited about having a baby boy and then when I came out of the womb they found that there was something wrong with my leg they didn't know what it was but it looked like it was broken so they put a stint on me at Birth 3 months later I had my very first surgery 90 days old they decide to try to fix my leg and they take a part of my rib cage and they
put it down where my tibul is that's the bottom part of your leg right in which at that moment they thought this might fix it that was just the beginning of my journey every six months from the day that I was born I started having surgeries I never got up I never got to walk I never got to run and do things with other kids I spent all my time in wheelchairs and Walkers and I didn't have that Acceptance in fact I was a 11 by the time that I took my very first step and
in the course of that time so many things came into my life that were trying to set me back to keep me from taking a journey into Excellence my father when he saw me born looked at it and said this can't be my son because there's no way I could give birth to a [ __ ] and so three times during the course of my childhood my father would blood test me and just say even though it says your mind I just can't believe that I could give birth to a [ __ ] there is
nobody in my family that's ever been a [ __ ] to this boy he can't be mine and so I started off with a sense of rejection my mom you thought I would get love from her or something but she was young and didn't know exactly what to do and so she passed me over to my grandmother and let my grandmother take me in and so my grand mother brought me in her home and gave me love and if without her I didn't have that so shout out to all the grandmothers that are in this
place now let me tell you something that began to happen with me I can remember going into surgeries and I would come out of the surgeries and every time I thought this would make it better this time I'll get up and do what everyone else is do I would watch all my cousins play and I wondered what it was like to fill grass under your feet I wanted to do everything that every other kid do did so I can remember when they got me a walker I decided to do what every person in here has
desired to do to join in and throwing rocks at cars so I had seen all the neighbor kids get in the they would go and they pick up Pebbles and they thinkink hit a car and take off running and I set a goal in my life it was my first step in the Excellence journey I said I am going going to hit somebody's car with a rock and so this actually happened so I get my Walker I'm four almost five and I can't quite hit the cars because I'm too far away from them I didn't
think about the Escape Plan at the time and so I said I got to go ahead and if I'm going to hit one of these cars I need to be able to get away these other kids would take off running behind houses and they're gone and I'd see them laugh and I was like Lord just let me have that one moment hit a car and then get away and so I got my Walker I got in the middle of the street because I figured there's no way I can miss it if I'm in the middle
of the street so a guy comes down the street and his brand new Cadillac he pulls up he stops thinkink I hit him and then my Escape well as I'm going away this guy gets out of his car he helps me up the step we go to my my grandmother's front door and I'm thinking I I'm getting away from him I'm like I got he I go ahead I'm like Grandma and he knocks on the door for me and then he snitched it was at that moment I realized sometimes your journey in Excellence has to
take a different plan so I was sitting there and I said man I wanted to be just like everyone else I can remember sitting there and asking Grandma why did I have to be born this way why is it that I don't get love from that my mom doesn't tell me she loves me my dad won't even own me he won't even acknowledge me the other kids can't play with me they keep thinking I'm so fragile and stuff and so I spent all these days sitting on the porch with my grandma listening to her and
she became not only grandma she was my best friend she's passing on wisdom and stuff and the whole time I'm being raised she keeps giving me a nickname calling me Superman I am a kid with a disability I'm crippled and my grandmother keeps calling me Superman from my earliest remembrance if you look up my childhood pictures and photos you see me with a Superman Buckle shirt something on because my grandmother's mindset was this baby you are not crippled you have Kryptonite there is going to be a time where you will overcome that and you will
become a symbol of Hope to a whole lot of people they just don't see it yet but it's coming and so when she started to call me that I began to believe that I began to believe that somehow I had some purpose that somehow I had value in my life and that I could journey to be more if I would become more but it's hard to overcome a bad start when all you can think of is the rejection there's a neighbor that lived across the street he was the last good guy and I say he's
good guy because he was choosing to stay in the Inner City when we had already destroyed the value of the community it was this guy was the last of the white people in my neighborhood and this guy sees me on the porch and he asks my grandmother what's wrong with the the boy that never comes out and we thought he was just being nosy because I was used to people saying what's wrong with him and I hated that question as if I wasn't enough it sounded like there's already inherently something wrong with someone saying what's
wrong with him and he my grandmother said well he was born with a problem with his leg and he said what is it diagnosed that and they said we don't know they had no idea what it was wrong they kept trying to fix me and there's another surgery and another surgery and that wasn't a whole lot invested my grandmother couldn't read or write so there was some struggles that she had and communicating some things and she said we don't know what it is and he said ma'am let me tell you who I am he said
I'm a Shriner and we'd like to Vol unteer to take that little boy and cover all his medical expenses we'd like to take care of your grandson do whatever it is that he needs and my grandmother said you will do this free of charge you'd help my baby and he said absolutely and I'm so glad that this guy was willing to go across his comfort zone and come over to us and ask the question because he was bringing Solutions I didn't know it then but that would be the very start of my journey in excellence
someone who was selfless enough to invest in a kid that couldn't give anything back and so this is what happens they arranged for me to go to Chicago and for the first time in my life they put my mom and dad in a van with me and I'd never had them together I'm 11 never had my mom and dad around me we're riding to Chicago we stop at cracko Barrel we tell us we can eat whatever we want I'm getting all the candy and stuff I'm like this is the best ever and that's all I
had was candy I just kept going with candy you know because they can't really do anything to me it's free and and the guy said I could have it mom would look at me don't ask for anything else sir can I have some more yes this is awesome and so we get to the hospital in uh Chicago Shriners and at the time even the hospital was called Shriner hospital for crippled children so we arrived to the hospital this is not a new thing to me I'm used to going through this journey in hospitals we walk
in I have a surgery and then I end up going home this time they give us a tour and as I'm going through this tour in this hospital this is amazing because it's the first time I'm there and it's like Disney everything is focused on giving the kids an experience there I go and they have wheelchair decorating contests we have arts and crafts we have people we have games that we play and every kid in that place has something like me all of us are going through this journey I thought I was the only one
because everyone El i' always seen my life I had never seen another amputee I had never seen anybody with anything else I had never seen any of these issues it was just me and finally I found out there's a community there's a word there when you start your journey of Excellence you will find that there's a community that's been waiting on you you just don't know it yet but if you get in that environment you'll find that there are people who've been waiting to accept you as you are and they will help you improve from
the moment you get there we're in the hospital and they give us a tour and I'm like man I love this place and they take me to a unit inside the hospital called Great Lakes and they give me two roommates and I never had that before we get into the hospital room and they were like these are going to be your friends Matt in Gilbert and so I said hi guys and they said before we put you into your room we wanted you to meet them but we got to go upstairs so your parents can
say goodbye I'm like okay so we go into the the room we're spending there spending time together and my dad who I never really had a connection with sits down and he says listen if you ever need me he takes his necklace off and hands it to me mail that and I'll come now that's the first gift he had ever given me and for the first time I believe that maybe he is accepting me my mom comes down kneels down in front of me and says listen baby we got to go I need you to
be good while you're in here I'm like okay no problem I'm used to this I'm in the hospital you guys will pick me up soon but where's Grandma he said mama can't be up here and I said okay well I'll see her when we when I get done because I'm used to this I've had 34 surgeries before I turned 11 every six months I'm going through surgery rehab surgery rehab I've never known what it's like to walk yet and I've seen 9month old babies walk and I've never had that experience I'm in this hospital my
parents leave the nurse takes me down and I get to meet Matt and Gilbert we fin fin have roommates we're hanging out Gilbert is from Chicago he was thrown off a top floor at kabini Green Apartment uh projects in Chicago he was paralyzed from the neck down for Life he's 12 he's on my left on my right side is a kid named Matthew Matthew is eight he's a small white kid that that is loving he's funny but he lives inside of a little incubator he's fragile he's parents reach through gloves and interact with him but
he didn't allow that box to allow him to be boxed in he would speak and laugh and we crack jokes and I would pull my wheelchair on one side of him and talk to him all the time and then when I would lay in the bed they' place the mirror on the ceiling so that we could all see each other's faces and I could talk to Gilbert and so all night long we talk plus nurses if you know any they like to bug you all night long like hey are you sleep I was I was
I really was let me just check some things where if you leave me alone I could so I'm I remember we're sitting there we become fast friends we're building a relationship is the best thing ever because I was an only child and I didn't have friends all I had was my grandmother so here we are Gilbert Gilbert is talking he's telling us stories about him growing up and how his accidents happens Matt has only known known his experience he he's not like Gilbert he's never known what it's like to walk I don't know what it's
like so we Envy what he had though he lost it Matt goes in for surgery one day and I used to love spending time with him because Matt had a mom and dad and it was the first time I'd ever seen a mom and dad work together with their kid Gilbert hadn't seen it either and we looked up to the mom and dad to see them love on their kid and we wondered what would that be like to have a mom and dad that would accept you it's a word for every kid that in here
every kid that you let see this don't take your parents for granted be thankful that you have them in your life if you got an active mom and dad in your life that is a superpower that gives you an a head start in the Journey of Excellence Embrace that don't rebel against that so we're watching Matt has to have a surgery and so it was time for his Matt to go to his surgery and we like see you in a minute Bud they roll him out he said bye love you love you see you in
a minute day goes by he doesn't come back that evening the next day his dad and mom come in and they're walking very slow and we're like hey where's Matt and it paused for a moment and dad says uh Matt went home I'm okay well he didn't say bye or anything and they were like no no no mad they didn't make it for the first time at my life I realized that kids can die but for me that had become my brother and Matt's gone his mom and Dad we're not going to see anymore because
it was only parents we had seen and and now they're going to be gone and we kind of enjoyed them we loved them in fact but Matt being gone it was an empty space now and it was rough and his dad came over and he gave us a teddy bear that belonged to Matt and he was like I want you to have this and so just the teddy bear that was given to me was a symbol of their love for him and his love for me thank you the teddy bear was a symbol from a
caregiver they cared for for us he cared for us and it was the reminder of that love there's a lady in here that has given so much to doe where is Cody at stand up Cody would you come here for a moment you see in life you're given a gift so that you can give a gift all I've known is that you're a great caregiver of so many others that have been through and I want you to know that you are loved and the gift that was given to me I give to you thank you
come on the journey in excellence begins when you can become a giver rather than a receiver the love that they poured into us and we got to display and see we get to pass that on so that somebody else could have it they said James why not hold on to that because I already get to live that I get to live the life that he didn't because I took that in I Echo that stuff so that everywhere I go Matt carries with me and now he carries with another caregiver on the other side of me
now is Gilbert and he and I are both experiencing the loss of our friend and they didn't replace anybody in that room one day they go Hey listen Gil your mom's coming to see you and Gilbert got so excited because the whole time we had been there he hadn't seen his mom and I still haven't seen my grandma and my mom and dad hadn't been back and I hadn't had my surgery yet so I'm just sitting there I'm wondering what's going to happen Gilbert is like my mom's coming they start picking his hair out and
stuff and he's smiling and stuff and I'm watching and then the day comes she walks into the room and they closed the curtain now they forget we got a mirror so privacy I'm like you know so when it's funny when she looks over she sees it I pretend like but then I'm still EAS dropping but I have to pretend like but what else am I going to do though like like I'm not going to let me leave I don't even so I'm laying there in the bed I'm watching and Gilbert is all excited and she's
he's like uh he's waiting on her to acknowledge how good he looks because they cleaned him up and we're not in hospital gowns we're in clothes and he's all happy and it meant the world to him he didn't sleep the night before I couldn't sleep cuz he kept talking about my mama's coming and she walks in and she goes hey Gil and she said Mama and she goes listen listen listen I don't have a lot of time by I talk to you and he said yes Mama and she said listen girl they just told me
you'll never walk again he knew that though and he was like yes ma'am that's a lot of work for Mama there's no way I can yeah I can't do it no more baby I got to live my life too what am I going to do with a a boy that can't walk no more you can't even do nothing what am I going to do I can't do it no more baby I I've signed you over to these people they they going to take you from here it was at that moment man that I felt his
pain because I'm watching and he's afraid and he goes mama please and she's like you're making it hard on me I cannot do this you ain't gonna walk you ain't gonna do nothing and Gilbert's begging and and she turns I can't do this and walks away and Gilbert starts Mercy mama mama mama and I'm watching him and I'm I'm like oh no man not only Mt die but parents will aband in you and leave you in here my grandma she ain't came they not coming back for me they not coming back that's why they're not
here they not coming back for me Gilbert's laying there mom's gone Matt's dead I'm like man I just realized what's happening they're not coming back they took me to Chicago I'm from Indiana they're not coming back for me he's crying I'm crying we're struggling with this what do you do when when they give up on you if the person that's supposed to love you unconditionally says you are too much you're too disabled you're too crippled and I don't want anything to do with it give was sit there and I watched him trying to hold his
breath to take his life I watched him try to bite his tongue and and he I saw him he quit talking and all night long I'm Gil talk to me and he won't because he had been broken the next day they come in and they tell me take a bath and they were scrubbing me getting me ready I thought it was just a normal bath but then they roll me out and I can remember getting sleepy and when I woke up my leg was gone and nobody told me all I know my life is my
leg it was there even though I've been in a wheelchair I've been limited it's all I ever knew and when when I woke up it was gone no Mom no dad no grandma and so I realized they left me Gilbert and I both broken one of the nurses saw Gill and adopted him herself she had been taking care of him loving on him and when the mom gave him up she took him home and so I look at the fact that there are people who are scaffolds in your life they are there for a season
and they will season you up so that someone else knows how to get you from where you are raw to well done so that you can be what you can be that nurse was what he needed she stepped in without a child of her own adopted him as her own and he got a family right then and there that was a win for him I watched that happen for him but what about doctor comes in how you doing James and I wait till he got a little closer and he said you okay I whisper he
gets close I grab my pillow I try to hit him I did I almost got him too he was quick though I think he went to Northwestern or something he was really fast so he got away from me being able to hit him so now they stra me to the bed and I was like the people don't got me I don't know what to do I'm I'm angry because this all I ever knew in the Journey to Excellence there'll be times where you'll have to release things in your journey and you don't even realize that
you no longer need them because they don't serve you we are attached to what we used to be we got to get familiar with what we can be finally my mom comes to visit what stirred her to show up as she had heard that I had attacked the doctor so when she comes in she doesn't come in to show me love she walks in all strong what's this I hear you were talking back to a ad but now I'm in a better attitude because it been days but I'm so happy to see her but I'm
afraid she's going to leave me like Gilbert's mom so I was like I'm sorry and she said you know better than talk to a adult like that I'm said yes ma'am the truth is I'm behind my yes ma'am is a begging please don't leave me even though grandma was my primary my mom is there and I don't want to lose her and I haven't seen grandma and I don't know what's going on I don't even know if she knows because she can't read or write or knows things and I haven't heard from her and maybe
it's just I don't know but I don't want to lose you so yes ma'am I'm sorry my mom says well what's this behavior and she's calming down I was like I was just mad cuz they took my leg she said well boy they wasn't working anyway yes ma'am the nurse is in there and she goes ma'am I'm going to tell you I was telling James this he is going to walk walk one day he has a dream of playing basketball and one day James will play basketball in fact James would do some great things it's
just a matter of healing getting them a good prosthetic and my mom said hey hey wait a minute hey don't give my boy false hope you see in my mom's mind she went off of my resume somebody may want to write this down she went off of my resume but she didn't understand my potential or capability there are a whole lot of you that who have been judged by People based on your resume but your resume only tells you where you came from it does not tell where you're going the same word resume is resume
whatever it is that you were born to do in greatness you can still get there even if you end up putting put on pause if your dreams look like they're interrupted if the Journey to Excellence looks like it got cut off there will always be a a secondary path and when the path opens up you have to be willing to open up yourself to accepting it I couldn't stay attached to the leg because it's gone they even gave me the honor of going to a room I can so I can see what they took away
from me trying to help me understand the adjustment I'd have to make the nurse had already built my confidence up some so when mom was talking and she said James will play basketball he'll run he'll do this I've never walked a day in my life yet my mom is listening to a nurse tell me that I'm going to run play basketball and do all these things and she said don't give my son false hope and so I looked back at the nurse and she was like no no ma'am listen I've got 30 years experience I'm
telling you I've seen this James will and my mom says look at me and so I turn on look at my mom and she said you're a [ __ ] you understand that and I paused for a moment I look back at the nurse is that true and she said no no ma'am he's going to be able to live like every other kid and my mom said look at me I'm your mother not her you are a [ __ ] that's all you are that's all you've ever been that's all you will ever be do
you understand me I went to look at the nurse and my mom grabbed my chin and said I said say it show me you understand what I'm saying to you you are a [ __ ] you have been one you will be one you'll never be more than that you're a [ __ ] now you say it and because I'm afraid of losing her like Gil lost his mom I paused for a moment then she SLA SL me and when she slapped me it scared me and I she said say it and she went to
slap me again and I paused and I put my hands up I said I'm a [ __ ] Mom I'm a [ __ ] I'm crippled I'm done I'm I'm a [ __ ] I I'll never do nothing I'll never be nothing she said now you understand that's so I broke so the nurse every day comes in trying to encourage me James you can do it but I can't do it I won't go to rehab I won't try because what's the use I'm a [ __ ] and I don't know what grandma is and that's
the only one that loves me and Mom and Dad he never came back I even asked him to send this necklace and he never even gave me his address that nurse that was there ask me do I know my grandmother's phone number and I said 64 765 649 9882 she calls her in my grandmother against all of her insecurities goes to a Greyhound bus station and unable to make sense of what was there and said can y'all just get me to Chicago because the nurse said he needs you without the ability read and right without
asking somebody for permission or my mom or anyone else my grandmother shows up at that hospital and all I hear is where's Superman where's my baby and I hear her voice and I lift my head and she said I heard they told you you wouldn't be anything but a [ __ ] and baby I came to tell you you are still Superman and when she can to Speak Life over me and she began to tell me that I was born for greatness you can get up you can do anything you want to baby doesn't nothing
stop you there's people are here to take care of you I came to tell you to get up and try it again for me in that very moment I said I'll go to rehab they gave me a prosthetic and I began to walk and when I took my first steps I didn't do it without having on that Superman shirt because the journey in excellence that began for me the moment my grandmother came and helped me remove the negative stigma off of me and I came here to tell every one of you you are excellent you
are all superheroes I don't care how many mistakes you've made how many times you messed up I don't care how close you've been to bankruptcy I don't care how many times you failed I don't care what the health had looked like every one in you in this room is a superhero who is headed in a journey in excellence and I defy anybody to tell you that you cannot be [Applause] something so I decided I was going to be on a mission to prove them wrong so I began to walk immediately they gave me the prosthetic
and I began to move now in my mind I had the smoothest walk of all time you know I was now when people saw me it was more like this you know Frankenstein like Mike O listen don't say that don't I don't know why you even brought that up Justin you're Petty but here it is they had a class where they would teach you gates gates is the term they use for your strid your walks physical therapist in here know what I'm talking about so any anyway they have all of us kids who are learning
to walk in one room we're in our PT room and they said we're going to bring some people around here we're going to show you the different walks show you you can walk watch them walk visualize it if you see it you can go do it so we're watching and they bring in a doctor and he's and they were like would you like to learn the walk by like him and they're like no no not that dude no and so they brought in other people and then it was really difficult when they brought women by
because a lot of them would switch and it would now you talking about difficult for Prosthetics to mimic that Jessica Rabbid walk is impossible we're like no we don't do that either so anyway they keep bringing people by showing us different walks and they were like see guys see how they move and they're explain and stuff and there's a guy out there as a janitor and he's mopping and we see him walking and he was like we're like we want to walk like him that dude that dude right there they're like we got doctors here
we got physical therapists we got nurses no no no the janitor that dude that's the dude yeah him and so I was like man that's the coolest walk so I was trying to add my it I hadn't learned to walk yet I was trying to add cool to my first walk you already know that went wrong right so I was going I was like yeah and I was like and I was like this is kind of cool you know you can't even tell I got a prosthetic yeah you can you can I what was funny
though when they gave me my first prosthetic I was ask I was man I was in love with it I I'm like man I got a leg but it was 25 lbs it was connected there with a rubber foot on it and the only question I had was like cu the leg part they made that brown I loved it but the foot was white I'm just wondering if we can somehow get a they didn't have any at the time they didn't so I I'm just going to keep a sock over that one cuz it's hard
to explain to people like yeah you know I'm mixed watch this so here's what happens I am I this I decided I wanted to play basketball but I had learned to be able to stand hop on my sound leg my good leg and so as we're we're sitting there I would watch basketball games and I was Grandma I want to play and she was like you do baby and so she bought me my first weight set now some of you don't know anything about hwam Mania so I got to tell you about it so the
first weight set I got was a hul Mania weight I should have known it wasn't very heavy cuz we I got the Carri the whole box out with it right you Carri it but in it it had a cassette tape a headband two blue weights and a half torn t-shirt but that was that was it for me grandma was like baby I got you it I was so happy we open it up I got the headband on I grabb the weights I did it for like three or 4 seconds walk back in there Grandma feel
feel that and she like woo baby you getting strong hold on give me five more minutes then so I go back dude I'm feeling I was like started doing that walk like like John Smith here does right I was walking around and I was like yeah and Grandma was like you know she kept building this whole Alter Ego with me and stuff and in fact my mom and I got into another argument this time because now my confidence is high and I'm I'm a hulkamaniac and she was like Hey listen do you you really believe
that somebody could hit you upside the head with a chair and they could do this repeatedly and they could do this 20 times in a row and at the end of beating you with a chair you could stop listen to a crowd cup your ear and then get up without it hurting you anymore and then win and I said I'm glad you asked that I remember looking her in the eye and I said if 10,000 hulkamaniacs are behind you you can do anything that day on she Banned Me from watching wrestling so I never got
to I don't know what happened with the Hulk since then but I never got to see him again so but it was the philosophy it was the mindset I used to listen to that that that tape it would say eat your vitamin say your prayers do good I would listen to it and whether I knew it or not I was getting daily affirmations every single time I played it and that's a birth for you you see the Journey of Excellence begins when you decide to let two things happen at the same time the negative stuff
that happens in your life you can't avoid but how you respond to it is up to you you see Excellence is a choice and like Mike oer says you can make Excellence your average how do you make it your average because I make that thing that is said positively become louder than the voice that tells me I can't do and whichever one of those I feed more is the one that gets nutrition and then we'll feed you you must feed yourself daily affirmations you got to get up and look in the mirror I don't care
if you feel it or not you begin to say things to yourself like I am tall I have freckles you start off with some true stuff right you don't just start off with like you know I am this but I began to speak I am an athlete I am great at this I will set World Records I will you begin to speak those things that are not into existence as if they already have been done you say them and you become them but that's the journey in excellence I decided after working out and I got
big in 10 minutes that I would go ahead and I wanted to play basketball but I was doing it with the idea I would prove someone else wrong my mom and so I've been watching on television I was like Grandma I want to play ball and I was hopping around all the time because that's what Utes can do I can do that all day I can do one-legged stands like as a challenge or something but it's not that's where we can be very comfortable so I'm hopping around and I'm doing those things and she buys
me a trampoline and I would jump on the trampoline and watch IU basketball games all day all night I would watch Georgetown and I'd watch Patrick huan in the paint and I would mimic their steps the same techniques they taught me to learn to walk I began to watch on how to play basketball and so I'm watching that I watched their movements without the ball and I was like that's how you do it I figured it out and I was like Grandma I want to try out for the basketball team and she said baby then
you can do it and so I see that they have a tri outs coming up so I get to the triy outs and the coach looks at me he sees my prosthetic and because it's 25 pounds it doesn't yield it's got a rubber foot it's very heavy but I'm learning to walk with it but I still do a little bit of of a drag so as I'm doing that I had started to watch and notice how everyone else moved and instead of walking and dragging it I learned that it was Hill toe opposite hands and
it was controlled at my core so I started being able to cover up so it wasn't so always so noticeable and so I thought I was prepared for this so we get there and I've been playing basketball in the backyard Grandma's been encouraging me all the time the work that I'm doing that they hadn't seen is about to show up but I didn't realize that they had other things that they had to do other than the play I had never experienced that I never walked before now I'm walking I'm running I'm doing all this in
the same year it's a miracle for my family and for me but to the coach it's a liability so he says we're going to start off with Dev valleys anybody know what Dev valleys is they call them suicides and stuff when you got to run and touch stuff it's a way of torturing kids and get away with it so we get there and the coach is like we're going to do some death valleys and I was like I came for basketball practice I don't know if if it starts afterwards or and he was like no
we all got to do this thing and so I'd never done this before and so I'm watching the kids and stuff and was like okay you touch it you run you touch oh NOP not oh shoot I'm already behind it's like Simon says to me because I'd never done it before and so I'm in last place place and I'm running back and at the end of it he goes sorry you couldn't finish the mile in another 6 minutes you didn't know how to do those things they cut me but he didn't have a conversation with
me he said outside of this room there's a list on the wall if you made it your name will appear if it isn't thanks for trying and so I go ahead and I run out there and I'm looking to see if my name is on there and it's not and the only one cut is me and there's no one to comfort you was I just dreaming maybe I aspired to be more than I could have so what I did was I decided I'd go back home and I'd come back and show them that was more
than that so I saw there was a Wendy sign and it said Wendy's one mile ahead from my grandmother's home so every morning I got up at 4:00 a.m. and I ran and touched that building and then I watch the time run touch the building come back I did that every morning religiously I did De valleys and on my own I would go to the court and I'd run and I'd touch and they were like and so I got to the point that there wasn't a thing that I couldn't do and I was like man
I'm ready so I show back up and I'm completely in shape I'm ready for this I'm prepared for this the very things he cut me with I'm back and I'm stronger in those things than ever before I worked on my lateral movement so if you test me to my right I'm going to I'll be there I'll meet you there I knew how to work at Angles and stuff I played against older men all summer long so that I would be ready for kids my age and I walked in with a sense of attitude about it
you're not cutting me we get to the practice and we're going through it and he goes Dev valleys and he goes immediately to the thing he cut me with a year before but I know that he's doing it because he wants to get me out of the way and get to his real team so we're running down we touch all the lines We Touch every line and we get done he said until the last man is ready to drop we don't stop and every time we finish it I put my hands on my hips and
I look back at him and he's like again so we run we touch the lines we keep going and everybody else is bent over grabbing shorts and sucking winds some kids are throwing up but I'm still standing there with my hands on my hip and he was like again so we run it again and I just keep looking at him but then I started yelling to him and it became the speech that opened up the world to me through YouTube because I said put me in the game coach I just kept yelling we're touching the
liines you're not cutting me I don't care how much stronger they are I don't care about their genetics you put me in the game I keep yelling at him I'm not going to quit because I wasn't just trying to make the team I was trying to be validated as a man as a kid I wanted to be shown that man I mattered that my life was something I wanted to prove mom was wrong I was trying to strip the [ __ ] off of me he says again I keep looking at him yelling I'm not
giving up man I'm not bending over and I have my hands on my hips man but I'm not bending over again and I turn and the prosthetic turns and dislocates my knee my whole dreams I'm laying on that floor my leg is Twisted I'm like man I never had anything go right for me I tried I got up every day I said my prayers I did everything I was supposed to do if the journey in excellence was supposed to be mine it should have happened now my story should have been that I overcame something right
now and he walks over and everybody else turned their back on me because it's gruesome to look and see somebody broken everyone wants to watch a broken person but no one wants to heal him and so when you find yourself broken and you're on that ground the Journey of Excellence begins internally I had a choice to make do I get up or do I stay down so I straighten my leg out and I push it in myself and they were like James stop I was like Coach man you're not cutting me you see I'd always
got around on one leg anyway and I wouldn't finished with my rep and so I started hopping James stop nope you're not cutting me today man as I kept going the same people that turned their back turned around and started running with me because you cannot deny when Destiny is on you I was in pain but I still kept going because it was a mindset and when your mind is set you're are set man that's a word then it cut me from the team he really did he I didn't make that team he was like
he loved it I know it would have been a great movie no I want to shout out to my coach Mike Oster thank you so much for always being there for me man the way you years go by I keep the habit of working out because I never want to go back to the wheelchair the wheelchair was a chair of opportunity stay there or get up I got out of it and I didn't want to go back so I kept working out a tragedy happens I've got limited time so I got to speed up with
this but it's in the book I promise you you grab it you'll love so I wanted my grandmother to see me play it's all I wanted I didn't make any teams in high school games on my high school but I tried out for a team same a team that the kids who made my team at my high school were going out after but there was a difference that had happened that what I had built on the inside was a resilience that an effort that they couldn't reach I thought about everything that I've been told I'm
a [ __ ] I would never amount to anything and all those things and I decided I was going to make that team I treated every moment like it was game seven of the finals when they thought it was just a game there was in a time that I didn't give my full effort and attention I gave everything I had and I got my first state championship as an aaou Talent playing against guys that were Jason kid Grant Hill Sean Bradley guys that made it to the NBA and I got a chance to play up
against them on without ever making a high school team [Applause] if you think that's something I got a basketball scholarship off of VHS tape what I did they filmed me playing a garden a guy named Damon Bailey and Damon was the was the hot shot at the time for Indiana but he had every move he did I had seen in the in the in the hood a million times like I'm like I know where you're going but I also learned to watch their Gates I knew their movements and so I got a chance to guard
him and my grandmother's there she got this big b she watching me man it's like and so she's recording this and I thought about it for a moment I was like I can't let I can't waste it cuz Grandma here I'm going to give it my all so I guarded him like my life depended on it and he was letting up on me because he thought that the leg was an issue until I st ripped him twice I get the ball in the lane and see I'd always hopped around I got my first dunk in
the eighth grade I didn't need a running start I was 6'4 I could all I needed is to get to my good foot if I got to it I got you so I get in the lane and there kid named Allan Henderson and went on to IU as well he's playing in the post I get a dunk and I come off of that and you're talking about what it felt like for me to dunk on these all Americans and stuff they ball was coming off the rim it's not like I drove the lane but it's
coming off the rim and they underestimating me I get up and I got my first dunk and I came down with that gorilla stuff I was like ah finally we take the tape I send it around to colleges myself I get a scholarship I go off to over town of Minnesota the coach didn't even know I had a prosthetic I didn't tell him he didn't ask so when I show up on campus with the scholarship off the VHS we done had conversations he had flown out he met my family they didn't have any amputations he
didn't ask so I get the scholarship I get there day one was standing it what what what happened what do you mean what happened this is awesomeness this is what you're looking at I'm Superman dude what are you talking about listen I got to tell you this so here's something that happens life is going great things happen I go to school and we get to the point it's time to graduate but I need $1,200 to take finals anyone in here knows if you don't have the money to take finals you might as well throw it
away senior year I called a mom I said listen I've worked the scholarship covered this I need $1,200 to get my degree and she said come home I'm not giving it to you if you don't have it you just don't have it life seemed like it was setting me back back I was I was so close I would be the first in my family to go to college it was that I would have been the first to graduate didn't get that I come home and start working my grandmother gives me a call and she's not
doing well when I was eight she once said to me make me a promise you'll never let me go in a nursing home now I'm in my 20s early 20s I get a phone call I'm living in New York I get a phone call I'm topping sales in the company I'm working at I'm doing well and she said baby you remember the promise she never repeated that promise but I knew what it was and I said Grandma I got you and so I went into my boss I said I got to move back to Indiana
he said oh wow when are you thinking about doing that said I'm leaving tonight and he's like what do you mean listen James I said either you get me a transfer there I just get a new job out there but my Grandma needs me and when I needed her she came for me I get there my grandmother is outside and we're there about a month after me moving back she stays in her house about the house next door to her I let her keep her independence I'm there for her and all that stuff and one
day we're out in the driveway my grandmother falls on the ground and I was like Grandma you okay I loved her so much even name my daughter after her her name is kaziah and when Miss kaziah fell a great part of me fell and so I go in and pick Grandma up and I'm holding her they call an ambulance and I'm like walking out to the street grandma please my grandmother never came home from that hospital and I was struggling with that to be honest it's been 20 plus years and I still struggle with it
they say that time heals all wounds it does not you just turn what that pain is into purpose and if you can switch the mindset and say I got to live big enough for both of us she gave me the best of her last years she invested wisdom into me from the time that we were sitting there from the time I sit in the kitchen watching her cook and listening to her I was getting wisdom that will one day become quotes that I'd be known for I had started to lift weights and motivate people my
first post in October 2014 was called absolute motivation and it was me talking about openly saying I'm an amputee and if I can get over the fear of what people think think of me you can too one day I'll speak on stages one day I said that then and there's a video on Facebook if you look it up where I'm talking about that so I'm speaking about what would be and then my grandmother passes away and I'm working out and I'm hitting the gym as the sanctuary to feel better about myself I didn't want to
compete against people with disabilities because we didn't have pushpull pushpull deadlift bench press squat I wanted to compete against able-bodied people and they put me in the 275 category I don't know why I weigh 135 so they put me in that category and I'm against the big guys and we get to this competition and so we're in this competition and and there's uh they're lifting this is the deadlift portion and they get to the the counter and they're saying Hey listen we have we have uh kilograms how many do you want and I was like
oh my God I don't even know what those are so I was like uh how much is this guy got they she got uh 300 and I was like okay that sounds good now I have a prosthetic and I'm in this competition the first lift we get there and I get to the bar and I had only been lifting in the gym but I'm watching how everybody else is doing and I start imitate them so I go down to go grab the bar and when I go down my heel comes off the ground I fail
on the attempt when your heel is off your base is off and you're not going to be able to lift I learned that on the first lift and people like a it made me think of my mom saying you'll never be second time we go for a second lift I get a hold of the bar and this time I go wider out and I keep my base down and I go to lift and it gets under the lip of my leg and if you see on the side it's designed in such a way and so
when I lifted it got stuck under it and you had a down movement you go come up and then they said you're disqualified on that that doesn't count I'm down to my last second so I got to say it quickly I'll say it this way last lift comes up I've been operating in insecurity in this journey of Excellence I was afraid of what everybody else was doing I didn't know how I could do against them and I was allowing myself not to perform when the opportunity was there I get to this last lift and I
look down at it and I'm watching these guys people slapping them on the back and face and stuff and I'm like I'm not going for that so but I'm in front of this 10 seconds and I go I looked down and I remembered picking her off the ground so when I reached down I picked it up my grandmother was in my heart 760 lbs I lifted set the record in the Olympic Training Center in Fort Wayne Indiana there's a banner of me and I never played in the sport never made it because Superman is for
Real thank you all
