THIS Is Our Second Chance

As I thought through how I would present my rebrand to the world, I sat in awe watching A Kid From Coney Island, a movie documenting the life of former NBA player, Stephon Marbury. It embodied everything I believe this organization, The Will, to be. Healing through physical activity and spiritual growth. 

During his successful, yet controversial career in the NBA, Marbury was on top of the world. He was a star from a young age and with that came pressure. By the time his NBA days were over, he had never had a break; a moment out of the spotlight since his teen years. When his career had seemingly run its course, he made the decision to take his talents to China for not only a new beginning but also a chance at a fairy tale ending. And that’s just what he got. Being in China afforded him the opportunity to get back to his spirituality and the person he was raised and destined to be. Removed from the pressures of the American society, he once again rose to fame, but this time as a person everyone loved. 

"The plane looks like it's about to crash. Just trying to pull it up the best way I could. I didn't want to live at that time. It was just like, for what?" Marbury said when he finally appeared towards the end of the documentary. "It wasn't about basketball anymore. It was me evolving. Everything changed instantly. I only had my spiritual connection during that time because I couldn't speak the language. So I was meditating more. I was praying more. That's when I had the time to reflect. And I had some really hard nights where I'd just be praying and crying and trying to just get an understanding about what was going on in my mind. Once I started to accept what I was experiencing and what I was going through my faith just got even stronger."

When I began my nonprofit journey, I tried to keep religion out of the mission. I knew how it felt to give up on God and believe God gave up on you. I didn’t want to force God on anyone who wasn’t ready to accept Him and therefore went for a different approach in order to reach more people. It wasn’t authentic. I couldn’t do it without Him and He deserved the glory in this story! Now, I stand by my thought process but my testimony includes God. That’s just fact. And I can only share what I know to be true for me. I don’t ever want to deter anyone from coming to me because they think I’m holier than thou. If nothing else, Lord knows I’ve got a past. 

This time I wanted to share my real secrets to becoming a joyful person but more importantly the secret to how to stay there (which is all trial and error for me but right now I’m doing it.) Watching Marbury I saw that it was not MY secret. I had really just cracked the universal code!  Remove yourself, make a change, grow your spirit. 

These are three steps, not just a cute phrase to whisper every morning.  My three step method to finding yourself while losing yourself. Now, you don’t have to move to China to make the change. Matter of fact, what a perfect opportunity the universe has given us to remove ourselves, make changes, and grow spiritually- packaged as a Stay At Home order and affectionately known as the pandemic. This is a wake up call to slow down and a second chance to get life right. You can remove yourself from your career, you can remove yourself from toxic people, you can remove yourself from debt, you can remove yourself from burn out. You can make a change everyday. Nothing is the same anyway. And finally, grow. Don’t leave the pandemic the same way it found you. Restart and revision. 

His family concludes that, "he wants to be able to let people recognize, you know what, you can fall from grace but you can also get back up, and rise."