Adversity introduces you to yourself

Transcript:

Terrell:

Hi, I’m Terrell Gatewood. This is St. Jude Connections. It’s a show that lets you get to know the people who support St. Jude. To hear about who they are, how their experiences have shaped them, what’s important to them, and how they live their day to day and find purpose in what they do.

In this episode, you’re going to meet three people who were at St. Jude for an event. They didn’t know each other before they sat down for this conversation. But they found common ground quickly.

You’ll hear from Lawrence Williams. He’s a pastor in the Atlanta area and a motivational speaker.

“Adversity is going to introduce you to yourself.”

You’ll also meet Lance Woods. He’s the founder of a social running club in Detroit called WeRun 313. Lance also runs marathons to support St. Jude.

“The work that St. Jude does to make sure that everybody has equal access to health care is just mind blowing.”

And finally, you’ll hear from Willie Moore, Junior. He’s the host of the Willie Moore Junior radio show and he’s an actor and social media influencer.

“Everybody has a common language when you come from a common place.”

They all answered questions about music, challenges they’ve faced in their lives and what they think about the work of St. Jude. Let’s get to it.

Emily Hines (providing question prompts):

Is there a song lyric that lives in your mind rent free?

Lawrence Williams:

Oh yeah. I love music, man. Music is one of those things, honestly, that moves me. I wouldn’t say I'm an emotional person. But music is something that drives and motivates me. And I'll tell you this, I have my kids, we have a routine in my house. And part of the routine is, the music that you listen to the first part of your day is really the thing that really helps move you. And so, even as a student, a young adult pastor, man, a song that is in my head a lot is [A$AP Ferg] “New Level.” I don’t know if y’all know that.

Willie Moore, Jr.:

I’m on a new level!

Lawrence:

I'm on a new level. You know what I mean? Because, man, that's just something that I try to tell myself on a daily basis. And even my kids, you know what I mean? And even the students that I serve everywhere I go is, day to day, bro you got to be trying to shake yourself up. You know what I mean? You gotta be trying to shake yourself forward, you know, and moving to a new level in your life. And so really, man, that's my mold. I remember even coaching, that was our warm up song, you know what I mean? With one of my teams one year, man, we went to the championship that year, so, man, that's a song that, it’s rent free in my head all the time.

Willie:

I'm going with that Jay Rock, “WIN.” Soon as I wake up in the morning. I mean, of course I'm worshiping and doing all of that, but I'm always hitting that gym early and that's my first song when I hit that gym, it's like, it's time to win. At all costs. and, you know, it's not that every single day is a win, but I just ultimately believe that failure is an incident, not a person. So I'm like, yo, I'm here to win. Like, no matter what my past look like, no matter what the issue is, I'm still going to win. So, win, win, win Jay Rock for me.

Lance Woods:

I like that. Y’all on a hip hop level. I'm an old school guy, man.

Lawrence:

How old school? What’s old school to you, now?

Lance:

See, I'm 70s, 80s guy.

Lawrence:

I thought you were gonna say, Jeezy, I'm like, that ain't old school.

Lance:

No, no that’s my school. But I like I like hip hop and R&B but since y’all was doing the rap, I’m gonna go R&B. Instantly, I was thinking The Commodores, “Zoom.” I'm a peaceful guy, man. So, “I like to fly far away from here where my mind is fresh and clear.” You know, I think about the lyrics of songs,

and I'm very cognizant of what I put into my mind. Because that's a reflection of what you, your actions that you take in your daily life.

Emily:

I'll go ahead and give you another the prompt. What is a time you learned something from a failure?

Lawrence:

I took a saying that was told to me – and I relate sports to life a whole lot. And there was a time when I was in the middle of the game, and I had one of my defensive coaches come to me and he said, “Lawrence, adversity always introduces a man to himself.” And I heard what he said, you know, and it stuck with me. And recently when the pandemic came, my wife and I, we owned a trampoline park in Atlanta. And the pandemic wiped it away. Took it away. Because of course, that type of business, you make money off of birthday parties. People didn’t have birthday parties for about three years.

And what that particular failure taught me was that failure doesn't mean final. It doesn't mean it's final. It really presents an opportunity for you to see who you really are, you know, and it took some dark nights alone, took some self-reflection of who I was as a man. And did money define me? Did success define me? Did the opinions of other people define me? And the thing that I had to come to terms with was, who are you really, Lawrence? Like who are you in this dark moment? Who are you? And what I had to really realize and remind myself was this moment, this disappointment, this pain… watching and seeing my kids, wonder, what’s next? You know, it was what that coach told me. Adversity going to introduce you to yourself.

Because when everything was cool, while everything was going great, I was great. You know, money coming in. We alright. But them doors close, that landlord still want that $18,000. The SBA loan still want they $9,000 and they don't care that ain't nobody coming in the door. You gonna have to figure this one out.

And God showed himself in that situation for me, to show me really where he needed me to be. And really where he's called me to be. And it pushed me right into my passion. And my passion was a hobby. And now my passion is making a living for me and my family.

Willie:

And that is the speaking?

Lawrence:

Yeah, actually through my company called My Brand. That was something that I was just doing around metro Atlanta, just for kicks and giggles because I enjoyed it. And then realized God had a

much larger plan for me through that. And it took me losing one business to put my mind and my passion and my real energy into the one that was really purposeful for me. Seeing myself in that failure, to understand it wasn’t final.

Willie:

I love it. What about you, bro?

Lance:

I had a lot of failures in my life just navigating through Detroit, coming up in Detroit. You don't see a lot of positive images. At least where I'm from. My family structure was always pretty good. But the environment around me necessarily wasn't. But I had a pretty level head growing up, you know, because of my family structure. And that's how I was able to navigate through that. But to the question of failures, I think I just always knew how to either navigate around it or when failure happened, I knew how to pick myself up from it. I think I got that from my father.

Both of y’all are members of Divine Nine organizations. When I went to TSU and I pledged Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, the greatest fraternity in the world.

Willie:

Arguable. (laughter)

Lance:

When I pledged that fraternity, there were consequences behind if you couldn’t do certain things. Right? There's consequences behind, if you don't do certain things in life. And, I think knowing that, and having that in your mind, you are able to stay sharp.

You know, I liked what you said about – adversity introduce you to yourself. I think that really shows you who you are.

I'm a I'm a big runner. I'm a big marathon runner. When you're running consistently for 26.2 miles, all you have is yourself. Each mile going to introduce you something to yourself. and there's failure within those miles, too. You can run too fast. And your body starts to respond a certain way. Especially if you didn't train that way. You know, so, it's best to learn in the training part. Then when you get to the marathon, you don't make those same mistakes.

Willie:

How does one train for 26 miles?

Lance:

That's a great question. You start small, you develop consistency. If you are, like, off the courch, haven’t ran, I think that you start by, hey, I'm going to run from this point where I am to the streetlight. Get there without stopping, or I'm gonna run from here to a half mile nonstop. Then you're going to develop the consistency of just doing that every day. And then now I can run a mile, nonstop, run two miles nonstop. Now I can run three miles and five and ten. And you continuously do that every day and now you'll see yourself every time you go out for a run, you're going to do ten miles or better.

Willie:

How did you start running though? Like you said, you started at 27.

Lance:

Yeah, I was 27 when I started running. I could barely complete a mile. I was always physically active. I played basketball in high school and all of that, lifted weights. But, running was just something I wasn't really good at. So I started incorporating cardio in my workout regimen. And then in the midst of it, I was like, I’m really bad at this. I want to get better. So I kept showing up, you know, one mile and two miles, and I kept pushing myself like I should be able to run three miles nonstop. And then from there it went from the switch happened where it went from, I'm here for this physical activity, but I'm finding out all these things about myself within this space. So then it developed into the mental, the physical, the emotional, the spiritual. And when I was experiencing life challenges, like the loss of my uncle, my dad's twin brother. I was engaged. That didn't work out. I had running as that space for me to spend time with myself. The adversity showing me to myself.

Lawrence:

You just painted a full picture. You said, ‘I realized I wasn't good at it.’ But you worked at it and did it anyway. And somebody just said, last week I heard a guy he's a motivational speaker as well. And he said, you got to focus on the things that you aren’t good at in order to truly be successful. If we just pour into all the things that we're good at, like we never really going to grow. You never really going to measure up to where you really could be. But once you start to focus on those things and train on those things that are your deficiencies, it just takes you to another level. And, and I mean, it introduced you to something that blew up. You never even thought to probably have a run club. You just thought, man, I just want to work on running.

Lance:

That's it. That was in 2015. I started the run club four years later. I discovered a talent within myself that I didn't even know existed. I ran because I had to play basketball, but I was bad at it, and it made me not want to play basketball. But, it wasn't until I got into the mental aspect. I'm a big person of, like, mental fortitude. And like trying to find spaces where I can continuously sharpen myself as a human, as a man. And that was it for me. And, once I started doing that, I was like, man, I got to figure out a way to share this gift with the world, like more specifically the African-American community, because we don't – you ride up in the city, you're not going to see black people running, but now you do in Detroit.

Willie:

I picked up you decorum and you was like, ‘Nah, I'm from Detroit, Detroit.’ Because I'm from St. Louis, St. Louis.

Lance:

Right, you gotta say it again.

Willie:

And so when I got into this whole faith based thing, I would probably say my biggest failure because I used to be an R&B singer, Pretty Willie. So I had the song “Lay Your Body Down,” “4 Walls.” I used to be running to Detroit all the time. Club to club, doing whatever. And then I go to church and I really get more than I bargained for, to be quite honest. Like I wasn't going to church to be saved. I was going to church to stop smoking and drinking. And I'm like, ‘Mama going to kill me if she found out all the stuff I’m doing.’ Grew up with two ex-sharecroppers And then I ended up going to church, got more than I bargained for, and I was like, ‘Yo, I just want to see what the other side of faith looks like.’ But I felt like a failure because I was right at the cusp of being this R&B singer. And then all of a sudden, this record deal that I had with Warner Brothers doesn't work out. And it was like, we just gonna move in another direction. And we gonna go with this dude names Jay Rock. The guy that I said I love his record, “Win.” And there’s this other guy that were thinking about signing. His name is Kendrick Lamar. He's a new kid. So we're going to go in that direction, but we're going to give you your money out of the fund. The six figures plus in that fund, they give it to us. I go back to St. Louis, and I started this thing called Young, Fly and Saved. And I'm starting to do music, but in the back of my mind it still feels like failure, though. Like I gotta conquer this thing. I'm a competitor. I'm a track guy. And I'm from the neighborhood too. Like with my neighborhood, we don't quit at nothing, you know what I'm saying? Like we just can't. That’s failure. My dad, he just always told me, ‘Man, just see it through to the end.’ I felt like I didn't see it through the end. But now when I look back, I often, as I said before, failure was an incident and not a person because everything that I learned on those stages across the country, opening up for DJ Quik, opening up for Game, selling out stadiums in Shreveport, even here in Memphis, being able to sell out the clubs that we were doing, like it taught me how to be in front of people. And like demand a crowd. So when I walk in, even though the

smallest person in the room, you got this big presence. And then I see the hand of the Lord in it, because I get a chance to speak to people at they level. You know, a lot of people, when they get in the faith based genre or they become that it's a part of them that's just like they're so detached from what really was going on. So I can go in any neighborhood or any boardroom. I’m not trying to be impressive, but I just thank God for those moments that I thought I failed because it made me good in the street. And then it also made me good when I sit across from presidents and have to interview them because everybody has a common language when you come from a common place. And so I was able to speak to people in a way. And so I think that failure turned around. It still plays me. I got plaques now from people that I helped. Man, I still want my own. I don’t know how that’s gonna happen. So I think that was my biggest failure. As I was sitting here thinking I was like, you know, I got a lot of personal things that I failed in. But on a broader level, I think that was the part where I see the lesson in it all, but it's still something that I desire.

Lawrence:

Just listening to both of y’all and kind of reflecting on what I said about my failure. It really made me think about this simple concept that people throw around a lot. Where you talk about my plan was God's plan, you know? And a lot of times our failures take place because we moving in our plan. And we not even trying to operate in his plan. And so it’s like, he gotta send us through that moment. He got to allow us to experience that disappointment, you know what I mean? And go through the things that we don't really enjoy doing and be able to say, are you ready now? Are you done yet?

Willie:

I think I’m in a ‘Are you done yet?’ moment now too. I keep going into these moments where I’m moving in faith and then I grab a hold too, like, I start looking at numerics. I'm like, okay, man, if we just do this and do this. And sometime I kind of let that ego edging God out. Because I'm like, oh, if we just do a little bit more of this and we do a little bit more of that instead of really sitting at the feet of the father and saying alright God, like, how do you want me to do it? Versus what the analytics and data is telling me to move. Because I move by faith. But I move by data too.

Lawrence:

Y’all keep making me think of stuff. My oldest son, he had a very traumatic experience. He had to have two surgeries. Had a really traumatic incident. And, I allowed him to go through his emotional moment. And when he and I really had an opportunity to sit and talk, I said you know son, everybody go through stuff. And the one lesson I think you learn right now and this is that bad things happen to good people all the time. But what you have to be able to really sit with yourself and do through this moment is ask God a sincere question. What are you requiring of me through this? What is it that you want from me through this? What do you need me to do? This is a very bad moment. It don't feel good. I don't think I deserve this, but you obviously believe that I need to get something from this. And you need something from me. What is it? And a lot of times when we

allow ourselves to sit in those moments and really ask God that question and sit with him and really get a response from him, we can look at the failure as really like a launch pad to take us exactly where he need us to be. Instead of it being this woe is me, why did this happen to me?

Lance:

I just want to pat you on the back for creating that space for your son. You know, especially like, as black men like, me growing up, I didn't have a space where I can, like, sit in those emotional moments. And then have a discussion around it. What did you have or what was it for you to be able to, like, know that that's important? Because like our emotions, we human beings, you know what I mean? Like, you should be able to express them. You should be able to be vulnerable. You should be able to have conversations. But you said something that was very important. You said, “I allowed him to have that moment.” That’s important. Whatever you gotta do in that moment. And then now let’s discuss it.

Lawrence:

Because we always so quick to tell people, man shake it off. Shake it off. Don’t cry. Or even as men, be like, man suck it up. No. This is unfair. This does suck. You didn’t deserve that. You know what I mean? But being able to help him understand that you got to figure out a way to move forward from this and actually grow from it and not allow this to, you know, the way I painted it to him, and I think all of us have to really understand sometimes is, you know, our situations are always molding us. They're always molding us. And I had to really help him understand that as bad as this sucks, you know, there's going to be a tomorrow. There's going to be a moment when you heal, your body is going to heal. You know, the doctors did their work. You're going to have to go through the rehab. Your body's going to heal. But your mind, your heart and who you are at your core, has to heal as well.

Emily:

I wanted to jump in because, you know, we're a children's hospital, and I think a lot of our patients probably have that moment where they're like, this can't be my whole story, you know, how do I move on from this? And so kind of along with that, I'm going to ask you a question about St. Jude. What’s one thing that inspires you to continue supporting St. Jude, because you've all been supporting for years. So I want to know, what drives you?

Lance:

I think what drives me is just the beauty that no child has to pay for anything. The work that St. Jude does to make sure that everybody has equal access to health care is just mind blowing. And it extends beyond the children. It’s the families. It's everything. You guys look at all moving parts that it takes to support a young person experiencing what they're going through. And then how they bring

in their community is just outstanding. And I love that. The energy and effort that I see St. Jude pouring into the young people is very inspiring. It makes me want to continue to support. I had the opportunity to run the Berlin Marathon in Germany as a St. Jude Hero and I set a lofty goal of, running a marathon under two hours and 45 minutes. And, this was my first time running as a St. Jude Hero. Because I came last year and I saw how they utilize running as a major way to raise funds, for St. Jude. So I was like, I'm gonna fundraise for St. Jude. And, I had a goal to run the marathon under 2:45. And then I also had to raise, I think $6,000. I did that really quick. My running community, family, everybody chipped in. Got to Berlin. Just to travel and everything, it kind of throws you off because you're jet lagged and everything. But I kept thinking about these kids. I kept thinking about my community back at home. One of the quotes that I live by is, ‘It’s when we forget ourselves that we do things which will be remembered.’ So a lot of the things I do in life don't have nothing to do with me. So when y’all speaking from a spiritual lens, it’s all about God, you know, and how I can utilize myself as a vessel to inspire and motivate people to live a healthier and happier and more fulfilled life. So, I ran the marathon. I ran it in 2:44:21. Like right up under there. So to put that in perspective, that's six minutes and nine seconds per mile for 26.2 miles nonstop. But you have to be able to shift from the physical into a mental and spiritual aspect of the marathon that exceeds far beyond what your physical can even comprehend.

Willie:

I think for me, what keeps me supporting is Markell. My second time that I came, I met this young, vibrant young man who went by the name of Markell. He was a star. He was from Louisiana. And he knew I was on radio. But he didn’t know what type of radio. Because, you know, when I come, I'm not in no suit, dressed up. You say gospel or inspirational, that generation kind of like oh, okay, it ain't hip hop. But you know, I got chains on and he was like, man, what you do? I was like, I’m on the radio. He was like, man, put me on the radio. I'm a star. I was like, man, you know, you are a star. And so me and him, we chopped it up. And he ended up beating one bout of cancer. And then the cancer came back.

And I was on my way to the Stellar Awards. I'm fortunate on my team, I’m like, hey get me a picture of him. I want to take him on a red carpet with me. Like I want an 8 by 10 of him, and I want to take him on the red carpet. So I'm going through the red carpet with this picture of Markell because he never got an opportunity to hit the red carpet on this side of heaven.

So I took it and I was doing interviews, with Markell, and I was just like, hey, whenever y'all make it to heaven, it's a young talented kid by the name of Markell. After y’all finish watching Michael Jackson and Sammy Davis Jr, and the others make sure you head over to the hip hop side and go watch my little brother in heaven do his thing.

And, so every time I come, you know, I'm thinking about Markell. Whenever I do the radiothon I think about that young man who had so much life. And I see what happened to his family afterwards. It was just so tough. St. Jude did a really, really awesome job, and I just work really, really hard to make sure that the Markell story is lessened in the Earth.

Lawrence:

That's all you need to keep coming back. Hearing and being able to live a story like that. Man, I’m gonna tell you I was a little nervous. This is my first time here. And, I'm a crybaby when it come to kids. I'm gonna tell you the thing that has, even though I haven't been here in person before, but, you know, we've been supporting them for so long, but I've done research. Actually one of my sons has an art business, and his art business donates 10% of his funds to St. Jude. He does art auctions. And the thing that my family, we see in St. Jude is relentless.

You know, that's the one word that my family and I talked about. And I told you, I relate sports to life. And one of the things that as a coach, you tell your athletes is you gotta relentlessly pursue this win, for this game. And if you watch St. Jude, you know, and you look at the beginning of when the owner found this amazing, miraculous place, he was relentless in his mind that “I'm going to be sure that every child can get treated.”

And if you think about the history of it at that time, you know, African-Americans couldn't get treatment in certain hospitals. And his mind, “Nah, that ain’t going to happen here.” That's not going to be the case here.

Lance:

Shout out to Danny Thomas.

Lawrence:

Absolutely. Got to shout him out.

Lance:

That’s bold. That’s brave.

Lawrence:

To be able to have that relentless mentality even in the time when it was really okay. It was okay to do that. And so for me it’s their relentless pursuit to ensure that his vision and mission is carried out. It is outstanding and actually a miracle that they are able to ensure that not one family that walks through these doors walks out with a bill.

Like, you know how much pressure that takes off a family to know that my kid is here being taken care of because, you know, for most families, most people, when you go into the hospital, the first thing they think about, man, how am I gonna pay for this?

Most people won't even call an ambulance. Because they don’t want to pay the ambulance bill.

Willie:

That’s what they do when you walk in. They just like, where’s your insurance? Like you can’t even get checked, you could be bleeding with your ear falling off. Where’s your insurance?

Lawrence:

Exactly. So to be able to walk in here and know I can just focus on my baby.

Lance:

They doing incredible work.

Lawrence:

You know, I think I think it's beautiful what everybody's doing to get reengaged, to get motivated and inspired again. To leave here, to go help other people to jump on board. So salute to both of you gentlemen I appreciate the conversation with both of y’all. For real, man. Look forward to hopefully connecting with y’all to do some great stuff for St. Jude together possibly. I think it’d be great.

Willie:

Indeed.

Terrell:

It’s easy to show your support for St. Jude. You don’t have to run a marathon! You could just share this podcast with someone. Or you could make a donation to St. Jude online. Go to stjude.org/connections to find out how. That’s also where you can find a link to the video of this conversation. Or you can find it on the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital YouTube channel.

St. Jude Connections is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. It was recorded by Jason Latshaw, Dan Yohey and Orlando Palaez. Produced by Geoffrey Redick. Production help from John Phelps. Edited by Grace Korzekwa Evans. Emily Hines asked the questions. I’m Terrell Gatewood, thanks for listening.   

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