From the moment we are born, there is a path set for us. Our parents were born with a path for them, and they set a path for us. Some parents want their children to go to an Ivy League school and go on to become a doctor or lawyer. Some parents want their children to go to a state university and go on to work a solid job. Some parents hope their child goes to community college. Some parents hope their child just graduates from high school. Some parents hope their child lives to see at least their eighteenth birthday.

We all have a path set in place for us from the moment we're born. The problem is, we don't usually question that path. We just hop on and follow it and allow it to lead us to misery. Sometimes we reach the destination and then finally get the guts to get off of the birth path and to go in a new direction. Right now, there are artists who can change the world with their art, but they've settled for being a lawyer in their small city, handling routine cases. Right now, there are philanthropists who can help relieve hunger in thousands of lives, but they've settled for being an accountant because they were told that was a great major in college. There are so many people living beneath their dreams, walking the path set for them and never questioning it.

You have to question the path. We all need to write our own road map that will lead us to where we want to be, not where we were told we should be. Are you extremely happy doing what you're doing for a living? If not, you're on the wrong path. Are you at peace with your current lifestyle? If not, you're on the wrong path. Can you help others in the position you're currently in? If not, you're on the wrong path. If you were fired today, could you start your own company? If not, you're on the wrong path. As I was transitioning into entrepreneur life, I tweeted a quote: If you don't build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs. The quote went viral around the world. Others were quoted saying it, but I knew I wrote it. It came from my heart. It came from my spirit. It was deep inside of me, and I was feeling the pain of the truth in it. I feel that even if we work for someone else, that job should be our dream job. If it's not our dream job, then we should build our dream job, which will eventually replace our day job. Let a computer or robots do the meaningless, pencil-pushing jobs. A human shouldn't be doing meaningless work in the world. We all have a purpose to fulfill and filing papers just isn't enough. I used to file papers, so I know what it feels like; I used to stock groceries, so I know what it feels like. I used to work in a warehouse stacking heavy items on a pallet and driving it around on a forklift, so I know what that feels like too. I've done mindless work and it's a waste of time and energy. But yet that's the path that was set for many of us.

I remember my mother saying to me once, “Baby, I'll be happy if you just graduate from high school.” I know you may think that's sad, but I didn't because I knew that's where her bar was. All she did was graduate from high school, and her parents were happy about that. Where I'm from, dropping out of high school wasn't shocking. A lot of my cousins never graduated. Some family and friends died before realizing their potential. To graduate from high school was a real accomplishment in my family, and it was the most that most people did. On my mother's side, I knew only one family member who graduated from college. So the likelihood of graduating from college wasn't very high. That was the path.

Later in life, while in college, I said to my mom that I might become a schoolteacher and a high school sports coach. She told me she would be so very proud of me if I did that. She was always supportive of my dreams, but she didn't set the bar too high for me. She didn't want to see me reach and fail. She didn't want me to get hurt. She saw a certain level of reality around her and that was as far as she could see. My dad was the same way. He loved and supported me and gave me anything I needed to succeed, but he never set the bar high for me. He always told me to get good grades, but he never told me to try to become a doctor or a lawyer. I'm not sure that was possible in his mind. Often, we can only see as far as we've gone. It takes faith to see beyond that, and faith isn't as easy to come by as we think it is. My dad tells me often now that where I am is beyond his wildest imagination. I believe him. To be honest, I've actually surprised myself a time or two. It's because we weren't shown these possibilities growing up. Of course, we can't fault our parents for not seeing in us what we should see in ourselves. They may not be able to see more than what they are. They may want better for us, but they may not know how to help us get better. No matter what your age or where you are in life, you have to realize the path that has been set and start questioning why.

Ultimately, if you want to go where no one you know has gone before, you have to start leading yourself. You have to take control of your life and be willing to walk by faith. There's more in you than your parents know about. You have abilities and gifts that no one around you knows the full extent of. You can shock them, and you just may shock yourself.

The path that our society has given us is to get an education. You get out of college with more debt than our job affords us to pay. Then, you get a job in a major company or be the major in a minor company. Then, you try to climb the ladder in that company, so you can earn more and pay more taxes to keep the system going. Essentially, we are told to follow the set path to misery and debt; in turn, we compromise our happiness, peace, and prosperity.

The most ironic thing about the path set for us is that we are often told to get a formal education to work for someone who started a company without a formal education. The formally educated people start working to help build the dreams of the entrepreneur. You'd think that after paying tens of thousands of dollars for an education, you would have been educated in a way that allows you to buy your peace and happiness. Instead you're miserable while getting the education, and then still miserable after the education because along the way you never questioned the path.

I love formal education and I think it's necessary, but what's also necessary is that you get to know yourself along the way. What's necessary is that you question the path that was set before you, and that you start to tweak the road map so it leads you to a more desirable destination. Don't follow a path to misery. I was on that path because it was set for me and it cost me a lot. The wrong path was handed down from generation to generation. The American Dream became a nightmare for many because they didn't realize that the dream they were pursuing wasn't their dream. It was a dream someone else had created for them.

While studying in school, you should spend just as much time studying yourself. Get to know yourself. Fall in love with yourself. Write your dreams from the bottom of your heart. Question the path that you were put on. Don't be afraid of a detour. Don't be afraid to map to a new destination.

When I came to an age of understanding, I looked around me and I saw three options: I could be overworked and underpaid like my parents. I could be a pro athlete like Tracy McGrady. Or I could be a drug dealer, thief, or criminal like some of my friends and family. What would I choose? What could I choose? Published author wasn't a choice. International speaker wasn't a choice. Celebrity life coach wasn't a choice. Business consultant wasn't a choice. Business owner wasn't a choice. Everything I am today was not an option presented to me as a child, not at home, not in school, not in church. There was a path set in place, and until I questioned the path, I was lost.

It's interesting to see what happens when you question the path. When one person gets the courage to venture out, others do too. You can break a generational curse. You can start a ripple effect. I was on the phone earlier today with one of my cousins. He didn't finish high school. He dropped out at about 14 years old. He spent 20 years living the street life before he went down a new path. Today, he was on the phone with me asking how to publish an e-book, become a speaker, and turn his mess into his message the way I did. He's questioning the path. He sees that there are other options than what we were shown growing up.

My father is highly gifted. He writes, thinks outside of the box, and has a profound amount of wisdom. Even though he's never been where I've been or where I'm going, he was able to give me wisdom along the way. He's been writing all his life, but never questioned the path. He wanted to be an author, a filmmaker, and a speaker. He didn't know it was possible for him to do those things. He saw the path that was set before him and he followed it. Like my mother, he also was the baby in a family of 12 children. His mother was murdered when he was 8 years old. His father was a very wise man, but being one of 12 kids, my dad didn't get as close to his father as he would have liked. My father dropped out of high school, got his GED, and then went into the Army. Some of his older brothers had gone to the Army and fought in wars, so he was following the path. He left the Army after three years because it wasn't what he wanted for his life. He then went on to work several different jobs: a police officer, a mail carrier, a lineman fixing power lines. He worked in the hot sun 8 hours a day. He saw friends fall to their death from the power lines. His life flashed before his eyes many times. He didn't know that what I'm doing was possible for people like us.

I believe each generation should go a little further than the one before. I went as far as he had gone and then tested the possibilities. I laid new road. I found a new path. My parents were happy for me and they supported me, but they didn't hedge their bets and put up their life savings to assist me in my dream. They didn't know anything about the world I ventured into. But once I questioned the path it led my father to question his as well. A few years after I became an author, he became one too. Now he's written and published two books.

My mother, being the baby of 12 children, saw a lot growing up. I looked into my mother's side of the family, and I saw way more dysfunction than on my dad's side of the family. There was a lot of pain, and I didn't know where it stemmed from. There was abandonment, abuse of every form, crime, pain, and death. There was so much to get past. Relationships were a pain point on my mother's side. My mother followed her path. She told me that her teachers didn't teach her much in school. She said it wasn't long after integration when she started school, and teachers were still reluctant to teach black children. She said she didn't do any work really, but she always received a C from the teacher, just to pass her to the next grade. By the time I was in the fifth grade I could read and spell better than my mother. She wasn't illiterate by a long shot, but there was a lot she didn't know when it came to academics. That birth path limited her greatly because it told her what she could and couldn't do, and she didn't question it. She's said to me more times than I can count that she never applied for a promotion at work because she's insecure about her reading and spelling. She worked at a major insurance company for 15 years, so she was fortunate to be there, she felt. She watched those around her go higher in the company and make more money but she never tried. Even after her ceiling was made a little higher, she didn't try to reach it. I couldn't blame her because that's how she was conditioned.

As I was growing up my mother would always say to me, “Baby, you're so smart.” She was so captivated by my writing, reading, and spelling. I was just a little above average in our school system but nowhere near the smartest. I was always touched that she was so impressed with me. She would tell me, “Baby, you need to be writing for Hallmark cards.” That would make my day. All my life she kept saying, “You need to be getting paid for your writing.” She wasn't talking about this type of writing; she was referring to my poetry. It wasn't that good, but it was off the beaten path for us. It wasn't common in our family, neighborhood, or city. Those words of encouragement my mother would give me ultimately played a large role in me becoming the entrepreneur I am today. Although she didn't venture off her path, her words gave me some courage to get off of mine.

It's deeper than just having parents who knew themselves and what they could become. I look around and I see some people who were given everything. Their parents graduated from college and became successful in life. They received the best education and attended the best college. Their parents supported them every step of the way financially, but still failed to advise them to get to know themselves. Now, though they are well off, they are lost. They have money, trust funds, business connections, and the world at their feet, but they don't know where to go from here. They have bachelors, masters, and some even doctorates, but they're still lost. Yes, their path led them further but it still didn't lead to peace and happiness. I've seen some of those individuals still end up in prison, on drugs, and as failures. It's mind-boggling to think that a person whose path seemed to have so many advantages could be led to the same destination as a person who was perceived to have no real options. It all comes down to if you question the path and get to know yourself.

Think about your path. List 10 people you know and analyze their paths. What path was set for them? Did they stay on it? Did they get off of it? What became of them? Now what are you going to do? Are you on a path that leads to nowhere? If you're not on the path that was set for you, how is the one you're on? Is it where you want to be? If it is, are you going to show others how to get on it?

To be honest with you, I still struggle today with the path that was set for me. It's always there. It's in my mind. It's all around me. I'm not on that path in my professional life, but what I realize is that our birth path is made up of many roads, and we all struggle with different aspects. One person may reach their goals professionally but suffer socially. Another person may reach their goals financially but suffer spiritually. Some suffer emotionally, financially, or physically. You have to recognize your weaknesses and pick your vices wisely. Question every path you're going down and make sure the destination is desirable.

Think of your path as a road to success. Each lane on the road has to lead to success. It will do you no good to make a million dollars and then die early from liver problems because of your drinking habits. It will do you no good to make a million dollars and then have a short miserable life filled with toxic relationships. Think about your paths. You don't have to be just what your mother or father were. You don't just have to be what your grandparents were. You can be more. Even if they are all great people, you can still be more. You can be better. You can grow and further the possibilities for generations to come.

Take some time to really think about what it is you want to become. Think about who you have already become. Confront the issues in your life. Look at the things you picked up without even realizing that you were taught how to settle or how to hurt yourself. Be willing to start fresh and new. Be willing to go alone and make a new path that your children can follow. Don't be mad at your situation. Don't blame your parents for what they didn't teach you because they could only teach what they knew. Be thankful for what your parents could give you, and learn from their lessons, as well as their mistakes. It's time to make adjustments and get on the path you'd like to be on.

Anything is possible if we want it to be. We can start way behind the rest of the pack and still finish first. There is a lot of power in the human will. There will be distractions, setups, and setbacks, but you have to keep going despite everything else. There are those who will doubt you and count you out, but if you have a real desire to succeed, then failure is not an option.

We've heard so many stories of people who overcame obstacles that seemed unbearable and still made it. You can be one of those stories.

No one is born a failure. You have seeds of success within you no matter where you're born, who your parents are, what race you are, or what religion you are. We accept limitations and we stunt our growth by believing the lies that were told to us about who we are and what we can become. No matter the level you were born at you can always go higher. You don't have to accept the limits the world tries to place on you. Any gift can make you a living. There is a business for everything imaginable and if there isn't, you can create it. Just because it hasn't been done or there hasn't been real success at it doesn't mean that you can't be successful. We see what others have done and we believe we can't go any further than they did. We tell ourselves what's realistic and what's not and we call it being a realist. I've found that everyone has something special about them, but it can be so unique that no one is ready to embrace it. Your gift can be so rare that it scares you and confuses others.

I look at my gifts, and I don't know where they come from. I write 100-page books usually, but I'm hoping this one finishes longer than that. I go away to a beach house and I write my books in two to three days. When I tell someone that, they are blown away, even some authors. I could write my book a thousand times over, and it wouldn't get any better because I write from my heart, not from my mind. What's on my heart won't change today or tomorrow because it's my true thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. So I sit down and I pour my heart out on the paper. I only took one computer class in school, but that class taught me how to type. I type as fast as I think, so my fingers can keep up with my thoughts and I don't have to suffer through writer's block. I'm not a prolific writer, but I can convey my thoughts and get a point across without it taking me weeks or months to do so. I came to realize that it's a small gift that has benefited me greatly. I don't know anyone else in my family who can do it, so I stand alone with my gift. We all have something like that. There is something in you that only you can do really well. There may be other people who can do it, but in your immediate circle you may be the only person who can do it that well. It could literally be anything. No gift is too small to embrace. No gift is too small to build a business around. Anything you are gifted at can be monetized and used in a positive way.

Think back to when you were young. What did you do that came so natural that you didn't have to think about it? What did you do that others talked about or gravitated toward? What did you enjoy? I remember meeting a guy in high school who talked nonstop. That's a gift. If I talked as much as he did, my head would hurt, my jaws would hurt, and I would become physically exhausted. But this guy talked nonstop, and the topics just seemed to fly off the top of his head. He was a freestyle talker. He also liked to write as much as he liked to talk. He also started to rap. Today he has a podcast, and I believe one day his love for talking will make him a living if he harnesses the gift and pursues a career in it. Some people are neat freaks. Well, that can be a cleaning service, an organizing service, a closet-cleaning service, or anything along that line. There are neat freaks that would be organizing and loving every minute of it and earning a living from it, but instead they're on someone's job slaving away and hating it. Don't sleep on your dreams. Don't curse your gifts. There are natural gifts inside of you that could change your life. Maybe you can't see them, but someone else can. Your gift may be tied to your passion, or it may be tied to your purpose. Whichever it's tied to, it can bring you peace and joy. You have to realize your gifts if you want to take control of your life. Your gifts shouldn't have to be your hobby. Your gift can be your job. It may have to be your hobby for a little while to build a business around it, but it can become your full-time job. I love what I do, and it doesn't feel like work. It's not fair either. I hate to see someone miserable while I'm happy. I hate to see someone asking a boss for time off while I'm creating my own schedule. It upsets me. It bothers me. I'm thinking to myself, there are people whose ancestors were slaves, and they started life with every disadvantage. Why are they living the dream and you're living the nightmare? There are people using their gifts and making millions of dollars. If anyone can do it, then I believe everyone can do it. I'm just that optimistic. You'll have what you believe you can have. There are no excuses.

When I was in the fourth grade, we had to write an essay in class. I wrote the essay from my heart. It was based on my life experiences, all nine years of them. I got an A on the essay, and my teacher asked me if she could read the essay to the class. I was shocked that she wanted to read my paper to the entire class. It confused me because there were kids in the class who were way smarter than me. Their parents were smarter and more successful than my parents, so those smarts were passed down to them. They read faster. They worked faster. They got better grades. I was confused, but I let her read the paper to the class. All I remember from the essay was one line, in which I said: “I got a weapon so bad that I could not sit down.” It should have said “whippin'” instead of weapon but the teacher thought I spelled it that way on purpose. She said, “I've never seen whippin' spelled like that, but that's a clever way to spell it.” She thought I did that on purpose, and I took the credit for it. Sometimes your mistakes will look like you did it on purpose when you're operating in your gift. She read the paper, and after that day she wanted to talk to my parents. She told my parents that I was gifted, and she wanted to put me in the gifted class. I felt very special, and I accepted the offer. I went to the gifted class. My parents were surprised and elated. They didn't do anything special with me growing up when it came to academics. My elementary school started to get too hard for them to help me. I would ask for help, but they would teach me their way and that way wasn't the teacher's way; so when I realized that, I stopped asking them for help. They were trying, and they were happy that their son was a gifted student.

I didn't just write essays. I wrote poems later. That gift intrigued my teachers, and I kept hearing the same thing from English teachers all my life. The young girls I wrote poems for told me how much they loved them. My mother started praising my writing and telling me I could write Hallmark cards. I was really embracing this writing thing, and the more I did it the easier it became. I've always had bad grammar though. I never knew the grammar rules. I just knew how to put words together and paint a picture with them. Once, one of my teachers told me that my grammar could use a lot of work but that he couldn't give me less than a B just because of my writing style. Honestly, the only book I read was the Holy Bible growing up. There is a certain writing style in the Bible, and I believe growing up I emulated that style.

Not only was I writing a lot, but also I was teaching and advising. I remember in middle school I would walk to my friends' homes, and I would be teaching them about the Bible on the way home. I would teach them about life, sins, and forgiveness. I was a child. I was a baby. I didn't really know nearly as much as I pretended to know. Then in high school I started doing relationship coaching. I didn't call it that back then, but that's what it's called today, and it's become a substantial stream of income for me. I remember being on three-way calls with these two girls, and they would ask me questions about their boyfriends. I'd tell them why he was behaving the way he was and what they should do in response. Then they would call back with the results, and they would always say, “I did exactly what you said I should do and you were so right!” I never got tired of hearing that. I was operating in my gifts. One of the two girls ended up leaving her boyfriend, and she became my girlfriend. So I'd used my life-coaching gift to get her out of that relationship, then I used my writing gift to win her heart. I say all that because the gifts were evident even as a child, but I had no idea that one day I would earn a living using them.

You see writing and life coaching were gifts, but they were not options on my birth path. So I operated in them, but I didn't know that they could become a career. Had I known those were gifts that I could make a living from, I would have taken them much more seriously and honed them better. While those gifts were there, I was following my birth path and following one of the three options I had. The option I chose first was to be a professional athlete like Tracy McGrady. At that time Tracy McGrady was the only pro athlete I knew personally. I'm from Auburndale, Florida, and we had a population of 5,000 then. Tracy was the one guy who made it out and was making millions in the NBA. I wanted to be the next Tracy McGrady. That was one of the options on my birth path, but it wasn't the one for me. Tracy is 6′8″; I'm 5′10″. I make a much better writer, speaker, and life coach than I do a basketball player. I didn't think about that at the time though. I also played football. I excelled in basketball and football, so they seemed like natural gifts. I could have gone to the pros in either one of them had I put in the work, but again those goals were beyond what we could see in my household. I just wanted to graduate from high school, hopefully get into college, and stay out of prison or the grave. Becoming a pro athlete wasn't really taken seriously by anyone around me. I talked about it, but I didn't really work for it. I was good, so people thought that's what I would become if luck struck at the right time. But no one invested in me. No one took me to five-star camps or put me in a travel league or a real AAU program. I played one year of AAU, and that was with the Boys and Girls Club team. We weren't serious about it nor did anyone take us seriously. We were just going with the flow and hoping that we would get lucky. No one expected to make it out unless they were unusually gifted or uniquely built.

Then my senior year rolled around and that was a big year for me. I had to earn a college scholarship in basketball or football. I didn't know much about academic scholarships, and I didn't think I was smart enough for one of those anyway. I knew my parents couldn't afford to pay for college. They were struggling to pay the high school tuition, and it wasn't very much because I qualified for financial aid; and I had some supporters at the school who really liked me and helped me a lot.

Football came around first, and in the second game I popped something in my leg. I didn't know what exactly happened, but I heard a pop in my leg. It was treated as a high ankle sprain. The next week I tried to play but ended up with two carries and −3 yards due to my ankle. The next week I got a little better but still couldn't play. Then I had to sit out one more week. I missed three games that season, and we only played nine. I played the first game and the last five. I finished with over 1,300 yards in those six games, so I still averaged over 200 yards a game. I think a miscount happened though, because by my count, I had about 1,100 yards—but I went with what the newspaper said I had. Because of that ankle sprain I didn't have the showing I wanted to have, but I still received a lot of letters. The really big schools offered to let me join the team as a preferred walk-on. They just couldn't believe the numbers I put up, so they wanted to see it for themselves. I couldn't blame them. There were running backs that I was better than who went to big schools, so I knew I could cut it if it came down to it. But I was getting ready for basketball, and I wanted to make one last campaign just to see if I could get a scholarship in basketball. However, my dad and my coach got into a disagreement, because my dad wanted me to take two weeks off from sports and my basketball coach wanted me to come right into basketball. My dad told the coach that if he didn't give me two weeks off, then he wouldn't let me play at all. The coach said, “OK, then I guess he won't be playing then.” My dad told me what happened, and I sided with my dad. My coach came and told me that it wasn't personal and that he had no problem with me and that he just wanted me at practice. For some reason I wasn't as excited about basketball anymore when I realized my coach wouldn't let me take a two-week break. I decided not to play, and I was banking on football 100% then.

The end of the year came, and schools started to come around. My football coach was telling schools that they needed a full scholarship to get me. He was asking for a bit much considering that we played at a small 1A school against virtual nobodies. But, I took the vote of confidence in stride. I realized that the full scholarships weren't coming in, so I started to market myself. I didn't notice then what was another gift of mine—to be a go-getter. I'll talk later about how I got myself on TV. But I looked up all the Florida colleges and I went to their websites and submitted my info on their football pages. Florida Atlantic University called me back first. They invited me to come down and look at the campus. I went down with my parents, and it looked nice. I wanted to play there. The coach asked me if I would come play, and I told him yes. Then when I got back home about a week later, I got a call from a smaller school, West Virginia Wesleyan College. It was a D2 school and somehow the coach had come up with a way to pay my full $28,000/year tuition. Florida Atlantic was only going to be $11,000/year. So I felt flattered that a school was offering me almost triple. We spoke to my AAU basketball coach because he was the only person we knew who went to college on a scholarship. He told us to follow the money, not the opportunity. He said that I could get hurt in training camp and then I would be stuck paying for college at Florida Atlantic, but at the other school even if I got hurt, my school was paid for. So we took that advice, and my mom's friend who coached at Florida State University told her the same thing. He said if you were good enough, the NFL would find you even if you were playing pick-up ball in the middle of the woods. So I packed my bags and I moved to West Virginia. It was one thousand miles away from home.

I was going away and taking all of my gifts with me. My gifts opened doors for me, and they made a way for me to get into college. I believe we all have gifts that can open doors for us, but we have to be willing to use our gifts and then walk through the doors that they open. We don't take ourselves seriously enough most of the time. We sleep on our dreams and we curse our gifts. I was stepping out on faith and taking a chance.

You see, someone else confirmed all of my gifts. We can feel good at something, but if a single soul doesn't believe in us, we won't have a chance. Sometimes we pursue passions instead of gifts. A passion can be different from a gift. My passion was basketball, but I wasn't good enough to get a scholarship in basketball. My gift was football, and I got a scholarship in that. I had to use my gift as a means to a better end. My passion for basketball could have become more of a gift if I had more resources and support in that area, but I didn't, so I had to take what I could get. Every school had a hundred spots on a football team, but a basketball team had only 15. So it was easier for me to make it to college in football. Sometimes we have to walk in our gifts until we can pursue our passions. There are a lot of people pursuing passions but getting nowhere while letting their natural gifts rot.

You may be good in graphic design and website building but not passionate about it, but yet you're passionate about music but not as good in it. Well, if you use graphic design to make money, then you can fund your passion for music. But if you ignore graphic design and just chase your passion for music, you may never get ahead in music because you don't have the resources you need to get really good at it. So take what you're naturally good at and use it to get to a point where you can dive into some of your passions for fun. We have to use what we have, not what we want. Gifts are natural, and they're free. Use them to get ahead in life. Look back over your life or at your life currently and identify whether there are any gifts you're overlooking. Are there any gifts you're ignoring or running from just because it comes so easy that it bores you at times? It bores you because you haven't given it a purpose. I can write without getting writer's block naturally, but if I'm writing about stuff that doesn't matter, then I'd be bored with the gift. I can coach people in their lives, but if I'm coaching them about things that don't matter, then I'd be bored with it. But because I gave my gifts purpose, I'm excited about them and they've come alive in me. Identify your natural gifts and build on them.