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Lights Please · From My Mistakes

• Steve: Hello everyone and welcome back to the From My Mistakes podcast. I'm your host, Steve. we're just gonna get right into it, pick up where we left off on the last episode. thank y'all for coming back. Thank y'all for joining me once again. I really appreciate y'all. and I hope you're all ready for a couple of pretty good stories that I got lined up for y'all. So today I wanna start the episode by kind of getting into why I decided to start podcasting, a little bit of a backstory about leadership, my history when it comes to leadership, and then a story that happened involving me when I was back in the military a couple of years ago. So we'll just get right into it. So I wanna start much like last week with a Bible verse. And that is Philippians chapter 2, verse 3. And it says, Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with an attitude of humility, being neither arrogant nor self-righteous, regard others as more important than yourselves. And I felt like that was a good Bible verse to start today's show off with because that ties into you know, what it is I'm looking to get out of this podcast. You know, I as I said last week, you know, I'm hoping to reach some people, I'm hoping to reach an audience and I'm hoping to reach somebody who may need to hear these stories one day. You know, maybe they're going through something, maybe not necessarily putting blue Kool Aid up their nose, but as we get further into this show, as we get further into the episodes, you know, we start doing some more episodes, there'll be some different stories and hopefully, you know, somebody will hear it and and it'll it'll affect him in a in a positive way. so that's why I kinda wanted to get started with that. So the whole thing about leadership, you know, I am the oldest of four kids. you know, I I've I like to tell people, told people plenty of times that I I've I've been in leadership my entire life. being in that position of, you know, being the oldest of four kids and having to kind of grow up a little bit faster than most you know being in that position, there was a lot of responsibility that was that was handed to me at an early age. you know, once I got a little bit older and I I started going out into, you know, into the world so to speak, it started to show pretty pretty quickly. And I found myself in a lot of situations where I was being told that, you know, people look up to you, people follow you, people tend to listen when you talk and things of that nature. So, I've I've learned to embrace it. I didn't really understand it at first, but as time went on, you know, I kinda I gathered that You know, people are right. Like I I do have this this this ability to to be able to just kinda take charge in a situation where I feel like it's necessary. and I've got a couple of stories about that that I won't necessarily get into right at the moment, but there is one story I would like to talk about. and that was I said it was from my time when I was in the military. So this was back in maybe twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, somewhere around that time, and was out with my unit when we were out at the range one day. and you know, we were just kind of, you know, I had already gone up to shoot and all that kind of stuff. And we're off to the side, just kind of goofing off and talking, talking trash and whatnot. And I'm just, you know, talking to the guys and just kinda randomly, I didn't realize that anybody was even really paying attention outside of the the group that we we had sitting there and the few people that were listening to me and there was this captain, I don't remember his name, but he was he had been out at the range. There was another unit at the range with us. I did not know this particular officer at the time that we interacted, but he pulled me off to the side and I I thought maybe I had said something 'cause, you know, if you know me and you've been around me long enough, I I do tend to say some crazy stuff from time to time, especially back when I was in the military. you know, if you're familiar with that and you know how people tend to talk in the military, so there's no telling what I had said at the time. But he pulled me to the side and you know, I'm standing there at attention 'cause you know what you know how you address officers and whatnot. so I'm standing there and he's like, you know, you can relax. I don't you're not in trouble or anything. I just wanted to ask you something and I was like, Okay, sir, what's going on. He asked me, he said, Have you ever thought about being an officer? And I said, No, sir, honestly I have not. Like I've it's never something that I've ever wanted to do. I was, you know, I was h happy being enlisted. I I liked where I was and the fact that I got to interact with other people the way that I did. And I know to a certain degree, you know, officers aren't really in a position to interact with the troops like that. So you know, I told him, I said, No, I've I'd never really, you know, thought about being an officer. plus I was not really in any position to be going to college. So but he told me, he said, you know, I just been kinda standing over here watching and you have a an authoritative presence. Like people listen when you talk. And he's like, I I've noticed it for You know, just the last ten, fifteen minutes that y'all been over now, you know, every time you speak, you know, everybody's everybody's looking at you, everybody's paying attention to you, everybody's listening to what you have to say. And I think you would make a great officer. I think you would make a great leader. and again, I I don't I don't know this man. I don't know this officer. I've never met him before. This was just, you know, somebody who happened to be at the range the same day that we were. and I you know, I told him I really appreciated that and being an officer was never really for me. but being in leadership is something that I've always, maybe not always, but it is something that I have definitely grown to not only appreciate, but I've I've developed my leadership skills and I've understood what I'm capable of when it comes to that. So I feel like this is a similar situation, not necessarily being in leadership, but being able to just create a platform to, talk to people and share stories with people and like I said, share those moments where you could potentially learn something. and if you don't learn anything or maybe you've already learned that lesson on your own, which is very possible. just being able to, you know, provide comedic relief, for people and I feel like I'm I'm in a pretty good position to do that and I I know that I'm capable of doing those things and being a leader and being able to take charge and being able to to get my point across and whatnot. When I was in high school, I'm gonna tell y'all a real quick story. When I was in high school this group of business owners, I wanna say, business own small business owners, they didn't necessarily own whatever businesses they represented represented, excuse me, th you know, they were business owners, they were store owners, managers, people in, you know, kind of high places. And the high school that I was going to at the time, most of y'all may not know this, but it was an alternative school. Yes, I went to an alternative school. I was removed from the original high school I was going to. you know, we'll get into that later. But the school that I was going to was, you know, it had a a reputation for basically housing bad kids. Like when you say an alternative school, everybody knows, you know, pretty much what that means. But they were trying to change their image, so that they could be just among the you know, the regular high schools where people could go to school there without being tagged with that with that stigma. And they told me about this tour that these these business owners and these kind of bigwigs in the community we'll call that they were coming to do a tour of the school and at the end of the tour they wanted someone to speak to them about their time at the school and why they enjoyed, you know, coming to the school and about their experience and things of that nature. And the principal came to me and asked me if I would be the one to talk to them. and I honestly at first it it kinda blew me away that he would ask me to do it. Like I again, I didn't think that anybody was really paying attention to me like that. But you know, a couple of my teachers and my principal had told me, you know, kind of the same story. And this was back in high school before I even joined the military. It was people listen to you, people follow you. And, you have a natural leadership ability that some people just don't have. And that was why they chose me to talk to these people and and to you know explain my experience to them and I feel like I'd I did a really good job. one of the managers that was in the crowd was actually my manager at the time from when I was working at Chick-fil-A and he told me when I went to work later that day he was you know he was really impressed with it and he had a good a good experience with it and obviously his favorite part was you know seeing me up there and hearing my story and hearing how that particular high school, you know, helped me out. Shout out Patrick Henry High School in Stockbridge, Georgia. but yeah that's just, you know, kind of something that I wanted to talk to y'all about and kind of further elaborate on why it is I got into podcasting and what I'm hoping to get out of this. So without further ado we will just get right into our just because you can moments this week. so I got two more stories for y'all. I think they're still pretty funny, but there's still one of is a little a little more on the serious side. or it seemed really serious at the time anyways. I can sit back and laugh about it now, but yeah. we'll just get right into it. our first story comes from back when I was in I wanna say maybe the fourth or fifth grade, you know, my parents and I we were living in California at the time and one of my uncles had came to, you know, hang out with us for the weekend as they always did. And, you know, we went to go play basketball over at the school, you know, because the school was not too far. You could just walk over to the school. They had basketball courts and stuff like that. So we'd walk over to the school and talk or not talk, excuse me. We'd we'd walk over to the school, play basketball, just kind of, you know, mess around in the playground, stuff like that, play football, play basketball, just, you know, skateboard or whatever. and this particular day, we had been over at the For a little bit, and we were getting ready to walk back home. On the way back home, we come across this dog, and he was not a small dog. He was a fairly large dog. I want to say it was a Rottweiler or maybe a Doberman. but we were walking through this neighborhood to get back to my house, and we're we're coming, down the street, and we see the dog, and he's barking, he's barking, and He's chained up though, so we're not really worried about him, you know, doing anything. He's just kind of barking, chained up in the front yard. he's a little bit, you know, closer to the front door, but again, he's on a chain. He's not being messed with or, you know, nothing like that. He's not messing with us, just kinda barking at us as we're walking by. And my uncle, now, this isn't necessarily my mistake in this situation but it is a mistake that I was there for and it did affect me as well. So that's why I chose to talk about this story. so my uncle, you know, he's he's sees the dog and, you know, we're we're just like I said, we're just walking back. We're walking past the house and my uncle gets this I'm gonna call it a bright idea to kind of taunt the dog. And he's messing with the dog like kinda barking back at him and stuff like that and I'm just, you know, kinda laughing about it, looking at him and I'm still walking. Like I'm I'm just gonna keep going. Yeah, if you know me, you know, I I really don't like to mess with other people's dogs. you know, this particular day, like I said, we're walking back and my uncle decides to pick up a rock. It wasn't a huge rock or anything like that. It was a little pebble or something like that. And he throws it in the direction of the dog to kind of, you know, just to kind of mess with him, scare him a little bit. And I kid you not, not even a whole maybe five seconds after that rock went past the dog, the chain broke, and here comes the dog, full speed at my uncle. And my uncle has his basketball in his hand. 'Cause like I said, we were coming back from playing basketball and he is freaking out. He he is just absolutely losing it. And he starts and me, obviously, you know what I did. Y'all y'all know what I did. I started running. Like I'm I'm not I'm not about to sit here waiting on this dog to come and come and attack us and sorry, unk you on your own. So he's freaking out. He's got the basketball in front of him, trying to keep the dog at bay. And, you know, the dog's trying to get, you know, trying to get after him. And you know, my uncle is just steadily yelling, come get your dog, come get your dog. And he's trying to fight the dog off. And the owner comes outside and the owner sees what's going on. and I don't know if the owner saw. that, you know, my uncle had thrown a rock, you know, towards the dog But the owner comes outside and you know, he comes outside and he gets the dog and, you know, he he pulls the dog back and my uncle kinda he had to catch up to me 'cause after I took off running, like I I got a safe distance away and I kinda turned around and looked back and, you know, he's just back there kinda wrestling with the dog in the basketball. and, you know, my my uncle is just like I said, he's he's steadily yelling. you know, come get your dog, come get your dog and I'm just sitting over there like bruh, I'm just helpless. Like there's nothing I can do to help you in this particular situation. And honestly, you probably should have just walked by and left him alone. Now I'm not saying that the chain wouldn't have popped anyways, but I felt like it was one of those instant karma moments where if you didn't just let the dog alone he probably would have just barked a little bit and then went on about his business. So I'm not going to name which one of my uncles it was. I have five of on my mom's side anyways, but that's beside the point. but it was it it was a Now looking back at it, it was a hilarious situation because I will never forget the visual of him trying to fend this dog off with this basketball in his hands. So you know, what I learned from that situation was, you know, there was a couple things that I took from that situation. Number one, just, you know, leave people, dogs, animals in general You know, if they're not bothering you, I'd I would highly suggest that you just don't bother them. and you know, the old saying of what goes around comes around 'cause you know, like I said, he he, you know, kinda messed with the dog and it did not take very long for that to, you know, come back to almost literally bite him you know, come back to bite him bite him in the butt. So that was definitely a a moment and you know, it was a a just because you can taunt a dog doesn't mean you should or any animal for that matter. you know, taunting people, taunting animals, taunting really, just anything that can come back on you, you you you really should just just you know, maybe not do that. so that's the first story that I wanted to tell y'all. And, you know, it still applies, you know, to this day. Just you know, leave well enough alone. 'Cause it it could could have some immediate consequences for you. so shout out to my uncle 'cause I said I'm not gonna I'm not gonna put his name out there, but still a pretty funny memory, pretty pretty funny story. now that I'm, you know, sitting back thinking about it. But I'm sorry I didn't help you hunt, but you you were kinda on your own on that one, bro. So we're just gonna get right into the next story that I have lined up for y'all and this particular story. I was I was in high school at the time and I think I was fifteen years old. I was working at my first job, which is at Kroger. I had started working at Kroger as a bagger, which is one of my first jobs. and I was working there with a friend and we had gotten off that evening and we lived in the same neighborhood, so we were walking, you know, kind of we were both taking the same route to get back to the house, and it's ten, ten thirty at night and you know, we're coming through the neighborhood and like I said, it it was probably ten thirty, it might have actually almost been eleven o'clock at this point. It's kinda late, but you know, we had worked like five to ten shift or something like that and closed the store or whatnot. But, we got pretty close to the house and in my old neighborhood, you know, some of these neighborhoods now, they build these tennis courts. so our neighborhood, it had there's a a tennis court that we would walk by you know, almost every day and w whenever we'd walk to the store or across the street to the gas station or whatever the case may be, It was kind of our you know, that was part of our route. So this particular night we are coming back from work and the tennis courts lights are on and there are I wanna say maybe six guys. I think there's You know, there's they're they're playing doubles or something. I don't I don't know what they're doing. They're playing tennis. So, you know, they're out there, they're they're playing tennis. It's like I said, ten thirty, eleven o'clock at night. The lights are on, they're they're bright, and we could hear them before we even got to the tennis court. We could hear them and then eventually, you know, we're walking past the tennis court and we could see them and you know, like I said, the lights are on, they're really bright, and my friend gets this idea and he and this is the second time. This is the second time I'm telling y'all a story like this, but he looks at me and says, I bet you won't turn the lights off. And without a whole lot of hesitation, again, people are just like, I bet you, you know, I bet you won't turn the lights off. I bet you won't, basically. And you know, when you're a teenager, you know, you you tend to wanna do whatever it is you're being challenged to do, as long as it's not like anything against the law or nothing like that. It's not anything criminal. you know, so he he's like, I bet y I bet you won't turn those lights off. And the reason why he said that was because w the way that we are walking past the tennis court, we're gonna walk past the main light switch, the front entrance or w the entrance, whatever it is, but the light switch for the tennis courts, we were going to walk past them and we get ready to walk past them and without a whole lot of thought, I just reach my hand up and I turn the lights off and all hell broke loose. We took off running. I'm talking about absolutely just just a full on sprint b from the tennis court back to back to the house. And we get back and you can hear all of these guys are chasing us. They're they are hot on the trail. Like you could hear them. They're they are they're angry. They're they're pissed off and instead of continuing to run, because we had a pretty good lead on them, instead of continuing to run like we stopped by one of the houses and tried to hide and they found us pretty easily. Like there was not a whole lot of s whole lot of places you could hide in that neighborhood and in the yard or anything like that. These weren't big yards. They weren't big bushy yards or anything of that nature. So in all of our brilliance in in trying to to get away from these guys, I'm talking about they they were thirty eight hot. Like they they were mad. And we almost got beat up by six grown men for turning the lights off at the tennis courts in the middle of the night. And if you know anything about these lights, like they take a while to really come on. So they might have been out there for a while. I don't know how long they've been out there, but them lights, they were really bright. And they're those kind of lights where when you turn on, they have to warm up before they're fully bright and before they're you know, really ready to to be used or whatnot. And, you know, for us to come by and just turn the lights off like that really just kind of you know, threw a monkey wrench into their plans because now they have to, you know, turn the lights back on, wait for them to warm back up, which I mean if they did just immediately turn them back on, I don't think it would have been that big of a deal. But for us to walk past and cut the lights off, I'm talking about maybe mid swing for some of these guys. It was just I did not we definitely did not expect that reaction from them. And, you know, like I said, we turn turned the lights off and commits to the to the the forty yard dash is what we're gonna call it. We just took off running and these guys were in a full sprint right behind us and they're they're mad. They're they're yelling at us and they're threatening us and all this other kind of stuff. And they was like, You really think that's funny? And, you know, we apologize to 'cause I mean honestly it's just, you know, me me and my friend, you know, this two skinny dudes and, you know, six grown men and they have tennis rackets in their hands. So we're kinda like, you know, we're we're being apologetic and whatnot. And after they finally walked off, you know, we just kinda laughed about it and went on went on about our business. But that was that was definitely one of the one of the crazier decisions I've made when it comes to a just because you can moment, you know. Just because you can turn the lights off on somebody doesn't mean you should. And that's another one of those, kind of ties into the first story with the instant karma thing. probably the most instant of karma one of the more instant situations anyways. But Yeah, it was it was pretty crazy. It was it was pretty crazy and it was it was funny after the fact, but you know, as these these dudes are all in our face and you know, we're we're trying not to trying not to get beat up for turning the lights off. We were kind of regretting that situation. So, you know, the lesson there again is leave well enough alone. Like, you know, no reason to mess with people like that. It seems funny at the time and seems like a good idea at the time and like I said, it seems like a funny idea at the time, but you never know what the outcome of that'll be. So I think the smarter thing there would have just been to while it would have been funny, I mean it is kinda funny now, but While it would have been funny, I probably should not have done that and just, you know, left those people alone and and not interrupted their tennis game, like I did. So to those guys, I I don't know if, you know, they'll ever hear this story, but I do apologize for turning the lights off on y'all. hopefully y'all can forgive me all these years later. But again, like I said, those two stories kind of tie into each other with, you know, what goes around comes around kind of deal. just because you can mess with people doesn't mean you should. Just because you can mess with animals or wildlife or, anything of the sort doesn't mean you should. Like you you know to take into consideration again, like I was saying last week, you never know what people are going through. So what you may think is something that's funny and harmless may be the thing that sets them off. You know, it may be the last straw that, you know, they had and they were you know, You might have done something, you might have said something off and you don't even know it and you were just trying to you know, like I said, you were just trying to be funny, you thought it'd be harmless and you know, whatever the case may be. But you gotta put a little more consideration into that and and you know, there's a time and a place to mess with people. you know, especially if they're expecting it or whatnot and especially if you don't know those people. You know, I d I didn't know any of those guys. I wasn't familiar with them. I don't know if any of even lived in the neighborhood, or maybe one of them did and, you know, he invited his buddies over, whatever the case may be. I don't I didn't know those people. and I really, you know, shouldn't like I said, I really should not have messed with them like that. I like I said at the time it was pretty serious because, you know, we we almost got some some instant karma there. But you know, t twenty, thirty years later now, you know, I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about it and I'm telling this story to y'all and laughing about it, but at the same time, you know, that's the whole point of this the whole point of the show is to talk about those kind of things and just to say that, you know, sometimes, think about it and you know, try to put yourself in into those positions, try to put yourself into into someone else's shoes about how you would feel if someone did that to you. I know a lot of times we don't really think like that. I know I'm guilty of it and I know that, you know, a lot of people tend to be like that sometimes. They just react to things or do things on impulse. but you know, what I wanna say is, you know, what goes around comes around. and when you When you mess with people, when you mess with animals, when you mess with things that you really shouldn't be messing with, then there's a good chance that it's gonna come back to bite you in the ass. So as I said, mm that literally almost happened when my uncle was messing with that dog. so but yeah, those are my those are my two just because you can moments, you know, just because you can taunt. A chained up dog doesn't mean you should. And just because you can turn the lights off on a group of grown men playing tennis in the middle of the night doesn't mean you should either. So those are just a couple of stories that I hope y'all enjoy. And Yeah, you just gotta be more careful. you just, you know, like I said, put put a little bit more thought into those things. so just gonna do a little bit of a recap over the last two stories that I just told y'all. Like I said, I I talked about you know, the situation where we almost got attacked by a dog, and another situation where we almost got attacked by a group of grown men. so I hope y'all enjoyed the stories and I do appreciate y'all coming to hang out with me again, coming to listen to my stories again. I have so many more, so many more episodes, so many more stories lined up to tell y'all and Like I said, some of them will be a little bit more serious and some of them would some of them would be funny and some of them will be somewhere in between that. But I'm I'm excited to share them with y'all and to hear y'all's thoughts. and then speaking of that, when you know, whenever y'all listen to these episodes, I would really appreciate it if y'all would just leave, you know, a little bit of feedback as to what you thought about the episode or what you thought about just a moment in general, hopefully y'all come out for the next one. Well y'all take the time to to listen to this one. And if you did, I appreciate you. we will definitely be doing another episode here in the next couple of days. So once again, I just want to thank y'all. Thank y'all for your time. Thank y'all for hanging out with me. thank y'all for listening to my stories. I'm gonna close it out with this, and it's life will show you better than anyone can tell you. Until next time, this has been from my mistakes. Hope y'all have a good one.