Latest / Harder Than Life / How to Stop Letting Your Past Define You With Tiki Davis

Transcript

How to Stop Letting Your Past Define You With Tiki Davis · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  I'm gasping for air.
• 0:01
  He grabs me, stabs me in the neck with that screwdriver.
• 0:03
  What kind of a person can stab a nine-year-old?
• 0:06
  I just found this out a few years ago.
• 0:08
  They never caught him.
• 0:09
  I don't even know what to say.
• 0:10
  You're smiling about it.
• 0:12
  Yeah.
• 0:12
  Man, because the grace of God, I'm still standing.
• 0:14
  I'm still standing.
• 0:15
  Was there a moment in your life where you almost became the exact thing everybody predicted you would become?
• 0:21
  People would make excuses like, hey, it's okay if you go to prison for the rest of your life.
• 0:25
  It's okay if you're dead before you're 21.
• 0:28
  It's okay if you don't know how to read and write.
• 0:29
  It's okay if you don't go to college.
• 0:31
  It's okay, and that would piss me the off.
• 0:33
  Don't make excuses for my failure.
• 0:35
  So I decided like, hey, man, you're not going to count me out.
• 0:37
  I've always been a hustler my whole life.
• 0:39
  A million dollars in real estate.
• 0:41
  I made a million dollars selling ribs.
• 0:43
  I made a million dollars being an engineer.
• 0:46
  And I wasn't afraid to switch helmets.
• 0:47
  And I'm the best pivot player in the world.
• 0:50
  You can talk about basketball.
• 0:51
  Yeah, yeah.
• 0:52
  Did you ever feel like that's what you were just out running, that negativity?
• 0:56
  Yes.
• 0:56
  So I had to re-identify, adjust, and pivot at this new level.
• 1:01
  Let's talk to the audience member that thinks that they don't have choice.
• 1:04
  How can he pivot from the negative that's holding them back?
• 1:08
  I think you got to look at yourself and ask yourself in the situation, whatever it is in your life.
• 1:13
  Nine years old, stabbed in the neck with a screwdriver.
• 1:16
  His father was in prison the day he was born.
• 1:19
  His mother was fighting addiction.
• 1:20
  He became one of the most successful oil and gas guys in the Permian Basin.
• 1:24
  He built businesses.
• 1:25
  He sold them.
• 1:26
  He has a book coming out from a HarperCollins and a movie being made about his life.
• 1:31
  My guest today is Tiki Davis.
• 1:34
  All right, it's been a year in the making, but my boy, my brother from another mother, is here to tell his banana story, man.
• 1:41
  I heard you, and I had to have you on the show.
• 1:44
  I'm so grateful for you to be here in Fort Lauderdale in person, so thank you for taking the time out.
• 1:47
  Yeah, man, I'm glad for the invite.
• 1:49
  Happy to be here and ready to share a little bit of this journey with you.
• 1:52
  Just absolutely crazy upbringing.
• 1:54
  You did even better than me.
• 1:56
  You weaponized absolute worst...
• 1:59
  childhood I could ever imagine.
• 2:01
  And you here with this beautiful smile, this nice and just living.
• 2:05
  You were nine years old when someone put a screwdriver through your neck.
• 2:09
  Walk me into that day.
• 2:11
  And where were you standing and what the heck was going on?
• 2:15
  Well, I was living in South Odessa in the Chaparral Village Projects and my mom was a prostitute.
• 2:22
  So the part of the story that I never really share, the reason I got stabbed is because my mom had robbed this cat.
• 2:28
  and he came back to kill her and the person that she was with.
• 2:32
  But turns out I'm at home by myself.
• 2:35
  Back in the day, we had a house key, and that day I had the house key.
• 2:39
  And I went upstairs, get myself ready for bed, took my clothes off, and I leave the door unlocked because my brother's next door playing Atari video games.
• 2:48
  So I leave the door unlocked for him to come home or my mama to come home, and the man that comes in the door is the guy that stabs me in the neck, a Hispanic guy.
• 2:57
  And he comes in, asks me, where's my mama?
• 3:00
  I said, she's not here.
• 3:01
  And before I could answer the question, he wrapped the bandana around my neck.
• 3:05
  I wanted him to let me go.
• 3:06
  Eventually, he let me go.
• 3:08
  I'm gasping for air.
• 3:09
  In the midst of gasping for air, he grabs me, stabs me in the neck with that screwdriver.
• 3:15
  Thinking it's over, what else can he do to me?
• 3:17
  Then he put a pillow over my face.
• 3:19
  Boom!
• 3:20
  First punch knocks me out.
• 3:21
  Second punch wakes me up.
• 3:23
  And then when he wakes me up that second time, I try to get away from him.
• 3:28
  And the defense that I had when I was a kid, I used to get whoopings from my mom.
• 3:32
  So I slide down the wall.
• 3:33
  I'm like,
• 3:35
  in the bed, and I roll up under the bed, and that's how I get to safety in that moment.
• 3:38
  And I'm face down in my own blood, my own tears, and he's moving the bed left to right, left to right, left to right, and I'm just moving with the bed, and he tries to turn it over, but I kind of grab the bottom of the bed, kind of the box springs I'm holding on, and he can't flip it, because he's a small guy, and so the weight, and so that bed, getting whoopings, my mom almost cost me my life, but also saved my life, because running from her getting whoopings actually...
• 4:04
  Stop the attack.
• 4:05
  And the guy eventually runs away.
• 4:07
  Tiki, every time I hear that, I don't even know what to say.
• 4:11
  And you're smiling about it.
• 4:13
  Yeah.
• 4:14
  Man, because the grace of God, I'm still standing.
• 4:16
  You know, a lot of times...
• 4:19
  It was almost normal.
• 4:20
  One of my friends, Tudor Earl, he got murdered.
• 4:23
  A guy named Quincy got murdered.
• 4:25
  Like a lot of guys in my neighborhood got murdered, and I'm lucky to still be here.
• 4:29
  So really and truly, it's a blessing just to be sitting here because a lot of guys didn't make it.
• 4:35
  How long did it take you till you realize that that's not normal, man?
• 4:38
  That's not normal living.
• 4:40
  I think when I became, maybe in my 30s, I was like, man, it wasn't normal.
• 4:45
  Because I still live in the same city.
• 4:47
  I drive by those complex every day.
• 4:48
  But I think when it really hits me, I had, my daughter was probably 10 years old.
• 4:52
  And I said, hey, let me take you back to where I grew up.
• 4:55
  Oh.
• 4:55
  So I take my daughter at the time, she's 10, 11, 12 years old.
• 4:58
  I take her and I show her how blessed she is to live the way she lived.
• 5:01
  Let me show you where I came from.
• 5:03
  So I go right to that apartment complex.
• 5:06
  Some people are living in that exact same one.
• 5:08
  I knock on the door.
• 5:09
  The people let us in.
• 5:10
  I told them who I was, told them we were trying to film a little documentary.
• 5:13
  So they take me up the stairs, and the stairs are the exact same stairs.
• 5:17
  They haven't really did any updates.
• 5:18
  Wow, how'd that feel?
• 5:20
  It was just like crazy.
• 5:21
  Then I really got extremely humbled because I was like, man, who?
• 5:25
  This is a blessing because it's still in that same condition.
• 5:27
  The people are living in the same way.
• 5:29
  Now, they had their own furniture and their own bed, but it was still that fill of the projects.
• 5:33
  So I go in there, and my daughter, she don't know.
• 5:35
  She's like, Dad, you used to live here?
• 5:36
  I'm like, yeah.
• 5:37
  And so I asked them, can I see the kitchen?
• 5:38
  Can I see the bathroom?
• 5:40
  And, you know, they had new toilets and different things like that, but the cabinets were the same.
• 5:44
  The manolian floor was the same.
• 5:46
  The rubber that was on the stairs going up was the same.
• 5:50
  Most of those things were like they were, so it was real humbling.
• 5:53
  So really in that moment, because a lot of my friends that lived in the project still live in that similar demographic lifestyle, made me realize, I was like, man, I don't know about this.
• 6:03
  They made me really, like you asked, I was blessed in that moment.
• 6:07
  I go back to my upbringings.
• 6:09
  My parents, my mother and my stepfather still live in the same house.
• 6:12
  I take my daughter, too.
• 6:14
  And you know what?
• 6:15
  As I've healed, I've realized that I measure the gain.
• 6:18
  Like, look how far I've come versus the gap.
• 6:21
  I have a question before I get too far.
• 6:23
  Whatever happened to that guy?
• 6:25
  Because what kind of a person can stab a nine-year-old?
• 6:29
  Well, I just found this out a few years ago.
• 6:32
  They never caught him.
• 6:33
  Oh.
• 6:34
  The detective, his name is Fred Price.
• 6:36
  He reached out to me several years ago, and we did a small documentary on him as well.
• 6:40
  But he said he was a homicide detective when he left Odessa.
• 6:44
  He moved to Dallas.
• 6:45
  And he said in his 30, 40-year career, that was the case that haunted him because he could never catch the guy that did that to me.
• 6:55
  And truthfully, the reason why he probably didn't catch the guy is because we never gave him the full disclosure.
• 7:02
  And I wasn't honest with him.
• 7:03
  I lied and said I didn't know who he was.
• 7:06
  And really, I never told the truth until I started writing books and speaking about it because I wanted to protect who?
• 7:12
  My mom.
• 7:13
  Man, I've done the same thing.
• 7:15
  It's eerie.
• 7:16
  That wasn't even the worst thing that's happened to you.
• 7:18
  So it just keeps going bonkers from there.
• 7:22
  And it's the only word I can say.
• 7:23
  It's bonkers, bananas.
• 7:24
  It's...
• 7:25
  I look at and I read your story and I'm thinking, man, my life was easy.
• 7:30
  So your father was locked up the day you were born.
• 7:34
  When did you first find out what that actually meant?
• 7:37
  Let me take you back a little bit.
• 7:39
  My dad and my mom were never married.
• 7:42
  My dad never completed the 10th grade.
• 7:45
  My mom, I think she went to the ninth grade.
• 7:47
  So my dad went to prison because he was a bank robber and burglarized people's houses, and him and his father was partners in crime.
• 7:56
  So one night, my dad was 17, living at home with his dad and also had a living girlfriend.
• 8:02
  One day my dad comes home, he sees his girlfriend on the couch in a nightgown, naked up underneath.
• 8:09
  Yeah.
• 8:09
  And his dad's sitting in his recliner with a shotgun.
• 8:12
  So my dad walks in there and says, hey, man, what's going on here?
• 8:15
  He said, what do you think it looks like going on here?
• 8:18
  He said, you don't live here no more.
• 8:20
  That's my woman with the shotgun.
• 8:22
  So my dad is angry.
• 8:23
  He said, man, I want to beat the living crap out of my dad, but I couldn't.
• 8:27
  He had the shotgun.
• 8:28
  And he said it looked like them two just had been intimate, right?
• 8:31
  And so now he's jealous.
• 8:33
  He's...
• 8:34
  upset that his dad took his girl and he says, well, what about all this stuff that we've been stealing?
• 8:39
  Let's sell it.
• 8:40
  He said, you come here tonight, get your half.
• 8:43
  And he says, all right.
• 8:44
  And he said, but you don't live here no more.
• 8:46
  So when you come back, make sure you pack up all your stuff because you don't come here anymore.
• 8:49
  So when he goes back,
• 8:52
  He leaves.
• 8:52
  He comes back home.
• 8:54
  When he comes back, he's arrested.
• 8:56
  The girl and his father set him up because my grandfather wanted my dad's girlfriend.
• 9:02
  And through that burglary, they go to court.
• 9:05
  They testify, say he's the uptown burglar.
• 9:08
  And...
• 9:09
  sent him to prison for 25 years.
• 9:11
  He gets sentenced to 25 years for all that, and his dad takes his girlfriend, and my dad goes off to prison.
• 9:17
  And in the midst of my dad being in prison, a girl that was loyal to him that he liked was a few years younger, was my mom.
• 9:26
  But now he does seven years in prison, gets out when he's 25, and he finds out the other girl that he loved is being a prostitute, being pimped out.
• 9:35
  which was my mom, and she had already had a kid and had her tubes tied.
• 9:40
  So this lady does not want to have no more kids, right?
• 9:43
  So my dad gets out, not knowing that he's my father at this time, but he goes and finds this girlfriend that's a prostitute in Amarillo, Texas, say, hey, I hear you got a kid.
• 9:55
  And not just a kid, a white kid.
• 9:58
  And he says, I want you to have me a son.
• 10:00
  My mom says she's not interested in having no more kids because she's in love with this pimp.
• 10:04
  But fast, let me backtrack a little bit.
• 10:08
  She was having unprotected sex with her pimp and her main customer, physician at the hospital, because she was an orderly.
• 10:14
  She gets pregnant, hoping the pimp is the father, which is a black man.
• 10:20
  But when the baby comes out...
• 10:22
  He's white.
• 10:23
  And so the doctor delivers the baby and fires her from the job.
• 10:27
  Now, when my dad gets out and finds out she has a baby, he's jealous.
• 10:32
  He says, Louise, I want you to have me a son.
• 10:34
  So he started causing problems with the pimp.
• 10:36
  So the pimp releases his top girl because this guy is bad for business.
• 10:43
  And she says, all right, Frank, I'll have you a son.
• 10:46
  So she gets pregnant, unties her tubes, get pregnant, and that's how I enter the world.
• 10:52
  There's a story about your brother, too.
• 10:54
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:55
  What is it?
• 10:55
  So here's the deal.
• 10:56
  Like, I didn't know I didn't have a brother until I was like three years old.
• 10:59
  So here's the crazy stuff about this.
• 11:02
  Now it's crazy, T. Yeah, yeah.
• 11:04
  Right?
• 11:05
  Okay, it's going to get a little bit...
• 11:06
  I don't think I ever shared this, but...
• 11:08
  When my mom gives birth to me, she told my dad she didn't want to have any more kids.
• 11:12
  I'm born in Andrews, Texas.
• 11:14
  After I'm born, she calls my dad maybe a week later.
• 11:17
  I'm sleeping in a dresser next to her because I'm a premature baby.
• 11:21
  I'm sleeping in a dresser drawer, no crib.
• 11:23
  She says, hey, come get your son.
• 11:26
  I didn't want a baby you did.
• 11:29
  So my dad comes to pick me up, 25 years old.
• 11:32
  He doesn't know how to raise a son, so he takes me to my grandmother, Hattie Ward, in Artesia, New Mexico.
• 11:37
  Right.
• 11:38
  but it gets a little bit crazier.
• 11:41
  She accepts me with open arms, why?
• 11:44
  It's because she's fulfilling her debt to her son because she gave my daddy away at birth.
• 11:51
  So I stayed with her the first three years of my life and I always knew she wasn't my mom.
• 11:56
  For some reason, I knew at the early age she wasn't my mom, but I loved her.
• 11:59
  That's why I like breakfast because she used to always feed me Queen Mui, oatmeal, sausage, right?
• 12:04
  So that grandma's love
• 12:06
  But three years after I was born, my mom comes to pick me up because at that time she had just been accused of a murder.
• 12:15
  She had sat in jail like eight, nine months, and they didn't have enough evidence to convict her.
• 12:20
  So now she wants to fly straight.
• 12:22
  She wants to go get her kids.
• 12:24
  And one of her main customers is a guy named Murphy Young.
• 12:27
  He was an older guy.
• 12:28
  My mom was probably about 23, 24 at this time.
• 12:31
  So now back in the day, you got to have your kids to get the welfare benefits.
• 12:36
  So my brother was living with my mom's mom, my other grandma, Bobby Lee.
• 12:41
  And so now she got to go get her other kid to take us to the welfare office to have proof to get this benefits, this full check.
• 12:48
  So now she comes to interrupt my life in New Mexico, comes pick me up.
• 12:52
  takes me from my grandma and my grandma's talking to my mom.
• 12:55
  She said, you sure you want to do this?
• 12:56
  Yeah, like, yeah, this is my son.
• 12:58
  So she comes to get me, sticks me in the back of this long Lincoln Town Car with her new, soon to be husband named Murphy, sticks me in the back seat, cloth seats, them Lincoln Town Car, right?
• 13:08
  I remember those seats, the ashtray in the back.
• 13:11
  I'm sitting in there and she says, hey, Jaws, that's what they called me, Fat Jaws, when I was a kid, because I had big cheeks.
• 13:18
  But she says, hey, meet your brother.
• 13:20
  And I turned to my right, first time I seen a white person was my brother.
• 13:26
  I don't even know what to say anymore.
• 13:29
  They need to make a movie out of this, man.
• 13:31
  Yeah.
• 13:32
  The food, I want to highlight the food thing, because there's so many parallels to your life and my life.
• 13:36
  To this day, when you eat breakfast, do you think about your grandma?
• 13:40
  Yeah, I do.
• 13:41
  I think about my grandma.
• 13:42
  I think about that smell, the essence of it.
• 13:45
  It's like you hear them eggs frying.
• 13:47
  You smell that cream of wheat.
• 13:48
  You smell the biscuit.
• 13:50
  So sometimes it's not even about eating it.
• 13:52
  It's sometimes about that ambience of the smell, the music playing in the back.
• 13:56
  What does it feel like, bro?
• 13:57
  It feels like...
• 13:59
  I wish life was like that still.
• 14:01
  Love.
• 14:01
  Yeah, love.
• 14:02
  Yes, yes.
• 14:03
  And it's just like a wholesome.
• 14:04
  We didn't have much, but you knew you were going to have a good meal.
• 14:07
  She was going to play that music.
• 14:08
  You're going to listen to Will and Fortune in the background or Price is Right.
• 14:12
  Those are stuff that you can't really buy.
• 14:14
  And I got that root work, that groundwork, that foundation of love and what it looked like from her.
• 14:21
  I remember she didn't have much money and we used to like trails.
• 14:24
  I don't know where you from in Detroit.
• 14:26
  If they had like you walk so much a path, it formed its own trail on the ground.
• 14:31
  So we will walk the trail like, oh, we're going to go to the store.
• 14:33
  So it was like a little trail.
• 14:35
  And it was so crazy.
• 14:35
  You could walk over here, walk that way.
• 14:37
  It's like walking on a track, but we call it a trail.
• 14:40
  So we just walked the whole trail to the store.
• 14:42
  It was the craziest thing, like falling direction, kind of like, I wouldn't say Monopoly, but like one of those, you know, shoot the dice and you go.
• 14:50
  That's kind of, we would follow that trail to the store.
• 14:53
  Tiki, if you go in my book, Harder Than Life, there's a picture of me eating breakfast and I'm at my grandma's house.
• 14:58
  Oh, wow.
• 14:58
  That's why it's, when I heard your story, I'm like, oh.
• 15:02
  I'm going to get stabbed, but I got drowned.
• 15:04
  I got beat.
• 15:05
  Oh, wow.
• 15:05
  I got all kinds of stuff.
• 15:06
  So, man, two dudes like you and me, we got to keep doing what we're doing and keep paying it for it because there's somebody else driving in a car right now going, what?
• 15:14
  You know, because you got a big smile on your face.
• 15:16
  I got a big smile on my face.
• 15:18
  We're going to go to dinner tonight.
• 15:19
  We have a freaking break.
• 15:20
  We'll go boating tomorrow.
• 15:21
  And we turned...
• 15:23
  lemons and then lemonade, man.
• 15:24
  Right, man, because a lot of times, why be upset?
• 15:28
  Why play the victim role?
• 15:29
  Because we're lucky.
• 15:30
  Because I bet if you go back to your neighborhood in Detroit, you can find a guy that you grew up with, that you broke bread, probably eating free lunch in the cafeteria with.
• 15:39
  Like, man, this guy strung out on drugs.
• 15:40
  Man, this other guy killed himself.
• 15:42
  This other guy got 50 years in prison.
• 15:44
  So that's the dynamic where I'm from.
• 15:46
  And the reason why I stay humble, because I stay close to it.
• 15:51
  I stay close to it.
• 15:52
  Like like my best friend, my cousin, his name is Jeremy Majors.
• 15:56
  I talk to him every single day and he's my biggest inspiration.
• 16:00
  And I believe I'm his biggest inspiration because at the age of 19, he got gunned down at a Whataburger.
• 16:07
  He's been paralyzed.
• 16:09
  I think 25 years now, 25 years in a wheelchair.
• 16:13
  And I know day to day, but this guy's heart, he fights harder than people with two feet standing.
• 16:19
  He don't make no excuses.
• 16:20
  He got houses.
• 16:22
  He makes business.
• 16:23
  He goes up and he's the man of his house.
• 16:24
  So if this guy can do it, there's no excuses for us.
• 16:28
  Wow.
• 16:29
  So my story is that all my friends are either dead or in jail.
• 16:33
  Wow.
• 16:33
  I don't have anybody left.
• 16:35
  Wow.
• 16:35
  If I go back to the hood, there ain't nobody there.
• 16:37
  Right.
• 16:37
  So it's sad.
• 16:39
  That's why I did this podcast.
• 16:40
  That's why I'm glad you're here.
• 16:41
  In my story, which I bet you yours is similar, is the first person that ever showed really any interest in me was a teacher at school.
• 16:49
  And it was funny because I was a little guy and he used to call me huge.
• 16:52
  Okay.
• 16:53
  And we used to laugh about it because he could tell I was just going to be big.
• 16:57
  Right.
• 16:58
  So what was the first person in your life that treated you like you were going to be somebody?
• 17:02
  It was a few different people, but it's a guy named Mr. Elkins.
• 17:06
  He was a music teacher.
• 17:08
  Most of the time, he was a substitute teacher, so he wouldn't necessarily be at the school all the time.
• 17:12
  Another teacher.
• 17:13
  And we would go to music class, and he was a black man.
• 17:16
  So, you know, back in the days, you remember that movie Five Heartbeats with Red and, like, The Temptations?
• 17:22
  They used to have these nice finger wave haircuts, right?
• 17:24
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:25
  Mr. Elkins would have a finger wave, and he would wear suits.
• 17:28
  And...
• 17:29
  What he did, he took the interest, just not in me and a lot of different kids, he would call us like, hey, Tweety Bird, hey, Elmer Fudd, hey, Superman, or, you know.
• 17:37
  So I always wanted to be the Incredible Hulk, right?
• 17:40
  Because most of the time, when Halloween came, we were so poor, we couldn't afford no costume.
• 17:46
  I already had to cut off shorts, right?
• 17:48
  All I had to do was take my shirt off and go, ah!
• 17:51
  So I could be the incredible hook.
• 17:53
  So that's most of the time what I was during Halloween, the incredible hook.
• 17:56
  And so Mr. Elkins took that liking, showed us different instruments, but also he lived in the community.
• 18:02
  I remember me and my brothers and some guys named the triplets.
• 18:05
  We saved his life one time because he lived alone.
• 18:08
  He was starting to get elderly a little bit and he would try to cook.
• 18:11
  Yeah.
• 18:12
  And one time he cooked and his curtains in the kitchen caught on fire.
• 18:18
  He tried to put it out.
• 18:18
  We got him out.
• 18:20
  But ultimately, he did it again.
• 18:22
  Nobody was around.
• 18:23
  He ended up burning up in that house and dying.
• 18:25
  Yeah.
• 18:25
  That's sad.
• 18:26
  Yeah.
• 18:27
  So Mr. Elkins, whoever can hear from that, that's a salute to you.
• 18:33
  My teacher's name was Mr. Mustard.
• 18:34
  I'm sure he's sent long since passed away.
• 18:37
  I lost touch over the years.
• 18:38
  But the teachers are something else, man.
• 18:40
  That's literally what breathed life into me.
• 18:43
  So let's go back to that attack, though, because it's still not settling well.
• 18:46
  Okay.
• 18:47
  What did surviving that attack cost you that nobody can see from the outside?
• 18:52
  I couldn't count the cost then.
• 18:54
  Right.
• 18:55
  But but it's valuable now because the story is helping so many people around the world because they say, Tiki, because of you, you're telling your story, my story through your story.
• 19:07
  So it didn't really cost me anything because I don't really have the trauma from it.
• 19:12
  I don't really think about that.
• 19:13
  It's other things that affected me more than that attack when I was a kid.
• 19:17
  So I don't think at one time, even when I'm speaking on stage or in the book, I never thought my life was in danger, but it really was.
• 19:24
  Because you're so young, you're so naive, you don't know the trouble that you're in until you're really in it.
• 19:29
  Now we're grown men, we can look back like a nine-year-old boy getting stabbed in the neck.
• 19:34
  That's not normal.
• 19:36
  It was over before it started in that sense.
• 19:39
  So I try not to think about it.
• 19:40
  And I still got the scar right here.
• 19:42
  You can see it.
• 19:42
  And it's almost 40 years old.
• 19:45
  But I'm going to tell you a story.
• 19:46
  There's a girl named Keisha Robinson.
• 19:49
  She lived in the projects.
• 19:51
  So after I got attacked, I didn't go to school for a month.
• 19:54
  And she just shared with me a few months ago, we're at a funeral and she said, Tiki, man, we're so glad you're writing this book and telling your story.
• 20:02
  He said, I don't know if you notice or not, but you remember when you came back to school, second grade, I come back to school.
• 20:09
  She said, the reason we huddled up around you and started hugging and kissing you because we thought you were dead.
• 20:14
  Now, that affects me because it affected some other people.
• 20:18
  Like, for real?
• 20:19
  He's like, yeah, we thought you had died because we didn't see you no more.
• 20:22
  So imagine a classroom of eight and nine-year-olds thinking their classmate was stabbed to death in the projects and he's never going to see them again.
• 20:30
  Then he walks through the door.
• 20:32
  So that's why I know I'm a miracle and the story's changing people's lives because they're like, hey, Tiki, I'm glad you're sharing this because we didn't even know you were going to be here.
• 20:39
  So my stepfather drowned me when I was nine.
• 20:42
  Nine.
• 20:42
  Again, it's so weird.
• 20:43
  And then there's a car wash story.
• 20:45
  Right.
• 20:45
  Okay.
• 20:46
  It's parallels are uncanny.
• 20:48
  So mine was nine and I was sitting in my bedroom just chilling, I think playing video games.
• 20:53
  And my stepdad comes home and I look at the time and you know he's drunk by the time.
• 20:58
  And he just grabs me and just starts drowning me in this bathwater.
• 21:02
  Oh, wow.
• 21:02
  And I flare my hands off.
• 21:04
  And, you know, we were poor and back in the day, and this is back in the day where you had like
• 21:08
  the rubber plunger, the rubber stopper, and the long cord.
• 21:13
  And one of the times I'm like, this is where I'm gonna die.
• 21:16
  He would not, he was so drunk, he wouldn't, didn't know how long he was holding me under.
• 21:21
  And then he wasn't pulling me up, and giving me enough time to get a breath.
• 21:25
  And I said, the only way I'm gonna survive is grabbing that thing.
• 21:28
  And I had the wherewithal to grab it and pull it up.
• 21:31
  And that's what saved my life.
• 21:32
  Man, that's crazy.
• 21:34
  I never had anybody try to kill me other than that guy.
• 21:37
  Thank God.
• 21:38
  But it was like my mom lived this gangsta lifestyle.
• 21:41
  Let me just give you a typical day in our hood, in our home.
• 21:44
  In that same project, prior, before, after, I was stabbed.
• 21:49
  It was really probably before because after I got stabbed, we got evicted.
• 21:53
  And we used to have cousins and stuff that OD on drugs.
• 21:56
  Like that same bedroom that I got stabbed in, my cousin, my mom's cousin, he's like my uncle, OD'd.
• 22:05
  And that's the first time I seen somebody just run and jump out of a window.
• 22:08
  Second floor, land on feet and keep on running.
• 22:11
  Like, this was like a superhuman.
• 22:14
  And there was another guy.
• 22:15
  It was a guy.
• 22:16
  His name was Charlie.
• 22:17
  And this dude, let me just kind of paint the picture where he looked like this was my mom's boyfriend.
• 22:21
  And he actually murdered my mom's other boyfriend to be with my mom.
• 22:25
  True story.
• 22:25
  It's in the book.
• 22:26
  This is bananas.
• 22:27
  Bananas.
• 22:28
  So let me, you remember wrestling, right?
• 22:31
  Of course.
• 22:31
  Hillbilly Jim.
• 22:32
  Yep.
• 22:33
  A black version of Hillbilly Jim coveralls on gun showing.
• 22:38
  Right.
• 22:38
  Afro, like Tookie Williams.
• 22:40
  Looked like that.
• 22:41
  Converse, gold chain, nugget ring.
• 22:44
  Remember the nugget rings?
• 22:45
  Yeah.
• 22:46
  Nugget ring, that's how it looks.
• 22:47
  Swole.
• 22:48
  Riding Harley Davidson motorcycle on.
• 22:51
  A little milk cart in the back with a white pit bull dog in the back.
• 22:55
  That was the guy.
• 22:56
  He was an enforcer.
• 22:57
  So he lived with us, mass murderer.
• 23:00
  One night, my brother...
• 23:03
  We're both home, he comes looking for mama, she run off with the drugs.
• 23:08
  So he's upset because he's working for the cartel and he gotta have answers.
• 23:12
  Hey, where's the drug or do something about it.
• 23:15
  He got robbed two different times.
• 23:16
  There's one guy he had to kill, but he was afraid to kill him because he was his brother.
• 23:20
  So he put ketchup,
• 23:22
  all on his brother and took a picture and told him, man, you got to get out of town and never come back.
• 23:27
  So the cartel bought that.
• 23:29
  Now the next person he has to kill is his girlfriend, which is my mom.
• 23:33
  Never shared this story before, right?
• 23:35
  But not only he's going to kill my mom, he's going to kill in front of her two boys, the black boy and the white brother.
• 23:41
  He said, y'all want to stay up and watch me kill your mama?
• 23:44
  Like, what?
• 23:44
  Get the hell out of here.
• 23:45
  And so we say yes because we're going to try to save her, not because we want to see it.
• 23:50
  Like, yeah, we want to see.
• 23:51
  So at nine years old is the first and only time that I ever took cocaine.
• 23:55
  He put cocaine, he got it out the bag, put it on my tongue and my brother's tongue.
• 24:00
  We went numb.
• 24:01
  Eight or nine years old, tastes cocaine for the first time and the only time in my life.
• 24:06
  Tom goes numb.
• 24:06
  Mom comes home.
• 24:08
  She said, what y'all still doing up?
• 24:10
  Because she already knew it was fit to go down.
• 24:12
  And she like, and I said, well, Charlie gave us some...
• 24:15
  Some white stuff.
• 24:16
  And we put it on her tongue.
• 24:16
  She's like, what?
• 24:17
  You gave him some cocaine?
• 24:18
  So now she's cussing him out.
• 24:20
  And then the fight's on.
• 24:22
  And so he punches her.
• 24:23
  He fights her.
• 24:24
  Then he gets this little miniature baseball bat wrapped in black tape.
• 24:26
  It was her bat that she'd keep behind the door for defense.
• 24:30
  Broke her arms and legs.
• 24:32
  Right arm, left leg.
• 24:34
  But he didn't kill her?
• 24:35
  Didn't kill her.
• 24:36
  But he tried to.
• 24:36
  And he just, you know, he left.
• 24:38
  He beat her in the head and stuff.
• 24:39
  But the left arm...
• 24:41
  Yeah.
• 24:42
  So you got out of the projects, but what part of the projects never got out of you?
• 24:46
  It never gets out of you.
• 24:47
  Like, that's why when I go back, like, I never forget where I came from.
• 24:51
  Some people that don't know me may think I do.
• 24:54
  But if you had any of my friends, if they see me, they come into one of my establishments, they come to one of my rent houses, they'll call me, hey, do I have any place to rent or anything or come eat barbecue?
• 25:04
  I always treat them with respect because I never forgot because just like that, you could be back and...
• 25:11
  The real ones know.
• 25:12
  The people that don't know me, they might think Tiki's this, that, another, but the ones that know, they know.
• 25:18
  You keep reminding me that you're either humble or you will be.
• 25:22
  Oh yeah.
• 25:22
  Life will do that to you.
• 25:24
  I can't help but think too, was there a moment in your life where you almost became the exact thing everybody predicts you would become?
• 25:32
  Because you're the one that broke the cycle.
• 25:34
  So was there a point where it didn't?
• 25:36
  Because it happened to me that way.
• 25:38
  No, it was not a point.
• 25:40
  It was almost expected.
• 25:41
  So I used to get so frustrated because where I came from was so bad.
• 25:46
  Things that I had to experience through life was so bad.
• 25:48
  So people would make excuses like, hey, it's okay if you go to prison for the rest of your life.
• 25:53
  It's okay if you're dead before you're 21.
• 25:55
  It's okay if you don't know how to read and write.
• 25:57
  It's okay if you don't go to college.
• 25:58
  It's okay, and that would piss me the fuck off.
• 26:00
  It would make me mad.
• 26:01
  Like, don't make excuse for my failure.
• 26:03
  Like, they thought me and my brother was gonna be failures because who my mama was and who my daddy was.
• 26:09
  I didn't want that.
• 26:10
  So I decided like, hey, man, you're not going to count me out.
• 26:12
  So I would never...
• 26:15
  I've always been winning at my level.
• 26:17
  Like when I was washing cars, like at the dealership, I was the best car washer.
• 26:22
  When I was 17, 16, working at Foot Locker selling shoes, I sold the most Foot Locker shoes ever.
• 26:29
  I had the 99% multiples because people think the shoe store is about selling a pair of Nikes or Jordans or Air Max.
• 26:35
  It's not about that.
• 26:36
  It's the multiple.
• 26:37
  The shoe...
• 26:38
  is the dressing.
• 26:39
  It's like when you buy a car, you got to sell the tent, the warranty.
• 26:42
  So the multiple is selling the socks, the shoe cleaner, the laces, a shirt, a jacket, the multiple.
• 26:50
  That's how the shoe store makes me.
• 26:52
  I was the best.
• 26:52
  So anytime that I got an opportunity in anything, later on we got into the oil, we got into flipping.
• 26:58
  I've always been a hustler my whole life.
• 27:00
  So, I was like an underdog, but the way I was able to come up, and just like you probably,
• 27:08
  They weren't really paying attention for your success, so I snuck up on the whole world.
• 27:12
  Did you ever feel like that's what you were just outrunning, outrunning that negativity?
• 27:17
  Yes.
• 27:18
  And if I just did this, this, this, this, I will be safe.
• 27:22
  And you realize that the harder you run, the more that you kind of get still into it.
• 27:30
  Yeah, so I heard Bishop Jake say one time, he says, new level, you get a new devil.
• 27:35
  So what attacks you at this level is not necessarily going to attack you on this level.
• 27:39
  So I started getting attacked at that new level.
• 27:42
  So I had to re-identify, adjust, and pivot at this new level.
• 27:46
  And also you hear like back in the day when you're at that turtle stage.
• 27:51
  Then you go to that garage.
• 27:53
  The next stage is the giraffe stage, and you go to the eagle stage.
• 27:56
  So when you're at the turtle stage, you can hear what turtles are saying.
• 28:00
  But as you go to that giraffe stage, you start to grow.
• 28:02
  That's where I think I am in my career.
• 28:04
  That giraffe stage, the conversation is different.
• 28:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:07
  You can't necessarily hear what those old conversations were, those people, those places, those negativities.
• 28:11
  You can't hear, but now you're growing a little bit.
• 28:14
  You've got something around.
• 28:15
  You have that giraffe stage, so it's a new conversation, but now you've got to navigate that new space, that new positive or negative energy.
• 28:21
  And then when you get to that top, that peak mountain, where we're trying to climb to is that eagle stage.
• 28:26
  Eagles really don't hear too much because you're kind of in that air.
• 28:30
  You're kind of floating, and that elevation in the air is different up there.
• 28:34
  So I just try to stay positive.
• 28:37
  Like people say, how can you be so positive?
• 28:39
  Because that's the only thing that kept me sane.
• 28:40
  Because if I would have dug into that negative energy, I would have been just like everybody else where I'm from.
• 28:45
  So is positivity the thing that...
• 28:49
  You had to change to not become that.
• 28:52
  This is where I'm getting at is the worst thing that ever happens to us, the biggest traumatic event stays with us until, and it keeps showing up in our day-to-day life till we actually integrate it.
• 29:03
  So which one of the losses impacted you the most and which ones did you have to absolutely integrate the fastest so they wouldn't keep showing up?
• 29:12
  You said it yourself from the turtle to the eagle.
• 29:16
  The eagle won't let you have that victim conversation anymore.
• 29:20
  You can't sit with me at dinner and start talking about, well, I'm this way because I was stabbed in the neck.
• 29:25
  No, no.
• 29:26
  See, I'm complete opposite of that because I don't have a victim mentality.
• 29:30
  You hear it all the time, but you don't get the blessing without the working.
• 29:34
  I ain't never met nobody could outwork me in anything.
• 29:37
  At my level, like I think I'm the best.
• 29:39
  Even when I got into the speaking business, I was like, there's room for me.
• 29:42
  There's room for me.
• 29:42
  And the reason I knew there's room because I thought I could do better than what's out there.
• 29:45
  That's why I thought there's room.
• 29:46
  I wasn't calling out anybody.
• 29:48
  It's like, I can do this too.
• 29:50
  Because I made...
• 29:54
  a million dollars in real estate.
• 29:56
  I made a million dollars selling ribs.
• 29:58
  I made a million dollars being an engineer, and I wasn't afraid to switch helmets.
• 30:02
  So you hear everybody talking about pivot, right?
• 30:04
  Right.
• 30:05
  Pivoting.
• 30:06
  Man, I'm the best pivot player in the world.
• 30:08
  You didn't even talk about basketball.
• 30:09
  Yeah, yeah.
• 30:11
  So you have to pivot your mindset, and whatever they threw at me,
• 30:16
  had to pivot but the have to pivot I had no choice imagine when you have to pivot see that's the difference when when I went to college that's where I lived I didn't have nowhere to go back to my step parents they said hey we're gonna give you a room away but hey I said I appreciated the time I had it so when I went to college when I went home I could stay on the couch but when I went to college that was my home so imagine leaving really not having nowhere to go back to
• 30:42
  Mama's in prison, step families gave you a room away.
• 30:45
  So you gotta make this work.
• 30:47
  You got four years and a guy paying for your college, you gotta make it work because you have nowhere to go back to.
• 30:53
  I love the passion that you're doing.
• 30:56
  And I could see your whole face changing.
• 30:58
  I'm thinking in my head this, most people think that they have no choice, but they think it is a negative.
• 31:04
  You just spun it positive.
• 31:06
  I did the same thing and I didn't even realize it until you just said it.
• 31:09
  What let's talk to the audience member that thinks that they don't have choice.
• 31:13
  Maybe it's a woman who's in a stuck in a dead end marriage.
• 31:15
  Maybe it's a guy who knows he's destined for more.
• 31:20
  How can he pivot that one mind frame?
• 31:23
  He or she pivot that one mind frame from it being a positive like you just did from the negative that's holding them back.
• 31:31
  I think you got to look at yourself and ask yourself in the situation, any situation, marriage, business.
• 31:41
  Those are two we just go marriage and business.
• 31:43
  In this relationship, anybody can do this.
• 31:46
  Look around and ask yourself in this relationship, whatever it is in your life, are you living together or are you dying together?
• 31:54
  good one.
• 31:55
  So that's how you evaluate it.
• 31:57
  Whatever it is, you look at it.
• 31:59
  Are we growing to the next level together?
• 32:01
  Are we dying at the next level together?
• 32:03
  So are we living together or dying together?
• 32:04
  And in a relationship, if you ask yourself, is that simple?
• 32:07
  Because you know what you're struggling with.
• 32:09
  You know the shortcoming of the business, the relationship, or whatever it is, you know, is it benefiting me or is it hurting me living or dying?
• 32:18
  What I see with you, Tiki, is radical, obnoxious self-awareness.
• 32:24
  Yeah.
• 32:25
  Where did that come from?
• 32:26
  I always had a strong discernment because navigating the life that I had to overcome, you have to, I know the essence of people.
• 32:35
  I can look at a person and tell you if he's a good person or not.
• 32:38
  I'm that good.
• 32:39
  And not an arrogant or cocky.
• 32:40
  It's just God gave me that gift to tell I could see people's heart through just really just energies.
• 32:46
  And I know phonies are fake or whatever, but I'm about 80% straight up.
• 32:51
  And that's how I was able to navigate my life to get in the right rooms because understanding things that I had to overcome, I couldn't just go work with a supervisor or the person that gave a referral.
• 33:04
  God gave me favor when I started working at these places, partnering with these people.
• 33:08
  It's the best people in the world.
• 33:09
  The top dog, the guy that sent me to college, he owned the dealership.
• 33:13
  When I worked in the oil business, I only dealt with the guy that owned, the billionaire that owned the oil company.
• 33:19
  When I finally got the major book deal, I dealt with the top publisher, the business partner we have here at Viola,
• 33:26
  Top actress, arguably, and to me, the best in the world.
• 33:30
  So God has put me in position with the right people to protect this journey when it was time.
• 33:36
  It's beautiful.
• 33:36
  Walk us through your intuition.
• 33:39
  We call it discernment, but it's an intuition.
• 33:42
  And the person who's listening to this driving, you know when something isn't for you.
• 33:49
  Walk us through how your discernment process, but break it down for the average Joe who they know that something's off, but they do nothing.
• 33:59
  Okay.
• 34:00
  When you go into a room and you have that funny feeling at the pit of your stomach, that's something that's not right.
• 34:07
  It's uneasy.
• 34:08
  Or you go into a situation and you see something that's not right.
• 34:11
  Should I say something?
• 34:13
  Should I do something?
• 34:14
  Do you see that kids left in the car by themselves?
• 34:17
  That un-
• 34:18
  That's how you can see it visually.
• 34:20
  But when you see it visually, you know something ain't right.
• 34:23
  But when you feel that in your spirit, when you don't see nothing, that's how you know it.
• 34:27
  That feeling that something's not right, something's uncomfortable.
• 34:30
  When you feel that feeling, when you don't see it in front of you.
• 34:34
  That's the discernment.
• 34:35
  That's how you can identify what's wrong in your life or what's wrong in the situation.
• 34:40
  You'll have that feeling without physically seeing it.
• 34:43
  It's just something that's going to come over your spirit like, man, it's not right.
• 34:47
  I need to get out of here.
• 34:48
  Or if you like walk in the bank and a guy comes in with a dark shades on and a ski mask like, man, is this guy going to rob the place?
• 34:54
  But that feeling you got of uncomfortable.
• 34:56
  Do I need to take him down?
• 34:57
  But you feel that without actually seeing the guy with the ski mask, the shades.
• 35:02
  You see that from that person or that energy in that room.
• 35:05
  Like, man, something just off of this energy.
• 35:06
  Man, I got to get out of here.
• 35:07
  It's not for me.
• 35:09
  And that's the discernment.
• 35:10
  That's the key.
• 35:11
  And that's how you would know.
• 35:13
  Can it just be unfamiliarity?
• 35:15
  It could be.
• 35:16
  It could be.
• 35:17
  That's a good thing.
• 35:18
  Because, like, say one of your friends brought you into a room with guys you don't know.
• 35:21
  Like, hey, some guys I want you to meet.
• 35:23
  And you got a good relationship with your friend.
• 35:24
  Like, yeah, man, I'm cool.
• 35:25
  But...
• 35:27
  You might not have that talk with them that night, like, yeah, man, I'm cool, I wanna work, I wanna work with you, but I'm not really interested in working with your team.
• 35:33
  Your other guys, it was just something that was off.
• 35:35
  And that's cool.
• 35:36
  You know, I'm still friends with you, and you can be friends with them, but brother, I can't deal with them.
• 35:40
  So that's the discernment, and a lot of times, what I do when I don't feel safe or something, I just disappear.
• 35:48
  Like a lot of people say, you go into a blackout mode.
• 35:51
  I guess I've been doing it before anybody called it.
• 35:53
  I just stay in my safe place.
• 35:56
  You know, let's switch to some positivity for a little bit.
• 35:59
  You just said you made a lot of money in several different businesses.
• 36:02
  But what did you understand about business that guys with graduate degrees walked right past?
• 36:08
  Because that school of hard knocks, that education that you received in survival mode can never be replaced.
• 36:16
  No, you can't.
• 36:17
  So what I learned the most about entrepreneurship, that's what they call it.
• 36:21
  I used to call it hustling.
• 36:24
  Take the kid out of the gut.
• 36:26
  I call it hustling, right?
• 36:29
  Whatever I did, I just needed an opportunity.
• 36:32
  So that's what you can't teach for an entrepreneur.
• 36:35
  You got to get started.
• 36:37
  So at 10, 11 years old, I've been working for myself since that long.
• 36:42
  I used to sell candy door-to-door for the West Texas teens.
• 36:45
  Every box of candy that I sold, I got a dollar bill.
• 36:48
  I would knock on your door, doo-doo-doo-doo, even if they said on the door, no solicitation, no donation.
• 36:53
  I was that good.
• 36:54
  I'm going to make you buy something for me, and your door said no solicitation.
• 36:58
  I would go in there and say, hey, how you doing?
• 36:59
  My name is Tiki Davis.
• 37:01
  She's like, how you doing, son?
• 37:02
  You working out here?
• 37:03
  You want something to drink?
• 37:03
  Yes, ma'am.
• 37:04
  I'll take a cup of Kool-Aid or water, whatever you have.
• 37:07
  She says, what are you selling?
• 37:08
  I said, I'm glad you asked.
• 37:09
  I get down on one knee and say, hey, how you doing?
• 37:11
  My name is Tiki Davis.
• 37:12
  I'm a member of the West Texas team.
• 37:14
  This is a working program that keeps me busy and out of trouble.
• 37:17
  We also earn trips and activities with your purchase.
• 37:19
  You can help me reach my goal.
• 37:21
  Let me show you some of my products.
• 37:23
  So I reached in there.
• 37:25
  Here we have some caramel nut clusters.
• 37:27
  Some people call them turtles.
• 37:28
  We also have some peanut brittle.
• 37:30
  We also have beer nut, coloring cloths, all this stuff.
• 37:33
  They would pay $5 for one of these products, and I'll get a dollar bill.
• 37:36
  That would be my commission.
• 37:38
  But sometimes they would say, oh, that's slave labor.
• 37:40
  I'm not going to buy anything, but here go you $5.
• 37:43
  So I take that.
• 37:44
  So every day after school, I would do that.
• 37:46
  After football practice in the summer, I would make about 60 bucks.
• 37:49
  So on a given week, at 12 year olds, I was running about $120.
• 37:53
  I was already making the most money in my house.
• 37:55
  So I used to have to start taking my money to school because why did I have to start taking my money to school?
• 38:00
  Because my mom would always ask me for money.
• 38:03
  And then when I would stash it, she started robbing me.
• 38:06
  So at 12, 11 years old, I was getting robbed by my mom.
• 38:09
  One day I come home from school, I walk around the corner, my mom's having a party.
• 38:13
  She was bugging me the day before for money.
• 38:15
  I'm telling her no.
• 38:17
  Her friend and this other lady's drinking beer and barbecuing.
• 38:20
  So I go first, I beeline to my stash, the money's gone.
• 38:24
  $280.
• 38:24
  I had worked all summer for her.
• 38:27
  I go back to her and I say, hey mama, did you steal my money?
• 38:31
  She goes, no, I didn't steal your money.
• 38:34
  And I walked around the corner, but I kind of stuck and listened, right?
• 38:37
  The lady that was speaking to my mom, she said, Louise.
• 38:40
  That's what she called my mom, Louise.
• 38:42
  Did you steal that baby's money?
• 38:44
  And then she says, yeah, I did.
• 38:46
  I had 100 left, and I was going to give it to him, but I'm his MF mama, and you don't talk to me like that.
• 38:52
  And so I busted out back around.
• 38:53
  I said, you know what, mama?
• 38:55
  You keep that.
• 38:56
  I'm going to go get some more.
• 38:58
  And so from that day on, I used to go to school with my money.
• 39:01
  So I'm at the school, eighth grade or seventh grade, and, you know, we keep the bankroll.
• 39:08
  We keep the ones in the middle and the big bills on top of this big fat roll.
• 39:12
  So I used to flash it in the bathroom.
• 39:14
  So everybody's like, what do you do, Tiki?
• 39:15
  Why do you get all that money?
• 39:17
  I sell candy.
• 39:20
  Well, that made it to the principal.
• 39:22
  The principal calls me down to the office, tells me to show him the bankroll.
• 39:26
  I show him the bankroll.
• 39:27
  He said, Tiki, how do you get all this money?
• 39:28
  I said, I sell candy after school.
• 39:30
  She said, he said, who's your pusher?
• 39:32
  I said, it's a guy named Eddie Vidal.
• 39:33
  He said, he's going to pick you up today after school?
• 39:35
  He's like, yeah, he's going to be in a little maroon van, minivan.
• 39:38
  He said, oh, okay.
• 39:39
  So then at that time, my probation officer, Gary Speed, walks in.
• 39:44
  He says, Tiki.
• 39:45
  Tiki.
• 39:46
  what are you doing selling candy?
• 39:47
  What are you doing with all this money?
• 39:48
  And I said, Gary, I don't know if you know it or not, but it's seven days in a week, and five of them I'll take care of myself.
• 39:54
  He's like, your mom's not home?
• 39:56
  I said, you know she's not home.
• 39:57
  Don't try to act like that in front of these people.
• 39:59
  He says, well, you can't live alone.
• 40:02
  So he says, so your pusher's coming after school?
• 40:04
  I said, yeah, he'll be here.
• 40:05
  So after school, Eddie pulls up, the sheriff's department, police department, surrounds this guy's van.
• 40:11
  They ambush him.
• 40:13
  put them on the ground, open up all these boxes thinking it's drugs and it's candy.
• 40:19
  So from that on, he says, Tiki, you can't live alone.
• 40:23
  And that's how I ended up getting into Buckner's group home for boys.
• 40:27
  And because I was living alone, taking care of myself, and they thought I was a drug dealer.
• 40:31
  And that return at 12 years old was the first time that I went to a house two years consecutive, the same room.
• 40:38
  I had a room with another boy.
• 40:40
  It was eight other boys in this boy's home from all over Texas that was placed there because of probation, homelessness, or whatever, just for teen boys.
• 40:49
  It's so bananas, the parallels.
• 40:52
  You just gave me the chills.
• 40:53
  I sold candy, turtles, door to door.
• 40:58
  And I got down on the knee and I had a script.
• 41:00
  And I heard you just reading your script.
• 41:02
  Oh, no, no way.
• 41:03
  It was about freaking how this is keeping me off the street.
• 41:06
  And what I learned about the power of the pivot that you just said was I would go there and I'd go door to door.
• 41:12
  And I thought it was a numbers game.
• 41:14
  And I would knock on every door and say, want to buy some candy?
• 41:16
  Want to buy some candy?
• 41:16
  And then I realized...
• 41:17
  I'm going to follow the script and get down on the knee.
• 41:20
  And I had it down where I would reach down and I'd grab those caramel nut clusters and I would jam it in their in their belly.
• 41:26
  Right.
• 41:26
  So they have to grab it.
• 41:27
  And you know what?
• 41:28
  I knew I was good when I would sell diabetics.
• 41:31
  Oh, wow.
• 41:32
  Because, you know, I tell you this brought it back to me.
• 41:35
  We're talking 40 years ago.
• 41:37
  Right.
• 41:37
  So I would say to them, they say, I'm diabetic.
• 41:41
  And I'd say, well, put it out for your guests and put it out for your people.
• 41:45
  And you're helping out kids.
• 41:46
  Right.
• 41:47
  And they would buy.
• 41:48
  Right.
• 41:48
  And I used that door-to-door sales.
• 41:50
  Everybody should do it.
• 41:51
  Door-to-door sales.
• 41:52
  Having doors, throat slammed on you, people yelling at you.
• 41:56
  And, man, that had my sales career.
• 41:59
  That was the best.
• 42:00
  Yeah.
• 42:00
  And so that's what, like, a lot of times people, rejection is going to come.
• 42:04
  So you really need, like, at least 50 to 100 no's before you get that first yes.
• 42:09
  It's funny you say that.
• 42:10
  I used to play a game.
• 42:11
  I used to count.
• 42:13
  Out of 100, I knew I would get to talk to 10 people, and one of them I would sell.
• 42:17
  So I'd count in my head.
• 42:19
  And that's just basically just...
• 42:21
  I didn't have no other choice.
• 42:23
  Like some people have a lifeline.
• 42:24
  Like I said, when I went to college, I didn't really have a place to go back.
• 42:27
  Now my step parents would have let me live there if I needed to.
• 42:30
  But in my mind, they gave my room away in my room.
• 42:33
  Hey, my time there is done.
• 42:34
  So when I get out of college, I got to go get my own.
• 42:37
  Oh, that's the expectation.
• 42:39
  But when I got through college, it wasn't that easy because I couldn't find no job because nobody would give me a shot.
• 42:44
  Yeah, it's amazing how when your back is against the wall.
• 42:47
  For me, it was just food.
• 42:49
  I would take that money and I would go buy food because there was no food in the house.
• 42:53
  My parents were alcoholics, so I didn't have a choice either.
• 42:56
  Let's talk a little bit more about money.
• 42:57
  Okay.
• 42:58
  What's the biggest mistake you made with money after you had finally made it?
• 43:02
  The biggest mistake that I made with money was partnering with friends.
• 43:06
  Oh, do tell.
• 43:07
  You can partner with friends now that have money, but you can't partner with a friend that doesn't have any money.
• 43:12
  So if you don't have sweat equity in the game, what I mean is if we come to the deal, if I'm putting up $100,000, you're putting up $100,000.
• 43:19
  Because the mistake I made, I was the money, and this other guy was the opportunity.
• 43:25
  And so when I put up all the money...
• 43:27
  And the business fell.
• 43:29
  He went back to his normal life.
• 43:30
  I was the one that trying to recoup that $100,000 or that $200,000.
• 43:34
  And he's not going to work as hard if he's just the mouth.
• 43:37
  And he's looking at your success.
• 43:38
  I hope Tiki's success can rub off on me.
• 43:41
  But he didn't have my same work ethic or they didn't have my same work ethic.
• 43:44
  And so it's not going to work in this unit because now I'm in something I don't know nothing about.
• 43:48
  I'm trusting you.
• 43:50
  To be the expert, I know this, what I did to make my money, but I got this money.
• 43:54
  So now I'm trying to make these bigger streams of income because now I'm overstanding and overinvesting and losing big lump sums of money trying to invest in somebody else that has this great vision.
• 44:06
  So that's the number one mistake I did, partnering with friends with no money.
• 44:10
  Is it with no money or is it partnering or...
• 44:14
  partnering with friends?
• 44:16
  I think it's friends with no money.
• 44:18
  I think you could get in a good partnership with good friends because like I said, if you got your money in it and you don't want to lose your hundred grand, like I don't want to lose my hundred grand, you're going to participate because there's risk reward in there.
• 44:29
  But the friend with no money, all he has is an opportunity and hope it works to blow up like you blew up.
• 44:33
  He don't have sweat equity in it or financial equity in it.
• 44:37
  He doesn't really care.
• 44:38
  He hope it works, but when it don't, he's like,
• 44:40
  Oh man, I tried.
• 44:41
  I thought it was gonna.
• 44:42
  And boy, man, that's a bad feeling for me.
• 44:46
  They say you are the company you keep.
• 44:48
  So if you are partnering with somebody now, how fast can you tell if they belong in your circle or not?
• 44:55
  And what does it tell you?
• 44:56
  Is it the money or is it nowadays you're not hanging out with people that aren't that don't have money.
• 45:00
  What do you do now that you're successful?
• 45:03
  Well, you just got to make sure you align with that right group.
• 45:05
  Like now, you know, my circle in the speaking business, you know, I could pick up the phone and call John Gordon.
• 45:11
  Right.
• 45:12
  Do has a lot of money.
• 45:13
  I could pick up the phone and call Damon West.
• 45:17
  Got a lot of money that's in the speaking business, you know, been at events with other great speakers.
• 45:22
  But, you know, I call it borrowed credibility.
• 45:26
  relationship capital.
• 45:27
  So those relationships, if they're nurtured the right way, because you can't name drop, right?
• 45:31
  So if I go and say, hey, man, I was on the Kelly podcast.
• 45:34
  I know Kelly Siegel, man, great guy.
• 45:35
  And I really don't know you.
• 45:37
  And somebody, hey, you know, Tiki Davis.
• 45:38
  And then you come back like, yeah, that guy.
• 45:41
  So that's going to actually hurt you more than it helped you, right?
• 45:45
  So I don't name drop or do anything like that unless I have a solid relationship with that person and they can vouch for me.
• 45:50
  So now those relationships that's in your circle,
• 45:56
  I do business with people and then I become friends right it's like Stephen and I become family we become family you know right yeah we've had you under the pocket we've been talking for a year yeah so that's what I like doing I just like to find common people and make them friends and family so I love in the book you call it people counting you out bad math yeah yeah what specifically is bad math and who's doing the counting there
• 46:22
  It's just like with anybody else, like the school teacher that didn't believe in you.
• 46:25
  Like if a kid goes and says, hey, I want to go to the NFL or NBA, or pick another career, you're not going to make it.
• 46:32
  Then you hear this guy becomes LeBron James.
• 46:35
  They counted him out.
• 46:36
  That was bad math.
• 46:37
  So when that teacher or anybody said negative, like, hey, Kelly, you're not going to be successful speaker.
• 46:42
  This podcast is not going to be successful.
• 46:45
  Then it goes on to be successful.
• 46:46
  That's bad math.
• 46:47
  You counted me out.
• 46:48
  Bad math.
• 46:49
  So it's to anybody that's trying to do something.
• 46:53
  You tell somebody else about it like, oh, that ain't going to work.
• 46:55
  The haters.
• 46:57
  When you make it and you blow up, that's bad math.
• 47:00
  You bet it.
• 47:00
  The bet was wrong.
• 47:01
  It was bad math.
• 47:02
  So, yeah.
• 47:03
  That's beautiful, Tiki.
• 47:04
  Bad math.
• 47:05
  So my stepfather used to tell me I was nothing.
• 47:08
  I would amount to nothing.
• 47:09
  I was stupid.
• 47:10
  I wasn't worth anything.
• 47:11
  Yeah.
• 47:12
  And deep down, I believed him, even though I didn't.
• 47:14
  But I would say little tricks in my head like, you don't know what he's talking about.
• 47:18
  And I played games with impossible.
• 47:21
  Impossible only describes the degree of difficulty.
• 47:23
  Impossible says I'm possible.
• 47:25
  I used to trick myself with that over and over and over again.
• 47:28
  But I love that bad math.
• 47:30
  It's bad math because ask yourself, is it true?
• 47:33
  And it's there's no evidence.
• 47:35
  That is true that we ain't going to amount to anything.
• 47:38
  So if you're listening to this, you got two dudes.
• 47:40
  Yeah.
• 47:41
  Who the whole world was stacked against us.
• 47:44
  And we're sitting here at Fort Lauderdale having a blast, smiling.
• 47:48
  Yeah.
• 47:49
  And loving our lives.
• 47:50
  So if we did it, you can too.
• 47:53
  Oftentimes people look at your situation and they think it's easy, but it really takes a lifetime to have some success, and you don't always highlight all the failures and the heartbreaks and everything that you go through because I had, through that success, I had a lot of setbacks.
• 48:06
  My football career in college didn't go the way I wanted because that was my out.
• 48:09
  Going to college wasn't never to get a degree.
• 48:11
  It was going there to put up some stats and go to the NFL.
• 48:15
  And then when that didn't happen, that's what you really got to do as an athlete.
• 48:18
  You look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, is you good enough?
• 48:21
  So at the age of 22, 23, 24 years old, that's when I put down the football for the final time.
• 48:27
  And I picked up the books because I realized I just didn't want to be a player in the field of athletics.
• 48:31
  No, no, no.
• 48:31
  You pivoted like you always did.
• 48:32
  I need to be a player in life.
• 48:34
  And that's how I started.
• 48:37
  All I ever asked anybody was an opportunity.
• 48:39
  I never even prayed God for money.
• 48:40
  I just said, just give me an opportunity.
• 48:43
  I never prayed to God.
• 48:44
  Sometimes people say, oh, I never prayed for money ever in my life, ever.
• 48:48
  I just prayed God, give me an opportunity.
• 48:50
  That's so good.
• 48:51
  Give me an opportunity.
• 48:52
  Yeah, that's all I've ever asked.
• 48:53
  I'll show you.
• 48:54
  Yeah, yeah.
• 48:55
  And that's it.
• 48:55
  And then you know what I always will do?
• 48:57
  Give me an opportunity and then count me out.
• 48:59
  Yeah.
• 49:00
  Do that.
• 49:01
  Throw some gasoline on the fire.
• 49:03
  Yeah.
• 49:03
  And that's what you need, because the underdog like like even in my businesses, I used to always hire second chance people.
• 49:09
  Sometime it worked for me.
• 49:10
  Sometime it didn't because I believe second chance people are.
• 49:16
  Harder workers because they just can't quit and go find another job.
• 49:20
  So they got something to prove and they need that stability.
• 49:23
  It's like, all right, thank you, Mr. Davis, for giving me an opportunity because so many other places wouldn't.
• 49:28
  So those people that have something to prove, a little chip on their shoulder.
• 49:31
  But I used to call mine a boulder.
• 49:33
  Wasn't a chip.
• 49:34
  It was a boulder, a mountain.
• 49:35
  And I had to move it.
• 49:37
  Like sometimes I say run through it or run around it.
• 49:40
  Like whatever I had to do, if it was a mountain, I couldn't climb it.
• 49:43
  I couldn't go through it.
• 49:45
  So I had to take the long way.
• 49:47
  So everything that I had to do, I had to take the long way around the mountain.
• 49:50
  And so far it's worked out because you can't cheat the experience.
• 49:54
  You know what I'm working on right now, Tiki, is not taking the long way.
• 49:57
  It's just sitting there and doing nothing and allowing God to deliver.
• 50:00
  That's what the heart of the life is.
• 50:01
  I said, you have to be hard in life because it's going to be hard.
• 50:04
  But I'm realizing now, as I've just turned 50, that we got it wrong, man.
• 50:10
  We don't have to grind as hard as we did.
• 50:12
  That was a survival mechanism.
• 50:14
  So I'm working on the uncomfortable with just sitting and letting life catch up to me.
• 50:18
  But I want to go into that a little deeper about the second chance people.
• 50:21
  Because most people think that...
• 50:24
  A rotten egg is a rotten egg.
• 50:26
  But you see it differently.
• 50:28
  Dig a little deeper that what you see in the second chance people that other employees keep missing.
• 50:33
  Besides that grit, what do you trust about them that most employers don't?
• 50:41
  Because sometimes you got to listen.
• 50:43
  You got to listen.
• 50:44
  So I listen to those people that need that second chance because I need somebody to listen to me.
• 50:51
  So reach one, teach one.
• 50:54
  So I would reach that person and teach them what I know if they would listen.
• 50:58
  Now, I wouldn't waste my time on every person, but if I'm out on an oil rig and I got a catering and I have a young lady or a young man that wants to know my story, like, Tiki, how did you become successful?
• 51:09
  I said, I'm here with you 2 o'clock in the morning on an oil rig and I got a million dollars in the bank and I'm out here with you showing you this is how it's done because it's important for me to protect this client.
• 51:22
  This is how it's done because I'm showing you.
• 51:23
  I'm not just sending you out here.
• 51:25
  I want to train you away because I want to keep this money going for the company.
• 51:28
  Not so much for me, but I need this restaurant to make this kind of money to take care of the restaurant.
• 51:33
  Because I used to always try to explain to them, those second chance people, what I was seeing to the ones that I would explain is, this restaurant business got to take care of the restaurant business.
• 51:41
  But they thought that I could fund the other business with my other money.
• 51:44
  I've done that, too, because you know you move money around to make something else grow.
• 51:47
  But...
• 51:48
  The ones that understood that they would ask certain type of questions.
• 51:52
  And then they just want to say, well, one day I want to start my own thing.
• 51:55
  Those are the ones that you want to pour more into.
• 51:58
  A lot of times people look at it as they're going to leave you.
• 52:02
  But no, the best thing you can do is you help people get some of the stuff they want.
• 52:06
  They'll help you get the things that you want.
• 52:08
  And so I invested in the right ones that ask the right questions.
• 52:12
  Let's speak specifically to the man who was 45, broke, convinced his window was already closed.
• 52:19
  What does the Tiki factor teach him?
• 52:21
  You got to make a total commitment.
• 52:22
  That's the T and the Tiki factor.
• 52:24
  The window...
• 52:26
  It depends on 45 is really like to me, I think that's when I really started living.
• 52:32
  So 45, the window's not closed.
• 52:34
  It should just be getting open.
• 52:36
  And at that time, you probably already had a divorce.
• 52:39
  You probably lost money.
• 52:40
  You probably have some kids.
• 52:41
  You probably didn't have some setbacks.
• 52:42
  You have some life experience.
• 52:44
  So you're not a blank canvas.
• 52:46
  So whatever reason it got you in that situation, you got some experience.
• 52:50
  Try not to repeat those same mistakes.
• 52:52
  And don't be afraid to make some new mistakes.
• 52:54
  Yeah.
• 52:54
  Can't be too cautious, but go out there.
• 52:57
  Now's the time.
• 52:58
  It ain't tomorrow.
• 52:59
  Now's the time.
• 53:00
  So go out there and make a total commitment to not only your life, but that thing that keeping you up at night.
• 53:07
  That thing that's making you uncomfortable.
• 53:09
  That's that T in the tiki factor, that T. That's that total commitment.
• 53:14
  What are you committed to?
• 53:15
  The good things are the bad things.
• 53:17
  So we commit, and none of us get out of here.
• 53:19
  Like we all commit to some bad things, but you gotta commit to those more positive things that's gonna get you to what you want.
• 53:26
  Can you talk about that committing to the bad things?
• 53:28
  Because a lot of people, I see it.
• 53:30
  It's we're on life's merry-go-round, and we're just going round and round and puking, and they don't realize that they are the problems.
• 53:37
  When you're committed to staying the same, what do you say to somebody when they come to you?
• 53:43
  Tiki, life's been against me, and you don't understand my parents.
• 53:49
  So I tell them, I say, first, you got it wrong.
• 53:52
  Because now that I became a speaker, man, I want to tell my story too.
• 53:55
  Like, all right, go ahead and tell your story.
• 53:57
  But actually, you got to win at the end.
• 53:59
  You got to win at the end.
• 54:01
  That's good.
• 54:01
  Yeah, you see what I'm saying?
• 54:02
  Nobody wants to hear a story of somebody that hasn't won.
• 54:04
  Right.
• 54:05
  So what are you going to do to go win?
• 54:08
  And then, hey, Les Brown taught me this.
• 54:11
  Nobody cares about your story until they see themselves in your story.
• 54:14
  So it's not about you.
• 54:16
  You got to connect with that audience and grab them.
• 54:19
  They got to be invested in your story.
• 54:22
  So when I'm telling that story on stage, I said, good evening, good honor.
• 54:25
  It's a pleasure.
• 54:26
  But I got a question to ask everybody in the room.
• 54:28
  Are you currently living your dream right now?
• 54:30
  Raise your hand.
• 54:31
  So now the participation, the buy-in.
• 54:34
  Now they're not, now he's like, yeah, I am living my dream.
• 54:38
  And I go, just like you, I had a dream.
• 54:40
  Growing up in this West Texas town known for football and oil, I had a dream.
• 54:44
  And that first dream was to be a football player.
• 54:46
  So now you got to have the buy-in.
• 54:48
  So now that I got that audience bought in,
• 54:51
  Now I know they're going to care about what I got to say.
• 54:54
  So what I tell them and anything that you're trying to do first, you got to have the buy-in.
• 54:58
  What's winning look like for Tiki?
• 55:00
  Winning to look like for me in this stage of my life is to be super successful, successful,
• 55:07
  in the world of speaking and hopefully become a New York time bestselling author with my book, the cheeky fact that that's what it looks like for me doing it again and something else.
• 55:17
  But now this is more meaning for me because now it's not about me.
• 55:20
  Just like what I said, what's in it for the world?
• 55:23
  What's in it for the audience?
• 55:24
  I'm doing this for them also for myself, but also, um,
• 55:29
  Like I walked away from the oil business eight years ago, making a million dollars average a year.
• 55:34
  Walked away from it now because I said now I want to do something that I want to do.
• 55:40
  Not making any money, speaking for $500 or for free for years.
• 55:45
  And people are like, hey, Tiki, what are you speaking about?
• 55:48
  You're an oil guy.
• 55:49
  You build houses.
• 55:50
  You sell barbecue.
• 55:51
  But the story is, how did I do it?
• 55:54
  If I keep all this with me, the story doesn't help.
• 55:58
  a future Kelly or a future Tiki or a future Ed or a future John or a future whoever, young kid in the ghetto that's struggling, that may got shot in the chest that survived, or mom died in prison like mine did, or dad can't read or write, never around.
• 56:16
  You're like, man, but that Tiki, man, I read his book, man, I was in the youth center.
• 56:19
  It changed my life.
• 56:20
  He came from the Chaparral Village Projects like me or a guy in Harlem who
• 56:25
  in the Bronx, like, you know, living in government housing.
• 56:28
  His family been there for 40 years, just rotating that voucher.
• 56:31
  And he picks up the Tiki Factor book and is like, man, I don't, I don't, I don't got to live in these projects.
• 56:36
  I could be the next biggie or I can be the next Tiki.
• 56:38
  You know, it starts with this in the ledger, man, somebody handed me this book and that's why I hope this does that.
• 56:45
  So as we've gone this far and we haven't said everything's happening for you and to you, all this tough stuff that happened,
• 56:51
  Yeah, it was hard.
• 56:52
  It was terrible.
• 56:53
  It should have never happened.
• 56:54
  But it did.
• 56:55
  And it was forming us.
• 56:57
  So it weaponized this stuff.
• 56:59
  When's the book come out?
• 57:00
  When's the pre-sale?
• 57:01
  Pre-sale right now is available on all platforms.
• 57:04
  Walmart, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.
• 57:07
  But it officially hits the world in bookstores October the 20th.
• 57:11
  Okay.
• 57:12
  So we'll put the link in the show notes.
• 57:13
  So the book and then there's a film coming out too, right?
• 57:16
  Yeah.
• 57:17
  We also optioned the movie rights.
• 57:20
  Don't know when that's coming out, but the movies already got a film in the works.
• 57:24
  What part of that whole bananas story do you hope doesn't get lost or doesn't get softened?
• 57:33
  They're calling my book the modern day pursuit of happiness.
• 57:37
  That's how they're marketing this book.
• 57:39
  So if you know that Chris Gardner story, it was a pursuit of happiness.
• 57:44
  My life is more of a pursuit of redemption.
• 57:47
  Hmm.
• 57:48
  It's a pursuit of I'm good enough.
• 57:51
  It's a pursuit.
• 57:52
  I belong in the room.
• 57:54
  It's a pursuit that you can't count me out.
• 57:56
  It's a Buster Douglas story.
• 57:59
  When nobody in the world thought he was going to knock out Mike Tyson in Tokyo but him and his mama.
• 58:04
  And his mama didn't believe in him until he did it.
• 58:07
  So he needed that inspiration.
• 58:08
  My sick mama in the hospital.
• 58:10
  Mike Tyson taking him light, partying the night before, doing drugs, doing all the stuff that he did.
• 58:16
  And this Buster Douglas, man, I'm going to go shock the world.
• 58:19
  And that's what I wanted to do.
• 58:21
  And that's what that book, if you're looking for the Shock the World, a Buster Douglas, a James Buster Douglas story, he might have lost it to Holyfield shortly after.
• 58:30
  But that night, nobody in the world thought he was going to win.
• 58:34
  But something in his heart getting into that ring
• 58:37
  fighting it out, and knocking out the baddest man on the planet.
• 58:41
  So that's how I see my life, like James Buster Douglas.
• 58:45
  Tiki Factor, that's great.
• 58:47
  I wanted to talk about that pursuit of happiness.
• 58:50
  I have a signature talk that I do about that pursuit.
• 58:52
  Okay.
• 58:53
  Because we all have the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
• 58:58
  And I argue...
• 58:59
  It's the pursuit of life, the pursuit of liberty.
• 59:05
  It's all a pursuit.
• 59:06
  I think our founding fathers got that wrong.
• 59:09
  You're not...
• 59:11
  So many people are prisoners in their own mind and they're not free, not even in their mind or in the world.
• 59:19
  So you have to.
• 59:20
  Life is a pursuit.
• 59:22
  Right.
• 59:23
  Nothing's owed to you.
• 59:24
  So we'll take that to the second principle in the Tiki fact.
• 59:27
  The first one is total commitment.
• 59:29
  So what you're speaking from is the next principle that I have live from your imagination and not your history.
• 59:35
  imagination.
• 59:36
  So I had to imagine everything, having a big house, having a nice car, having a clean record, writing a book.
• 59:45
  It started with that imagination, even running that football.
• 59:49
  Before I ever scored a touchdown or played in high school, college or anything, it started when my mom gave me that
• 59:55
  football in the projects.
• 59:57
  I would throw that ball in the air.
• 59:58
  I was just a boy.
• 59:59
  When I caught it, I thought I was Tony Dorsett.
• 1:00:01
  I thought I was Walter Payton.
• 1:00:03
  That's that imagination.
• 1:00:04
  Everybody did this.
• 1:00:05
  I don't call what race, what color, what creed.
• 1:00:07
  Four, three, two, one.
• 1:00:09
  Hitting that game winning shot like Jordan.
• 1:00:12
  That's that imagination.
• 1:00:13
  But now that we're adult men, you got to take that in.
• 1:00:16
  Man, I want to live a life with a family that's imaginary.
• 1:00:20
  I want to have that career that's imaginary.
• 1:00:23
  I want to have all those things, but you got to transit.
• 1:00:25
  I want to have a business that's imaginary.
• 1:00:27
  That's what you got to take, you listeners that's listening.
• 1:00:29
  You take that childlike imagination and apply it in your life right now.
• 1:00:34
  Yes, magic.
• 1:00:36
  Because that gives you that feeling of success, right?
• 1:00:38
  Right.
• 1:00:39
  And that's what you got to do.
• 1:00:40
  That childlike imagination, take it into your life right now.
• 1:00:44
  And that's where it fits.
• 1:00:45
  Your partner got to have that childlike imagination.
• 1:00:47
  Like you say, Kelly, I want to have the number one part.
• 1:00:50
  That partner that you have got to believe you can do it too.
• 1:00:53
  That imagination.
• 1:00:54
  And that's what it is.
• 1:00:55
  The people around you, that's the next thing.
• 1:00:57
  It's the K, the kinder spirits.
• 1:00:59
  They go hand in hand.
• 1:01:00
  The imagination, but you got to have kinder spirits, the people around you that affect you to support that dream.
• 1:01:07
  Because if you're the only one that's supporting it all the time, you need to be alone.
• 1:01:11
  But if that person go like, hey, you don't feel like shooting that podcast today, or you don't want to hit that gym, you don't want that other rep, or you don't want to walk those steps, or if you don't want to eat that meal prep, or you don't want that protein bar, whoever's telling you, go ahead and eat that all the time, you need to get them away from your life.
• 1:01:26
  And those are the ones that the dream killers and stuff like that, kinder spirits, the people around you affect you.
• 1:01:32
  And the last eye on the tiki factor is invest in yourself.
• 1:01:36
  Best investment you ever make.
• 1:01:37
  Go through that one more time.
• 1:01:38
  T-I-K-I.
• 1:01:40
  Okay.
• 1:01:40
  The T stands for.
• 1:01:41
  Now, it's in the book, guys, but get out and get the book, but here's a summary.
• 1:01:44
  Okay.
• 1:01:44
  The T stands for total commitment.
• 1:01:45
  Total commitment.
• 1:01:46
  The next thing is I, imagination.
• 1:01:48
  Imagination.
• 1:01:49
  Live from your imagination, not your history.
• 1:01:52
  And the next one is K, kinder spirits.
• 1:01:54
  The people around you affect you.
• 1:01:56
  And the last I is invest in yourself.
• 1:01:58
  Love it.
• 1:01:59
  Love it.
• 1:02:00
  This has been wonderful.
• 1:02:01
  Please share it with anybody that's grown up a tough childhood.
• 1:02:05
  You know what bonus question I have for you?
• 1:02:07
  Yeah.
• 1:02:07
  You know, about the same age.
• 1:02:09
  Are younger kids, now that there's social media, now that there's phones, is this kind of stuff still happening?
• 1:02:16
  Do you know?
• 1:02:16
  What do you mean?
• 1:02:17
  But like the young generation, the zero to 10, zero to... Is that kind of abuse still happening?
• 1:02:23
  I was thinking about this.
• 1:02:24
  Oh, absolutely.
• 1:02:24
  It happens because like...
• 1:02:27
  definitely the abuse still happened because you got the social media, but a lot of times in the neighborhood, a lot of those people don't have water, I mean, water, lights, or gas.
• 1:02:37
  So, or a cell phone.
• 1:02:38
  The mom might just be the one phone in the house.
• 1:02:40
  So all these kids are not in front of a YouTube and things like that.
• 1:02:44
  But as you know, why in the inner city or in the hood, we stay in that predicament.
• 1:02:51
  Why?
• 1:02:52
  Because poor people, we buy luxuries first.
• 1:02:59
  so might not have no food in the refrigerator, but everybody got an iPhone.
• 1:03:05
  Everybody got the Cadillac out in the car.
• 1:03:06
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:07
  Might not have the Cadillac, but you're going to have the designer and all these other things that the wants, but the needs are suffering.
• 1:03:15
  So when I used to come back home, and like my mom, we would get food stamps, and this is back in the day.
• 1:03:19
  It wasn't a card.
• 1:03:21
  It was the food stamp dollars.
• 1:03:23
  So me and my brother knew we were going to have a good month.
• 1:03:27
  Because we knew when the food stamps came and we walked into that house, the ambiance, we would smell the beef tacos.
• 1:03:34
  We could smell the lettuce, the grated cheese, the lettuce, the picante sauce, the taco seasoning on the meat.
• 1:03:42
  Boy, it was going to be a good month because every time mom did it right, we would have...
• 1:03:47
  that was like a highlight in the hood.
• 1:03:49
  Like, oh man, we're getting some tacos.
• 1:03:50
  But so yeah, I think it's still, I think those kids are still suffering to answer your question in the hood.
• 1:03:56
  Yeah, they are still suffering.
• 1:03:57
  I just thought about it the other day.
• 1:03:58
  I was thinking with social media, you can record the abuse and send it.
• 1:04:02
  And these kids got smart now, dude.
• 1:04:04
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:04
  But I was thinking, no, that's just me being wishful.
• 1:04:07
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:04:08
  It still happens, man.
• 1:04:09
  It's still poor kids.
• 1:04:10
  It's still abuse going on.
• 1:04:12
  It's still people that want out.
• 1:04:14
  But the thing about it is,
• 1:04:16
  They're asking for help, but not help in the sense of give me a job.
• 1:04:21
  They're asking like kids to reach out like, hey, man, hey, can you help me get school clothes?
• 1:04:25
  And like, all right, man, well, you want to come wash dishes at how much you're going to pay me?
• 1:04:29
  Oh, that ain't no money.
• 1:04:30
  Like now.
• 1:04:31
  All right.
• 1:04:32
  And they'll be like, oh, I thought I thought you were helping the community.
• 1:04:36
  Like, no, I ain't going to give you nothing, but you can come earn something.
• 1:04:38
  Yeah, man, Tiki, keep being you, man.
• 1:04:40
  I love you.
• 1:04:41
  I'm proud of you.
• 1:04:42
  I'm grateful you're here.
• 1:04:43
  And I'm grateful that you were smart enough to hold that bed tight.
• 1:04:46
  And I wish that guy, I'm sure that guy got his karma.
• 1:04:50
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:04:50
  Tiki, what's one more story that you want to share with us that I forgot to ask?
• 1:04:54
  For all the women out there that maybe didn't think that you're a great mom and you maybe thought all was lost, I'm going to share a story about me and my mom.
• 1:05:02
  When I was 17, I was accused of a crime that would shape my life.
• 1:05:06
  And I found myself in a dark place.
• 1:05:09
  What I mean, at 17, I got sentenced to the county jail for six months.
• 1:05:14
  But the first visitor I had was my mom.
• 1:05:18
  But the twist of the story was she was locked up the same time I was on her way to prison for murder.
• 1:05:23
  So when as I'm going in, the powers that be, which was the sheriff, Mark Donison at the time, allowed me and my mom to have an in-house residence.
• 1:05:32
  son mother visit.
• 1:05:33
  So I walk into the visitation room and it's kind of like a chapel where they let church happen in jail.
• 1:05:40
  So I walk into the room and I look at my mom and I said, but mom, I didn't do what they said.
• 1:05:45
  I did, I can get life.
• 1:05:47
  And what you wanted at that time, you want your parent to console you.
• 1:05:50
  But my mom looked at me and said, me too.
• 1:05:54
  because she was 37 years old looking at her own life sentence for murder.
• 1:05:58
  So imagine two different generations, same blood, same fate.
• 1:06:03
  So at that moment, I felt like my mom was giving up on me.
• 1:06:08
  So if I had that chip on my shoulder, it became a boulder because this is my first coach, my first supervisor, my first teammate, somebody to believe in me because that first book ball that I ever had in the project, she put it in my hand.
• 1:06:23
  Now she's telling me it may not be possible because you got yourself into trouble.
• 1:06:28
  And you don't have anything to say.
• 1:06:30
  But it's, I love you, son, and turn and walk away.
• 1:06:32
  So I go back to my jail cell for my six months.
• 1:06:35
  I tell the guards and the inmates, everybody in there, I say, when I get out of here, I'm going to go to the NFL.
• 1:06:41
  When I get out here, I'm going to go to college.
• 1:06:43
  And they would laugh at me.
• 1:06:44
  And that guard said, Tiki, you'll be back.
• 1:06:46
  You're not going to college and you're not going to NFL.
• 1:06:49
  That's that bad math we were talking about.
• 1:06:51
  Yes, sir.
• 1:06:52
  And so from that day on, I'm a three-time college graduate.
• 1:06:55
  And I made it to the NFL.
• 1:06:56
  But the pivot was when these legs fell me on this football field, this heart ain't never fell me, dog.
• 1:07:02
  And I made it as a speaker.
• 1:07:05
  And when I wrapped up that talk, when I was speaking to this pro team, and I told them, I said, let me just be honest with you, and that's how I end the book.
• 1:07:12
  I said, let me just, I was talking to the Pittsburgh Steelers rookies, and I says, when I came here today, when I started this talk, I said, I've been chasing this dream for 37 years.
• 1:07:23
  I said, I just didn't come here today just for you.
• 1:07:26
  Also came here today for me.
• 1:07:29
  I'm a rookie, too.
• 1:07:30
  I thank you for your time.
• 1:07:32
  My name's Tiki Davis, the Tiki facts, and that was it.
• 1:07:35
  So I got to go pro as a speaker, and I made it to the NFL.
• 1:07:39
  And that first check that I got speaking to my first pro team, I framed it like it was my rookie contract, and that was my salary.
• 1:07:46
  So everything they said counted me out when I had that visit in my local county jail with my mom.
• 1:07:53
  turned out to be good man.
• 1:07:55
  Is the story about why you were in jail in the book?
• 1:07:58
  Don't go into it because guys, teaser.
• 1:08:00
  Yeah.
• 1:08:01
  He didn't do it.
• 1:08:02
  Yeah.
• 1:08:02
  It's a story and that happened to me as well.
• 1:08:05
  Yeah.
• 1:08:05
  Go out and read the book so you can hear this.
• 1:08:09
  And for you young men, be smart.
• 1:08:13
  Right.
• 1:08:13
  That's all I'm gonna leave it at.
• 1:08:14
  One more thing.
• 1:08:15
  Go ahead.
• 1:08:16
  When you find yourself on the wrong side of the law and you don't understand,
• 1:08:21
  Do not sign a plea bargain because a lot of time a plea bargain.
• 1:08:27
  And in my in my in my case, in my situation, I signed a plea bargain, but it wasn't really a plea of guilt.
• 1:08:35
  It's more a plea for help.
• 1:08:38
  That's what I want.
• 1:08:39
  Young people, you're in a situation that you don't understand.
• 1:08:43
  Don't sign a plea bargain.
• 1:08:45
  Use that as a plea for help.
• 1:08:49
  Because I'm lucky to get everything taken care of.
• 1:08:53
  Where in my case, but most of the world is not that lucky.
• 1:08:56
  So don't plea with your life.
• 1:08:58
  Use that plea for help.
• 1:09:00
  Great advice.
• 1:09:01
  And that's the teaser to read the book because wrong place, wrong time.
• 1:09:06
  So let's get into the rapid fire.
• 1:09:08
  All right.
• 1:09:08
  One word for the version of you at nine years old.
• 1:09:12
  Loving.
• 1:09:13
  Tough and gritty, man.
• 1:09:14
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:15
  Tough and gritty.
• 1:09:15
  But I know you was looking at that, but actually I'm the complete opposite of what people think.
• 1:09:20
  You know, like tough and gritty.
• 1:09:21
  I was those things.
• 1:09:22
  Smart.
• 1:09:23
  How about that?
• 1:09:23
  Yeah, smart.
• 1:09:24
  Yeah, so really and truly, like if I really had to say it, like, man, I was just a chameleon.
• 1:09:33
  We're going with chameleon.
• 1:09:34
  Yeah, chameleon.
• 1:09:34
  Best thing Les Brown ever said to you?
• 1:09:36
  You're the prodigal son.
• 1:09:38
  I love it.
• 1:09:39
  The book you hand out the most?
• 1:09:41
  The Tiki factor.
• 1:09:43
  Odessa or Houston?
• 1:09:45
  Houston.
• 1:09:46
  What time does your alarm go off?
• 1:09:48
  I don't set one.
• 1:09:49
  It's in me.
• 1:09:51
  Biggest waste of money you ever made?
• 1:09:52
  Buying 18-wheelers cash.
• 1:09:58
  Finish this sentence.
• 1:09:59
  They counted me out because?
• 1:10:02
  Because of who my mama was.
• 1:10:07
  This has been Harder Than Life.
• 1:10:08
  Guys, get out and read the book.
• 1:10:10
  Order the book, The Tiki Factor.
• 1:10:12
  It's here right in front of us.
• 1:10:13
  I can't wait to help you share this banana message.
• 1:10:18
  And again, I'm just proud of you and I'm happy.
• 1:10:21
  And I'm grateful to call you friend.
• 1:10:22
  And thank you for being here.
• 1:10:23
  Thank you for having me, brother.
• 1:10:24
  Until next week, be harder than life, everybody.
• 1:10:26
  Please rate and share this podcast.
• 1:10:28
  I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters.
• 1:10:32
  Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity.
• 1:10:43
  Visit TrustNTM.com for more info.
• 1:10:46
  Until next week, be harder than life.