JEN AKS 0:00
What you are about to listen to is raw. It is real. It is spoken directly from the heart. This is a story about what it looks like when you are afraid of the voice within and you keep running from it.
And then what happens when you finally surrender? Darryll Stinson is a former Division I athlete, two times TEDx speaker, and he is helping people bring their raw stories to the world in a really impactful, authentic way. I’m excited for this conversation. I’m excited for you to listen.
And I’ll see you on the other side. Let’s get started. What is your relationship to that voice inside of you?
DARRYLL STINSON 0:38
I grew up going to church. My family used to always go to this church called Second Baptist. And um, they used to do these altar calls at the church. And um my grandma used to always say, you know, don’t go up there unless you hear God tell you.
And so, you know, I was like, I didn’t plan on going up there anyway. I was like not the type of kid that was gonna go to front of a church. Um, long story short, um ended up actually going to church when I was like nine by myself. Um it was like walking distance from my house.
And I I held I I I I felt I heard the voice of God like whisper to me and say, and I was terrified because I was like, I don’t they used to put the microphone in front of people’s face, and I didn’t want to put a microphone in my front of my face. Like it was a very private moment for me, and I didn’t want to be like, yeah, you know, and but I heard it and I remember what my grandma said, like, she’s like, Don’t you go up there unless he calls you. But he called me. So I went.
So I go up there, they put the microphone, I say the prayer. I feel God just feel my flood my heart, just flood myself. I see this vision of me in front of a bunch of people, like thousands of thousands of people. And he’s like, That’s the level of influence I’m calling you to.
I’m nine.
JEN AKS 1:56
Whoa.
DARRYLL STINSON 1:58
It terrified me. Actually, originally, it’s like part of it terrified me, and part of it just made me excited that I felt so loved and seen because I didn’t feel that in my life at the time. I felt like my mom was really stressed out trying to provide. Um, for me, my dad was away in college, I felt really abandoned.
So that moment felt I felt love, like I felt like from my grandma, like I felt the moments where I got my parents’ attention and I just felt it continually. But then also that vision scared me because I felt so small. I wasn’t, I didn’t fit in school. I was picked on teas on.
So, you know, I spent a lot of times in churches. I was going like junior deacons, I was in um uh multiple this travel choir called um Voices of Praise. Uh then it’s Baptist Church used to sing all these songs, the choir used to sing tenor.
JEN AKS 2:45
Nice.
DARRYLL STINSON 2:45
I know, I know. Um, and uh I because I was getting picked on in school and stuff, and you know, I and then at the same time, the church I was going to, they were going through a lot of dramatic stuff, and so I stopped believing. You know, if I’m being honest, like uh one of the pastors that was mentoring me um went to prison um for doing some bad things, and it really shook me. And another one sold me fake clothing that I thought was real.
JEN AKS 3:13
Oh God.
DARRYLL STINSON 3:14
I know. So they were like scamming me as a young mentor.
JEN AKS 3:18
Okay.
DARRYLL STINSON 3:19
And it was like, man, if that’s the God that I’m believing in, and the people that I want to aspire to be like, right? I don’t want to follow their God. This is like not it for me. So this is like probably I’m like 12, 13, 14 at this time.
Um you take that with this like fact that you know I’m torn between this identity of like people say that I’m this kid that’s black, but I talk white. And because of that, and I’m I’m a little bit creative and emotional, some of them are calling me gay. So a lot of the African-American black people in my community, they just like made fun of me. I was the butt of the jokes.
So my cousin, Charles, um, when I was in the seventh grade, his auntie or his mom, my auntie Stephanie, uh got shot and killed in broad daylight. Um, and shattered their family. And because his father was in prison at the time, he came ultimately to live with me and my um my dad. Um my mom had moved to Detroit um, you know, to seek better opportunity.
And I had stayed in Mount Pleasant because I wanted to be closer to my or not Mount Pleasant in Jackson, Michigan, because I wanted to be closer to my father. So I now have my cousin Chaz and his friends were already in the streets selling drugs, doing all this crazy street life stuff. And now they’re like, like he’s hanging out with them around me in my house. And so I end up like basically fitting in with them, skipping school, getting in fights, went from being an all-age student, a church boy, to being like a street person that thank God was a high-performing athlete.
Because that was the only thing keeping me from like just being in the streets doing even dumber stuff more frequently. So I’m getting far away from that voice. And and and really that voice, I always heard it all the time. Like it was always like, put down the drug, stop selling, don’t do that.
That’s very dangerous. Like it was always like God, the Holy Spirit was always leading me. I didn’t know it, I didn’t know what to call it that at the time.
JEN AKS 5:16
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 5:17
But I could always hear it, you know, especially after that moment where I said yes to Christ. Yeah. Uh, because it was like, I don’t know, it was like another level of hearing opened. And um, so I was ignoring, and and the thing is when we’re misaligned from our purpose, we have to ignore the voice within.
And we it sometimes is hard to do that because it knocks pretty loud, especially if you keep getting fire. Yeah, so the further we get, the more we have to numb. Yeah, so we have to get eat more potato chips, watch more Netflix movies, like stay busier, busier, busier, build a bigger company, right? And so that’s what I was doing.
I was running the streets, I was working out more. I never was home, I was never steady, I was never still, I was never because if I got still, I’d have to listen.
JEN AKS 5:59
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 6:00
So I was always busy, always working out, always hustling, always putting it.
JEN AKS 6:04
Were you acting?
DARRYLL STINSON 6:05
I didn’t know I was avoiding. I knew deep within I was avoiding. Okay, I wasn’t very conscious, like I didn’t know tools to control it, but I was very aware that I was like scared to be in a calling because I was I wanted to fit in.
JEN AKS 6:17
Yeah.
DARRYLL STINSON 6:17
Um and so you know, fast forward, you know, I did end up going through this period where I I got I went to I was supposed to go be a professional athlete. I got hurt, had back surgery, came back, signed a liability waiver, played, and did so with manipulating the healthcare system, more suppression. Literally, God told me, like they said you had a golden opportunity. You can focus on your education, we’ll honor your scholarship.
You got four years of a free education. Come around football whenever you want. But that was my identity, my purpose. I thought, because I was running away from my identity and purpose.
So I didn’t want to let this go because then I would have to go be a leader in this audience. And now I was like, I don’t even know who I am anymore because I just fit in for since you know undergrad. Like I’m literally uh selling drugs all throughout the state of Michigan, okay, to cover the cost of my healthcare expenses. Okay.
I’m talking about like I have multiple distribution points in the state of Michigan as a as a student athlete in college. I’m supplying most of the campuses marijuana and half of the campuses Adderall. All to pay for my medical expenses and a little bit fun parties because I was so afraid to keep wealth because I watched it change my best friend. I watched it change him.
We were best friends. He got money and he tried to raise the prices of what we, the drugs we were selling on me, and I knew who he was getting it for and what he was getting it for. And it was weird. I never knew money could change somebody, so I would just waste it all the time.
JEN AKS 8:06
Oh, so you weren’t even keeping it.
DARRYLL STINSON 8:07
I wasn’t keeping it.
JEN AKS 8:08
Okay, interesting. Yeah.
DARRYLL STINSON 8:09
No, I was just shedding it because I was like, I’ll just make it to the league, get away from this lifestyle, then I’ll finally be able to be liked because I’m performing, right? Whatever.
JEN AKS 8:16
Right, right.
DARRYLL STINSON 8:16
So, long story short, stopped working. These uh drugs are thinning all these opioids I’m taking that I’m basically buying off the streets or manipulating the healthcare assistant to keep giving me prescriptions. They’re thinning my blood to the point where every time I made contact on the field, my nose would bleed. Now the coaches already knew that I was doing something because I had been playing for two years, really badly injured.
But me hurt was better than the next person fully healthy. Right. So they were like, uh, we’ll take him. It’s all good.
Put the broke guy in. I know. Well, I was really good. So it wasn’t like I sucked.
It was like, no, so just seriously put that guy in, even though he said he’s good. Um, and and um, and I wanted to play really bad. And these nosebleeds were getting too obvious. I was developing this permanent hunch in my back.
My ability to maintain the facade was falling. I couldn’t keep up what was suppressing and keeping me busy to ignore. So they kicked me off the team, and then it’s like I don’t have this outlet of practice every day at five, high performing culture team meetings. So now I’m like, I got all this time and space.
So what do you think I do? More drugs, more weed, smoke all day, drink all day, do lean all day. Num num num num num. And thank God that you can’t out numb the voice of the Holy Spirit because I couldn’t numb it.
It just was still there saying, You know who you are. You know who you are. You know you’re better than this. You know why you’re here to lead.
JEN AKS 10:02
How would that show up in your body? Would you see it or feel it?
DARRYLL STINSON 10:06
Or I’m an auditory person. I usually would hear it. Um now that I’m more aware of my body, I always feel it here.
JEN AKS 10:16
Wow.
DARRYLL STINSON 10:17
Right on.
JEN AKS 10:17
Always the right side.
DARRYLL STINSON 10:18
Right? Top abdomen, maybe. Um I’ll I’ll close this out fast. So I um kicked off the team, dark depression, all these attempts to end my life, ignoring the voice.
I don’t want to tell you all the stuff I did to try to end my life. It’s it’s it’s dark. And uh I ended up in a psychiatric unit because my mom essentially talked me out of my last attempt in a vehicle and um carried me um into the um Henry Ford, you know, hospital in Detroit, Michigan, psychiatric care facility. At that point, you gotta remember four weeks ago, I was 275 pound buff lineman.
I was stacked. My mom saw me, I was 219 pounds and on the verge of starvation. My girlfriend, who I’ve been dating for four and a half years, I was planning to marry her. I thought she was my wife.
She left me and got engaged to another dude. And the way that I found that out is I was calling trying to find her. And one of her friends just told me I was crushed. The doctor comes in the room, he says, Tell me why you wanted to end your life.
And I just said, Leave me alone. I just want to die. I’m screaming, I’m yelling, I’m crying. My eyes are swollen shut.
All I can see is just a slit out the bottom of it. Cause I was just, you know, you cry and you rub your eyes a lot. He leaves to go do some paperwork so they can take me upstairs to the holding, you know, units, you know, the care facility, holdings house.
JEN AKS 12:12
Okay.
DARRYLL STINSON 12:15
The woman with green pants comes in. I call her the woman with green pants because all I could do is open my eyes enough to see the green pants.
JEN AKS 12:21
The green pants. Her legs.
DARRYLL STINSON 12:23
She comes in, she wraps me in her arms. She says, I don’t know who you are, and I don’t have any jurisdiction to be back here in this part of the hospital. But God told me that you need to say yes to him when you say yes. I told her no.
I had read a lot of books about cult society. I believe that the world was controlled by a few families who refused to be named. Okay. I was in it.
JEN AKS 12:48
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 12:49
Finding all that. I was well beyond the Illuminati and the Bafa Man. I was into the real families that run the world.
JEN AKS 12:56
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 12:56
And um, so this lady didn’t understand. I didn’t believe in I believed in God. I didn’t believe in Jesus and his faith she was saying to me.
JEN AKS 13:06
Right, right.
DARRYLL STINSON 13:06
And so I told her while she said that was praying for me, leave me alone. I just want to die.
JEN AKS 13:12
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 13:13
I just want to die.
DARRYLL STINSON 13:17
She’s praying for me the whole time. I don’t even know what she’s saying, so I’m just that’s what I’m doing.
JEN AKS 13:21
Right, right.
DARRYLL STINSON 13:22
She leaves, she says she’s gonna come back. A few moments later, my grandma comes in the room. She had been driving uh from Jackson, Michigan to Detroit, about an hour drive. She’s rushing there.
She’s worried about me because my mom told her I was in a psychiatric union. She comes in, she’s out of breath.
DARRYLL STINSON 13:38
She’s like, okay, I’ve been praying for you all the way here. You know exactly what to do. You need to say yes to him. Say yes.
Say yes.
DARRYLL STINSON 13:53
Two people. They didn’t talk to each other, they didn’t know each other.
JEN AKS 13:56
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 13:57
That sounds like God trying to ask me to say yes. But that was grandma. She was a church-going person, she was religious, she was supposed to say something like that. So my grandma prayed for me for about five minutes, and I just kept screaming at her.
JEN AKS 14:11
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 14:15
It was heavy. My grandma was there, my mom was there, my dad was there, uh, my aunt Brie was there. My sister. And I heard the voice of God.
I didn’t know how that was gonna heal my bag so I can go play play football.
DARRYLL STINSON 14:39
I didn’t know how that was gonna bring my girlfriend back. But I was just so much pay.
DARRYLL STINSON 14:47
I just muttered out. I’m telling you, the moment I said that my eyes got yellow. The depression I was under. I was like, Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, Lord!
The doctor comes running to the room. What’s going on? I’m like, I was running from God, and I just said yes to him. He goes, Hurry up and get this guy upstairs.
JEN AKS 15:21
Wait, are you serious?
DARRYLL STINSON 15:27
Don’t tell the people at the psychiatric unit that you were running from God and you said yes, they’re gonna be like, Yep, that’s why you’re here, you know. But that was the truth. I was running from that voice, and I finally surrendered. And at that moment I surrendered in that psychiatric unit, it was a return to the moment I ran from when I was nine.
JEN AKS 15:44
Yes.
DARRYLL STINSON 15:45
And I was like, yes, Lord, yes, Lord. Regardless of me not knowing how, regardless of me being scared, regardless of me not knowing who I am, regardless of me not fitting in, I’m going to say yes because I know that when my heart and soul says yes, everything in my life works. It’s why I’m here. I’m living out the purpose he pre-he knew before he formed me.
JEN AKS 16:10
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 16:11
It’s why I’m being sent. Okay. And so at that moment, I was like, I gotta go, follow it. I what do I do?
What is it? What what is where do I go? North of am I not like an athlete, a coach? Uh right.
What am I doing? And I was like, I know I’m supposed to sort of speak, sort of lead, it’s sort of communication. I knew it was speaking. I knew it was speaking, and um, I didn’t want to be a pastor.
JEN AKS 16:34
You knew it was speaking?
DARRYLL STINSON 16:35
I knew I had to speak.
JEN AKS 16:36
How’d you know that?
DARRYLL STINSON 16:38
I don’t know. How did you know you’re supposed to write a book?
JEN AKS 16:41
Yeah, right.
DARRYLL STINSON 16:44
You know?
JEN AKS 16:45
Hmm.
DARRYLL STINSON 16:46
The wisdom, the encoding.
JEN AKS 16:49
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 16:50
He put it in our desire, he gives us the desires of a well you saw that vision at nine in the church, right?
JEN AKS 16:56
With all the people.
DARRYLL STINSON 16:57
So all that, man. So, so, so like I go and I’m like, hey, yeah, at this time I’m a senior in college. Okay, I’m supposed to have two semesters to graduate, but because I’m no, because they because I’m no longer playing, they cut one semester my scholarship and gave me one semester. So I’m taking like 21, 22, 23, 4 credits.
It’s a whole bunch of classes stuffed, plus doing a paid internship. Um, and thank God that paid internship, I ended up getting hired in the university for their communications department. Okay. So my degree was in PR.
I liked the fact that I could be around events and communicate and write, and there was camera work and there was working with celebs. So I liked that. And one of these professors um sold that to me that because I went on this journey to find it, and I learned that in college that you could actually audit classes. And I was like, oh, so I can audit a class without having to like pay for it and do take it for an entire semester.
I can just like check it out to see if I want to so I went to like a few intro classes in um PR 101 by Elena Urzakova, was a Russian professor that taught at CMU, one of my favorite mama bears. Yeah, you would love her. Uh she just made it seem amazing. And I was like, yeah, I’m in.
And so I changed my degree from broadcasting and business administration to uh integrated public relations. Graduated, got that degree in PR, worked as a paid intern, got hired as coordinator of content solutions. One of the benefits of being an employee at the university was that you get to take classes essentially for free. You just have to pay the taxes and pay for your textbooks.
So I knew I was supposed to speak. So I actually went back and retook as a graduate student COM 357, which was public speaking 101.
JEN AKS 18:59
Yeah.
DARRYLL STINSON 19:00
Okay. Because I took the class as a sophomore, but I just passed it because I was like just getting through it. Because it was my purpose, I knew I need training. Okay.
So I’m just developing my desire.
JEN AKS 19:14
Yeah.
DARRYLL STINSON 19:15
So I’m a graduate student in an undergraduate class with a bunch of freshmen and sophomores. Right? So the dude, out of pure pity for me, puts me and makes me, you know, after that semester, uh assistant teacher, associate professor. And then I was teaching communication with this guy who was an amazing communicator.
He was so comfortable, so natural. He was way ahead of his time back then. He was already using videos to communicate when everybody wasn’t even like nope, there wasn’t even like all this loom and stuff. We knew he was already using those tools back then.
And he was like all natural and authentic. And I was like rigid. We still have videos of us doing curriculum training together. And he’s all comfortable, I’m all stiff and afraid to be myself.
And that’s where I started. Okay. And from there, basically, I um became because uh we were really successful as a team, and we won some awards uh for marketing campaign, did this branding campaign um from the leadership of our CEO, Sherry Knight, and was just a really masterful communications like entity, right? Lots of creators and and all this stuff working together to basically tell the story of CMU to recruit and retain students and create a culture that was amazing.
Uh, I I could feel trapped in that environment. I loved communication. I hated that I couldn’t work with people more. I was behind a desk.
I was always like typing, I was always reviewing brochures, materials, marketing campaigns, social media campaigns, putting together PR campaigns, looking at metrics and data, webs, dashboards. And I was like, oh my God, I need to talk to some people. I need some genetics in my life. You know what I’m saying?
And so I started mentoring a lot of students, trying to mentor my church. And now I basically start splitting my time between now. I’m mentoring and coaching, but I’m working here. I’m like, I needed to get paid somehow to do this, and I don’t know how.
So I gotta create time freedom in my life. Right. So in order to create time freedom in my life, I was like, I gotta quit. There’s no way I can, like, I can’t get there.
Right. I need the bandwidth to do this thing. I gotta let go of this to get to that. Okay.
And so that’s what I did, man. I um I left. I took a part-time job working at United Way of Isabella County, making like $17 an hour.
JEN AKS 21:37
That that I just need to pause about that crossroads for a moment because a lot of people either would stay, the money people I think would just stay.
DARRYLL STINSON 21:44
Golden handcuffs. That’s what they call it. The salary, the benefits, the opportunity for retirement. They were doubling my everything.
Keeping this as a hobby. Oh my God. Everything that I was investing, they were doubling. So I was gonna build a nice little cushion, and then it was like, yeah.
And have a big golden handcuff.
JEN AKS 22:02
Right. And was it that feeling again? It was just like that voice of God the way you at that point, I was following that thing every single day. I believe that that telling these stories is a way in to helping people really connect to their own wisdom and helping them connect to that voice within.
And so this story, there is such a beautiful thread and difficulty. And a lot of people, like we said, especially at that crossroads when you had to make that decision, do I stay for the comfort and the security and the safety, or do I keep, do I listen to this voice that’s nudging me to go this way? And you chose to go that way. So now there’s trust.
There’s been for a long time, and you continue to follow that. And now you even see it in your children. You strengthened it so much to the point that you can even recognize when they’re connecting to the wisdom from within, when they’re connecting to that voice. So you’ve through your journey really come to this place of really knowing what an asset this is.
DARRYLL STINSON 23:06
Life is hollow if you’re not fully aligned. Yeah, everyone knows it. And then like put into prison cells called schools. Taught misinformation, told false stories about slavery and disempowerment and people who didn’t discover America, discovering America.
And then we wonder why we’re confused.
JEN AKS 23:53
You know, there’s a lot of people that have that burning desire and have that voice and just have no idea how to listen. And sometimes it takes you down the path that doesn’t really serve you. But I believe that that path it has the lesson in it as well. Right?
So even though you were doing the drugs, it’s what led you here. It may not have been the right thing to do, but it was where you were called to learn what you needed to do now.
DARRYLL STINSON 24:17
Yeah. So my paradigm on that is that there’s a God’s perfect will and then there’s his permissive will. Okay. So I if if if we just get, I don’t want to say get out of the mysticism of God, but if we just get into the like paradigm of humanity and be like, hey, I have children.
I want my kids to have this life. I see how brilliant they can be. I want this for them. I want them to have everything.
I give them everything I can, I have. And they’re gonna make choices that are not what’s best for them sometimes. You know?
JEN AKS 24:51
Yeah.
DARRYLL STINSON 24:52
Like exactly. So there’s a perfect way I would want them to live, and there’s just like a permissive way that’s a I know we’ll ultimately get there. And I say that because I don’t think that I had to go through what I went through to become who I became. I understand that it made me, but I think there was a healthier way to develop my my gifts.
It’s actually what I’m trying to help people to do now is when you see your child’s gifts, develop them in a healthy way. Help them nurture nurture their curiosity, you know, sharpen their skill set, yeah, you know, give them opportunities to experience, experiment with different desires and things that and have different experiences.
JEN AKS 25:40
But don’t you think that because you went through what you went through and you have this depth of compassion because you experienced so much pain that you have this empathy and this desire. I mean, you want to change people’s lives. Right. Because you know the pain.
DARRYLL STINSON 25:58
This is so hard for people to get because it’s like, I agree with you. Yes.
JEN AKS 26:01
Yeah.
DARRYLL STINSON 26:01
I would not something would be different potentially about me. Right. But maybe not.
JEN AKS 26:06
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 26:06
Because again, like here’s how here’s how I always say it. Okay. Everyone who says that to me, here’s what I say to them. So, do you want your kids to go through your same story?
And they’re like, heck no. I’m like, see, they don’t have to go through what you went through.
JEN AKS 26:24
It’s not about what you went through, but it’s what it’s what they’re meant to go through. Because the thing is, is that that’s what this podcast is all about. It’s about your wisdom from within. What you only gain from your story.
So my kids have gone through some stuff, absolutely. And do I wish that they didn’t go through that pain? Yes, but I also know that it’s meant for them. I do believe that.
I do believe that it’s meant for them so they can learn the lessons they’re meant to learn specifically so that they can do what they’re supposed to do in the world.
DARRYLL STINSON 26:53
I’m referring to these seasons of struggle and strain that we go through that make us who we are.
JEN AKS 26:59
Yeah.
DARRYLL STINSON 27:00
That while God redeems that story and uses it for his glory and our good, we still um are ambassadors of helping people create more healthy, empowering stories so that they can experience the same depth of compassion. They can have the same, you know, uh uh gritty resolve without the trauma. Okay. It’s the trauma that sometimes is not necessary.
And I think we’re learning it. Like, I want my kids to be just as gritty and gnarly as I am without having to get watch somebody get their teeth kicked to a curve.
JEN AKS 27:41
Right. I wonder if they can get to that level, though. I wonder.
DARRYLL STINSON 27:44
Have you seen a woman give birth?
JEN AKS 27:46
Yeah, I mean, I did it twice.
DARRYLL STINSON 27:48
Exactly. So it’s not, can they? It’s what activates the primal instinct for them too. So it’s in them.
They just don’t gotta be that way all the time. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.
JEN AKS 28:00
But I do believe that it creates perspective and depth and a level of service. Like I want to awaken people’s wisdom from within because I didn’t, I was disconnected from mine. I would not be as strongly connected and as passionate as I am if I didn’t go through my own struggle.
DARRYLL STINSON 28:19
So I’m not saying But you might not have had to become so strong and passionate if you would have recognized how strong you were when you came.
JEN AKS 28:26
True.
DARRYLL STINSON 28:26
You see what I’m saying? True.
JEN AKS 28:30
We never had when we first came out as babies and the lights and the thing that maybe we would be as divine and strong from the very beginning. But that is just not reality. That’s just unfortunately not.
DARRYLL STINSON 28:41
That’s totally the reality I’m I’m trying to create.
JEN AKS 28:43
Well, because you’re gonna be a uh a um birth, a um midwife. I am right, that’s spiritual midwife. Yeah, well, that’s beautiful, and that’s not the world. It would be nice.
And please heal us all.
DARRYLL STINSON 28:58
You and me both. That’s what this is about. It is. Do you know that that’s what you’re doing when you speak?
You’re interrupting somebody’s the worry that’s saying it’ll all be okay.
JEN AKS 29:08
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 29:09
It’ll work itself out. And you’re like, no, it’s not gonna work itself out unless you work it out.
JEN AKS 29:14
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 29:15
And if you don’t work it out, you’re gonna have to go through pain.
JEN AKS 29:18
Right.
DARRYLL STINSON 29:18
That I don’t want you to have to learn for it to teach you what I can teach you without the pain.
JEN AKS 29:23
I hope you’re right. I hope you’re I do hope you’re right. And I do believe that people’s stories are meant for them. And I want people not to be ashamed of their story.
I want people to lean into their story and have conversations like this.
DARRYLL STINSON 29:38
I don’t have shame in my story when I realize I have the power to create over it.
DARRYLL STINSON 29:43
The moment I recognize, no, no, no, no, no, you were fearfully and wonderfully made. No, no, no, no, no. You came in this world with purpose. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
DARRYLL STINSON 29:51
You knew who you are, who you were when you came to this planet. And that’s when I said, Oh, I actually just stuck. I decided to hide when I was nine. I decided to compromise my identity and fit in.
I decided. So I wasn’t this human who had this experience. I realized I was this higher power being who chose a lesser quality experience. And that’s what I’m saying.
Yeah. I’m trying to give people their power to choose a higher quality experience.
JEN AKS 30:21
I agree with you. Okay. I do. I totally agree with you.
It is owning that choice. Yes. It is owning that because otherwise we stay in victim mode and we blame people, and that’s the spiral people get into. So, yeah, we’re saying the same thing in a different way.
It’s like, own it, take responsibility, feel it. Oh, let’s learn the lessons that we’re supposed to, and let’s go serve the world with what we know, the wisdom that we’ve learned. Yes. And stop chasing the why and the people.
And that’s what this is about. So thank you because I agree with you. I am in total alignment with all of that. Woo!
Thank you for coming. I am grateful for you. I’m grateful for your perspective. I’m grateful for your story, your vulnerability.
You’ve said it a million times. You’re a TEDx speaker, blah, blah, blah you’ve done all the things. People have heard your story, but you’re here now and you’re on my podcast, serving my audience, and I am grateful. We are grateful.
And my hope is that someone, even if it’s just one person listening, there’s a lot of entry points to what you shared. There’s a lot of invitation in what you shared. And I’m my hope is that it really unlocked something. It certainly has unlocked a lot for me.
If something in this conversation spoke to you, don’t keep it to yourself. Send it to someone who might need that message too. You can also send me a comment because I would love to know what it is that landed for you. But most importantly, take a moment to pause and listen to what it is that resonated because that’s where your real guidance system lives.
The one you can trust, the one you can rely on. See you next week.