I started as a GED instructor, I created my own GED program, and I realized that a lot of young people that don’t do well academically. It’s not that they don’t have the competency to do it or the skill set to do it; it’s just that they weren’t motivated to learn. They weren’t interested in school, so I started just talking to students and just really going in on them like, “Yo, this is life or death.”

You don't have as much time as you think you do. You got to operate like there's a sense of urgency!

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Those seconds are critical.

You have to want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe!

One of the things I know about my family, my generation, and my ethic background is that we put in work and I'm not just talking about just to eat. You have to think about the civil rights movement, they were putting in work; marching, walking miles and miles, sacrificing, getting on the bus, feeding one another, they had schools, voter registration, they were working! They were hard workers so my advice is to work.

Don't expect front row seats if you're giving nosebleed effort.

Regardless of how much is left in the tank, you gotta fight back!