Transforming Pain into Purpose

00:00:04 Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome back, everyone to another episode of come Back Stories. Your co host Darren Waller joined with my brother, my friend, mister Donnie Starkins. Donnie, how we doing today? Bro? Doing great? Excited for this one, hyped up? Oh yeah, this is a big time guest. If you don't know who this man is, you are in for a treat and for a pleasure. A man who I see as one of the top motivational speakers of this generation. Author, a coach, a husband, father, I mean, a man that can't be put in one box, and we're just honored to have his time, have his voice, and to feel his impact on the show. Today we got mister William King Hollis in the building, Man King, how you doing? You doing? Darren Man and Donnie man Is, Like I tell you, told you guys, it's been a dream of mine to come on this podcast and to have a great conversation with you guys. You guys do a lot, which I you know, on mental health specifically that really touches my heart. I've been there multiple times in my life and it's just always a blessing to see individuals that pread coming back from some of the darkest hours of our life. Man. So, like I said, this is my honor to be on here today. Absolutely, man, this is something that all three of us not only can relate to, but we embody and we've lived the triumphs and the pain of it, and we know it starts very early on, at least in our lives. And we'd like to know what was Keep paint a picture for what growing up was like for you. Yeah, man, it was like a lot of inner city kids. When I grew up in the city called Pontiac, Michigan. My mother, like I said, she basically my grandmother, moved from Monroe, Louisiana, and basically start running numbers. She had twelve children, started to cook crack cocaine and taught all twelve of those dren how to do the same, include my mother. So I was in a house that basically was like a gladiator school for teaching people how to cook crack and say o crack. But one thing about it with me, King, I always noticed that, you know, our life wasn't normal. So you know, but as you stay in it long enough, it began to get normal to you and you adopt some of those same traits, some of those same anger issues, some of those same addictions. And I'm just blessed that God gave me the strength to always see more than my circumstances. My mother ended up moving out at fourteen years old, started selling drugs in her own own place. She had me at sixteen years old, had my sister at fifteen, and she was molested as a child, so she eventually never healed from national. She eventually started to use heroin that you know, the crazy thing about it is I never could notice until I became an older young man. She did a great job of covering it up, covering it up, and you know, it just showed her strength to to to just keep fighting and and and that's why I got a heart for, you know, the woman in general. Uh, because as I go around the country speaking, I meet a lot of young young women man that that that's been molested and never got the help, never got the therapy, and they turned into something that they're really not. But to get back to my story, Kade, Yeah, it was it was absolutely chaos, chaos that that I was living in. But I always I used to say, when I was a young kid. Man, I used to walk outside in the projects, and I used to always look up to the sky. Man. I was always I never looked down. I always looked to the sky because I never liked the picture that was on the ground, the streets, the gangsters, the drug addicts, just the chaos that was going on. And always seeing that sky man, and I always realized that the world is so big, man, and I can change my life if I give it everything I got for my life. And I understood that at a very young age. Man, I always knew that the life that I was living was not normal, and I would never accept that. For my family, my wife, my son, my children. I just always wanted more. Uh. My father got incarcerated the first time, he had to do six years when I was about, say, about seven or eight years old. Missed him for a long time, and then he got another three years after that, and it's firing to a year of a crime. Then I ended up having to move back and forth, bouncing, you know, a minute for a foster home and then bouncing into my grandmother's house. So they finally took us in. To be honest with you, man, I went through a lot of a lot of a lot of tearing down. You know, a lot a lot of uh uh you know, jokes from cousins. You know, your mom's a crackhead, your father's in jail. You're gonna be just like your father and uh. Man, I tell everybody, I give God all the glory for the man that I am and who I am, because through all the pain, through all the thing that was supposed to make me angry, God always kept love in my heart. And that's the only thing that I wanted to exude. I realized that, you know, the richest man in the world is not really the man that has millions of dollars in the bank account. Man, it's the man that that comes home to a family. Since that's derriertable with his children, teaches his son how to go further, which is basically the real definition of father. And and that's what I wake up every single day to do. Man. And hey, I want to I want to hop in and asked you like, through all these peaks and valleys, through not only your personal life, through physically, through football, mentally with your family, your situation and football, like I'm seeing all these things, like, was there ever a moment in all of this where you realized that you had a gift for speaking, or was this like after your football career ended? This was? This was after I was it was after the football career. So basically King, I ended up cracking my l one vertebrate uh down. And when I when I got the wrong Georgia, I ended up playing one game. Then I had a mini stroke. I had to play in the game because if you didn't play, they put you out the house. So I played the worst game. My life got cut. The mother and my child called me and it was like, will are you okay? And I said, I'm doing the best. At this point, we not together no more. The distance it broke everything up. And uh, you know, I said, no, I need a ticket to Printing, New Jersey. So it's getting closer to how to speak. It started. I go to Trenton, New Jersey. I got a one way bus ticket about twenty dollars to my name. I got nothing all the way. The flight was from Rome, Georgia all the way to Trenton, New Jersey. Trenton Freedom was the team owned by these millionaires that specialize on solar pattern and all that stuff. But they brung me in. I had a tryout. I made the team. Next day, I was in a hotel and they had all the restaurants. I mean, I felt like I was rigiating, even about the money. It was like I'm eating square meals. So when I get there, I dominate break the single game sack record on Mother's Day. And after that game, I see some of the CFL scouts, So I'm thinking I'm getting ready to go to the CFL. Get my opportunity to go over there, and boom, at the end of the season, I don't get the call from the scouts. I go to a workout with one of the Toronto Argonaut scouts and he basically said, the coach at Trenton Freedom said that you had mental health issues. He used my past story to tell him that he's not mentally ready to go because he wanted to secure a bigger contract for him to move up to a higher level in the rental league, so he used me as a pond. I found that out, cuss his ass out, and once again I'm back homeless. So I go to Dover, Delaware with a teammate after the season, and you know, I'm bouncing house to house and then the coach that I broke the single game sack record, Bernie Bernie Northtowski. He actually was on Facebook getting a blood infusion and he saw my post on Facebook, like, man, life is so tiring. I said, I don't think I ever played ball again. And he was like, I got a team for you, harrisburg Stampe Marcus Coasting. Team down here Hersheypa. He brings me down to Hersheypa. I'm in a gym doing the workout. My whole right side go out on me. I go to the doctor. They say, will you got an air one vertebrate crack? You basically can't play football no more. I never tell a coach this is where God come in. He comes in now getting closer to the speech. He comes in and and the coach cast me one day and be like, will Marcus Coaster is folding the team. He's canceling up the season. He no longer wants to invest in the team. He's gonna shut the team down. So if I would have went in that season and I probably wouldn't even be talking to I've probably been a para believe it or something. And Uh, I told coach about my injury. He moved me into his apartment. I mean not his apartment, his house with his wife and his three kids. I'm the only black guy down in the reading pa in his neighborhood. I'm basically staying in the basement until he said, hey, will you want to coach the D line with this Arena team. I got down here and and and read and I said, for sure. I was like that, that'll be honor. And that's when I learned the power of coaching. It's a beautiful, beautiful thing to watch people, you know, do what you teach. So one day I was speaking to the players on the sideline and and I had already I was getting ready to I was moving out of Coach nortowsky basement. Just didn't want to be a burd into the family. Ain't of that anymore. So I go into the hotel rooms with the players. Sometimes a player will leave with a lady or a woman or anything like that. And one particular day I had to sleep on side of the Turkey Yo gas station. I'm sleeping on something. I'm telling basically relaxing, I can call it relaxing. I'm sitting on side of the Turkey Yo gas station and it's early in the morning. I get up and the teacher that saw me talking to the Kings at the game said, basically, I would love for you to come speak to my young man the way you spoke to those young men. And I said, why not. You know, I got you. I could be there. The school was right down the road. So I got up and probably around twelve thirty and went down there to the school. I spoke to five young men within five minutes, and he was in tears at this point. It was the first time talking about my story and it broke me down. And people will be surprised by telling your story. Just speaking your story out loud, it'll overwhelm, it'll make you emotional. And I was walking back to the hotel. I had a four or five in my bag. I was about to go into Abraham Lincoln Hotel and committed suicide in the bathroom. About five sets before I got to the hotel, I got a call from Miss Robinson. Cheryl Robinson. Shout out to Cheryl Robinson. She said, will how much he charged to speak? I knew nothing about speaking, and I said seventy five one hundred dollars or something like that. So basically I went to the hotel and I went to the computer room. I typed in in motivational speaking. They nothing about it. Les Brown popped up man this man. I seen him speaking in the Georgia Dome. I saw he talked about his painting, kept a smile on his face. I just just like we used to watch when we was literally watch football videos. I studied this whole monnerism, but I just was myself and just took pieces of what he had and used my story. And I went into the assembly. A week later, I got my one hundred dollars first of being paid, got a standing ovation. King. Every five hundred students, every single student came down and shook my hand, cried tears, and that was the moment I realized that this was my gift the whole time. And you fast forward, you know, ten years later, over one point three billion views on YouTube. Now platinum spoken word Albums history. The first week of to speak during Milan Fashion Week of Philipply Paris Hilton super Bowl commercial this year featured in Super Bowl commercial. Last year, just did an Undermer commercial with Stephen Curry and King also received the Ambassador of Peace Award at Kingston, Jamaica. Spoken in Australia. And it all started by me telling my story in that high school. So when I tell people I realized this, I realized that God this whole time, the love that I had for my mother, it never really was my job to save her. You know, our job to save anyone, That's God's job. All our job is is to basically give our message and give our truth and help as many people as we can. But the person that can only truly get it done is God. And you know, he turned a kid from the projects into one of the you know, they say, one of the greatest young speakers of this generation. And one thing about my story then a lot of speakers, can you know? That separates me from a lot of speakers, is that when I speak, it's not that you hear me, they feel me, you know what I mean. And I just thank God for giving me this gift. I'm setting in a home. Man, I got home, I got a family, I got a wife, you know. And the best thing He's ever done for me is make me rich on the inside before he made me rich on the outside. And that's why I'm humble. That's why I look at myself as a grain of salt. On the ground. So I can never look down upon people. And I believe when you truly work for God, your promotions become everlasting. And now I'm an author. My book was I'm a self published author, was putting Walmart, Barns and Nobles, Amazon Prime, It's a bestseller. And man, all I can say is, I can never it wasn't me. My story and my sacrifice was for all the time. Right now we're living in where kids are lost, women don't love themselves, young men don't know who they are, They don't know how to control their emotions. And I'm so grateful that I'm a speaker that can walk into any room and I don't care if you got murderers, the killers, the drug dealers. They feel me and I believe God gave me up my gift to motivate the individuals that thought motivation wasn't even real. And that's the blessing that I have. And I tell everybody when I was telling my speeches, when I was saying my speech, I was talking to myself king and the world simply was listening. And that's the only That's what I tell everybody, that I was talking to myself. I had to speak self life and to myself to be the man that I am today. And that's why I got a passion of spreading this message all over the world. I got a passion of helping with mental health because I know my story is not a story that I'm just talking to you. I lived this. You know. This past Christmas day, my father and my father was released from prison after doing eight years. First time seeing me as a motivational speaker. I flew into Michigan, got to see him, got an airbnb. You know, we first got out of prison. They just want to eat all the new foods, introducing them the door dash. I'm feeding them. And the first time in my life, I saw my father as an old man. He's falling asleep. He's always been this big superman god to me. And I flew back home to Atlanta, and in eleven days after my son was born, he was murdered and left for dead in Detroit this past Christmas. So I lost my father, bro I lost my mother and all that pain that I had that will break a lot of meat uh and women. Uh. I believe that, you know, God just broke it full a circle that you know, he sacrificed himself for us, and they say we live in the limit the image and likeness of God, and a man's job on his earth to me is to sacrifice his life and sacrifice himself for the betterment of his family and the betterment of the young kings that's coming up from behind him. So it wasn't for me to go out and try to be this big celebrity. I just wanted to be a man that could just say I sacrifice God. I sacrifice everything to help your people and to keep love and God in people heart. So that that's my life king, and that that that's a I give all glory to the most hot man, all prices of mo hot for everything I got and even being able to be on this podcast with you, guys. Man, it's just a it's been a hell of a journey, man, but the pain was worth it. Well, it's cool. It's cool to hear you say that it's been a dream for you to be on our podcast because I look at you as a speaker, and I know Darren and I have talked about doing more of this speaking. Darren's not going to play football forever, so it's just cool for us to hear you say that it's a dream to be on our podcast when we see you just crushing it on the biggest stage and facing what for many people is their biggest fears, talking in front of a group, but not only talking in front of a group, but being able to deliver in a way that people can relate. And I think that's what I'm hearing in everything you're saying. And that's why I relate because I can feel I can feel you, and it's exactly why every piece of motivation that you give people, you're just talking to yourself, which is why it's why it's so relatable. I have a question for you regarding because I've heard you talk about how being broke as a mindset, it's not the lack of funds, it's the lack of belief. But what do you think right now, like in the world, what do you see is like the root cause or the commonality of people's broken down belief systems. Oh? Just I believe right now in the world, they killed every example that can teach us. If you watch the world man, all the great leaders that was trying to educate and teach us and put us in the right mindset. Some way, somehow, something happens soon. And now you have a generation of lost souls that now they believe that they believe fame and being in a light is more important than family. The woman believes that being a model is more important than being a mother. And you know, if you have a generation of children that that doesn't love themselves, that doesn't value their lives, that doesn't know where they started or where they come from, you will have a lost generation of people. And one thing I tell people, money is not the greatest thing you can have. Purpose is the greatest thing that you can have. So it's so many individuals in the world right now that's walking around with no purpose. They have no purpose for life. Man, And I tell everybody, once you find your purpose, it can heal all the pain of your life. Because what happens is individuals are going the wrong direction they whole life. King And this is when the mental health thing pops up. They're going the wrong direction their whole life. And when they realize that they when they finally realize they been going the wrong way their whole life. Whether you have to do in the DPS, you got to set your current destination to get to your final destination. And when people jump off the ledge and commit suicide. It's because of the simple fact that they do not have the strength to go all the way back to the beginning and do it the right way. And that's the problem in the world. We got a first identify with what's hurting us. You got a hurt world. King, kings and queens like myself that buried their mothers, young women that was molested and taken advantage of but never got the help they needed. You got a broken society where young kids are raising kids. Our grandmothers are children now they're not the old elderly women. And then you got men that walk around dressed as boys. You know, back in the day, when you're walk wash a man walk around, you will see a man in his suit. You'll see a man in his shoes. You will see them. You can see a man. But now you got the older man competing with the younger man. The older man looks like a boy. It's a scene a boardwalk Empire that changed my life. And it was al Capone talking to this Jewish man. So al Capone kept acting the Jewish man, Why do you keep calling me a boy? Al Capone's able to show the Jewish man around the city. So he said, why do you keep calling me a bone? They say, this is a true story. Why you keep calling me a boy? And the Jewish man said, as long as you wear the hat of a boy, you will always be perceived as a boy, no matter if you like it or not. And they said, al Capone never put on a hat a boy's hat anymore. He never wore regular slacks anymore. When this man told him that, because he realized that in the world, the way you are perceived is the way you are treated, and it's not right that people treat you that way. But one thing about this generation. If a boy never sees a man, how can he ever become one. So now you got the rappers, you got the little boosters, you got all these other all these rappers. That that's old enough to be my father behaving like a child. So if a child sees a man behaving as a child, he's always gonna be a child. He's gonna believe being a child is a man. And then he gets into a marriage and don't know how to control his emotions. Something I speak on often. If you never learn how to control your emotions, you can never truly be a man. You will always be a boy. And goes back to what I told you was one of these boys, these little kids, they was hurt. One of these little girls, they was hurt, and when they were hurt, they stayed that age. They might have turned twenty eight this year, But when that little girl was hurt, when she was twelve years old, she's still twelve years old. That little boy that waited at the door for his father to come home, but he never came. He's still a hurt little boy, but just dressing a man uniform. So what I feel the world is lacking right now is therapists therapy, being able to talk about their pains and being able to share their pains without being talked about, or taking advantage of a safe place for them to express themselves. That's why I wrote this book for one day. I want to get it into the schools, man, I want. I want to create a curriculum where kids get up and tell their stories in front of their brothers, the Hispanic brothers, the Asian brothers, the white brothers, so they can see our stories not too different, our pain is the same, and that's gonna build the love. And then what you're gonna get kids doing is just like me telling my stories, saying my life, it's gonna save theirs. Then the counselors can set in the room and identify the red flags just hurting these children, the things that they don't have to ask some questions for. They can just ask the questions. And then you get children writing books about their lives. You know. Then you got then then you say, no, can you not just a project? Baby? You're an author. Your story matters. And that's what it's all about with me, man, That's that's that's that's that's this is, this is my life, man. Is to it's to inspire billions of individuals. Man, and I'm doing that. I've done this without management. I got in the Super Bowl. God has been my manager. Man, I don't have a team. I don't have a social media team. You know how I get my content? People from all over the world top it up and I take it off, They page and post it. That that that that's how I built my brand. Everything you see is organic. That's why I was able to go over million million plus views on all my videos. My first speech, my football speech. The number if you go to YouTube right best football speech ever, the number one speech. I was homeless in Huntersville, Alabama. King homeless. I was homeless. When I was over three million views on you, I was still homeless. It wasn't That's what I learned. I had to realize, like God, I didn't give you this job to become a starting rich. He gave you this job will to say lives. So I took my last one hundred and twenty dollars and went to Columbia High School. A coach asked me to speak. I gave a video wager for one hundred and twenty bucks. I gave him a hundred bucks, actually because I kept twenty. I just got a limit of tours, all black tours. And I needed gas because I was leaving. I just got evicted from my apartment. I go in there, I dropped the speech to the football speech King. I leave go down to drive down to Atlanta. Sleeping in the AMC Theater in Camp Creek in Georgia. I'm sleeping in the I'm sleeping in the parking lot. The next morning, I wake up and the videographer called me and said, I posted a clip last night of the speech and it's going viral. On Twitter. It went viral on Twitter and now it's the number one football speech in the world. That's why I tell everybody there's nobody that can take this away from me, because God gave it to me. And I tell people all the time. And to bring it full circle, the man that reached out to me and called my phone the legendary Les Brown, when I was homeless setting in Camp Creek Less Brown was in the hospital getting the blood transfusion defeating cancer. He listened to one of my speeches called the Journey, and it starts off with I didn't come this far to only come this far. That's the same quote Drake and Kim Kardashian using. By the way, that's the quote she heard on the internet. When when he heard that, it inspired him to keep going. He flew down to Atlanta and the man that I turned on the computer the first day I ever spoke this is God man met me in Atlanta. We met at the grocery store. First, got got a little he loves watermelon, It's crazy. We got some some fruit from I'm the Groceries, the whole food store. Then we went to a house and where he did an interview with me and passed the torch, which is he also actually let me grab something for you guys. He actually just wrote he wrote the forward. He wrote the forward to this book. We'll tell you, guys, let's legendary, Les Brin. I'm sorry, guys, kidding me. So that's who wrote the forward to my book. See that legendary. When I say God built my career, he built my life. He created the entity William King Hollis whatever they want to call me. But I tell everybody, if you want to win in life, don't ever think a man can change your life more than God can. Because when I had no food, he gave me meals. When I had no underwear, he gave me clothes. When I he never gave me what I wanted, but he gave me what I needed. And if you work long enough, how they say that cut will run it over, It'll run it over for the rest of your life if you if you give your life to him and you serve, and you work for him daily. And that's the reason why the kid that couldn't read they was sixteen years old is a best selling author and one of the best young speakers in the world. And I believe my story has it haven't even hit the ice bird of of what I would do and how many people I will aspire leading up to this next generation. And I believe that I was created for this very moment in the world. And my time is My time is now, no doubt, man, I mean, I mean, you're embodying everything that a comeback story is. And you know, I believe God is ultimately the author of all of our comeback stories, you know, like the timing of it. We don't know the exact circumstances of it. We don't know the amount of pain we have to endure. We don't know. But ultimately, if we endure, Ultimately, if we push and uh and have faith that it can't get better, it will get better. It will. And but the people in order for them to believe that they need new examples, I feel like there's so much truth in what you said about the examples that we have. The leaders that we have, they're not the same quality, you know what I'm saying. And that's where that's where us three come in. Like having this platform and being able to utilize this platform to give people new examples and to have men that are successful and real and authentic that have pain, that have tough experiences, and that develop real lessons from that, and that there's so much more substance in the riches and the fame, but just real character growth, character development. Man, you really are that, and you are and you know you're your story isn't over. You've come back from many things, but you're still coming back here, coming back to bring to bring people with you, man, And so I just want to honor you and say that we appreciate you whether Man, thank you, damn Man. That's truly an honor Man once again, Donnie, thank you again, big guy. You guys are amazing man, And thank you guys for creating this podcast. You know for so many people, Man, and Donnie, I want to get with you one day. I want to create a podcast myself, man. So it's a lot of things I need to learn on that in that podcast, wheld, I think I could create I go viral mostly everybody podcast, and I'm tired of go a viral other people podcasts now my own. But you know, I see a podcast as a beacon of light to inspire and help a lot of people, man, And hopefully we all could collab on that stage one day. Man and do and do something, do something magnificent. I actually have an idea man, and and it's uh, it's called healing. It was it was called healing with William King Hollin and it's basically what you get on a whole bunch of group of men. You gotta breakout session with women and what you want. What I want to do is I want to talk about I want to give them a speech on mental health. But I also want to open the room for every man to share their traumas together. I want to cry tiers together. I want to let that pain out together. I want to heal together inside the room. And I believe you guys would be great to be a part of that, and and and and and really help a lot of people. Uh there, and a lot of people look up and admire you for your game. But I tell everybody for a long time that brother is a huge advocate for mental health and and way more than a football player. So I just want to thank you Kaine for being the stand up individual that you are man and being the leader that you are. And Donnie, thank you brother for always staying consistent, always supporting. I seen your likes, I seen your shares and and it means a lot coming from a brother like yourself. Man, So once again, brothers, I am extremely honored to have the opportunity to be on this podcast today. Yeah, thank you will. I feel like we heard your story. And there's so much adversity and just in the football and how much rejection and hurdles you had to face, but also your life. So we'll have to there's so many just one liners and quotes and a lot of fire that we didn't get to, so we'll probably have to get you back for around two. Maybe you can, maybe you can take us out and just let us understand the listener out there that just can't understand why this pain, how it possibly could be necessary. Can you just take us out and tell us why pain is necessary? Probably pain is the Neto theory because pain is the only thing that can strengthen you. You know. I was watching this show on the Discovery Channel. I think it was the Discovery Channel, but it was the jiu jitsu coach and practiced this thing on his fighters where he hits him in the same place over and over and over again, and the fighters start to say that this is painful, but the coach will say, what if I told you you could take more pain, But as you continue to hit him in that same spot, the pain that he thought was pain no longer was pain. And what I tell everybody is pain is the thing that separates those guys that gets the opportunity and fails, and that other person gets the opportunity and to seize by any means necessary as a man. And I don't want to speak for women. I just know right now for a man, you can't be a king without pain. If you go back and you do your research, every great king that became a king had to take a loss. He had to lay down and bleed awhile. He had let down and bleed awhile so he for him to become who he was born to be. So what I tell everybody the pain is the portal to the purpose. And once you get through the pain and you get to that purpose, it won't be a human being on this earth that will be able to stop you from accomplishing anything you want. If you want to turn that vote onto a ferrari, you can do it. If you want to turn that apartment into a mansion, you can do it. And if that family tree is rotten. You let it go and you replan another one. You water it different, you take care of it different, and you love on it different. But pain, my friends, is the portal. The greatness can't get there without it. God got to test you that man, sir, on that No, that's a mic drop man. We appreciate y'all checking us out. Appreciate you king from being here with us. Man. We hope you guysure to take some and from this into your own journey. I know I have, I know Donnie has as well, So appreciate you guys. Join in. Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.