Resource Center

Story of Self

What are the experiences in your life that have shaped the values that call you to leadership? What specific moments, experiences have shaped your story of self?

Family and Childhood
Parents/Family
Growing Up Experiences
Your Community
Role Models
School

Life Choices
School
Career
Partner/Family
Hobbies/Interests/Talents
Finding Passion
Overcoming Challenge

Leadership Experience
First Experience with Political & Civic Issues
Key Moment in Your Work
Role Models/Community
Current Experience as an Organizer

Challenge, Choice, Outcome

Think about the challenge, choice and outcome in your story. The outcome might be what you learned, in addition to what happened.

Try drawing pictures here instead of words. Powerful stories leave your listeners with images in their minds that shape their understanding of you and your calling.

Example

CHALLENGE MOMENT: When were specific moments of challenge you faced when growing.

I was 8 years old the summer of 1978 when I became aware there was a difference between races and my lifelong friends. My father had returned back to prison for the second time in eight years. We lived in public housing and poverty, however my neighborhood was rich with family. Myself and four or five other children were playing under the streetlights waiting on our moms or granma to call us in, we were laughing and playing throwing things at the light. One of us hit the light about the time a city police car came up. Two Uniform officers came towards us, my Black and Brown Friends froze for a second before scattering different directions. I stood there mesmerized by the look of fear in their eyes before running myself. We hid at various places and used our voices to lure the police away from each other that day. We went on to use our voices to spend the next thirty years of our lives in Juvenile detention to life in prison. If you fought one of us you fought all of us until I walked out of prison 2010. My brothers who were left behind asked me not to write to them or contact them unless they were meeting me on the streets.

CHOICE MOMENT: What choice did you make in the face of your challenges?

I spent the next eight years of my life repairing relationships and becoming the best father, husband, grandfather, business owner, white Privileged person I could be. Hiding always behind the truth that I felt that if they knew I was a person convicted of capital crime I would not be gaining access to wealth and opportunities. I Volunteered for various activities around criminal justice related stuff and felt i was paying my dues but not having to out myself until Lida Shepard A dear friend asked me to speak at reentry day 2018 during a teachers strike.

OUTCOME MOMENT: How do the above moments connect to your calling?

Standing there at the podium waiting to speak and hoping no one knows I am there outing myself, thinking I don’t belong here. Teachers came to the capital by the hundreds shouting and pushing delegates around, they had power. I stood there thinking of the days where my friends and I ran and hid and tormented the police with our voice.. But they were all dead or doing life in prison and had no voice to.. My turn came and I Told them about my life. I Left that day and eventually sold my company and began a new life lifting up the voice of my brothers and sister until they can.