Becoming an Eagle How to Achieve Success
i was a junior
attending norris brown college when i
heard my first motivational speaker
my business professor invited him to
come speak to the class
to talk about what it means to be
successful
after a brief introduction he rolls from
his chair
appearing larger than life with a
glowing smile and
confident presence as he walked toward
the class
he paused as if in deep reflection
he asked us has anybody ever heard of
the
chicken and eagle story we all ship our
heads puzzled
he began this rooting tale saying
long ago in a land far away an
eagle egg fell from the nest
a mother hen who was wandering away from
her farm
stumbled across the lost eagle egg when
she brought the egg back to the farm
the other hens shook in horror they said
this is an eagle egg if this evil
hatches and knows he’s an eagle
he’ll rule over us the motherhood stood
firm
so collectively they decided in order to
ensure their safety
they would make this eagle believe he
was a chicken
when the evil egg hatched the hens
nurtured this
eagle they taught him how to have
chicken aspirations
chicken behaviors and chicken thoughts
when the eagle would struggle to adapt
the hymns would reassure
this young eagle that if he worked
really hard he would become a chicken
just like them as a result
he would hide his beak and hide his
feathers
he would practice walking like a chicken
talking like a chicken
eventually he was able to even have
chicken thoughts
as he grew he became proud of who he was
because in his mind
he truly believed that he was indeed a
chicken
then one day in the clear blue sky he
sees this
large beautiful bird
and he says to himself this is the one
shot i have to prove that i
am a chicken the large bird sees this
young eagle
and he comes down to the farm and says
hey
what are you doing the young eagle
replies
what do you mean what am i doing can’t
you see
i’m a chicken
the large boy replies you’re not a
chicken
your wings weren’t meant to fold and you
weren’t meant to cower
you’re meant to be in the sky you were
meant to sit on
huge beautiful mountain tops
son you’re not a chicken you’re an
eagle just like me
the guest lecturer concluded with
many of you have been taught your whole
life
to live like other chickens exist with
other chickens
to think like other chickens many of you
have been raised by chickens
topped about chickens you may even have
some chicken friends
but i’m here today to tell you that’s
not who you are
you are an illegal
the whole class erupted in applause
not everyone
don’t get me wrong i thought the ankle
story was beautiful
because when i heard it i immediately
started to think about
the chicken classmates that bullied me
in school
it made me remember the chicken
neighbors that
told me my dreams were way too big
then i started to recall the chicken
relatives that
told me when i was young i wouldn’t
amount to anything
but i wasn’t buying this chicken and
eagle story
so i raised my hand and i said sir
i’m originally from south central los
angeles
and what that means is you’re a witness
to war on the streets
young men lose their lives to gun
violence
and even innocent bystanders get killed
from being at the wrong place at the
wrong time
helicopters that shine down on your
house
drive-bys neighborhoods surrounded with
yellow caution tape with covered body
bags
that’s my normal people reduce
themselves to a life of crime because
they feel like
they don’t have any options
you have families with generations
of dysfunctional drug and alcohol abuse
after a while the pain fear and grief
you become numb to it
i’m the first in my family to leave for
college and if i succeed
i’ll be the first in my family to
graduate i appreciate
the words of encouragement but since
i’ve been here
i’ve had no idea how to escape my past
let alone believe
i can fly he listened to me closely
and as he smiled and gave me advice that
would stay with me for the rest of my
life
he said you are not
your mother or your father’s choices
the essence of who you are is not where
you come from
you’ve been given an opportunity at this
place at this time
to make whatever you want to make out of
your life
how you do that is entirely up to you
but your story is not a continuation
of their story you
can break this cycle would be my first
lesson
let go of your past change your mindset
but how do you change a mindset how do
you
get past and adjust years of trauma
fear doubt all you knew to be true
you must first recognize you need to
change
how you see yourself realizing the one
person that you were in the past does
not require
the person that you have to be
this makes you more self-aware when you
realize
why you need to change the good that
will happen when you change
and the impact it’ll have on your life
you start to make the moves to want to
move forward
it becomes easier when you’re living
mirror and you visualize the future you
the new you that you want to become
you start to see yourself as an eagle
and that makes it a lot easier
to get off that farm
leaving south central los angeles to
atlanta georgia i was labeled a first
generation college student
it would be years before i understood
how condemning that word and a
description is
first generation college students are
the first to
drop out of college and are the least
likely to graduate
studies have shown factors such as
socioeconomic hardship
academic challenges struggles to adopt a
college culture
financial hardships some studies have
even said survivors remorse is the
reason why
first generation college students don’t
graduate
through support of faculty family and
friends
i was able to successfully graduate from
morris brown college
i will then move on to pursue a career
in higher education i believe that
education was a great equalizer
and that it allowed people to change
their lives by achieving their
educational goals
and i desperately wanted to be a part of
that journey
years later i would become a doctoral
student
and as a researcher i wanted to study
the underdog
african-american males are the lowest
demographic to graduate from college
i wanted to know why is that how did
this particular group get left behind
my research showed that african-american
males were not getting the proper
support they needed to be successful
on campus be a lack of faculty mentoring
poor academic advisement improper career
development
here you had a group of men that were
eagles and they were ready to soar the
problem was
many higher education professionals felt
it wasn’t their responsibility
to teach them how to fly there was a
misconception that if they were
truly eagles they should already know
how to fly
or quickly adapt like the other eagles
by not addressing or even acknowledging
the systemic barriers that these men
faced
in elementary school middle school and
high school
universities in college failed to
support
and provide a nurturing environment that
this group so desperately needed
this would teach me my second lesson
if you don’t know how to fly gather a
team
that will teach you how to do it
when you’ve identified the person you
want to become but have no idea how to
get there
you have to be vulnerable and humble
enough to ask for help
ask yourself who can offer me insight to
help me achieve my goals
when you ask for help this opens doors
and provides assistance
allowing you to achieve your goals much
faster going at it alone
means that you’re gonna have to
experience several trial and error
setbacks which will take you longer to
achieve success
you also want to constantly evaluate
your circle
who are you allowing to speak to you
what are they speaking to you
are they supportive of your goals or are
they negative
growing up amongst chickens even eagles
have a hard time detaching themselves
from the farm
in order to achieve success you have to
understand
the people you surround yourself with
will influence how you see yourself
the team that you create will either
help you achieve your dreams
or deter you from even having them
[Music]
my third lesson comes from a more
personal experience
my husband and i have been together over
22 years
now i’m not going to say that our
marriage is perfect because it is
deeply flawed with mistakes and heart
lessons that we had to endure
to become the loving and supportive
partners that we are today
we did what we thought society showed us
we should do
we got an education then we got married
we bought the beautiful house had a nice
picket fence in the back
even put a cute dog in we had a life
that
many would admire so it was a surprise
to anyone we announced
we were starting to plan to have a
family
when i got pregnant i was so
excited i was nervous
but i was excited every day at lunch i
would
go off and buy little baby clothes and
when i would come home i would
doodle possible names i would visualize
the baby with his eyes and my teeth
at four and a half months pregnant i
experienced extreme cramps
panicked my husband called 9-1-1 for me
to be rushed to the hospital
when i got to the hospital the doctor
put a sonogram reader on my stomach
and he couldn’t detect a heartbeat he
assured us that everything was fine
he said the machine was faulty and that
they were experiencing some problems
so we should wait in the room with the
nurse and when the new machine was ready
he would bring the machine back and
check on us
as my husband and i went in the room
for several hours i would continue to
experience extreme cramps
the nurse refused to let me leave the
bed so when she went to refill my water
jug
i took that as an opportunity to go use
the restroom
[Music]
what i didn’t know at the time is that i
was in labor
when i went to the restroom i delivered
our baby
i called out to my husband and he came
running
and he wrapped his arms around me and he
said close your eyes
he screamed for the doctors to come and
help us
as my husband held our baby’s lifeless
body
in his arms all i could do was just
stand there and cry
[Music]
on that evening we lost our son
i was hurt
i was angry
i was
experiencing grief
out of that grief would come fear
what if i can’t have any more kids
the doctors ran several tests and all of
them came back inconclusive
the doctors advised us to start right
away and try again but
i wasn’t ready to experience that level
of grief
i couldn’t imagine
caring to experience that type of loss
what i told my husband he took me by the
hand and he
sat me down and he said babe
it’s time we have a hard conversation
we now know that you being pregnant
may experience some challenges we also
know
that you may even miscarry
so i’m going to ask you the question
that’s going to set the course for the
rest of our lives
how many miscarriages are you willing to
endure
to get the life you won
i was so angry how how many
but then i thought to myself
how how many
i wanted kids we both wanted kids
but that idea meant we were going to
incur losses
so the next day i came to him and i said
i will endure 100
miscarriages if it means we have
one child he gave me a big hug and said
100 it is
three high-risk pregnancies and three
beautiful girls later
my husband taught me my third lesson
success comes from failure
[Music]
as a new eagle when you first fly you
will fall and you will fail you will
fail because you have
made the decision to go on uncharted
territory that you’ve never known
your conditions will change the
challenges that you face
will cause delays
you don’t know how to fly so you’re
flying a little crazy you’re gonna go
circular you’re gonna go
sideways you’re gonna go backwards up
and down
you’re gonna doubt yourself wonder did
you make the right decision to leave the
farm
when you’re up in that sky you’ll have
nobody to turn to
your wings will feel unfamiliar making
this whole experience very uncomfortable
you’ll want to quit because the
destination terrifies you
but i’m here today to tell you to fly
anyway
because you are an eagle
[Music]
and it’s time we recognize that you have
to
let go of your past and change your
mindset
it’s time to recognize that when it gets
hard you have to ask
for help it’s time to surround yourself
with other eagles it’s time to recognize
it’s not about
when you fail or what happens
if you choose to fail and how you get up
again
we don’t need a blueprint to achieve
success
we just need to recognize we need to go
out on a journey of self-discovery
and be willing to learn how to fly
i look forward to seeing all of you in
the sky
thank you