Troy's Times - December 1st, 2005
Hi Friend! (Some ch^racters in th1s newsletter have been altered to keep it from being filtered out as spam) IN THIS ISSUE
“It is not important How we come to the events in our lives, but how we Deal with those events”- Troy
This week’s article: The Pivotal Point For every change, there is one pivotal point. The point where status quo is abandoned and an entirely new direction chosen. The laws of physics state that objects in motion tend to stay in motion. This applies to life changes as well. To stop or redirect that object t^kes power and effort just as life changes do. Reversing a trend that you have spent a lifetime building can take a great deal of power, but sometimes great power is wrapped in very small packages. May 7th, 1993. To that po1nt in my life, it proved to be the hardest day I would ever face. That was the day I stood before a federal judge and was told that I would spend the next 13 years in federal prison. The next 157 months of my life were going to be spent as an incarcerated felon. To that date, it was the hardest day of my life…but it was nothing compared to the next. May 8th, 1993. That was the day that I had to call my, then seven-year-old,
son Eric and let him know that his dad was not going to be available to
him for a very long time. “Incarceration” is a hard enough
concept for an adult to fathom. For a seven-year-old child, a third grader,
it's impossible. Eric could not comprehend the sp^n of 13 years. How do
you understand an amount of time that is twice that of your age? All he
wanted to know was whether he was going to be able to come spend next
summer vacation with me, as had been the case the prior three years. “No
Eric, you won’t be coming to spend next summer vacation with me.”
My son lived in a very small midwestern town. EVERYBODY knew his business. EVERYBODY knew where his daddy was. EVERBODY knew his dad was a conv1ct. Kids can be extremely cruel, and I knew that what I had done would cause my son to be teased, tormented and ridiculed for years to come. I had let him down throughout his life and going to prison was going to make it even worse. I dreaded the question that I knew would always h^ng in his eyes, the “Why?” that I would never be able to answer, but the first time I saw Eric in the prison visiting room I came around the corner to hear my son asking a guard a very different question. “If you won’t let my dad spend the night with me at the hotel tonight, can I spend the night in here with him?” It hit me like a ton of bricks. Despite everything my son had just gone through he still wanted to stay the night here with me in prison. Despite all of the sl^mming steel doors behind him, despite having to take off his belt and shoes while going through a metal detector, and despite, at seven years old, being “patted down” to see that he wasn’t smuggling in contraband, I was still a hero in his eyes. I was still his Daddy no matter where I was and what I did. On that day when he vis1ted, I went from being a nameless, faceless, convict among 1,200 inmates – Evans #24291-013 – to being a hero. I wanted to grab him, squeeze him and say thank you for still loving me! That day I came to two very important realizations. Number one, drugs had become more important to me than the most important person in my life. It really had become that simple – drugs meant more to me than my son did. And, number two, I was breaking a long-standing tradition. The tradition of my great grandfather being there for my grandfather, my grandfather being there for my Dad and my Dad being there for me. Instead of being there for my son, I gave him ridicule at school, an absent father and the eternal question that was always on the tip of his tongue no matter how cheerful he tried to be – “Why did you leave me?” Incarceration, detention, and prison – they all mean the same thing. They are deprivation. My son had been deprived of his father for all seven years of his life. I was looking with fear at a thirteen year prison sentence having never re^lized that my son had been born into a prison of his own, his only crime being that he was born to a father who had made drugs his priority. And yet, I heard him asking again and again if he could be with me. I heard the hope in h1s voice for a father who had never even been very good at it and I decided right then and there that I was going to be a better man. Steel bars or no, I was going to be as close to the father that my son deserved as I could possibly be. If my son still had hope for me, then I could have hope as well. That was it. That was my pivotal point. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Like I said before, sometimes the power that you need comes in small packages. For me, it was the hope of a child. Great things can be learned from children. Remember when you were a child? Did you believe that you could be anything you wanted when you grew up? When did you stop believing that? I saw hope for my future reflected in my son’s im^ge of me. Once I caught a glimmer of that hope, I began to see it when I looked at the reflection in the mirror. He taught me that. He taught me to start believing that anything was possible aga1n. He taught me to live my life with the hope of a child. How many times have you wanted to do something, to make a change in your life only to get bogged down with all of the re^sons why it could never happen. You may say, “I want to go back and get my degree.” Then you start to hear the little voice in the back of your head. “How can I go to class around my work schedule?” “Who will watch the kids?” “I’m too old to go back to school.” And suddenly you realize you have been defeated before you’ve even picked up a course catalog. I have news for you. It wasn’t the job, the kids or the missed opportun1ty that defeated you. It was the little voice – the excuses that let you avoid the situation rather than dealing with it. They are the same excuses that cover up the real question – “What if I can’t?” I had listened to that little voice all of my life telling me why I couldn’t give up drugs, get a job, and love my family. “What if I failed?” “No one would hire me anyway.” “My family was better off without me.” The little voice was alw^ys with me. But, the day that I saw hope reflected in my child’s face, that little voice started getting fainter and fainter and the possibility of earning the hero status that my son had already bestowed upon me became greater and greater. For the first time in my life, I was truly focused on what was most important and it was all due to a child’s hope, not my son’s, but the hope that had been reawakened in me. Think, for a moment, about what it was like to have the hope and confidence of a child who knew that anything was possible. Now, do yourself a favor. Go over to a mirror and tell yourself whom you could be. “I could be a non-smoker.” “I could be the best s^lesman in my company.” “I could be a college graduate.” “I could be the parent that my child deserves.” If you hear that little voice start to creep in, say it to yourself again. In fact every time you hear that voice, find yourself a mirror and say it again. Drown that little voice out and create your own p1votal point. The point where the little voice no longer calls the shots. You do. If you can do just that, you have stepped through that gate onto the
path to becoming the person that you always wanted to be. Read
a letter from a recent client - Click hear to read! I often had a hopeless feeling knowing that all I could offer were words of encouragement and support and the sharing of my own downfall....that was until I became partners with a company called DrugTALK. DrugTALK is a v1rtual life coach dedicated to helping families, parents and young people overcome the threat and dangers of drugs through the privacy of their home. They do this by delivering the insight, tools and activities needed for parents to protect their children by putting vital protection principles into practice, often without parents even realizing it. Their programs and tools are based on decades of research and supported by a dynamic team of communication experts, family intervention specialists, treatment professionals, narcotics intelligence officers, life coaches, parents and---most importantly---teens who have faced the world of drugs first-hand. The CEO of DrugTALK happened to attend one of my speaking engagements
and after talking I skeptically took one of his Drug Reference Guides
and a DVD. Having lived through the hell of drug abuse I had my whole
adult life been conv1nced that nothing short of expensive in-patient treatment
centers could break the hold that drugs have on our young people. After
thoroughly studying what DrugTalk has to offer I was blown away- I can
honestly say that h^d these tools been available to me during my teenage
years that I most likely would have avoided the hell I put myself and
family through.
Featured product for this issue! MY FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK- " From Desper^tion to Dedication: Lessons You Can Bank On"…Click
here to order
Download a free chapter of my book, The Preface is available here - Click to begin! If you live in or near one of the following cit1es where Troy will be speaking over the next few months, please contact The Ev^ns Groups for details on an opportunity that does not come around often- see Troy present for free!
Sign up for my affiliate program and earn money while you sleep! Click here for details! Commission for booking me - I offer a comm1ssion of 10%-20% ($650.00-$1,300.00) for anyone who refers me for speaking engagements and/or bulk product sales. Please contact The Evans Group for details. Subscriber opinions and impressions of this electronic newsletter: I invite subscribers to write me with their quest1ons as well and I will answer them in the next issue. Also readers, I invite you to send in profiles of yourself and how you have used the inform^tion from my electronic newsletter, products or speech in your personal and/or professional lives. Once a month I will feature one individual for all others to read about!
Note: You are free to reprint any portion of this electronic newsletter as long as the portion remains complete and unaltered, and the “About the Author” section is included. About the Author- Troy Evans is a profess1onal speaker and author who resides in Phoenix, AZ with his wife Pam and his dog Archibald. Troy travels the country delivering keynote presentations, and since his release from prison has taken the corporate and association pl^tforms by storm. Overcoming adversity, adapting to change and pushing yourself to realize your full potential- other speaker’s talk about these issues, Troy has walked them.
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