Polish Power Teaches You How To Polish Your Personal Persona

Stephen Pierce: Lowest point? Wow! I would probably say when I think about where I?ve come from as far as the lowest point. I don?t have a college education or a college degree, if you will. I don?t have a high school diploma. I dropped out of high school, more like I got kicked out of high school because I was a big troublemaker.

I ended up being homeless for like three months. I filed bankruptcy twice. They threw out the second bankruptcy because I filed it too close to the first one and I didn?t know about the rules that you can?t file them too close to each other.

I was running the streets. I used to be a drug dealer and I ended up getting shot. It was a close call because the gun was being held to my head, but as more ruckus started to break out he turned and lowered the gun, and as he was running he fired into my right leg and that bullet is still lodged there today.

I actually went to the hospital. You know, you have this guy that?s off the streets with no insurance cards or anything they were like, ?Well, it?s better to leave the bullet in where it is right now. It would probably cause more trouble or damage if we went in and tried to pull it out.?

That was pretty much, ?You don?t have insurance to pay for it and we?re not going to do it.? I wasn?t paying them cash for it or anything like that.

I went through that. Then there was this horrible thing in my life. I got to the point where I felt this, ?You know what? My life was pretty much destined to be a part of that group that never does anything good, that is always going to be experiencing poverty. That is always going to be experiencing trouble.?

I was supposed to be the opposite. I got to a point where I felt like, ?I?m supposed to be the guy that those who are successful look at and then appreciate their lives much more.? It didn?t have to be that way, I was feeling that way.

I remember one time I was in the house and somebody that was really dear to me looked at me and said, ?Everything you touch turns to dust.?

For me it was a huge mental battle and an emotional battle because I tried to find some kind of reference point that I could look at and say, ?You know what, that is not true because I did this good. I did that good.?

I?m sure there were some little moments in my life up to that point where that was so, but all these big things just hit me like a hurricane.

In my brain it was almost like, ?You know, you?re right. All these different things that I did were complete failures. I?m nothing but trouble.?

I got our family evicted when we were young because I was just causing trouble in the neighborhood. You know it is pretty bad when they say, ?Listen you?re evicted, not because you are not paying your rent, but we are tired of that tyrant of a kid that you have. You guys gotta go!?

It just got really, really bad. I still remember that because it was more so a violent thing because I ended up fighting a bunch of the lifeguards that were on duty at a swimming pool.

They had the pool pass and that?s how they knew that I was one of the people. Some of the other guys that were equally involved they kind of got off and got away with it, but I think all these things come to kind of accumulated to a low point being in my life. Being not just one specific moment, but this extended moment where it wasn?t just a day or days or weeks.

It was more like months where I was just going through this process of trying to figure out what in the world am I going to do with my life. I think one of the turning points, when I really started to wake up was after I got shot.

It was at the Moses H. Cone Hospital out in Greensboro, North Carolina because that?s where I ended up getting shot at. I was sitting there thinking, ?You know what? I could be dead right now.

I could be lying in the morgue on a cold slab as opposed to up here in a hospital about to get released in about a week or so.?

After being discharged from the hospital my dad, one of the reverends from the church I was going to and my brother drove down to get me. I had some time to reflect to try to figure out, ?What is it I want to do with my life??

I had some people that were telling me, ?You know what? You are brilliant but you are using your brilliance for evil, if you will. You are doing things that are hurting people. You are doing things that are hurting yourself and people are just wondering if you want to live to see 19 or 20 years old.?

I was living life fast. I was running down the wrong streets and running with the wrong crowds. I didn?t have a sense of direction for myself and I was kind of following people who obviously didn?t have a sense of direction for themselves, because they were just following other people and it all led to these negative things.

I got into reading the Bible and then I got into reading other books like Think and Grow Rich, Success through a Positive Mental Attitude and those kinds of books. I started to think a little bit differently about what is possible.

When I was reading Think and Grow Rich, I was looking at how all these other people kind of had a great deal of failure in their life before they experienced success.

I started to think, ?You know what? Maybe everything that I?ve gone through that is bad is not this huge signal or this huge sign that is letting me know that I am destined to be a failure, but that it is something that is normal and I just need to figure out what success actually looks like.?

I think many times in our lives we set up, ?I want to accomplish this. I want to do this and I want to do that.?

So we kind of have this inner result in mind. We know where we want to go, but we don?t get there because we don?t understand what that road looks like. We don?t understand what it is supposed to look like to get to where it is we ultimately want to be.

We don?t know what the experience is going to be like. So when these winds start coming and beating up against our houses and these fires start to come into our lives, all this adversity, people will look at it as an omen or a sign from God that, ?You?re not supposed to be doing this.?

Or something that?s saying, ?You?re beating up the wrong tree,? or something. In actuality, being that I haven?t graduated from school, I haven?t taken that many tests, but I know that for somebody to get a degree in anything there is a large amount of tests that they have to take before they can graduate.

In life it is pretty much the same thing. Before you can move vertically to that next level in life, where you want to go and ultimately reach those dreams and goals and that level of fulfillment that you may define in material senses as far as cars, houses, money and whatever.

To get to those points there are certain tests that you have to take. I started to look at this. In my life I started to change my perspective. I started to look at different analogies.

For example, the purpose of fire to gold; fire is there to purify gold. I started to look at that and look at the different things that started to happen to me.

I got on this path. I said, ?You know what? I?m going to try to start a business.?

I tried to start some businesses but they just didn?t really work out. Like 12 different businesses that I was looking to get into completely failed, but it wasn?t that bad.

In the beginning it was horrible, because I just didn?t understand, ?Well, what in the world was going on??

Then I kind of got it. I got it and I understood that nobody in life sets out to go into business and says, ?I want this thing to be a complete failure? but it?s going to happen because that is just how life is.

You are going to have these things, but it just moves you closer to where you ultimately want to go. From that experience you gain certain wisdom, certain knowledge and certain understanding that you are not going to be able gain otherwise.

You aren?t going to get it from books. You aren?t going to be able to get it from a coach. You aren?t going to be able to get it through any other means except that hands on experience which makes you sharper and prepares you for that next level and that next venture that you are going to pursue.

I started to understand that these different things that were beating up against my life were more like the fire that was there to purify the gold, or the pressure on the rocks that bring forth the diamonds, or those strong winds that beat against the trees that makes for the strongest trees and the strongest lumber.

I started to get this better understanding of how to look at the different things in my life that were pretty painful at one point. It wasn?t like it was easy; it just got easier to deal with.

I developed a little bit more enthusiasm because I understood what it was all starting to come together and mean. That is a long answer to your question. It was an extended period of time, it wasn?t just this one moment, but I think it was probably like two and a half, three years of being at an extreme low, trying to figure out what to do, taking stuff to a pawn shop. I was homeless for like three months. It was pretty rough.