Connecting With Influencer Darryll Stinson
2020 was a tough year for me. With the coronavirus situation, it was a challenging year for us all. What made the year especially difficult is that I unexpectedly experienced a brutal burnout and was incapable of functioning for several months. I say this to set the context of my life when I saw Darryll Stinson’s extraordinarily powerful TEDx talk, Overcoming Rejection, When People Hurt You & Life Isn’t Fair.
It’s the best talk I’ve ever seen. I’m genuinely not saying that out of hyperbole or exaggeration – I really mean it. Darryll is a suicide survivor and the talk brought tears to my eyes. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it:
I was so moved by Darryll’s powerful message I felt compelled to reach out to him, asking him if I could feature him on my blog. He said he’d be honored if I featured him on my blog, and he also invited me to be interviewed on his Second Chance LIVE show.
My intention in reaching out to Darryll was not to be on his show, so being asked by him to do this was exciting, a privilege, and a fantastic opportunity. I was finally starting to feel better from my burnout, so the timing was good to be on his show. I’ll loop back to what we discussed on his show later in the post. First, let’s focus on Darryll’s message and why it resonated with me (and many others) so deeply.
Rejection Is, In Reality, Projection
“The first way we can view rejection is by seeing it as projection,” Darryll said in the beginning portion of his TEDx talk. “A psychological projection is when someone subconsciously employs undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else rather than admitting to or dealing with their own unwanted feelings. When we can see how the rejections we face may have more to do with another person’s inward turmoil and not our own value, our lives will change.”
(If you still haven’t watched the TEDx talk, I hope this enlightening, jaw-dropping quote convinced you to go and view it.)
This wisdom from Darryll was incredibly eye-opening for me, as it helped me to realize that other people rejecting you often has everything to do with them.
To give you a quick example – and I share this with the purpose of helping and adding value to you as you deal with your own set of challenging circumstances and difficult people – a former colleague of mine became very angry with me in 2020 when I decided to listen to my doctors and choose my health above work (when I first went into burnout recovery). He not only deleted me from the company WhatsApp groups, but he removed my access to the company systems. While at the time his childish actions stung, I now see that he was projecting onto me his own unwanted feelings, as his demands and disrespectful behavior were part of why I had to step away from that contract opportunity, to begin with.
Going down the rabbit hole, the deeper reason I went into burnout had to do with how I’ve never felt good enough, based on the verbal abuse I received from others as a child. I’m in my thirties now – in my twenties, I burned the candle on both ends, wanting to prove my worth to people who didn’t think I was good enough. Many people in the outer world told me I was doing great things, but on the inside I often felt empty and unfulfilled, basing my worth on the approval of people who didn’t have the capacity to give it. I never knew people were projecting their own inadequacies onto me – I had always thought it meant there was something flawed about me! This is why Darryll’s poignant TEDx talk was so emotional for me, resonating on multiple levels in a deep way.
You are one powerful insight away from a new life.
If you’re struggling, I can relate. I’ve struggled for much of my life. But remember that you are one new insight, one different perspective, one kernel of wisdom away from reframing your challenges and stepping into the greatness that is inherently yours. For me, I have Darryll to thank for this new perspective.
Darryll’s New Book Is a Must-Read
Darryll has also recently come out with a new book, Who Am I After Sports?: An Athlete’s Roadmap to Discover New Purpose and Live Fulfilled. He’s on fire!
Once again, I deeply resonate with Darryll’s message here. As I’ll touch on toward the end of this post, no one ever told me that there’s a life beyond sports. In high school, I had all of my self-worth based on the sports I played – everyone around me constantly said that sports is everything, and I came to believe it as well due to this brainwashing. When sports didn’t turn out the way I had planned and expected, despite my talent and hard work, I became clinically depressed.
What I love about Darryll’s book is how he guides the reader through The Athlete Transition Roadmap, showing them step-by-step how to build a life beyond sports. This is excellent and exactly the guidance I wish I would have had in high school, college, and beyond.
As Darryll mentions in his book, while the book was written for athletes, the principles are transferrable to any identity and career transitions. There are also compelling strategies in the book for finding your purpose and reason for being here. These are universal guidelines that will help you, regardless of your background. I highly recommend you read this book – it has my full endorsement and it’s a book that needs to be read by as many people as possible.
Being Featured on Second Chance LIVE
On Tuesday, December 15th, 2020 – almost exactly three months after I first emailed Darryll on September 16th, 2020 – I had the honor of being featured on Darryll’s show.
Darryll is as authentic as they come and I respect him tremendously for that – I knew that I wanted to show up on this show and add as much value as I could.
We discussed lots of great things like:
- Your self-worth not depending on external circumstances.
- The power of asking for what you want.
- Implementing self-leadership to match your behavior today with your vision for tomorrow.
You will play BETTER in sports when your identity is detached from the outcome and result. Things will flow more naturally this way. This is the catch-22. Yes, it’s OK to care with all of your heart. It’s fun to make sports your priority. And it’s awesome to celebrate every moment you have on the playing field. With that said, who you are as a person is so much bigger than any given sport you play, regardless of your talent and accolade in that sport. This insight is gravely missing from our society, as we tend to worship sports stars while forgetting about people who aren’t in the game.
No matter who you are or how good you are, your sports playing career is eventually someday going to come to an end. This is even true for the icon Tom Brady. Yes, it’s great to enjoy sports, and every athlete deserves their time in the sun. But we also need to remember that your sports playing career is not the final destination. And athletes need to be reminded, while they’re playing, that their self-worth is independent of the outcome.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Darryll is a suicide survivor, having based his worth on football. Due to challenging injuries, life rejected his dreams of playing in the NFL. This was understandably devastating for Darryll, given his talent in football and dreams. Coping with his dreams being shattered, Darryll ended up surviving suicide attempts and reckless behavior. It was so brave of Darryll to share these details in his talk and he’s helping a lot of people.
Similar to Darryll’s story, I almost committed suicide in my senior year of high school because I had all of my self-worth based on making the baseball team. On his show, I walked Darryll through the story of how I became so depressed in my senior year of high school. According to many others, I was a fantastic wide receiver and safety for football, but I was benched in my senior year due to political reasons as well as really bad leadership from the coaches. I then put all my hopes and dreams into being a starter on my school’s baseball team.
I was a highly recruited college baseball prospect – recruited by seven esteemed colleges and universities to play baseball at the collegiate level. I did incredibly in tryouts, crushing a double off of a Division I college recruit pitcher and quite literally the number one Division I recruit in the country – the only person on my team to get a hit off of him in the scrimmage.
Everyone expected me to be a starter, including my teammates, as I was one of the best players in the country. When I unexpectedly got cut from the team due to politics and bad coaching (it was a never-ending story at my all-boys, highly competitive, highly toxic and dysfunctional high school with the bad leadership and poor coaching), I came incredibly close to committing suicide, with the rope in my hands.
After years of verbal and physical abuse from others, my ongoing clinical depression, and absolutely no social support, I came incredibly close to ending it all. Just before I was about to hang myself, God came to me through one last spark of hope. God is the reason why I’m still here.
What I always wonder, as I share in my books and speeches as a way to positively impact others and get them to care about others: why did everyone tell me that all my self-worth depended on being a star sports player? Why didn’t one person care enough to help me?
While Darryll openly complimented me for the realness of my story, ultimately the credit goes to Darryll for being the person he is and for giving me and others a chance to share our stories on his show. The reason I’m adding my own story into this post is three-fold:
- My story directly intersects with Darryll’s story and we are sharing similar messages, in our own way, with the world. In fact, I’ve never come across anyone who has a story so similar to mine as Darryll’s story. I share my story here in this post because of the intersection in missions between me and Darryll.
- I left the discussion on Darryll’s fantastic show feeling inspired and encouraged to continue sharing my story with people who are suicidal or even anyone who is struggling in some way. The best leaders encourage and inspire others, seeing things in them and lifting them up. Darryll is a true leader, causing my self-belief to increase after our discussion.
- The credit 100% goes to Darryll here for giving me another platform to share an important message. As I said in one of my Facebook posts about Darryll on my personal page, some say Darryll is superman. Others say he is the greatest.
Here’s our discussion:
Watch Darryll’s talks. Check him out on YouTube and other social media channels. Read his book. Learn from him. This guy is the best.
Due to Darryll living his purpose and helping others, I’m now living life on life’s terms. And it’s enriched my life in immeasurable ways. Join me by applying Darryll’s wisdom in your life.
Darryll Stinson is CEO of Second Chance Athletes, a mental health advocate, a world-renowned influencer, and author of Who Am I After Sports?: An Athlete’s Roadmap to Discover New Purpose and Live Fulfilled. Learn more about him on his website and YouTube channel.
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