Are you ready to achieve a pivot in your life?
You just want to go from where you are now
to where you want to be?
Pierce Brooks knows all about that, and by
the end of this interview, this conversation
that I have with him, you're going to know
exactly how he did it and how you can do it
too.
Hi, I'm Rebecca Zung, top 1% attorney and
the bestselling author of the books Negotiate
Like You Matter and Breaking Free: A Step-by-Step
Divorce Guide, and I've helped thousands of
people, maybe even millions at this point
achieve the lives that they want.
To go from feeling down in the dumps, lives
of drama, trauma, chaos, to getting where
they want to be, and I do the same thing for
you here on this channel.
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and on.
So this is part one of my conversation with
former basketball player, Pierce Brooks.
He's now a motivational speaker.
He's lived through so much trauma in his life
and he's figured out how to achieve that pivot.
So this is part one of my conversation with
him.
So without further ado, let's dive in to part
one.
Welcome to another episode of Negotiate Your
Best Life.
I'm Rebecca Zung, and today we have a special
treat.
If you are ever wondering how to climb out
of a black hole, how to achieve a pivot, this
is the guy to show you the way.
This is the guy that knows how to do it.
Pierce J. Brooks knows firsthand a lot about
dealing with great loss and great recovery.
He is an empowerment speaker now.
He's dealt with all kinds of trauma.
He was a former college athlete.
He was pressured to excel in basketball.
He lost scholarships.
He had to endure his father's tragic suicide.
He hit rock bottom before 20, before the age
of 20, and he shared his story in a TEDx speech
called Playing the Game of Social Pressure.
He now speaks all over the world, and he has
launched his brand, the company called Empowered
Storytellers.
Really, really fantastic, taking people's
stories and helping people turn them around.
So he's perfect for us and for what we are
dealing with as far as dealing with toxic
personalities and figuring out how to escape
them.
So thank you so much, Pierce, for joining
me today.
Rebecca, it's so great to be with you.
Thank you.
So, all right, so you achieved, we talked,
as I mentioned in your intro, that you achieved
early success in basketball.
So tell us about that.
Yeah.
So I grew up as the tallest kid from about
kindergarten through middle school.
And when you're the tallest kid, particularly
the tallest black kid, everybody says you're
supposed to be in the NBA.
And so they put this identity on me and at
12-years-old, I picked up the ball and started
listening to what people said I was supposed
to do.
Started playing and I got it pretty quickly
and because it was tall, I had this advantage
of being taller and stronger than everybody.
So I played well, and so what happened on
the court seemed to confirm what everybody
else was saying.
It's like, "You know what?
I am good at this.
Maybe I am supposed to do this."
And that lasted a couple years, and then I
hit one of the rock bottoms that you mentioned,
sophomore year in high school.
Following a time where I was heavily notarized,
really around the country, starting to get
recruited.
I was a freshman on Varsity, which was a big
deal at that time for a championship team.
So a lot of newspapers writing about me, some
TV coverage, a lot of hype.
And then it came a time where this team, I
inherited the team and it was my team and
with all this expectations.
I didn't match up to what everybody thought,
and I started to become discouraged, really
got down on myself, started to hate basketball.
But I knew I needed to continue to do it in
order to get a scholarship, to get my education.
So I stuck with it, but sticking with it,
there was a lot of pain, a lot of hurt, a
little, again, letting people down.
Just living this life where you feel like
every time you're doing something, you're
not matching up to what people think of you
and you could see the expectations drop and
the judgements.
It was just really a rough time for me, and
that lasted for over a decade
Over a decade.
Oh my goodness.
I can actually relate to that because I ... My
dad is Chinese.
He's a doctor.
My mom is German.
And so in my household, it was doctor or lawyer
was what you were supposed to do, and ultimately,
I ended up becoming a lawyer.
But I had gotten married at 19 the first time
and had three kids by the time I was 23.
So I dropped out of college and all of that.
Ended up, obviously, going back to school,
but I understand that feeling of being the
disappointment to everybody.
Every time I would see my parents, with like,
"Oh, there she is, three kids, college dropout."
And yeah, it ultimately ends up being a great
story, but at the time it's brutal.
Yes.
Yes.
So, I totally get it.
So you lost four scholarships or scholarships
from four different universities.
Tell us about how that might've happened?
So I went to the University of San Francisco
out of high school and my coach got fired
halfway through the season and a new coach
came in, this legendary coach, but he only
intended to finish the year.
Then another coach came in that and he sat
us all down and said, "I'm not looking to
get rid of any of you guys.
I inherited this team and I want to stick
with it."
So that let us all kind of, we felt at ease.
I go into the summer and I go back home and
I get a call from that coach and said, it's
about two weeks before school starts, and
he says, "Pierce, we're not going to be having
you back for your sophomore season."
And I'm just devastated because in that same
week, I lost my father.
So really rough time in my life.
It's two weeks before school starts.
So I don't really have options.
If he would have told me in February or something,
I could have had time to find another school.
But by this time scholarships were dried out.
I didn't really have anything to do.
So I went to junior college.
And you were what, 19 at this point?
I was 19.
Yeah.
[crosstalk 00:06:43]
Oh, gosh.
So much of the weight of the world on nineteen-year-old
shoulders.
Right, yeah.
And disappointment and expectations dropped
again and I'm at another rock bottom point
in my life.
Then get a scholarship to ... A couple of
things happen in between there, where I get
a scholarship to university of North Carolina
Wilmington, didn't have enough credits to
transfer over, couldn't go there.
Got a scholarship to University of New Orleans.
The BP oil spill happened, if you remember,
where the tons and tons of oil going to the
Gulf.
They lost their funding, so I couldn't go
there.
Then I ended up going to the university, Texas
A&M, Kingsville.
Small school in in South Texas, and we had
a losing season.
The coach takes me to the airport at the end
of the season and says, on my trip for spring
break, he says, "Pierce, we're not going to
be having you back for your senior season."
Lost of scholarship there, and so I have,
again, no options.
I don't know what to do.
I can't transfer it to another NCAA school.
The assistant coach of that school says, "Hey,
Pierce, there's a school that I went to in
North Dakota called Dickinson State.
And North Dakota didn't, growing up, born
and raised in Southern California, North Dakota
doesn't sound like a place I'm ever going
to go on paper, but I didn't have any options.
My ego was, I had no ego.
It's like, "I just want to finish my schooling."
And got a scholarship there, and it ended
up being the best experience of my life.
That's where I found public speaking, became
the first commencement speaker as a student
in the school's history.
Amazing.
And I loved it, and so I wouldn't have got
there any other way.
So it all worked out.
Yeah.
Isn't that always the way though?
Where the things that you think you want so
much end up being, if you don't get it, it
ends up being the best thing that ever happened
to you.
But it's so hard to see when it's happening
to you at that moment.
So in your speech, you talk about your dad
walking out of games if you didn't play well.
How did that affect your relationship with
him?
It affected it in so many layered ways that
I'm still really unraveling, even to this
day, because I looked up to my father.
He was my hero and I looked up to him.
I very much wanted to police him and get his
approval, and it seems like no matter what
I did on the court, I couldn't really get
it.
And at that time, I'm able to, because I did
a lot of introspective work to understand
why I quote unquote failed at basketball and
all of it had to do with how I was in my own
head.
I had this paralyzing performance anxiety
that I just couldn't get out of and I tried
to do all, I tried a lot of things, but it
was all the wrong things and I realized that
later.
But so I'd just be so focused on him and performing
for him that I was never focused on the game,
and so that's where I'd get a little distracted.
But him walking out would make me, it'd take
me out of the game.
It'd make me focus on him and he would not
talk to me for a few weeks because of it because
I played well and he'd teach lessons.
And so I had to learn to cope with it to not
need him, that I don't need him to be there,
and that's what really helped me get through
it.
So, I want to just dig into that a little
bit more because a lot of the people that
are in my community that follow me are dealing
with narcissists or people that they either
have narcissistic traits or they're abusive
in some way.
And I'm not saying that your dad was abusive,
but I want to just kind of ... Do you think
that walking out on you was a way of trying
to control you, trying to punish you, anything
like that?
Yeah, it was his way of trying to motivate
me and he was very much teach you a lesson.
And so he thought that him walking out was
going to motivate me more to that, so that
next time he's in there, I'm going to impress
him and I'm going to put all this work in
to have a better performance next time, and
for me it did the total opposite.
And some people, that works for some people.
There are some-
If it does work though it still makes you
feel terrible inside.
You're not going to be motivated by the right
things even still at that point, I would think.
Sure, sure.
Yeah.
And I'm more talking about ... But yeah, it
definitely hurts either way.
I guess some people it works as far as achieving
what he wanted to achieve as far as performance.
That may motivate some people, but that didn't
work on me.
I'm I'm much more, I know I'm a sensitive.
I was a sensitive kid and I'm a sensitive
guy, so that was never going to be the approach.
So, but I liked what you said that you learned
how to not let it affect you.
Can you talk more about that?
Because I think that's, right in there is
that spot, that's where you first, I think
were learning to pivot.
That's a type of pivot, really.
So can you talk about how did you get there?
How did you get yourself to a point where
you didn't think about it anymore, or it didn't
bother you or whatever you had to do to deal
with that?
I think pivoting and all this stuff deals
with a similar, there's a common denominator
in that it it's all acceptance and expectations.
So in the beginning, my expectations is I
expected my father to be like every other
father for all these other kids.
My dad's supposed to stay no matter what I
do.
He's supposed to just be at my game if I'm
performing well or not.
My dad is supposed to stay there.
That's what all the other dads are doing.
But I got to the point where I expected my
dad to be my dad, and that's what helped me.
Now I expect him to walk out or I expect him
to not show up.
So once I start expecting what is, which is
his behavior, that's when I was able to, I
came to an acceptance and I was free from
that.
So I had to come to a point where ... Because
the last couple of years, maybe the last year
or so, my senior year, I don't, maybe he went
to a one game or something like that, senior
year of high school.
He didn't come to any games in college my
freshman year.
So I just expected him to not be there.
And how old were you when he died?
I was 19.
Oh, 19.
Okay.
So what lesson have you learned from basketball
that applies throughout life?
Oh my gosh.
It's countless.
I think the biggest lesson I learned from
my quote, my failures of basketball is that
you have to, if you want to accomplish something
that you really believe in, you have to surrender
and devote your life to it and it means being
uncomfortable and sacrificing.
So the reason that I didn't become everything
that I could be, and that's not to say that
I would have went to the NBA or something.
But I didn't squeeze all the juice out of
my basketball experience from a playing standpoint,
because I didn't put my all into it.
So because I, those moments where I got down
or I lost confidence in my father walked out,
instead of going out in the gym and shooting
for two extra hours or practicing my ball
handling to really build my confidence, which
was the real, which was the core part of the
problem.
I stayed in the room and maybe sulked or I
got down on myself and I didn't practice to
get myself out of this hole.
So that's what, it's that going the extra
mile approach that I brought over to what
I'm doing now.
So if I'm speaking, I need to be working on
my speech for X number hours a day.
I need to wake up at five in the morning and
finish a draft or practice my vocal variety
or something like that.
So it's that extra time in and surrendering
and devotion to it that I think I grabbed
more than anything.
So, but what I also hear you saying is that
instead of having a pity party, like, "Life
isn't fair and this is horrible."
You could have very easily fallen into this
victim mentality and nobody would have blamed
you for it with all of the things, the adversities
that you had to overcome.
But what I'm hearing you saying is that you
said, "No, I'm going to take responsibility
for my own life, and I can choose to see myself
as a victim or I can choose to see myself
as being a victor, being victorious instead
of a victim."
Right.
100%.
I could have looked, and for a long time I
did look at everything the wrong way and grab
the wrong lessons out of every situation.
For example, that coach came in from San Francisco
and said, "Pierce, everybody, we're not looking
to get rid of you."
I could have just hung onto that little part,
and even though he got rid of me, and been
focused on, "You said you weren't going to
do that.
You said this, you said that.
You're supposed to ..." Or I could focus on
what the actual truth, which is I should have
been a player or I was in control of being
the best player that I could be so that I
could be irreplaceable.
So that he has no choice, but to keep me.
And that wasn't the case.
I was, as far as my game, I was disposable
at that time.
So that's, I had to come to that acceptance
that I didn't put it all out there, that I
didn't work on my game in the way that I should
have.
And ultimately, I have to control what I can
control, and I controlled that.
So I was responsible for it, as you said.
Yeah, which is amazing.
And to learn how to pivot at such a young
age.
Thanks for watching part one of my conversation
with the incredible, indomitable, Pierce J.
Brooks.
Isn't he awesome?
If you liked this video, give it a like, give
it a share, drop me a comment, drop him a
comment.
Let us know what you enjoyed the most from
his conversation so far.
And make sure you've subscribed and you've
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upload part two, you'll get notified right
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If you're getting ready to negotiate with
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And if you want to join me and thousands of
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Thanks so much for stopping by.
Remember, today's a great day to negotiate
your best life.
I'll see you in the next video.
