“String was right”

Avon Barksdale

After losing the war and his corners to Marlo, going to jail a second time, losing his partner and a bunch of his day 1 niggas, Avon looks back at it all and say’s “String was right.” If you didn’t watch The Wire, here’s a quick recap. Avon and Stringer (String) were partners in a drug organization. Stringer was the more business savvy one who had desires to leave the game and own businesses while Avon in his words was “just a gangster I suppose.”

Avon was set in his ways as the head of a drug cartel; he didn’t see nor desire a way out. No matter what Stringer showed him, he couldn’t see himself as anything but a drug dealer. It wasn’t until he got to the end of his rope that he was able to look back and see that he had the opportunity to be something different.

This is what happens to so many of us. I say us because I too was a victim of this kind of thinking. For whatever our reasons were, we decided to become drug dealers, burglars, stick up guys and every illegal position we could find. Some of us were very successful and some were not but we all had one thing in common, we were who we were.

I started selling drugs at the age of 14 because it was the beginning of the school year and my mom didn’t have money to buy me new sneakers and the ones I had were DOGGED. I wasn’t going to school looking like that so I got a pack, made the money and bought some boots for the first day of school. My plan before I did was to do it one time, buy the boots and stop because it was instilled in me that selling drugs was wrong. Needless to say, that plan did not happen.

After being able to buy new boots after just one day of hustling, I then began to think of all the clothes I saw in videos that I could never afford and my sights went from just getting boots for school to being able to buy Versace. That quickly I was drawn in. They say drug addicts get their first high and spend their life chasing it; well the same is true for the dealers. We become drug dealing addicts.

The same way a person is hooked on using drugs, we get hooked on selling them. In the hood we look down on drug addicts being up all night away from their families getting high but glorify the dealer who is up all night away from their families providing the drugs. What I’ve learned is that there is no difference between a drug dealer and a drug user; they both are engulfed by a life of drugs.

What does this all mean? It’s impossible to see the truth if your vision is blurry. While in the streets our vision is limited to drugs. We can’t see ourselves being successful at anything but what we’re doing. Our minds begin to believe that we could never do anything else. This creates a cloud of fear over our life that keeps us from becoming what we do have the potential to be. Here’s a little of my story.

As I said earlier, I started selling drugs at 14 years old. I was on one of the most poppin blocks in South Philly. In the 90s 16^th and Manton was like a scene out of a movie, from feigns everywhere to huge dice games with people from all over the city there gambling. My older cousins and all the older guys were getting crazy paper and didn’t mind showing me how to get it. I was in a win win situation.

As I got older I made more and more money. Wars begin to break out and all three of my older cousins that schooled me were killed. Instead of that being a sign that maybe this life aint all it’s cracked up to be all I saw was an opportunity for me to be the top guy now. I connected with a childhood friend of mine and we began to build our own empire. We were making money and living the life but no matter the heights we attained in the streets, I always felt like something was missing.

I came to find out that what was missing in my life was God. (I’m not about to go on a religious rant so don’t stop reading.) My partner went to jail and I start going to church. I went super hard with this new church thing; I was there every week, at bible studies, other services and I was reading my bible daily. I learned so much and was willing to do whatever God wanted me to do that I quickly became a preacher.  I stopped hustling and dedicated my life to learning the bible and teaching it to others. You would think it was smooth sailing from there right? Nope. Even though I started going to church, I never overcame my drug dealing addiction mindset.

It had been years since I sold a drug and my money was gone. I had three failed business attempts that took me into a depression that resulted in me thinking that I could never be successful at anything other than selling drugs. Here I am a preacher, teaching about hope but because I never dealt with my mental issue that I didn’t realize I had, I found myself making a call to get back in the game.

I would pray and cry then cry and cry some more because I was a failure. I was a failure as a Christian and I was certainly a failure as a preacher. I don’t know why I tried to change; I guess I’m just a gangster too Avon. But the craziest thing about my blurred vision of myself is that I had went back to school and got a college degree in business,  never got less than an A in a business class and all my professors thought I would be a successful businessman. My thinking was so messed up that that didn’t mean anything; all I thought I could be was a drug dealer.

I didn’t realize that business classes were so easy to me because my brain was hard wired to understand business from my days hustling. I didn’t see that everything that I learned in the streets would translate into business. I actually had a leg up on everybody that I was in classes with all because of my street background yet I did not believe it, so I jumped back in the streets.

This stint with streets didn’t last but a month. Years had gone by since I had last sold drugs. I was using to paying $2,000 for a four and half but now they were $4,500. I’m like, man this way too much money to be trying to chase back. I got some bad work, loss some money and ended up owing somebody. I found myself just like Avon Barksdale, looking back over things and realizing that the game aint worth it.

I begin to think of all the finance gurus I studied in school. These guys were making billions a year and didn’t have to worry about the cops or getting killed. It was then that I decided that I was able to do something other than sell drugs. I came up with a slogan that I began to say to everybody on my block. “New Lanes, New Money.” I started to show my homies and the young guys that came up under us, that we had the talent to step into new lanes and make a new type of money.

I didn’t know any billionaire drug dealers that lived happily ever after but I had studied countless business men that did. I decided that I wanted more than what selling drugs could offer. And for once in my life, I knew that I had what it takes to go get it. Surviving the streets and actually making some real money is something Bill Gates or Ray Dalio never had to do. We are equipped with an experience that will set us apart from anyone else; all we have to do is believe it.

If there’s one thing I wish I did, it would be to believe in myself sooner. It took for me to be at the last thread of my rope before I knew that I could make it at anything I set my mind to. I don’t want that to be you because you might not make it; you might slip off the rope before you get a chance to change. If you can make it in the street, you can make it anywhere. If you can find and indentify the right drugs, you can find and indentify the right product. If you can put in 24 hours straight on the corner, you can put in the time needed to plan your business. If you can organize and lead a block full of killers, you can surely organize and lead a company full of college graduates. If you can plan how to your block is going to run or how you make drop offs on your phone without getting arrested, you can do ANYTHING.

I know we normally hear this kind of stuff and it goes in one ear and out the other because the person telling us is someone we don’t relate to. That’s not the case here. I am you and you are me. Your thinking, your fears, your desire to be that bul are all things that I recently dealt with and still dealing with. I just decided that I was going to new lanes for new money and you have the potential to do the same.

But you have one advantage over me that I didn’t have. You have someone that’s made it through who is dedicated to help others through. This website and my business are solely to help men be better. The first step is realizing that we are already better than we think we are. You know it aint cool in the street to be scared right? It’s time to stop being scared of growth. Make the choice right now take one step towards your full potential. The streets were just the beginning; you don’t even see how great you really are. You’ve already made it through your hardest parts of life; it’s time to live on the easy side.

New Lanes, New Money. LET’S GET IT!!