We’ve all seen the highlight reels. On LinkedIn, every career trajectory looks like a straight line up. In the sports world, we celebrate the "underdog to champion" stories. But what happens when the underdog doesn’t win? What happens when the dream you’ve built your entire identity around, the one your friends, family, and community expected you to achieve, simply evaporates?

In a recent episode of the Bonafide Leaders Podcast, I sat down with my colleague, Erin, to peel back the curtain on my own "valley" season. While most people know me today as an executive coach and former corporate executive, my foundation wasn't built on a series of wins. It was built in a four-year period of crushing disappointment, rejection, and what I call "the pit."

If you are currently navigating a setback, whether it’s a failed business venture, a missed promotion, or a career pivot that feels more like a freefall, this story is for you.

The Identity Crisis: When the Dream Dies

From a young age, my life had one singular focus: basketball. I wasn't just a kid who liked the game; I was a student-athlete with a Division I scholarship in my sights and an NBA dream in my heart. My high school yearbook was filled with notes from classmates saying, "Don’t forget me when you’re in the NBA."

But reality has a way of being indifferent to our expectations.

Due to a combination of coaching styles, a lack of playing time during my pivotal junior year, and even a struggle with something as simple as getting contact lenses (leaving me to play in "dorky" glasses), the D1 offers never came. I ended up at a Division II school on the East Coast, thousands of miles from my home in Texas.

I thought that was the hurdle. I thought, “I’ll just prove them wrong here.” Instead, I faced a new coach who didn't recruit me, a misdiagnosed injury that sidelined me, and the realization that my dream was slipping through my fingers.

The Lesson: Often, our greatest pain comes not from the failure itself, but from the loss of the identity we attached to the goal. When I realized I wasn't going to the NBA, I didn't just lose a job prospect; I lost some sense of who I was.

The Humility of the "RAT" Period

After a string of events and poor advice, I found myself transferring to a military school in the desert. I went from the freedom of an HBCU to standing at "parade rest" in the freezing wind, saluting high school seniors who held higher military rank than I did.

They called us "RATs" (Recruits at Training). For the first 21 days, my life was defined by discipline, silence, and zero freedom. I remember many nights lying in a top bunk, the lights out at 10:00 PM, just crying. I was several hundreds of miles from home, my basketball eligibility was in limbo due to administrative errors, and I felt like a total failure.

In those moments, the "why" is overwhelming:

• Why is this happening to me?
• Why did I listen to that coach?
• Why did God put this dream in my heart just to let it break?

The Pivot: Shifting from "Why" to "What"

The turning point in my life didn't come from a sudden athletic breakthrough. It came from a perspective shift I learned years later, which I now apply to every executive I coach: Stop asking why, and start asking what.

When you ask "Why me?", you are a victim of your circumstances. When you ask "What?", you become a student of them.

1. What is the lesson I’m supposed to learn here?
2. What is the growth required to get to the next level?
3. What can I control in this moment?

For me, "what" I could control was my education. I stopped viewing the military school as a prison and started viewing it as a place to earn my Associate’s degree. I stopped viewing my lack of a basketball scholarship as a dead end and started viewing Texas A&M’s business school as a new beginning.

Rebuilding a "Bona-Fide" Career

Listening to my mother (who, as I told my colleague Erin, is often right), I applied to Texas A&M. I transitioned from the court to the classroom, joined a business fraternity, and landed an internship at American Airlines.

That four-year "pit" didn't destroy my career; it provided the reserve of resiliency I needed to spend 22 years in corporate leadership. It taught me two things that made me a better executive:

• Trust, but Verify: I stopped delegating the major decisions of my life to others. If there is fine print, I read it. If there is a rule, I verify it. I learned that no one cares about your future and career as much as you do.
• Emotional Availability: Because I had experienced deep depression and rejection, I became a leader who sincerely cared about people. I was focused on the bottom line; and I was interested in the human being behind the desk making the bottom line happen.

The Road Ahead: Season 4 of Bonafide Leaders

This is exactly why we dedicated Season 4 of the Bonafide Leaders Podcast to Leaders, Back from the Brink. We live in a "highlight reel" culture where everyone is "killing it." But the truth is that every great leader you admire has spent time in the valley. The valley is where the ego dies and the leader is born.

If you’re in a setback right now, remember:

1. It is temporary. Like a broken water heater (which I recently dealt with!), it’s a mess today, but it’s fixable.
2. Take ownership. You are the driver of your career. Don't delegate your destiny to anyone else.
3. Shift your filter. Move from the "Why" to the "What."

Our world is starving for authentic, legitimate—bona-fide—leaders. Often, the only way to become one is to survive the pit and come out the other side with a story to tell.