The Blueprint On Mental Toughness With Sylvester Jenkins III
“Failure is the key to success because it’s not failing if you keep going, it’s only failing when you give up.”
In this episode, Nick speaks with Sylvester Jenkins III, who had a pretty rough upbringing. His mother was a teen mom and became a high school dropout. She worked 12 hours a day just to make ends meet, but that left Sylvester alone. He fell into gangs and drugs but still wanted to graduate because he didn’t want to have the same struggles his mother had.
After school, Sylvester joined the army, got married, and had a child. While deployed, he was going through a divorce, but Sylvester bottled everything up, so he was combatting war and combatting his relationship. He came home to nothing; he lost the house, his bank account was empty, and he had no car.
He was ready to end it all. It was his child who saved his life. He does not want his child to grow up the same way he did… without a father. So, he had to start looking inward for that interior warrior. Shifting his mindset, he now has the goal and purpose of helping others.
About Sylvester Jenkins III
Sylvester is a retired Army First Sergeant with 21 years of dedicated service. After his transition, he became an author and professional speaker who redirected his life’s mission to serve the next generation.
He shares his universal blueprint for mental toughness, performance, and physical success. Enabling others to not just overcome adversity and survive, but thrive.
- Website
- Book: “From Combat to Comeback: How to Conquer the Battles of Adversity”
Resources:
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Your Friends at “The Mindset & Self-Mastery Show”
Nick McGowan
Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And on this show, my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us, the lives that we lead on our path to self-mastery. So let’s not wait any longer. Let the games begin.
Nick McGowan
Hey, Sylvester. Welcome to the show, man. How are you doing?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Hey, Nick. How you doing, man? I greatly appreciate you having me on the show. I’m doing phenomenal, by the way. What about you, sir?
Nick McGowan
Man, I’m doing great now. We were both kind of chuckling about some of the chaos and the noise behind us. I’d ask you to grab some headphones, because with your microphone, I like, Oh, my God, what? What the hell is happening in your house right now? And it’s a crazy storm that’s going on outside. So down south, you’re in Tennessee and I’m in Florida.
Nick McGowan
We get these crazy storms. And we were just talking about how. Right around 4:00, 3:00 at sometimes it’s like the apocalypse for 15 minutes. So hopefully none of this stuff cuts out. But it’s interesting how we can have craziness in the middle of the day. Now, I know I’m getting a little ahead of myself, myself here. So why don’t we pull this back a little bit?
Nick McGowan
Why don’t you tell us what you do for a living? And one thing that most people don’t know about you, that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Absolutely. So first off, my name is Sylvester Jenkins. I’m a professional speaker, mental health advocate and an Army veteran. What I do is I help the next generation to rise above obstacles and to unlock their inner warrior by turning this into a success and obstacles into opportunity by winning the battle with them. One thing that people do not know about me, and you might find this kind of funny, but I know the whole soundtrack to Frozen one and to.
Nick McGowan
So I’m assuming here you have children.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Yeah, absolutely.
Nick McGowan
Okay. Because the next question would have been wildly different if you’re like, no, no kids. I’m just a big fan of Frozen. So does that ever come up at any point where you just find yourself singing the song? Or is it just, you know, with with your kids.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Mainly the Let it go. Because sometimes it’s been official for everyday life because sometimes you just need to let go.
Nick McGowan
Yeah. I mean that, you know, I’m going to be a little honest and vulnerable here. I don’t have any kids. I I’ve seen bits and pieces of that movie. Never, like, sat down was like, I’m going to watch this thing. But that song, like, everybody has heard of that song and that is one of those songs that just gets stuck in your head.
Nick McGowan
And it’s it’s kind of easy to just think about it. When somebody is bitching about something, you’re like, let it go, let it go. Like, just let it go. So that is kind of an interesting thing. But I’m sure there are a lot of men that have kids that know those sort of soundtracks and probably know them back and forth.
Nick McGowan
Now, do you like change out the words of your kids and maybe even in your own head just change and stuff out?
Sylvester Jenkins III
No, not really. I try to keep it PG 13 at all times, man, so I never try to go out there.
Nick McGowan
At least there’s a 13 in there. Yeah, there’s your kids. Get a little older, maybe they reach into the NC 17 version of those songs. They’ll, they’ll probably tell you at that point that’s a different story. So you’d mentioned that you were in the in the Army for quite some time and now you’re helping people. So look, just to jump from one to the next, we got to get some context to that.
Nick McGowan
So why don’t you take a little bit of a step back and tell us about how you were raised and ultimately how you got to where you’re at now?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Absolutely. So I come from humble beginnings because, man, I got to be honest with you. I grew up in a single parent home gang, a drug infested neighborhood. My mom worked tooth and nail at a at BFC mill, which was one of the largest mills in Columbus, Georgia, which is where I’m originally from. We slept in the car.
Sylvester Jenkins III
She couldn’t find childcare for us, man, so we went through the motions. This was in the eighties now, so hear me out. This was in the eighties before cell phones, before tablets, before all these gadgets that you see out nowadays. So you can just imagine how creative we got. I was out there in the parking lot away from my mom to get off work for those 12 hours that she worked every shift and will leave from there and go to the school and everything goes.
Sylvester Jenkins III
But during the time of me going to school, man at a younger age, I was a latchkey kid. I wonder if you know what a latchkey kid is, but some people might not. But those kids, they came home unsupervised for a period of time until all by themselves. And I was one of those kids. And it was easy for me to get involved with gangs and drugs.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And I even for a moment of time as a teenager, I was an aspiring drug dealer. I was a gang member. And occasionally I was. So I think I was so vulnerable when it came down to that type of lifestyle that it became my surrogate family in the process of living that lifestyle. I failed multiple times in school.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I felt the fourth grade. I failed the sixth grade. I failed the eighth grade. I felt the teen weight and I failed the 12th grade. I was on the verge of being a high school dropout. The only thing that kept me sustained when it came to school was my mother. And it was only because she was a high school dropout, because she got pregnant at the age of 16 with my older brother.
Sylvester Jenkins III
That was the only thing and she was big on education, so I didn’t want to let her down in that area because I knew the sacrifices she made in order to get me to the point that I was in. One thing that did stick out to me, though, was my senior year English class. I was taking the test.
Sylvester Jenkins III
This was the final test of whether or not I would graduate on time, and my English teacher was calling everybody out into the hallway to give them their grade. And when she called up my name and me, her was standing out there and I look in the eye, she looked me in my eyes and she told me she liked the best.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I hate to break the bad news to you, but you failed the test. I don’t think you have what it take to go to college and I don’t fear that you’re college material. So I was devastated right there because now I feel like I’m dumber than a box of rocks, like I’m not worthy enough to go to college.
Sylvester Jenkins III
So, you know, I always tell people your worries create worlds because what you feed your brain just important is what you feed your body. And when I thought about that, as far as what she told me, this is a teacher. This is somebody who was supposed to prepare me to the next level, who spoke to encourage me to do better than what I was doing.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And for her to say that to me, it just devastated. It truly broke my heart. So for me, thinking that I was too dumb for college, I chose to join the military instead. Now, that became a challenge for me as well because, you know, you got to take this the ASVAB, which is the test that you take to go out into any branch.
Sylvester Jenkins III
So I felt as that when it came for the Navy and I felt the ASVAB again for when it came to the Air Force, the Marines didn’t even give me a shot. But the Army that was the Army recruiter that said, hey, I can get you into the Army. I promise you I can get you in. And, you know, I was like, yeah, whatever I try, whatever, whatever it takes, okay?
Sylvester Jenkins III
I just want to get out of here. So I went to him, did ASVAB. Sure, sure. They he was able to get me. So I was like overjoyed man, because I was able to like, really get out of poverty, find my purpose, and then try to provide my mother with a better way of life. Because she was working for minimum wage man for 12 hours every day just to provide for me and my siblings.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Man So it was kind of like I got to do whatever I can to just be able to, hey, you know, the military man like it has good benefits, but the pay is just not all that. But I was a single man, so it didn’t matter, you know? So I was able to, like, give her money and still just live off in the barracks getting, you know, you know, going through the defect in life and all that stuff.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I didn’t have to worry about me. It was more about providing for her and helping her. I just wanted a better life for her. So during the timeframe of me being in the military, like I, I was still living a lifestyle man. I never got away from it. I was still doing drugs, I was still doing alcohol. I was engaged to be married at one point in time.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And and my fiancee, she cheated on me and got pregnant by somebody else. And this was my first three years in the Army. All of this happened to me. I got Article 50 that got busted down in rank. I was just going through a whirlwind. May I just spiral down, you know? Were you going through a lot, man?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Like you got, you know, you ever heard of ever childhood experiences? Aces, right? So aces. That’s what I was experiencing from my childhood. And, you know, the army tell you down to build you back up. But a lot of times all they’re doing is adding extra trauma or drama to what you already have. So you had never getting out of this cycle that you already been in.
Sylvester Jenkins III
So for me it was just one thing and got another and I just suppressed all my emotions. I never released any of it, man, so I was just like a a soda. Soon as you shake it up and you start to take that top off, it explodes. And I hit that point when I went down. That May. And so after about the first eight years of my military career, I consider myself to be a follower.
Sylvester Jenkins III
That transitioned into a manager. And I was it wasn’t until my third deployment to Iraq that I realized the obligation that had been bestowed upon me as a leader. And as we get ready to board a plane and we get that last hour to spend with our families, one of my soldiers introduced me to his family, his wife, his kids, his mother and his father.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And as we’re standing there talking and he’s saying all these great things about me, his mother pulls me to the side and she says, Please take care of my son and to bring him back home safe. Now, you know how hard it is to provide that obligation to someone to tell them, like, yes, I will bring your child home, we’re going to combat, we’re going to war.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And you want me to see here, tell you, like, honestly, that I can provide you with this. But of course, I wanted to give her that reassurance. And when that happened, I said, man, this woman is really giving me her child. She she’s giving me full responsibility as somebody that she gave birth to. And that’s, you know, when somebody do that, they give a full responsibility of of somebody that they raised their whole entire life and their life to you give you full responsibility.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And I just told you about my background. Now, this one, without knowing me from a can of pain. But she had trust in me, you know, saying so for somebody to have their trust in me. Yeah, their confidence in me. It just lit a fire in me that continued to burn through the day. So it gave me a sense of self-worth, you know?
Sylvester Jenkins III
It gave me a sense of purpose. So we went down to this deployment. We got extended from 12 months to 15 months. But during the timeframe of this deployment, nobody knew that I was going through an acrimonious divorce. Nobody knew what I was experiencing during the time of would be in combat and in combat dealing with my relationship.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Nobody knew that experience, the hardships I was going through in order to wake up every day and continue to face the battles that I was dealing with not only in Iraq, but dealing with my personal life as well. It was very challenging. It was very emotional. I didn’t know how to handle it. When I came back home was hard to decipher between possibility and probability, because you never know what’s going on.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You you’ve got to think you’re in combat. When you are in combat, your life is on the line 24, seven, seven days a week, seven days a week. Every morning that you wake up, you could possibly lose your life. You never know the time or the day. But guess what? When you come back home now, everybody expect you to just go back to the regular person that you were.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You know how long it takes to pick up the habit. It don’t take long at all. Now, you. Thank you. Over here for a whole year. And you think it takes only roughly about 90 days to pick up the habit. So you you tell me how I. To decipher between possibility and probability. So when it came down to just, you know, dealing with a lot of this stuff from my retired from from combat and then just going through the motions of the divorce because I came back home to nothing.
Sylvester Jenkins III
The house was empty bank account, empty car, golf. You know, I came literally to nothing. So I weighed the white flag, man. I was ready to air my own life. I was ready to call it quits. I didn’t have no more incident. I had nothing else in me. I was completely dry. But the only thing that, like, really gave me a little a sense of life was the fact that during the timeframe of that relationship, I had a child.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And that was, you know, I said, if I take my life, then my child grew up the same way I did without a father. And I was like, I can’t do that. I got to figure out some way. I got to dig deep, I got to find my inner warrior and I got to be the best person I can for this individual.
Sylvester Jenkins III
So that was the pivotal moment for me. That’s when everything shifted. And when that happened, my focus totally changed. I started focusing on me until the focus was on me, and that’s where it kind of led me to the direction of everything that I do right now to be able to help people that traveled down this road of darkness, to be a light wherever they see, they don’t see a sense of hope to give them solution to the problem that they deal with and provide them a path to victory.
Sylvester Jenkins III
So that’s a little bit about my story right now. Now, I got a whole bunch of things that I’ve dealt with as far as adversity and what I consider to be combat. But I just wanted to give you the meat and potatoes before we carry on further away. Everything goes.
Nick McGowan
Well. The meat and potatoes are basically the appetizer, but this plate is huge. I mean, there’s a lot on this thing. And look, I’m Irish as hell, so I really enjoy meat and potatoes. Then I. I find it so interesting to talk to people like yourself that have gone through a lot of tough shit and find that thing that keeps them around.
Nick McGowan
It was, you’re your kid. You’re like, Wow, I can just kill myself. Shit, they’re here. I can’t do that. So now what? And it’s it’s interesting to me how life you we can look at it as God, the universe, whatever you want. I think there are things that will pop up to show you. Here’s an alternate way to go about things, a reason for you not to do that.
Nick McGowan
And I find it interesting that you had gone through so much shit that at some point you were just so beaten and so dry, as you put it, that it it just feels like there’s nothing else to do. And many people go through that, but it looks vastly different. But at the core of it, and you know, this, it’s all basically the same shit because it all stems from, at least in my opinion, it stems from childhood trauma, all of it.
Nick McGowan
So when you think about the shit that you went through as a kid and now casually, you’re like, Oh, we just fucking hung out in the car for 12 hours. And then when she came back, we went on with life. To some people they would be like, You did what? For how long? In a vehicle? What? And they’re probably other people that are like, Fuck, at least you had a car.
Nick McGowan
So it’s not a matter of being able to kind of level this out or say what you went through was worse, but it’s how you went through and handled it. Now, what does your relationship look like with your sibling and did your sibling kind of go a different direction? Because I’ve seen that happen before, too, where people will be part of a situation or they’re told a story and they’ll take two different directions.
Nick McGowan
Like one is hyper afraid, the other is like, Well, fuck, I’ve got things to live for. So what does that relationship look like and how did they turn out?
Sylvester Jenkins III
So absolutely. So my older brother, who is a phenomenal person, by the way, he is what I consider my my example of a father by, you know, my arrogant father. But by far, because he took on a responsibility at such a young age, he only seven years older than me. And so he took on the responsibility at such a young age and never looked back when it came down to trying to be that protector provider for me now, for him in that manner, he dealt with a lot of hardship as well.
Sylvester Jenkins III
He got locked up multiple times, tried to join the military, but got kicked out, went through the motions of drugs. That’s kind of how I got into the realm of selling drugs was by seeing him because, you know, you follow his examples. That’s big, bro. He doing it, I’ll go through it too tight. So as far as him doing a lot of those things, man, like he was in and out of jail for a long period of time.
Sylvester Jenkins III
But I think as he got older, roughly about in his thirties, man, everything changed. So like he did a total pivot to he went to college, he graduated from the University of Georgia with his master’s degree. Not only that, but he working at as at a operations plant. He the operations manager over there, he’s in charge of multiple people.
Sylvester Jenkins III
He got a wife, nice house by he totally pivot. But like when we were growing up, man, we just didn’t have no direction. We didn’t know which way to go. And the streets was called. It was just like all we knew was survival. And we knew we could get right now by doing certain things and certain things that we wanted to do or that we had in front of us was selling drugs, being a quick runner, breaking into people’s homes, things like that.
Sylvester Jenkins III
So we didn’t know no other way, man. We were just trying to make our way and survive. That’s it.
Nick McGowan
So there I do find it funny that some people don’t actually go through seasons like that as a kid. Like there were some people that weren’t actually shitty kids because I kind of joke about it like we were basically all fucking shithead at some point. And there are certain people that are like, No one was great. I got straight A’s, I hung out, blah, blah, blah.
Nick McGowan
And then at some point they fucking snap like late twenties, early thirties. They’re like, I need to rage. And they go fucking crazy. But I do think that we learn a lot. Like I’ve been through some similar things in some ways without divulging and kind of going deep on that sort of stuff, where you go through some shit in high school.
Nick McGowan
But I think you also take some lessons from those, or at least you can. Certain people will take lessons and they just continue to be shitty, you know, they continue to do terrible things and make terrible decisions. It’s almost like those super hackers of the world that are incredible what they do, but they’re doing it in a dark way instead of moving it into the light.
Nick McGowan
So when you think about the shit that you went through, being in the car and having to stay there and then getting into drugs and selling drugs and like all the other bullshit that came along with it to look at that stuff back then. What do you feel you learned from that that you actually use right now?
Sylvester Jenkins III
I felt like what I learned from it was the drive, the determination, the resilience I learned, you know, the tenacity, the grit, because you had to get out there and get it. It wasn’t no other way around it. The Hustle Man was so, so needed in that aspect because you couldn’t let nobody take advantage of you. You couldn’t be vulnerable behind any situation that you experienced when you encountered people.
Sylvester Jenkins III
When you was doing any kind of exchange, you had to have a straight face the whole time and you got to think I was just a young kid. So when you think about that and you’re approaching like a grown man or somebody that’s cracked out and, you know, automatically they’re going to try to take advantage of you just because they see you as an adolescent.
Sylvester Jenkins III
They don’t see you as the dealer that you are. So when you approaching these individuals and you’re going up to them, you got to be stern the whole time. So I transition all of those things that I experience from being in the streets and survival during my time in the military. Did it help me and it helped me.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You help me along way like everything that I did, I was able to catch the light switch on and cut the light switch off. But I still think that over time, while being in the military, I really became an adult. I grew up, I matured. I figured out like what it took in order to be able to have a sense of empathy, not sympathy.
Nick McGowan
Or you would also mentioned that the military just in general seems to keep adding trauma to you. And I’ve never been through military anything like that. In fact, I remember they kind of hounded me in high school and I was a punk skater kid with piercings on my face, blue hair and shit. And I remember my mom being like, You fucking want him, you’re nuts.
Nick McGowan
Get out of here and like, hang it up on them. But I, I know that I have friends that have gotten out of the military, friends that are still in, you know, that I graduated. No. To like they’re far in at this point and they’re doing great things. But it seems like they haven’t not all of them have really processed through this stuff.
Nick McGowan
And then there are others that I talk to that have specifically had to make themselves aware of the shit that they’ve got going on and work on processing that. So what sort of work have you done since then and what sort of advice would you give to others that are actively in the military now that are going through that, or people that just got out and trying to figure out how the fuck do I be a civilian again?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Absolutely. That was the most challenging part for me as far as transitioning. Like I said before, for developing the habit. I have been in the military 21 years and then to go from 21 years of service to starting over as a civilian, like I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up type. That’s how I felt.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I felt like a 40 year old man that didn’t know what he wanted to be, where he grew up, you know. How were you, a young man when you graduate high school? You’re like, Man, I wonder what I would be when I grew up. That type of stuff, man. Like things you tell yourself and like when you was an elementary school, I was saying that as a grown man, a husband with four kids, like is it’s like when you think about that, it’s like it’s too late, man.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Like you supposed to be already had this figured out. Like like life kept going. You know? So I never had an opportunity to find myself. I was a great husband. I was a great soldier. I was a great father, but who was out for myself? That’s the question everybody need to ask us. Who are you for? Yourself. And when you ask yourself that question, take a moment to really recognize, reflect and release and recognize who you are as the individual person that you want to become.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Record. I mean, release all of the things that you experienced. Why you in the army because no good for you anymore if you were in the military. Some of those things are beneficial. But all of this for us, the documents and the paperwork, the only thing you need to worry about is that D 214 everything you give them awards, they don’t mean crap.
Sylvester Jenkins III
All those shiny things that you had on your chest. I was airborne, air assault. You don’t mean that. And don’t. Nobody asked me about any of those things while I’m out here. They might be, you know, fire for jokes, but overall, they don’t ask me that whenever I’m filling out an application, it’s like, oh, you air assault qualified?
Sylvester Jenkins III
No. Are you rather qualified? No. You know, they don’t care about that. All they care about you is you perform until the next level and being able to succeed. As for whatever they give you and you got that already, but overall, I would tell them, figure out who they are for themselves. Make sure you do that. Find your mentor.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You got to fire you. Somebody been there, done that, got the T-shirt for it because those are valuable people. You want to make sure you invest the time and people who will prove it to you. And then also you got to figure out what you really want to do next. And I say that because nobody really knows what they want to do next, man.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Like, I didn’t have any type of growth in my mind of becoming an author, a speaker, a mental health advocate, or any of these things. I had a job working at Amazon as an operations manager. That was the next move for me. Pandemic hit everything shut down. Oh, man, it’s time to shift. Got to make a pivot. So what am I going to do?
Sylvester Jenkins III
I had to take an opportunity to reflect, recognize and release. I had to recognize man like, hey, I know, tell them when this stuff cleared up. So you got to figure out the next move. You know, I had to release all the things that I had thought that was going to fall in my favor. All the bad habits that I had picked up.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I had to let them go. You have to take the opportunity to focus on you, because once you focus on you, the focus is on you. You have to be present in the moment of everything that’s transpiring in your life. If you don’t, you’ll fall to the wayside and you’ll lose sight of everything that you got going on in front of you.
Nick McGowan
It’s got to be a difficult thing for people to be able to figure out who they are as they go through situations.
Sylvester Jenkins III
It’s hard, man. It’s hard. It’s so challenging.
Nick McGowan
And dude, you’re not alone. I mean, so many people I talk to that are in their thirties or forties, that kind of joke where they’re like, Oh fuck, I wonder what I’m going to be when I get older, because they’re still kind of working through things. I find it interesting now. I turned 38 a couple of months ago and I remember being in high school.
Nick McGowan
I remember being a 1415 year old and thinking, God, 38, holy shit, do they walk with canes? Like, how, how do they fucking get around? You know, like those people are old and that’s not the case at all. And I look at how we as people can continuously evolve if we allow ourselves to are certain people. And I think some of this is also old hat, like the traditional way of thinking where it’s like you go to school, you go to college, you get a piece of paper that allows you into a corporate office or factory, and that’s where you fucking live forever.
Nick McGowan
And that’s just not how things work at this point. Yeah. So I think that’s a smart way to go about it, where you’re like, Fuck, what do I want to do now? Because there are certain people that are 20 years into a career and they’re like, I can’t get out of this because this is my identity. So even with your military, how did you unravel yourself from the identity of that?
Nick McGowan
And not allow it to just kind of take over?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Yeah, I’m a B, I’m a be 100% honest with you, man. I have went through a depression. I went through a dark road of depression and like I literally so check it out. So when I retired and I was transitioning in 2019, my retirement date was 2020th March 2020. I retired from the military. What happened in March 2020?
Sylvester Jenkins III
The pandemic happened so. So now, although that I retired from the military, it was half a paycheck. I got a wife and four kids. So my financial stability is, you know, cut short, you know, saying like my wife, my wife, she got laid off from her job. They cut back her hours and then they let her go. So it was just like all we was receiving was my retirement check.
Sylvester Jenkins III
My disability hadn’t kicked in yet from VA. So this is all that we were living on. So you can think how my mind is. The anxiety depression kicked in. I was like millions for provide for my family. I’ll figure it out, man. I remember in peanut butter jelly sandwiches and ramen noodles for months, four months, man. I’m talking about doing whatever it took, man.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I was out here selling. I’ve enjoyed it back to my childhood. That’s what I did. I’ll be honest with you. I was looking at things inside my house and I was seeing what I could sell in order to be able to provide for my family. And that’s what I did, man. Like, I honestly did that because I didn’t feel like I was being the protector and the provider that I needed to be.
Sylvester Jenkins III
It was hard for me just traveling down that road, man, and I was in a sunken place. It was hard for me to get out of there, man. I was like, Man, I see me. You got to snap out of this, man. You really got to snap out of that. And to think about it was man. Like once you have a level of self-awareness, once you realize and pick up on the things that you find yourself in, you may you can declare and decree all that stuff.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You can get rid of all those things, man, that you deal with. It starts with your mindset at first, and some people just run on autopilot and they just lift the subconscious and just take over. Woe is me. Have those pity parties. You got to stop that man. You got to throw the junk out. You got to be conscious and aware and present behind everything that you got once you have that level of self-awareness.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Self-awareness is key, man, because I promise you, once I start finding myself going deeper and deeper in that hole, it was like, Man, what are you doing right now? The little man on the show and I mean, what are you doing right now? Did you not understand what we got going on? That you’re better than this man. You’re a conqueror.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You’re a warrior man. Like how you can fall short, that is, you got to continuously tell yourself all the things that you’ve been through that if you did it before, you can do it again. Like, what are we doing right while we sitting here? We’re stagnant. You will fall down or you’re going to get up. You can fall down several times, but you got to get back up.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You could take a knee if you want to, but guess what? You got to get back up. You got to keep moving forward. You got to cross that finish line. And the only way you do that, if you change your mind, set me. So that’s what I did. I changed my mindset, started journaling just to get myself back on track to who I was.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And when I started journaling, that’s when I wrote the book. That’s when I wrote the book. Somebody was like me, you know? So it was just like one thing to the next, the other, the podcast. Somebody was like, Man, have you ever thought about being a speaker? I’m like, No, I never thought about it. So I just fell in line, man.
Sylvester Jenkins III
So it was just one thing after another. So, you know, once you start going through that stuff, the confidence build up, the momentum builds up. All of these things that you need in order to get you in the right mindframe happens. And that’s exactly what happened, man. Like you really have to develop that level of self-awareness.
Nick McGowan
Oh, God, big time. You know that. It’s kind of obvious for me to say I agree. As the host of The Mindset and Self-mastery show. Pretty fucking obvious, but I’m right there with you about self-awareness, and I’m sitting here kind of smirking and chuckling because you’re right, once you see things, you can’t fucking see them. You just continue to be aware.
Nick McGowan
But I also like to play devil’s advocate for that one person or several people and better listen to the episodes that go, Yeah, I fucking get it, but I have a hard time seeing that. And you started to dove right into that where it’s the journaling or taking some sort of step. So I want us to dove into this a little bit because for me at least, I think it’s that step after that step after the next step.
Nick McGowan
But when you just sit there and bitch and complain and go, I don’t know, I don’t know. You’re literally telling your computer, I need a file, but I have no idea where the fuck it is and I don’t know. And the computer’s like, Well, neither do we. What the fuck do you want? So how did you get to that point?
Nick McGowan
And can you remember the moment where you were like, Wait a minute, I need to do something different? And what that process look like?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Yeah, if you want to see different, you’ve got to do this plain and simple. Me What you tune in to you trying to if you sit here and you focus on the negative, everything around you will be negative, plain and simple. But when you focus on the positive, you have to eliminate the things that distract you. You have to eliminate the things that are holding you back.
Sylvester Jenkins III
If you have to change your environment, you change your requirement man. In order to accelerate, you have to separate. And that’s exactly what I did. I separated myself from so many things. Remember I told you I was on drugs and alcohol? Remember I reduced all it. Remember I told you that I was going through a moment where I felt like I was dealing with a lot of adverse childhood experiences.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I worked through those things. I see behavior, health. I started talking to people. I started releasing all the things that I was going through instead of managing up through it opening up. Once I started to do these things, I started to notice a change up here behind my behavior. My ex, I was starting to be more compassionate. I was starting to be more empathetic.
Sylvester Jenkins III
When it came to how I treated people. I interacted with people not only that man, but I also, you know, develop a strong level of faith. When I started going down this road and dealing with a lot of these things that I was going through, man, like I started to feel in my mind all positive things. And what you put in your gut and what you feel your God in me will grow.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I don’t care what it is when you sit here, if you watch an action movie where they killing multiple people, man, it’s going to be right there in your subconscious mind when you go to sleep. But guess what? If you listen to or watch something positive like 5 minutes before I go to bed every night, I digress from everything that I experienced and I feed my subconscious, my positive things, you know, I really do.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I am statement. I also, you know, just look at funny videos. I also, you know, go through the motions of telling my kids or my wife I love them, you know, just getting that action back, you know, saying to affirmation back because they’re going to tell you right back every time I love you to day or I’m proud you or something, you know, just having the attitude of gratitude and just being grateful behind the things that you receive because this this piece of this decrease, what it is, it increases your happiness.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Just having an attitude of gratitude increases your happiness by 10%, and it decreases depression, sales by 10%. I mean, like, it’s you can’t go wrong, man. Like, you really have to invest in yourself, man. Like, the biggest investment you’ll ever make is in yourself. And if you won’t take the opportunity to separate in order to elevate from the things that are not beneficial to you, you’re doing yourself an injustice, man.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You’re you’re you’re right where you supposed to be. So you feel like you can’t do anything. It’s because you can’t. As the famous quote I hear before, this is if you say you can, you can. If you say you can’t, you can’t live. One of you are wrong. Neither one of you is wrong. So it’s all or you know what I say it the words, the things that you feed our brains are just as important.
Sylvester Jenkins III
What you feed your body. What are you telling yourself? Or is this or is it encouraging words, something that’s going to put you on the right pedestal, man? Just get you to the next level, man. I’m telling you, I am. I got I got to be, like, honest with you, man. Like, that’s what pissed me off. That’s that’s what.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Get me fired up. That’s what. Get me fired up, man. When people sit here and say that they can’t do this or they can’t do that, or they blame society or the whole world, life is 10%, which happens to you and 90% what you do about it. What you do about it. Nobody else.
Nick McGowan
And I’ve had a lot of conversations with people not only on the podcast, but clients, friends, people that are part of the powerhouse men brotherhood. Like we get into this sort of stuff where I think I think it really boils down to fear because I’ve thought about it like, what the fuck is the thing that holds people back from the next little step?
Nick McGowan
Because I get it. If you’re like, Oh, well, I’ve got to climb this entire giant mountain. Like, Yeah, that’s kind of a beast of a task. But if you go, No, my ass just need to get the fuck up and start walking in one direction. The mountains over there, I’ll get to it. But you start moving and taking those little bits and pieces and those little steps.
Nick McGowan
So what sort of advice would you give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Oh, man. Like, Hey, don’t turn back, man. Whatever it is, you’re going to fail. You’ve got to accept failure. Failure is the key to success. You know, saying failure is the key to success because it’s not failing if you keep going, it’s only failing when you give up. And the guarantee behind giving up is that it would never happen.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Whatever it is that you want to achieve, it will never happen. I don’t care what you got going or if you give up, it will never. If you lip have to self-mastery, you really have to dove deep into investing in yourself, figuring out, you know, working out. I love working out, man. They invest 30 minutes a day in yourself, read books if you don’t like to read listen to audible they out there people will read to you you know saying and then YouTube university man I know YouTube university to make more millionaires is any actual university that’s out there.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Everything that I learned as far as writing my book, I learned it off YouTube. I didn’t go man or coach or anything like that. I didn’t go to no class YouTube university man. If you want to know how to do anything positive in your life, if you want to go to the next level, if you want to start a business, if you want to start a podcast, go to YouTube.
Sylvester Jenkins III
It’s free. Everything I’m telling you right now is free. The biggest investment that you’ll ever make is in yourself. You invest in yourself. You will make a fortune.
Nick McGowan
Yeah, it’s Taken those little steps, man. That’s good shit, man. I appreciate you being on. I appreciate you. Get into everything you’ve gotten into before we wrap this thing up. Where can people find you and where can they connect with you? And of course, where can they get the book?
Sylvester Jenkins III
Absolutely. So you can go to my website as investor genius dot com. And also when you go on there, you’ll see a lot of things that I do deal with as far as providing people with help, as far as dealing with them rising to the top and going to the next level. Man Like it’s all about that. Like all my social media handles are invested thinking that that’s it.
Sylvester Jenkins III
When you type, that is the best thing because you can find me whether it’s Instagram, whether it’s Facebook, whether it’s LinkedIn, like you will find me man. So I have four books out self-published all by myself. The major book I want to talk about is From Combat to Combat How to Conquer the Battles of Adversity. And when I’m talking about the battles of adversity, I’m talking about like six battles of adversity that we deal with financial, spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, all the ones that we go through, we deal with that on a day to day basis.
Sylvester Jenkins III
But not only that, I’m taking you down the journey of my life and some of I just spoke of. Right now I’m giving you a glimpse of my life and what I face dealing with these six types of adversity. Not only, but but not only do I teach you how to survive, but I teach you how to thrive.
Sylvester Jenkins III
I give you strategies and techniques. And this is also on Audible. So like I said before, if you’re not a reader, you can listen. I want to be the one in your ear telling you that you can do this, that you are a conqueror, that you are a warrior, and that you can overcome anything you dealing with right now, that you you were created on purpose for a purpose, with a purpose.
Sylvester Jenkins III
And if you don’t believe that man, the best way you can do it is going from combat to combat. You are combat warrior. And I want to show you how to do it so you can find this book on Amazon, Spotify, Amazon Audible, Google Pay, Kobo, it’s not in boys. And nobody said, But we’re getting there. But trust me, when the time comes, you need this book of your life.
Sylvester Jenkins III
You need this book in your life, plain and simple. That’s all I got to say about that.
Nick McGowan
Well, I don’t want him to break his mike, so I’m not going to tell him to drop it, but he basically did. So thank you. So that’s sir, appreciate you being on the show, my friend. It was wonderful to connect with you and have this conversation. I’m excited to be able to connect again. And thank you so much for your time.
Sylvester Jenkins III
Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Nick. I wish you much. Continued success, brother.
Nick McGowan
Another great conversation on today’s episode of The Mindset and Self-mastery show. So what did you think of the show today? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Check out the Instagram or Facebook page. Join the conversation. If you enjoyed the episode, please jump over to iTunes and subscribe right and leave a five star review. It helps us be found and helps others be healed.
Nick McGowan
If this episode Open Your Eyes made you think or smile at all, then I’m sure it’ll do the same for your friends. Check out the show notes for more info from today’s episode and check out other episodes on The Mindset and Self-mastery show. Com as well as our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and look up the mindset and self-mastery show.
Nick McGowan
Thanks again to our incredible guests for being real honest and vulnerable with us today. I’d like to thank our sponsors and most importantly, I’d like to thank you, thank you for hanging out with us today. Your support means the world to us. And with that, remember, your mindset matters and so do you.