Unexpected | Ray Lewis | TEDxYouth@VHS
a show of hands how many people has dealt with pain somewhere in your life right today I wanted to just really hit on something successfully dealing with pain I think you hear you you you hear many stories and and and every story I just sat in the back room and listened to I'm I'm watching these people Triumph and and figure out ways to keep going but how do you keep going why do you keep going when the world says everything else is supposed to be opposite October 7th we're playing the Dallas Cowboys in Baltimore and I've studied all week I've studied all week for this one moment and I know it's gonna happen I know I know it's gonna happen and I'm looking at Tony Romo and I'm watching him drop back and I'm saying to myself I'm saying drop and just pick up your hands and just pick it pick means interception right and I'm saying just catch it just pick your hands up and catch it Lou you done saw this plate all week fourth quarter big Drive Baltimore going crazy and in the midst of it the play happens Romo drops and I'm sitting there and in my head I promise you I went through every thought uh catch it uh knock it down uh don't put your hands up and the moment I hesitate it for a moment and by the time I put my hand up my hand started to come down and I felt the sound I heard a sound that I have never heard in my entire life and my tricep Po from the bone and and and as soon as I hit it I knew something was wrong and and I and I said I cannot believe this I said I cannot believe this because I know now this 17 years of me playing so I know that this is my last ride this is my last one my my tricep made nine surgeries I had nine surgeries throughout my 177e career but I'm but I'm but I'm sit there and when I pop it the morning moment I popped it I said now you got a choice and I'm sitting out there with it pop and and and and all of my players looking at me and they like you all right Lou and I'm like I'm good let's go but I know I ain't good and I know something's functionally not right something's wrong cuz I can feel a burn and three more plays after five more plays after seven more plays after eight more plays after after I'm still out there fighting with my team cuz it's the fourth quarter and you can't leave the battlefield you can only to leave the battlefield for injury not pain 15 play come up young running back come through the hole I'm realizing that if I don't sacrifice my body and throw it in the middle of him he probably scores we lose but I got one on so I just threw my body and just roll with him and he got up talking y you got to come on you got to come on and I'm like I'm going out and I went to the sideline and my doctor walked up Dr C walked up and she said what's wrong I said Doc it's my arm she grabbed the back of my arm and she touched right the bottom of my tricep and she could actually push through to where you can see her hand coming through on the other side cuz it had snapped from the bone and I'm sitting there and she's like why you smiling I said Doc is just an arm she was like yeah Ray but I I I got some bad news I said doc what's that she said you just pop your tricep from the bone I said I just pop it from the bone she said you it's gone she's crying I'm like Doc why you crying she's like I never I never wanted to see your career in like this and I'm saying career in like this she said because nobody has ever came back from this nobody has ever came back from a tricep injury right we was 4 and one at the time so we was a quarter way through the season and I'm sitting there and she she keeps moving and she keeps moving it and I said and I started smiling again she said she said what you smiling for because I said I said man believes in the possible God believes in the impossible I said all I need you to do is meet me in the office in the morning and give me my papers papers mean MRI and after I went and got it right valid to say yeah your tricep is torn so she hands me the papers I called a friend of mine I said man I need your plane man I got to I got to go right now I flew down to my college doctor Dr urbe and I got there and I never forget as soon as I walked in the door he said Ray don't do what I think you about to do he said don't do it cuz it's the greatest risk you ever take in your life I said doc I ain't got no other choice at this point in my career I I promised myself when I came into this game if I was going to leave it I would rather die on the field but but it's something that ter my tricep taught me about there's two sides of pain that I don't think a lot of people really understand right there's there's one side of pain that's the suffering and the discomfort side of pain that's why everybody raised their hands when I first asked do you have everybody ever been through pain because that hurts you remember what that felt like but then there's another side of pain that's called effort it's called Glory it's called if you can find a way to push through pain there's something greater on the other side of it and and and and if you never tap into it it's because the first time you felt that you backed off the first time you felt ah that burn the first time you felt that it's too much and we rationalize with ourselves to where we automatically stop that's why a bunch of us give up so much in life so quickly it's why kids have a problem finishing things in today's time because soon as they feel a small bit of discomfort of things ain't right oh they gone I can't do it no more but suppose I told you the greatest pain of my life is the reason I'm standing here today suppose I was able to share with you my routine was so crazy man I was seeing almost nine doctors for nine weeks 6: a.m. to 2 a.m. every morning 10 days 10 days days from tricep repair surgery had my bike flew out I flew my bike out I got on my bicycle I cycle a lot I got on my cycle got on my bike and I tried to grip the bar and I couldn't grip it didn't have enough strength and I sat there for 30 minutes until I made up in my mind stop crying and grip the handle BS just grab the bar see sometimes we think the pain is what controls us is it's actually our subconscious mind that if we ever tapped into that that's what dictates most of our lives and I'm sitting there and I said just squeezed it and I squeezed it 10 days out and I started riding a bike 10 days out because see pain pain is tricky because if you don't control pain it'll control you and so that's where my psyche started to change because I look it was already in my mind that I was coming back but listen to what I had to hear about all of the people who had everything to say about my career was over every TV station every ESPN channel sad news Ray Lewis career is over and I'm saying wow that many people can dictate if I'm coming back or not that many people got control over what I do from this point forward with going forward that many people can tell me man I heard one one comment says one of the greatest warriors of all time and we lose him like this so I said oh my gosh they done rope me off I say I might as well pack it up but think about think about what we do the moment we feel that right that's back to the two sides of f the two sides of pain see at that point I feel like a victim and I feel like oh man why me you know and dang it dang it dang it after the first day I rolled my bik I came back I fa I fa twice and when I fell I remember laying on the ground and I said L ain't nobody out here gonna help you get up what makes you get up when you fall down what makes your mentality change if there's a great situation or there's a bad situation how do you dictate that based off the level of pain because I think that's where we're getting in trouble at and so when I started cycling when I started going to see these doctors I realized that I turned my greatest pain into my greatest achievement I asked my mom one day I said Mom I said would you buy me a deck of cards she says Junior I don't gamble in my house ain't no cars coming in my house and I said I said Mom I don't need him for for gambling I don't want them for gambling I just need a deck of cards mom my mom for years from the time I was 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 I've never saw a woman takes so much physical abuse than the way I've seen my mother beaten every freaking day of my life and I'm helping her but I can't help her cuz I'm not strong enough I don't have the muscle to get these men off my mother my mother's a very high yellow woman and every time they hit her she would BL bed from her eyes and she would walk around for days with sunglasses on in the house and I said M I need a deck of cards last altercation we got in my stepfather hit my mama so hard in the face my stepfather hit my mama so hard in the face I called her and I looked at him with this rage and this pain in my eyes like one day one day and I took this deck of cards and I couldn't live in the house so I had to live in the garage and after this last altercation we had with this guy I ran to my garage and I grabbed this deck of cards and I flipped a seven and I started doing seven push-ups I flipped a six I did six I flipped a nine I did nine I flipped a two I did two I flipped the another nine I did nine until I got all the way through the deck Jack queen king wor 10 Jack um Aces 25s and Joker's 50 until I got sick and tired of what pain felt like in my gut it didn't even matter to me no more because I started shuffle them all over again and that's when I started doing my situps because I wanted to make sure Sports wasn't the reason why I started training it was to make sure man never put his hands on my mama again that's why I started doing what I started doing sports was a byproduct of of what people started to see it was the behind the scenes that was driving me crazy at 10 years old I picked up these deck of cards and one day I counted them and I found out it was 52 of them in the deck of cards 52 and I turned my greatest pain into in my business what the greatest achievement ever is the touch of the barley trophy 52 cards and ironically my number end up being 52 I wish I made up a story but I didn't 1986 I'm sitting on the curve my Mama come home she said baby Ray what you doing I said Mom I'm waiting for my daddy to come get me she said baby Ray your daddy ain't coming I said mom somebody said Daddy in town and he coming to get me for Christmas she said baby Ray your daddy ain't coming I said Mom I'm not leaving I'mma sit right here 7:30 came by 8:30 9:30 she came back out and said Son get up he ain't coming say m he got to come I'll be all right I sat there till 11:30 at night she finally walked over to me she said baby r get up he ain't coming and I remember getting up from that freaking curve and I told my mama that day Mama no pain no pain will ever stop me from taking care of you and my brothers and sisters because nobody knows what I'm dealing with the greatest pain a man will ever go through in his life is the disconnection of a father when you know he living I want to I just I I I thank my father because we're friends now but I thanked my father for not coming around me when I was a child because the way he was living wasn't the way I was supposed to live so sometimes to really find the root of who you are you must go back generationally and find out if you're are following the same curses that's what pain is pain is a repetition of the psyche until you learn how to figure it out until you learn how to tap it on the tap it on the back and say I know you there but I'm built to deal with you I don't want nobody to leave here today and not understand why we must find a way to push through pain to understand that's on the other side of that is Glory the night before the Super Bowl I retor my tricep couldn't tell nobody I couldn't go to the doctors I couldn't go to my teammates what I was going to tell them that I can't play I reto it and it was bleeding so bad and it was so it was burning so bad that I took a sho strring from one of my shoes and one of the fire spets I tied a Sho strring around the tire spet and tied it around my arm to hang my arm up just so I can get three hours of sleep and I held it there all night and that Sho SC H my arm there all night and I got up and I walked in that stadium and I never forget this if anybody's ever saw this ride I came out of halftime and we and we busting San Fran up I'm sorry for it's in the fortn fan you know I know we on the west coast I know we're on the west coast but but I come out of halftime and I stayed in there a little longer because I got ready to tell my trainers I'm like man listen I can't even punch nobody with my arm it's hurting that bad I said I got it a whisper came to me it ain't about you it's about the team it's about the team H I came out the locker room my arm burning so bad jacobe Jones was walking to the end zone to receive the kickoff I'm running towards the sideline my arm burning so bad God said go touch jacobe I turned around and put both of my hands on jacobe chess and I said I'm just doing what God told me to do W and I ran back to the sideline and I watched jacobe go 109 yards so everything that moment told me well sometimes your greatest pain it ain't even about you it's about a greater purpose that if you can find a way to push through that if you can find a way to not make it about you learn learn to appreciate the occasional storms that come in your life just learn to appreciate how small they are the occasional storms that come every day and then that's the ingredient of how you really deal with pain figuring that out thank you so if you guys so if you guys real quickly if you don't know the story so you you already shared she's already shared her story and uh me and her brother we done some stuff um oh few years ago um and we uh done some stuff in a Grove and everything and so I met him and uh it was it was awesome um the time we spent together and then I received the email about her taking one of my messages a warrior tell me what tell me when you challenge a warrior a warrior responds absolutely and see remember that that one one time I said when you challenge a warrior a warrior responds so she sent me this email through she sent me this email through my agent and um as soon as I saw it I was like absolutely I'm 100% in I would love to come share that story right and so that's why I'm here today absolutely thank you