In theory, someone like me was never supposed to get the opportunity to be in my position.

I spent the early years of my life sleeping on floors and couches, running the streets as my mother dealt with the challenges of a drug addiction. Now I own what some say is the most influential and culturally relevant sports agency in America and do business with some of the biggest companies and most prominent people in the world. Back on my block, nobody could have predicted this. My trajectory is only supposed to happen to Ivy League types, or gifted athletes or entertainers – not someone who’s five-foot-eight and grew up with a pair of dice in one hand and a pistol in the other.

Some people say I’m lucky, and in one sense they’re right. I survived experiences that killed some of my friends. I avoided situations that could have been disastrous. I made choices that I’m still trying to put behind me, and I’m not sure I ever will.

I also believe that you create your own luck. I believe that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Luck is the accumulation of all the decisions I made prior to getting lucky, and how hard I worked after. Everything on both sides of that moment was earned.

A lot of people think they know who I am, but they don’t understand what kind of assembly line I was built on.

I’m finally ready to tell that story.