Dark Beginnings Lead to Motivational Speaker & Philanthropist
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Dr. Coleman had a desire to be a motivational speaker, but that dream wasn’t always reality. Looking back on all that he has accomplished, if you knew him years ago, you may not have been able to see the rose that was dying to break through the concrete. The beauty of it all is that his life experiences were necessary to make an impact.
When I found myself in a state of depression – early in life, at a very young age – grade school. I don’t know exactly when it started, but I knew something wasn’t right. I found myself in a place where I disliked my parents. I disliked my siblings… um I disliked my family. I disliked everybody around me in a sense, but I tried to cover it because I knew that wasn’t right. Something was wrong. I was still never able to identify what created that in me. It led to a self-hate, which created this arrogance and this ignorance that I would carry.
I learned how to hustle. I started stealing things and got a lot of attention behind it whether it was from my parents or whether I got arrested or from people who were buying the things from me. I thought, “I’m winning!” I began to make that a way of life.
As you can image, things swiftly began to spin out of control. Dr. Coleman opened up about his dark path and what finally woke him up…
I remember one time I was caught stealing and I was with one of my aunts and I was so embarrassed, because I had been able to keep this identity hidden for so long. I remember crying my eyes out, but she told me she wasn’t going to tell my parents as long as I promised not to do it again. I promised her I wouldn’t, but you know old habits returned and I was right back out there stealing. Stealing clothes, things, and I was selling them in the neighborhood at an early age. That led to me stealing candy – stealing from the local grocery store. I was the man for selling candy and then I started thinking, I can sell some weed. I had a job, but I also had that street hustle. Eventually I started selling crack. While I was selling crack I was boosting things out of the back of a retail company.
That became my identity. When I listened to music, the music told me who I was. I ended up joining a group, which later became known as a gang. I was known as Playboy Vic. This is during my high school days while riding in a flashy red car with rims and playing loud music. The girls gave me attention. To this day, I’m still trying to shake that name.
At age 18, I started parenting my step-daughter. She was 6 months old when she came into my life, but she didn’t wake me up like my biological son woke me up. When he came into the world, I was like, “you’ve got to figure life out.” My mom always told me, “you would be a great leader if you would just get out of your own way.” I never understood what she meant, but as I look back I realize I was leading the rest of the kids to sell drugs and steal. That finally clicked down the line… like at 28 years old.
In 2010, Dr. Coleman did what many would have deemed impossible; he earned his bachelor’s degree in music at Full Sail University in Florida.
In that time window, something happened that really woke me up. I was going through something that put me back in that depression-state. What it was doing to me was God saying, “Let me rip away Playboy Vic and let me show you who you really are.”
I started traveling and networking trying to make a name for myself, trying to get a job, trying to open doors. No one was really hiring. They’ll let you intern, but no one was hiring. I had to keep coming home to a place that was this dark place.
I felt depressed and remember one Sunday morning I was on my way to church and I kept hearing this voice saying “no don’t go here… go here.” It was telling me to go to a different church. That voice got louder and louder. So I was like let me be obedient to what I’m hearing and go to this church. I get there and the pastor is up preaching and he stopped in the middle of the sermon and said, “I don’t know who this is for, but I just heard a message from the Lord. He understands that desires are with the organization you are with and your education is in that field, but if you don’t take the opportunity that has just been presented to you, you’ll be stuck in the position you’re in for the rest of your life.” What was powerful about that was the job I was working, they had offered to make me a supervisor and I was like nah, I’m moving to New York. I’m about to be in the entertainment industry. The spirit stepped in was like, “Victor, it’s time for you to get our of your own way.” At the time I thought “being stuck where I was,” meant financially or the job I was working. Nah… he was talking about my mind. Fast forward, I became a supervisor. In 30 days I enrolled to received my master’s degree. While in the master’s degree program the spirit started telling me, “they’ve been telling you your whole life that you would be dead or in jail by the time you turned 21. You’re going to have all these kids, you’ll never learn to read or write. This is all you’ve been hearing. You know what, it’s time you get a Ph.D.”
I enrolled in a Ph.D. program and started 30 days after graduating with my master’s degree.
Still struggling with his identity, Dr. Coleman noticed that while in school, everyone around him were fully aware of who they were and why they were in school. They knew what goals they wanted to accomplish and seemed to have a plan in place, but not Dr. Coleman… he was still searching for his true self and purpose.
No one seemed to talk like me, walk like me, dress like me. They all knew why they were there. They knew what a Ph.D. was. They knew what it required of them. I just enrolled for a Ph.D. I started to feel, in a sense, depressed again and I said, you know what I’m done. This is good enough. I remember leaving the classroom and going back to my hotel room. I called home to speak to my children, but what touched me is when I spoke to my middle child. Before we hung up the phone he said to me, “I’ll talk to you later future Dr. Coleman.” I began to cry because what he said to me was that he believed in me to achieve that goal. Additionally he was saying, if you give up, you’re going to give me permission to give up.” I left the hotel room. Then the spirit told me, “you’re his father, but you’re also his mentor.” I went back in the classroom and typed in “mentoring.” Everything was saying that African-American mentoring should be researched. It was like wow this is it! This is my future. That was in 2014. I finished my Ph.D. program in December of 2018 and will be walking in August 2019.
[Insert Praise Break] Because he didn’t give up, his son that gave him that extra boost needed to push through is also graduating. Sometimes God will shake us up to wake us up. (that’ll preach!)
To see my son walk across… when than young man walks across the stage knowing that he’s done it without any issues, any drugs, any involvements with the law, I’m going to cry my eyes out. That is success! We’re doing a photoshoot together because I want that photo to always mark this moment, but more importantly for me to remember that because of him I was able to overcome a moment when I was feeling down.
But let’s back up a minute. Before he completed his doctoral program, Dr. Coleman was already making an impact. In 2010 he started Flight School which is a motivational/mentoring program to encourage youth to make better decisions for their lives.
Every time I got on a plane I was seeing the world from a different view – a different perspective. When you get off the ground you see things… the whole thing and you can make better decisions. Metaphorically, I want to encourage young people to talk flight and see life from a different perspective. The media is going to tell us that we are drug dealers, gang members… you know. We’ve all got this place where we’re stranded in life at some point. It’s up to us to elevate the way we see ourselves and then elevate the way we see the situation so we can make the best decisions possible to transform our lives.
The vision for Flight School was to turn it into an online platform, but today I use it as a motivational speaking platform to educate and empower youth and young adults to see life differently. Young is the state of the mind. You can be 40 and be young. It’s not just for the kids. It’s for everyone that needs encouragement. I believe that’s my calling on life.
The bulk of Dr. Coleman’s work with in the Flight School platform is consistency in booking speaking engagements – working with schools and universities to push efforts of education and empowerment.
Dr. Coleman’s work to – in a way- heal the hood, comes at a crucial time when young black men are still being targeted to be subdued to a system that does not favor them. It also comes at a unique time of mental health awareness. Earlier you read of his constant battle with depression – how it shaped decisions whether good or bad. Being a natural born leader, every move he made became the blueprint for someone else. Because as you know, someone is always watching. Whether it be the kid down the street, a coworker, or your own blood, your decisions are gateways to someone else’s salvation or condemnation.
For a long time, like many others, I denied the fact that there were mental issues that existed. We often think that you’re crazy, but mental health is just simply thinking in a healthy way. When you look at it at ground-level, when someone who’s going through a low self esteem moment or a depression moment, it’s transitioning the way we think.
In 2018 I partnered with a friend of mind that launched his mental health and behavioral health services here in Ohio because I really want to learn more about the medical side of mental health and to really combine that with the motivational speaking side of encouraging people. Your mental health diagnosis may not be as high as someone else’s but we all have a stage where we struggle with something mentally. And those unhealthy thoughts can grow into something that may not be manageable by ourselves if we don’t deal with them. I’m grateful that God allowed angels to come in and drop seeds of knowledge along the way to help me overcome, because I did not go and get help for the way that I was thinking about myself. If I was to say anything to anyone today, I would say, it’s okay to get help. Doctors have doctors and lawyers have lawyers. Why would you not get the help you need when they are professionals in their field and they get help when they need it? Without help, I wouldn’t be here today.
I would like to see more of us really tap into the reality of we need help in that area and it’s okay to seek help instead of trying to suppress it and hope it goes away.
We all go through some type of battle. With women, it can be postpartum. Men go through things whether it’s relationships from dating to parenting and we haven’t put any titles on them yet. I encourage men – I love my brothers – men, go speak to a professional. And here’s why I say speak to a professional… when you go speak to your boy he’s going to go tell your business. When you speak to a professional – that is their job. They know that if they tell your business they’ll be out of work. So go speak to somebody that can really educate you and provide you with resources. I’m not big on medicine for my life, but having someone to speak to is sometimes all the medicine you need. It starts there. Until you take care of that first conversation, you’ll never know what else you need to overcome the battle or challenges you’re facing. To go one-step further, those professionals can provide you with resources whether it’s support groups or whatever to get you through it.
Globally, we are in a mental health crisis. This also stands true for the growing population of small business owners. Being in competition with each other or even larger brands may put overbearing weight on their shoulders that result to unhealthy actions like lack of rest. This then leads to an improper balance in critical thinking skills and increases the likelihood of mental stress.
Right! Twice in one week, I have run out of gas. I have been so busy moving, that when that light came on I was like, I’ll get some in the morning, I’m not stopping now. I ran out of gas. I got to where I was going to work with some young people and my truck started sputtering. I said, “I know I went to the gas station.” Then I was like, “no I didn’t!” My point in saying that is… metaphorically, we go through that in our bodies. We feel aches and pains and we ignore them… God will stop you eventually. You’re going to run out of gas and need help.
Take care of yourself first until you’re healthy enough to achieve your goals and take care of everyone else.
Every Tuesday, Dr. Coleman posts a segment on YouTube called, Transformation Tuesdays. Five minutes packed with inspiration using life lessons to encourage people. Having these kinds of conversations make the issue less taboo. However, mental health is just one topic that allows him to use his leadership gifts to encourage.
Back in 2009, Dr. Coleman started Hydrate the Homeless with a group of friends just doing what we all should be doing, and that’s caring for one another.
One day I was getting off work and there was a guy holding a sign saying, “Will Work For Food.” I was like, man… it’s HOT and I’ve got a cooler full of cold water. So I jumped out to offer him some water. I told him that I didn’t have money for food, but I had some cold water. He chugged it down in seconds. I looked down at his feet and was like wow. The soles of his shoes were gone. I took off my boots and gave them to him. He was so grateful. I said, you know what, I’ve got to do something about this and it just sat on my spirit all day. I’m grateful that it inspires people.
I talked to some friends and then “Hydrate the Homeless” just hit me. Our homeless community needs to be hydrated as well. How can they keep their minds and bodies hydrated if they don’t know where to go? I called up a few friends and I bought a bunch of water and just hit the streets sharing love as we passed out cold bottles of water.
Soon donations of water and money begin to roll in. Dr. Coleman didn’t stop there. He also involved the local shelters by donating cases of water to them to bag for the homeless.
It showed me that there really was a need. Something as simple as water – we take for granted.
Mentoring within his Flight School program, Hydrate the Homeless, Transformation Tuesdays, board member for Toledo, Ohio’s Big Brothers & Big Sisters and the many other initiatives that Dr. Coleman implements in his own community are ways that he’s changing the narrative. While many people would have counted his story as another black male either incarcerated or dead, his perseverance to overcome mental distress and identity has led him on a purposeful journey to give back to his community. Him changing the narrative also inspires others who look like him to do the same. You don’t have to be what they label you to be.
The problem with me is that I love proving people wrong. If you said I’ll be a deadbeat dad, I’ll show you. If you said that I’m nothing more than a drug dealer or a gang member, well let me show you. I use it as encouragement, but it took me years to get to a place where I saw it as an opportunity to grow.
In other words, let my work speak for me. We need more examples of black men in communities that care. We can’t all be Barack Obama, Nispey Hussle, or whomever, but you have the unique privilege of being you. Be the change in your communities that people can see, feel and aspire to be. Like I always say, “You don’t have to be famous to be relevant.”
We need people that care enough to make change.
You have the platform right here in your neighborhood. Take advantage of what’s right in front of you and watch everything around you begin to change.
I know that my life is better because my children are not drug dealers. My children do not steal cars. My children are not gang members. By the time I was 12, I had already seen handcuffs. My life is better because I was able to help my children’s life be better.
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For more information on Victor and the Victor Coleman Jr Flight School, visit https://letstakeflight.com/Follow Dr. Coleman on Social Media:Facebook | Victor ColemanInstagram | @vcolemanjr
