Sometimes people ask me, "After that fortuitous park bench encounter with Martin Stokes, how did I maintain the motivation to keep working hard, to push away the despair and keep it from pulling me in the wrong direction? Was it sheer force of will that kept me going back to school or something else?"
Early on, I was running from poverty, from abuse, from alcoholism, homelessness, misery and pain. My primary motivation was to get as far away from those things as possible, and school was the means by which I could do that. School was my “way out,” my passport to freedom.
Along the way, however, I also starting running toward some things. I wanted to play football, run track, be the first in 
my family to graduate from high school, and graduate from college. I wanted to become the faithful husband I never saw in my family. I wanted to become the father I never had. Furthermore, I wanted to fly airplanes, travel the world,help other people, and become financially free.
Those dreams motivated me to keep pressing forward, sometimes with tears in my eyes, through the pain. I believed that there was a bright future for me, and that I could not rest until I found it.
Finally, there were key people in my life- teachers, coaches, a lunch lady, friends, roommates, professors, and pastors who encouraged me to keep fighting for the life that I wanted.
That's what kept me motivated. What about you? What are you running from? What are you running to? Think about it.