Those who have been to the darkest depths of hell
can best appreciate the limitless heights of heaven.
(BALTIMORE – August 15, 2026) – I stood outside the Mercantile Trust Building on Baltimore Street and looked up at the 13th floor.
That was where I worked.
I was a broker trainee at the Chapman Company, headed by Nate Chapman, who was then the premier Black stockbroker in Baltimore. The position had been created for me, as often happens in business, and it gave me an inside look at a world most young Black men from West Baltimore never saw.
I learned to watch the market. I learned about the Series 6 and Series 7 exams. I learned the difference between the braces worn by businessmen and ordinary suspenders.
I learned the language of the brokerage business:
Buy low. Sell high.
Sell. Sell. Sell.
I learned how stockbrokers dressed, how they moved, how they talked and how they lived.
But that morning, I stood outside the building, looked up at the 13th floor—and could not make myself go inside.
My spirit said, “No more.”
So I turned around and went home.
No argument. No dramatic confrontation. No grand exit.
I simply turned around.
Sometimes, the most important decision you will ever make is the decision to stop walking in a direction that no longer belongs to you.
180s are allowed.
My daddy used to tell me, “If you take a step toward God, He will take a step toward you—and His steps are bigger than yours.”
I did not fully understand those words when I was younger.
Today, I do.
There comes a time when life can feel like an impasse. You are stuck in a situation that appears hopeless. Your dreams may have been crushed. The path you thought you would be traveling has disappeared beneath your feet.
Sometimes, life throws you a curveball.
Sometimes, it does not even give you time to see the pitch.
It blindsides you.
I know that feeling.
Forty-one years ago, my best girl died.
My mother was gone, and my whole world was upended.
I was only 20 years old.
Over time, I came to understand that while I had my mother for only 20 years, some people never had their mother at all. That realization gave me perspective, but perspective did not erase the pain.
Grief does not disappear because somebody points out that another person had it worse.
Grief has its own clock.
Nobody can tell you how long your process should take. Nobody gets to decide when you ought to be over it. Nobody knows what happens inside you when the person who helped anchor your world is suddenly gone.
I did not have the language for everything I was experiencing. I needed a therapist. Instead, I developed coping mechanisms.
I self-medicated.
I was still living. Still working. Still functioning. Still handling responsibilities. From the outside, I may have looked fine.
But I was not doing right by myself.
That is the thing about being functional: You can be productive and still be in pain. You can show up for everybody else while quietly abandoning yourself.
I know that feeling all too well.
Then came another day when I made a decision:
I am not doing this anymore.
I had the audacity to believe that I could live without using drugs.
The audacity.
Because when something has held you for a long time, freedom can sound unreasonable. A different life can seem like something reserved for other people.
But I had grown sick and tired of being sick and tired.
This time, I did not merely talk about changing.
I changed.
Drugs were my struggle, but addiction wears many faces. It can be a substance, a habit, a relationship, an environment, or a destructive way of thinking.
It can be anything that numbs your pain while stealing your future.
At some point, you must decide whether you are going to remain in that prison—whether it is one you built yourself, one created by circumstances, or one somebody else helped construct around you.
At some point, you have to want freedom more than you fear the unknown.
180s are allowed.
When I left the brokerage business, I said I wanted to return to school and finish my degree. That was true, but my journey back to college was not a straight line.
I found myself waiting tables once again.
The original plan was simple: Make some money and go back to school.
But I got caught up in making money. School moved further and further away while I became increasingly successful at something that was only supposed to be temporary.
I was a top waiter at Harrison’s Pier 5.
Mayor Kurt Schmoke used to come into the restaurant and sit in my section. To his credit, he invariably asked me the same question:
“When are you going back to school?”
He never failed to ask.
I may have been a great waiter, but Mayor Schmoke understood that something greater was waiting for me.
Then God sent the message through Amber.
As head waiter, I was responsible for checking everyone’s side work at the end of a shift. Nobody could leave until all the work was completed.
One evening, Amber’s side work was passable at best. I said something to her about it.
She looked at me and said:
“Doni, not everybody wants to be a great waiter like you.”
Amber stopped me in my tracks.
I had to think about what she said.
There was nothing wrong with waiting tables. It was honest work, and I took pride in doing it well.
But was being a great waiter what I truly wanted for my life?
I had become successful at surviving.
I had become excellent at the temporary.
I was in danger of confusing what I did well with what I had been called to do.
That is a trap.
You can become so good at living beneath your purpose that nobody realizes you are supposed to be somewhere else.
People will applaud you. They will compliment your performance. They will call you dependable. They will ask for your section.
Meanwhile, your calling is sitting somewhere, waiting for you to remember it.
Amber helped me remember.
Media had been calling me all my life.
Mr. Kermit Williams gave me my first opportunity in broadcasting when he let me deliver the morning announcements at Matthew Henson Elementary School. Charlie Dugger later opened doors for me at WEAA and WEBB.
My earliest television appearances grew out of my experiences at Matthew Henson Elementary and James Mosher Baseball. I appeared with Bob Turk and the Sunshine Kids on WJZ-TV 13’s Evening Magazine.
Later, I sold copies of the Afro and built the largest Afro newspaper route in West Baltimore.
The signs had always been there.
The calling had always been there.
I had simply taken some detours on the way to answering it.
When I finally returned to school, I enrolled at Coppin State University and majored in media. My first news job was serving as co-editor of the Sandtown-Winchester Viewpoint.
I could write an entire book about that experience.
Sandtown gave me an opportunity to cover my own community—to tell our stories, document our struggles, and recognize the people working to make a difference.
It was more than a job.
It was confirmation that I had returned to the road I was supposed to be traveling.
While serving as co-editor, I was offered another opportunity: public relations and marketing assistant at Empower Baltimore Management Corporation.
One step led to the next.
I remained there for three years. When the program was sunset, I received a severance package.
I took that money, paid off my house, and started my own business.
Think about that.
The man who once stood outside the Mercantile Trust Building and could not bring himself to go to the 13th floor eventually returned to school, worked in community journalism, moved into public relations and marketing, paid off his home, and became an entrepreneur.
None of it happened all at once.
It happened one step at a time.
That was exactly what my daddy had been talking about.
As I took steps toward God, as I began living in my purpose, the next opportunities started falling into place.
The door at Sandtown led to Empower Baltimore. Empower Baltimore helped provide the foundation for my business. And that business became another vehicle through which I could live out my calling.
I could not see the entire road when I turned around outside that building.
I only knew that I could not keep walking in the wrong direction.
Sometimes, that is all faith requires: the courage to take the next right step before you can see where it will lead.
When I was in Tanzania, we were required to read Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life. That book helped me look more deeply at why I was born and why I was placed on this planet.
They say the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you discover why.
I believe that.
But I also believe there is a third important day:
The day you decide to do something about it.
Purpose means little if you refuse to move.
My dear friend, the late Reverend William Wingo, used to say:
“You’ve got the power.”
You have the power to take your life by the horns.
I do not care how old you are. I do not care what you have been through. I do not care how many mistakes you have made or how many people have counted you out.
Your past may explain you, but it does not have to imprison you.
I thought about that when I met Chrisean Rock.
At the time, I did not know anything about her celebrity. I met a person—a young woman in a boxing gym, working on her game while her child was nearby being cared for.
Later, I saw the social media comments. Many people encouraged her, but somebody always had something negative to say.
That is the world we live in.
Everybody has an opinion about another person’s life, especially when they do not have to live it.
What impressed me was that Chrisean did not appear to be waiting for universal approval. She owned her mistakes. She owned her life. And through her actions, she was showing that she intended to own her future.
That takes courage.
If you stop every time somebody criticizes you, you will never get anywhere. If you surrender your direction to the comment section, strangers will become the authors of your life.
Sometimes, the people obstructing your purpose are not strangers.
It could be a significant other, a family member, or a close friend. That does not necessarily mean the person is evil. It may simply mean that where you are going is no longer compatible with where that person wants you to remain.
When you are building something, you need people around you who will help you win—or, at the very least, who will not stand in your way.
If someone repeatedly interferes with your growth, peace, recovery, or purpose, you may have to make a 180 from that person.
Not every departure requires anger.
Not every ending requires regret.
Sometimes, leaving is how you save your life.
Sometimes, turning around is how you find your way.
We give celebrities so much credit, but some of the greatest people I know will never walk a red carpet.
The real stars are ordinary people who get up every day, go to work, attend school, operate businesses, and do what is necessary to take care of their families.
They keep showing up even when nobody applauds.
They keep moving even when life hits them.
They keep believing even after their dreams have been bruised.
I have seen people go from being bent over by addiction to standing tall and taking control of their lives.
I have seen people go from being unable to read to earning doctoral degrees.
I have seen people go from selling drugs on the street to working honest jobs and providing for their families.
Miracles happen every day.
Sometimes, the miracle begins with a prayer.
Sometimes, it begins with treatment.
Sometimes, it begins with therapy.
Sometimes, it begins with an application, a resignation, an apology or a packed suitcase.
Sometimes, the miracle begins when you stand outside a building, look up at the 13th floor and finally admit:
I cannot do this anymore.
A full stop is not always a failure.
Sometimes, it is navigation.
Whatever God has for you, make sure you get it.
Get up off your duff and go after it.
Michael Jackson said it plainly in “Man in the Mirror”:
Make that change.
Start doing the self-loving things you have neglected. Forgive yourself. Get the help you need. Walk away from what is destroying you. Return to what gives you life.
You do not have to remain imprisoned by what you have done, where you have been, or who you used to be.
You can recover.
You can return to school.
You can leave the job.
You can end the destructive relationship.
You can change your environment.
You can reclaim your purpose.
My daddy told me that if I took one step toward God, God would take one toward me—and His steps would be bigger than mine.
I have taken some wrong steps in this life.
I have also stopped, turned around, and started walking in a different direction.
So can you.
180s are allowed.
