Seonda Vaughn

Just a young guy who was born and raised in Columbus Ohio. Had my ups and downs as anybody else but I learned through the experiences in life. That no matter what you go through you can’t let those traumatizing moments define you. And I wanna put a big emphasis on my two favorite words I can apply to speaking functions. Which are perseverance and self motivation mean the world to me and I want to apply them to peoples life. I wanna inspire and motivate people to there purpose or happiness in life. Growing up in a single parent home my mom and dad split up when I was young. So I had to see my dad on the weekends and summer while I stayed with my mom during the school year. Growing up with my mother wasn’t always good we were struggling a good percentage of it times we would only eat one time a day. Or where she couldn’t really afford to get us anything for Christmas so seeing her work two jobs for me and my two other siblings. Taught me to appreciate the things I have we finally caught a break when she landed a good work from home job. finally able to move out of the rough parts of Columbus into a city called Blacklick. In which I ended up moving back too as of now but well get to that later. Once we moved there the school system was better more opportunities and at the time I was fifth teen so freshman in high school. So things were starting to get better zoom past my freshman and sophomore year to my junior year I didn’t really fit it in. People didn’t like me all the time either because I’m a very laid back reserved person who likes personal time and space. So I felt left out and very corny if that’s what u wanted to call it. wanted to feel like I was cool so I started hanging with the wrong people to make me feel cool. And we all know being with the wrong crowds and wrong people is a recipe for a disaster. At the time I was seventeen I started partying getting drunk and the one thing I still can’t believe I use to so I started smoking weed. I realized why I did it now but back then I didn’t I just felt it would make me fit in. To make it all worse It made me stop caring about school my grades most importantly. Which caused me to get kicked off the football team. But honestly I didn’t care because we sucked and I didn’t play that much anyways. Deep down inside it still hurt me a little later on I got my first car so I started driving all over the place getting into trouble. I started driving my best friend around at the time which was johnathan and we use to shoplift. I admit it was a rush at first until of course we got caught. Stupid I know but at the time I felt look if we could steal why pay for it. To make things all worse I didn’t even have my license just my temps. Like seriously is what the cop said luckily my mom talked him out of taking me to jail. And of course when I got home my mom chewed me out and took the car for awhile so I learned my lesson with the stealing part at least. I was so annoyed at the time because I had a job.

But the manager didn’t wanna give me any more hours except for weekends because of my hair I had dreads at that time. Wrong I know so it added to me stealing in my eyes still doesn’t make it right. Fast forward later that year last Semester of my junior year I quit that job before my homecoming had a good time with my friends and as the school was gradually passing me by my grades were still pretty bad. Unfortunately this is gone sound crazy but I didn’t care because I was pretty fed up with high school. Plus I felt that all the stuff I learned in high school served me no purpose. Especially the classes I had taken but it had got around the last couple weeks and we had to turn our grades into the football coach. You know how that went I couldn’t play football my senior year because I had 1.8 . Two points from being able to play my senior year it crushed me but a lesson well learned. I was a little bitter going into summer and also broke since I had quit my job. So very long summer still had fun zoom to my senior year and for some weird reason the buses were going on strike. Which was not good because it meant the parents would have to bring there parents to school only for high school students. Your probably thinking you have a car yeah but at that time my mom had took it from me for continuously getting in trouble with it. Plus my mom was getting very sick to the point that she had almost passed away. We’ll get to that later but moral of the story I really didn’t have anybody to take me so except my cousin April. In which I forgot to mention during the summer that just passed my mom went and got family from Alabama to stay. So with my siblings and them they’re were twelve to fifth teen people in one house and a lot of mouths to feed. Like I said my mom got soo sick she had to stop working for awhile so things got really tight there were days we only ate once and it was small proportions. So we were basically starving on top of that seeing my mom very sick was taking a toll on me. So that school year I started making excuses why I wasn’t going to school and eventually my mom got better and began getting pissed because my grades were horrible in most of my classes. I went to school but rarely and the classes I had bad grades in I didn’t need. So me personally I didn’t care but of course a parent they only want what best for you they say. So I eventually started going back to school and finally a miracle happened I was feeling out a lot of job applications me and my cousin Marcus. Someone finally gave me a job working at limited brands which was the Victoria secret and Pink warehouse. So you know that inspired me to wanna go to school because I had some money to look forward to and I always loved women. Making money was something to get my head out of the gutter and my shift was right after school so I was super excited. Me having that job motivated me to go back to school regularly and my grades got better and I was feeling more happy.

Let’s cut to the real defining stuff in my life later in that senior year closer to my graduation I had got some bad news that my father had passed away from a heart attack. Crushed me because growing up me and my dad were close but we had a fall out because he started beating on his fiancé. I wanted no parts of that so I didn’t stick around and it hurts his feelings as well so I didn’t see my dad for like three years. So seeing him in the casket was traumatizing. Definitely teared up crazy thing about was my brother and sister dad passed away too so all three of us were without a father. And I had to learn the hard way that a woman can only raise a man so much the father is still needed. Once that happened I wanted to get out of Ohio immediately so I moved down to Florida to start school there. Cape Coral enjoyed myself down there but unfortunately I only stayed for a semester because my uncle got into some things got kicked out. Sad way for a eighteen year old to start college so I had to move back to Ohio. When that happened it killed my drive to wanna go to college plus I honestly wasn’t interested in it anyways at the time I just felt if I went eventually I would learn to love it. I moved back to Ohio and things took a turn for the worse I was back without a job for awhile or working a job here and there nothing consistent. But something that put me in a hole for a very long time was debt and it took me years to understand how important it is to pay it off procrastination is not good. I was driving in the winter of course snow I hit a pole and they charged me around two thousand dollars to fix it and of course suspended my license. It put me in a deep hole and very depressed and when I finally got a job I barely made any money but I decided to get on a payment arrangement I believe seventy five to one hundred dollars a month good payments until we left. To North Carolina met a woman me and my family moved down there we got a spot things didn’t go well at all very toxic relationship. Only blessing I got was my beautiful daughter. When I first moved down there I was unemployed for awhile got back working but all the money I paid at the time for the pole and to get my license back they added it back on and added interest so I was right back at square one. So I had to move out of my apartment back in with my mom and then she ended up losing her house so we were homeless sleeping in her van and moving from family member to family member until we had no place to stay. It’s funny when you are down the most family and friends show there true colors eventually we moved into an extended stay then back to Ohio. We had to stay in a one bedroom until we got a spot I became homeless again because my new spot the landlord was crooked and the city deemed my apartment unfit to live in. Had to stay positive stay in a hotel again grind it out and only thing that saved me was I was working for Honda so it kept me afloat. Moral of my story is never give up.

I wanna tell people my story in depth and inspire them with things that helped me get to where I am. And yes I’m not where I need to be but I know I’m close. I have three things I wanna explain that helped me first is self motivation I learned sometimes only you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that’s all that matters. As long as you see it you’ll get there with believing in yourself second perseverance you have to realize that stuff isn’t gonna happen on the fly or when you say go. You stay consistent at it and never give up you’ll get exactly what u want because what you perceive in your mind is your reality. So if you have a negative mindset I learned you put a lot of negative energy out there you’ll get it right back in return. And last people are gonna think I’m crazy but meditation has changed my life it help you connect with your inner self understand self love and it helps control anxiety self doubt and all those negative things we have in our mind it helps heal the mind body and soul changed my life for the better and it still is. And did I mention I have my own luxury apartment hired full time at Honda decent car and a good woman by my side just to think a year ago I was homeless I wanna tell people these things because my real passion is to speak to people inspire and motivate and hopefully stop working this 9 to 5 and be my own boss.