Negativity is only one of the many excuses I could use for the way I used to act during the early ages of my childhood, but that’s precisely what boxing taught me to never do.

When I am in the ring, Coach Lawson always tells me “Boy, you get in the ring and you’re by yourself. There’s no one to blame but you. No one to worry about but you. It’s always going to be just you.”

Paranoia became common after that conversation. While fighting in the ring I had to bring myself to love the feeling of anxiety and the rush of being free of all outside connections.

I never had the pleasure of meeting either of my grandfathers, but I can tell you one was a black man who worked hard and stayed in poverty to provide for his family. The other was a rich Indian-Frenchman who never had to worry about poverty. Despite their differences, their roles of being the family providers and their mutual love for boxing is what they had in common.

After my father told me their stories, I wanted to somehow be connected to both of the men who parented my parents when they were kids. I started boxing in Lewisville off of Main Street at age 13 with coaches Jamaal Lawson and John Lawson Sr.; they are two professional boxers from two different eras and countries. John Lawson Sr., the father, boxed in the 1960s in Europe as a professional. Jamaal Lawson boxed in the late 2000s as a professional boxer in America before tearing his ACL and ending his career.

With all of the stories I’ve heard, I’ve never heard of a boxer who did not have his heart completely in the sport. It’s tough mentally and physically as you have to be able to think under pressure.

My heart was all in; all I knew as a kid was to fight, so it was natural to channel my anger. My punches and mental thinking game are so strong I was fighting with advanced adults and professionals at only 14.

The coach who mentally and physically made me the boxer I am today was 80 years old when he taught me how to outthink and out move anyone. John Lawson Sr. is a motivation for me because he is now 83 and still moves as if he had not aged after 55.

He is like the grandfather I never got to have, so I respect him that much more whenever he asks me to do hard work. I have never said that I cannot do something because I don’t want to disappoint him. He worked as hard as we do because he believes in not putting us through what he can’t do himself.

Boxing has turned me into a young man with goals in this world. It has opened up opportunities I would have never seen if I had not wanted to be like both of my grandfathers.

While I initially went into boxing to try to get connected the grandfathers I never met, I wound up finding a third one: an extraordinary man who put himself in my young adult life as a trusted soul, John Lawson Sr.