Episode 39: Dr. Johnny Parker

The Doubting Thomases

Dr. Johnny Parker is an accomplished professional. He holds a MA in Psychology and a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership. He has been an executive coach for the NBA, NFL, and PGA. He is a multiple times published author. Personally, he has been married to the same woman for over 30 years. They have three sons. It’s a beautiful story. One that almost didn’t happen. So, when he says, “If you don’t know your story, others will write one for you,” he is speaking from a lived knowledge of that reality.

When Johnny was in middle school, he was embarrassed in front of his 6th grade math class by his teacher because he solved a reducing fraction problem incorrectly. One phrase, one person, one useless math problem changed the direction of his life by rewriting the script that was in his head of who he was. Mrs. Stone said, “You don’t belong in this class.” Johnny is up front about the impact that one statement had on his life. The anger he subsequently felt when people questioned his competence. The lies of low expectations that he experienced from that time as a young teenager. The therapy and mourning he had to do to pick up the pen and write a new history of who he was and how is life was going to be. 

The prisons and the graveyards are filled with people who didn’t have the much-needed gift of belief, the grounding support, or the resources to write new stories for themselves. 

Looking back on it now, Dr. Parker can say with clarity that it is those lived pains and trials that he had to embrace to give himself permission to dream. To live out his true calling as a husband, as a father, as a man. As he plainly states, “Our mess becomes the message. Our pains become our purpose.” In his book Turn the Page he calls on us to write new storylines for ourselves by identifying who we are (our intent), what do we want (our impact), and why do we want it (our identity).

We all have our Mrs. Stones. Even Jesus had Thomas. But let us use the words of our doubters and our naysayers as the fuel to write our own truths, because as Dr. Parker says today, “No one gets the right to write the Johnny Parker story.” Only Johnny Parker.