“None of my kids have been to prison. Chains can be broken.”

The cycle told me my kids would end up right where I ended up — same streets, same choices, same cell. They didn’t. Not one of them has ever seen the inside of a cell. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because somebody in the family decided the story was going to end with me.

If you’re raising a kid in a hard neighborhood, or teaching one, hear this plain: the chain is real, but it is not unbreakable. One person deciding differently, one kid put somewhere better to be, one door opened — that’s how a family changes direction. If you want your students to hear it from somebody who broke it himself, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

At 4 years old, I watched my parents get robbed at gunpoint.

That is my first memory of the life — not a playground, a gun in my parents’ faces. A kid doesn’t pick the house he’s born into, but the streets make sure the house follows him wherever he goes. I tell that story so a kid hears where it starts, before the streets get to write the rest of his story for him.

If you’re a parent, a teacher, or a coach, get your kid into something that gives him a different first memory to carry — a team, a gym, a place where somebody expects him to show up. And if you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived it from the very beginning, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

My cousin was 18 when they gave him life. He’d never even been fishing on a boat.

Eighteen years old, and a courtroom decided the rest of his life in one afternoon. No boat ride, no second act, no “when I grow up.” The gang promises you forever, and the system gives you forever — but they are not the same forever. One is a pitch made to a kid who doesn’t know the price yet. The other is the bill coming due, and it gets paid in decades.

I tell that story so a kid hears it before he signs up for it. Before the afternoon that decides everything. If you’re a parent, a teacher, or a coach, get your kid somewhere the future is still open — a team, a gym, a trade, a classroom that expects him. And if you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived both sides of it, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

Somebody gave me a chance I hadn’t earned.

Fred Morelli was an attorney, and my mentor. He fought for me behind my back when I had nothing coming — no track record, no proof I’d turn it around, nothing to point to except a kid who needed somebody to believe in him first. I didn’t earn that chance. He gave it anyway, and it changed the whole direction of my life.

That’s the part I want people to hear. Every changed life has one person who went first — somebody who stood up before there was any evidence it would work out. If you’re a teacher, a coach, a parent, a neighbor, you can be that person for a kid who hasn’t earned it yet either. Don’t wait for them to prove they deserve it. Go first.

If you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived both sides of it, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

Nobody’s coming to flip your switch.

At 27, sitting in a cell, the light finally came on for me — and I understood something I wish I’d known years earlier. No judge was going to switch it on for me. No lucky break, no outside hand. It had to come from the inside, or it wasn’t coming at all.

That’s what I tell kids now. Waiting for somebody to save you is just another way of staying stuck. The decision has to be yours first — then the right people can help you walk it out. I waited until a cell to make mine. Don’t wait that long.

If you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived both sides of it, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

I give kids the same rush I chased in the streets — on a mat, where nobody dies.

The adrenaline is real either way. I chased it in the streets when I was young, and I feel it on the mat now. The difference is where it ends. One rush ends with your family visiting you behind glass or at a grave. The other ends with your family in the stands, watching you compete and go home whole.

That is what I do at the gym and in schools now — give kids the rush without the price tag. A kid who has felt that fire in a safe place does not have to go looking for it in a dangerous one.

If you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived both sides of it, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

Get your kid into something year-round. Sports, martial arts, music — I don’t care what it is. A kid with somewhere to be and a coach expecting him is a kid the street has to compete for.

Idle time is the recruiter. When a kid has nothing to do and nowhere to be, somebody else fills that time for him, and the street never misses an opening. Give him a team, a mat, a coach, a schedule — give him somewhere he belongs that doesn’t ask him to pay for it later.

If you want your students to hear it from somebody who lived both sides of it, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

All my mom wanted for her 75th birthday was her three boys in the same room. Just one room, one time, all three of us together. The life I was living never let her have it, and she passed before it ever happened.

That’s what the street really costs you. Not just your years — your mother’s moments. The birthdays she doesn’t get, the room that never fills, the pictures that never get taken. A kid thinks he’s only risking himself. He isn’t. He’s risking everybody who loves him.

If you want your students to hear what that price really looks like from somebody who paid it, bring me to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

A barber named Franco was cutting my hair two weeks before the worst night of my life, and he looked at me and said it plain: “You can’t change halfway. You got to change all the way. God don’t want half of you. God wants all of you.” I told him I wasn’t trying to hear it — I thought I could keep one foot in the old life and still call it progress.

I learned the hard way. Halfway isn’t change — it’s a negotiation with the same life that was killing you, and the streets always win that negotiation. Whatever you’re walking away from — the corner, the crew, the habit — you walk all the way out, or you don’t walk out at all. Bring me to your school and let me say it to their faces: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743

They’re not selling you a retirement. The gang pitches belonging, but it never shows a kid the end of the road.

No retirement, no golden years — just prison or a grave. I know, because I bought what they were selling.

Bring Leonardo to your school: leonardo@wordinthehood.com · (630) 301-1743