The Truth No One Tells You About Success When You're Battling the Odds

By Hasan Davis, J.D. – The Hope Dealer

Photo By Erica Chambers

Success Has a Backstory

When people hear my story, they often focus on the highlight reel:

• Arrested at 11

• Expelled senior year

• GED to J.D.

• National speaker. Author. Former Commissioner of Juvenile Justice

  
  

But what they don’t see—what no one really tells you about success when you’re battling the odds... is how lonely it can be in the climb. No one tells you:

• That fighting to believe in yourself, while the world around you expects your failure, won’t feel inspiring—often it will just feel exhausting.

• That even after you “make it,” the echoes of doubt don’t automatically fade into nothingness.

• That the applause doesn’t silence the memories of being labeled, locked out, or left behind.

• That if this was easy everyone would be doig it, and everyone is not doing it.

The Journey Isn’t About Polish—It’s about Process

When you come from systems that weren’t built to ensure your survival, success isn’t a destination. It’s a daily practice.

It’s choosing to:

• Show up when you feel invisible

• Speak life into others while you're wounds are still healing

• Hold HOPE for others, even while you’re rebuilding your own

That's exactly why I created the HOPE Framework—not just to transform systems, but to sustain those of us who’ve been through them.

The H.O.P.E. Framework is Built for the Battle

Humanity: Start with grace and self-compassion. Your imperfections don’t disqualify you. They connect you. You are allowed to struggle AND are still worthy. Your humanity is your strength.

Optimism: Not toxic, the fake-it-‘til-you-make-it, positivity. Real optimism. The kind that says, “Even now… something better is still possible.”

Perspective: Never forget where you came from, but don’t let you your past trap you there. Your past may shape you, explain your pain—but it doesn’t define your promise or future.

Empathy: Extend it to yourself first. You can’t give what you haven’t claimed. And the world is starving for the kind of empathy born from lived experience. The more you allow space for your own healing, the more capacity you have to heal the world.

Hope Is Heavy—but you are Worth It

Success when you’re battling the odds is rarely instant, clean, or celebrated, in the beginning:

• It looks like showing up for class when everyone witnessed you fail.

• It looks like applying for college after you fought to earn a GED

• It looks like giving the graduation prayer at the college that expelled you twice.

• It looks like the determination to walk back into a courtroom—but, this time, not as an Offender to Justice, but as the Defender of it.

It looks like becoming the kind of Hope Dealer you needed when you were a child.

Success isn’t the end of our struggle. Just more proof that we were worth the fight.

So, If You’re in the Fight Right Now…

Let me be clear:

• You are not broken.

• You are not behind.

• You are not alone.

If you are reading this:

• You are on a well-worn path.

• You are tempered steel being drawn from the forge.

• You are becoming dangerous—in the best possible way.

So, the next time someone sees your brilliant light and calls you lucky, you can just smile.

Because the truth that no one told them, is how you learned to build a fire in the dark.

And now…

You choose to pass this torch,

just provide a little more light

to brighten someone else’s path.

✊ Keep Dealing HOPE. The whole world is waiting.

Photo by Erica Chambers

Hasan Davis is a national speaker, author, and advocate who empowers youth and professionals through storytelling, justice reform, and the HOPE framework—Humanity, Optimism, Perspective, and Empathy. From GED to Juris Doctor, he inspires transformation through lived experience.

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