Many people hide their challenges to protect their image or to seem better than they are, especially if the story involves jail time. However, telling your success story and including the challenges and lessons learned will significantly impact society. Speaking your real account with your identity, trials, and success is rare nowadays. People tend to hide parts of their stories or change them to fit the perspectives they want others to see. However, the angle of Carlos Cole’s story is different. Carlos is an artist and manager popularly known as Slo. He talks about his life full of misfortunes and mistakes, hoping it will help others.
Carlos narrates how he went from being a kid to going in and out of jail. However, after completing his five-year jail term in 2013, he immediately enrolled in college. In his first year, Carlos finally managed to get full custody of his son, which was a great win for him. He went ahead to graduate with an associate degree in criminal justice. With life experience and education, Slo has offered 1,000 volunteering hours at Walden. He is also a counselor to teens at Southern Maryland Youth Home.
Looking at his life, Carlos notes that when it comes to challenges, he has had a bigger share of them than most. One of his biggest challenges was being separated from his kids and providing for them while in jail. However, the stigma he has to bear in society as someone with a record is worse. Trying to fit into a judgemental society is a huge challenge.
He says he has been denied many jobs despite being overqualified for the positions, all because people will always look at his past, which is changed and forgotten. However, he strives to maintain a positive attitude to rise up to these challenges, always searching for a way out. He also notes that his life on the streets makes it easier to adapt to any situation.
Slo believes that there are no rules in life and that the world never plays fair. Therefore, you should constantly evaluate your actions, work hard, and always put God first to overcome obstacles. For Slo, selling drugs at an early age was a decision that landed him in trouble but eventually led him to a greater life.
Despite all the challenges, Slo is determined to become a top-five manager with a great team of artists who have diverse musical talents. Slo’s dream is to buy his mom and family a mansion and let them enjoy the fruits of his labor. He is also working on becoming a motivational speaker to encourage others and stop people from making the bad decisions he did. In a nutshell, Carlos Cole is the true definition of a star rising from ruins to prosperity.
