When we think about success, we usually jump to the numbers. How much money am I making? Or, what does my bank account look like? We look at job titles, bank accounts, or square footage. But if you sit down and really listen to the people who have lived through the fire, whether it’s on the street corners of Greenville, Mississippi, or navigating the realities of raising a family while chasing a dream, you realize that true success has almost nothing to do with what you own. It has everything to do with who you become, and what you leave behind for the generation watching you.
In Episode 9 of Catching Up with Corey, my conversation with Reverend Roosevelt “Pastor Buck” Deshazer Sr. hit on something deeply profound. Pastor Buck did not just walk away from a violent life in the drug trade to save his own skin; he did it to change the trajectory of his family name. Listening to him talk about his stepfather, a man who was one of the biggest gangsters in Mississippi, and comparing it to the life he’s built with his wife of 39 years and his children, made me reflect heavily on my own life, my upbringing in Brooklyn, and how my relationship with my own kids and the lack of relationship with my father shapes every single thing I do today.
This isn’t a list of instructions or a step-by-step guide to living your life. It’s an observation on what it means to break generational chains, look danger and hardship in the eye, and choose a legacy of peace over a legacy of survival.
The Shadows We Come From
Pastor Buck’s childhood wasn’t ordinary. Growing up on Clay Street in Greenville, Mississippi, surrounded by nightclubs, gambling, and a family deeply entrenched in the Miami-to-Mississippi drug trade, he saw things most people only witness on television. By the time he was eleven years old, he was stealing and selling marijuana at his family’s club.
Growing up in such an environment, survival requires a specific kind of armor. Pastor Buck learned street sense, how to read people, and how to make money before he even reached high school. But that armor comes with a heavy price tag. He watched domestic abuse tear through his family; he saw his mother with black eyes and battered faces. Eventually, the friction between him and his stepfather, who grew jealous as a young Roosevelt started getting his own product, boiled over to the point where gunfire shattered the front door, both literally and figuratively.
He joined the U.S. Navy not just to see the world, but to escape a cycle that was inevitably going to end in a prison cell or a grave.
Most people look at a background like this and assume the story ends in tragedy because, despite what the movies show, breaking such a cycle isn’t easy. You need a strong why to break chains like these. Pastor Buck’s story shifts when you look at why he decided to change. It wasn’t just about getting a steady paycheck from the military or learning how to overhaul aircraft engines for Boeing. It was about a deeper, internal shift regarding his family.
As Pastor Buck shared during our chat, when he was a little boy, hearing people talk about his father and stepfathers caused him to drop his head in shame because of the alcoholism, the other women, and the lifestyle. He made a vow that when his wife, children, and grandchildren heard his name mentioned in their presence, they would never, ever have to drop their heads in shame.
Breaking the Cycle at Home
That desire to protect the next generation is something every parent understands, even if the battles look different.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, my mother did everything she could to shield us from the violence. She worked tirelessly as a single mother trying to raise three kids. While she gave us an incredible sense of independence and work ethic, I watched firsthand how all-consuming that level of survival mode could be, and how working endlessly without presence can rob a person of joy. She didn’t want that for my brothers and me, and it shaped how I view my own role as a father today.
Raising kids isn’t about giving them an easy ride; it’s about preparing them for the world without letting the world break them. My wife Michellene and I have always been intentional about this with our children, whether it was making them answer the landline phone (when we had one) with a polite, “Hello, this is the Stokes residence, may I help you?” or sending them to the store to get comfortable handling real-world responsibilities.
At the time, those little lessons might feel huge and overwhelming to a kid. But they build a foundation and teach resilience. They teach children that they can step outside their comfort zone and not crumble under pressure.
Pastor Buck experienced the same lesson, though through a rougher lens. When he transitioned from the chaotic life on the streets to the structured, disciplined life of the military and, later, to thirteen years of precision instrumentation work at Boeing, he had to learn patience. As he noted on the show, referencing James Chapter 1, patience doesn’t just fall out of the sky; it is forged through endurance. You have to go through something to develop it.
When you’re a parent, patience is the ultimate test. You realize that your kids are not going to develop at your speed; they are going to grow at theirs. You have to sit back, guide them through their screw-ups, and model what it looks like to change for the better.
Redefining Success Through Generational Legacy
We live in a culture obsessed with speed. Everyone wants the quick fix, the life hack, the thousand-dollar-a-day hustle. But as Pastor Buck pointed out when discussing the biblical story of Job, true richness isn’t about how much material wealth you accumulate or how fat your bank account is. It’s about your anchor.
Job lost everything. His livestock, his wealth, and his children. Yet his faith and character remained intact through the agony. Society often measures people by what they have in their hands. But a true legacy is measured by what you have in your heart and what you pass down to your kids.
Pastor Buck is, at the time of recording (he has since retired), a pastor at the Historical Progressive Missionary Baptist Church in Wichita, Kansas, spending his time walking in and out of state prisons such as Hutchinson and El Dorado, sitting across from men and women who remind him of his younger self. He looks them in the eye and tells them the truth: You don’t have to allow your past to dictate your future.
He went from a one-bedroom house to a five-bedroom home, celebrating nearly four decades of marriage. But more important than the house or the title is the fact that his children and grandchildren can walk into a room with their heads held high when they hear someone talk about him. They can take pride in being part of his legacy.
Moving Forward
When we look at our own lives, our failures aren’t permanent addresses, but for many of us, that is where we get stuck. They are data points. Something for us to review to help us plot our path forward. Whether it’s navigating a painful divorce, overcoming a dangerous neighborhood, or trying to balance the demands of work so you can actually be present for the people you love, the journey requires us to slow down.
It requires us to trade the illusions of shortcuts for the steady, unglamorous work of building a life of integrity.
Our kids are watching how we handle the pressure. They are watching how we treat our spouses, how we handle our own mistakes, and how we stand our ground when fear tries to take our sense of safety.
Success isn’t a destination you arrive at when you finally make it rich. Instead, it’s how you get there. It’s the daily choice to build a life that the people coming after you can be proud of.
Be sure to catch Catching up with Pastor Buck on Episode 09 of Catching up with Corey. How are you shaping the legacy in your own home? Have you ever had to break a cycle to protect your peace or your family’s future? Leave your thoughts, subscribe, and share your story with me. Find me everywhere @CoreyLStokes. Let’s catch up.
