Bankroll Squad Lessons

When I wrote my first book, I was locked up—just a man with a pen, a heartbeat, and a sentence to survive. I remember tearing construction paper out of the art stack, passing the pages around the dorm like contraband hope. Dudes would read a paragraph and look up at me like they were staring at a mirror that finally told the truth. They were calling it a classic when I was only fifty pages in… long before I ever believed I could even finish the damn thing.
I mailed that book home with no blueprint, no mentor, no cheering section. I told myself maybe—maybe—a book deal would fall out the sky if God was feeling generous that day. One finally came, but it insulted the ink I bled into those pages. I turned it down. I asked family to help me print it, push it, stand next to me in the early storms—and of course they didn’t. They didn’t believe in the dream, didn’t believe in the calling, didn’t believe in me. They treated my vision like it was another fantasy from another Black man who wasn’t supposed to want anything that didn’t fit inside a stereotype.
It took three and a half years for that book to explode. Three and a half years of stubborn faith and lonely grind. And when it finally hit? Those same family members ate off the blessing like they had prayed beside me the whole time. And when the money slowed, when the season shifted, they went right back to the same cold indifference… like the miracle had an expiration date but their envy didn’t.
That’s why OnlyDiary is sacred to me. It's not just a platform. It’s the home for every voice the world tried to silence. It’s the proof that forgotten people can build unforgettable things. It’s the sound of us reclaiming our narratives, our income, our power. And once we start inviting people in—once the doors open wide—OnlyDiary becomes more than an app. It becomes a community that refuses to leave each other behind. A place built for support, growth, elevation… and the kind of belief we were never given when we needed it most. And- I'm willing to stick beside it three and a half years if need be.