Finding Purpose: Your Limitations Are Your Greatest Superpower

Raw vulnerability meets spiritual revelation in this deeply moving episode where I pull back the curtain on my personal journey from brokenness to purpose. Beginning with the aching void of growing up without a father who succumbed to his vices when I was just 10 years old, I share how this absence forced me to navigate manhood without a blueprint, searching for mentors who could guide me through life's complexities.

The heart of this episode explores the devastating period when, married at just 18, my wife and I lost our premature daughter after only 10 weeks of life. This marked the beginning of a directionless season filled with grief, marital breakdown, and financial hardship. Yet it was precisely in this rock-bottom moment that I began to discover my spiritual authority through prayer when my then-wife's kidneys miraculously recovered after complete failure.

My story takes a powerful turn as I reveal how early struggles with reading—not learning until fifth grade—became a lesson in persistence and mindset transformation. Through memory rather than traditional methods, I taught myself to read and advanced dramatically within a year. This personal victory illustrates my central message: our perceived limitations often become our greatest strengths when we reframe them as "superpowers" that keep us humble and connected to God. Drawing from Scripture, I explain how humility connects us to currency, resources, and elevation—transforming our handicaps into gateways for purpose.

If you're facing limitations that seem to block your path forward, this episode will challenge you to see them not as barriers but as the very things keeping you humble enough to receive your blessings. Subscribe to the Summit Podcast and join me on this journey of discovering how God turns our deepest wounds into our most powerful testimonies.

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Transcript

Introduction and Prayer

Speaker 1 0:30

All right, how you doing this is Clifton Ross Jr, aka Just Clifton, here with another episode of the Summit Podcast, and I'm excited and elated to be with you on today. I am thoroughly excited about this series, that we getting infrastructure, creating a foundation for your purpose, and I wanted to take a step back on this episode simply because I feel like you need to get to know me. First episode we talked about when the current changed right, and that's the only time that you really got to honestly hear my heart and my purpose of doing this podcast. My true, innate purpose is so people can understand who they are, so they can create the life that was designed for them by the Heavenly Father. So I'm going to begin this with a word of prayer and then we're going to jump right into this content. It's going to be raw, it's going to be transparent and I hope that you get something from it.

Speaker 1 1:33

Dear Heavenly Father, lord, we thank you, we praise you, we glorify your holy name because you're worthy to be praised, lifted up and magnified. Lord, I thank you for this opportunity to come before your people. I thank you for this opportunity to position your throne, father, and I give you praise, I give you honor and I give you glory on today because you are worthy. Father, allow my lips to say what you want me to say. Allow my heart to exude who you are in my life so that way the people can see you and not see me. Father, allow the transparency to pierce the heart of your people so that they will be able to see you. Father, allow your heart to resonate with your people on today and I'll forever give you the glory, the praise and the honor. It's in your son, jesus' name that I pray. Thank you, father, amen. All right, look, I am going to just kind of let you give you a little scope and background on who I am.

Growing Up Without a Father

Speaker 1 2:28

Clifton Ross Jr, 37 years old, lived a life. I tell you this. I'm going to tell you I am a person who grew up without a father in his life. I'm going to start there. I think it's important, so you can resonate with my story or resonate with my background.

Speaker 1 2:50

My mother, hardworking, went to school, did the best she can type of person, raised me and she wanted me to have a relationship with my father, so much so that I used to spend plenty of time at my grandmother's house my dad's mom house Loved her very, very much. So my dad was in and out of my grandmother's house and he was a type of person that catered to his devices more than he catered to his purpose. Awesome, amazing musician. He catered to his purpose. Awesome, amazing musician. Can play any instrument by ear, was creative in every scope of the imagination, super bright, super smart, super witty, was able to create things with his hands, even handiwork, cleanliness, hygiene, all those different things, things that he could have instilled in his son. Yes, he had a couple of opportunities where he showed me just a few keys to play on the keyboard. Yes, he had a couple of opportunities to kind of show me what it was like to be a man like the work that he did and different things of that nature, but his vices took majority of his time. What I mean by vices? Alcohol and drugs.

Loss of My Daughter

Speaker 1 4:09

When I was 10 years old, my father passed away and that's something that deeply wounded me, because all I wanted is to be able to have a father, to be able to have his voice over me, to let me know he was pleased, just like when Jesus was being baptized and clouds opened up and the sky opened up and the Lord said to his son. This is my son, who I am well pleased that's what I wanted from my father Wasn't able to receive that in my life. So I went through life trying to navigate what it was like to be a man, what it was like to be a man of God, what was it like to be a man of value, a man of vision, a man of integrity, a man of purpose. I had opportunities to have mentors in my life that kind of helped me navigate different spaces in my life, but I always felt like I was depending on someone to try to help me navigate through life until I took charge of my own destiny Read books, listen to different content, follow different people that I looked up to to be able to navigate this thing that you call life Got married at a young age, got married at 18 years old.

Speaker 1 5:27

Also, my wife at the time she got pregnant with our first child, a daughter who was born premature at 24 weeks. That was a trying time in my life because that was the first time I was responsible for a little being that I couldn't even hold and carry because she was hooked up to machines and ventilators and had so much medication pumped through her. Then I got a resonating thing in my spirit when my daughter passed away after being only 10 weeks on this earth. That was a trying moment in my life because my dependence on God was wavering at that moment because how can somebody who did not ask to be here go through so much, how could somebody that didn't do anything go through so much? The first time I got to hold my daughter was her lifeless body. It was devastating. It was a devastating moment in my life because the only time I get to hold my precious daughter was in her lifeless body. The reason why I'm telling you this because at that moment my wife at the time and I didn't know that we would have more children. So to go through that moment, it put a huge wound in my life to the point where we were preparing her room for her to come home.

Speaker 1 7:11

I sat in her room for weeks playing video games, trying to resonate to what just happened to me, trying to cope with the grief of my daughter, my princess, not being there. At that moment in time in my life I had no direction, I had no purpose and I had no vision. It came a point where my wife at the time she told me. Look, you need to come out this room. We getting the divorce. So I obliged, I came out the room and I coasted through most of that time trying to navigate that and figure out.

Finding Faith Through Crisis

Speaker 1 8:02

Went on a vacation to Atlanta to try to find clarity. There was no clarity of vision there. Went back to work trying to find clarity. There was no clarity there, to the point where I took extra time off because I was not ready to return and, as an 18-year-old kid, quit a job without any type of resources in place. My wife at the time had very, very expensive medication and I quit a job because I didn't have clarity. Putting us in a financial situation where I had to choose rent or her medication I had to choose living day to day or her medication. Put had to choose living day to day or her medication Put us in a position where I Could have put my wife At the time In the hospital Because we could not afford Her medication. Might I ask she actually did end up going to the hospital Because we tried to find Different remedies, different things that would kind of allow us to cope with the illness that she was going through at the time, and we tried to find these natural remedies to do that, and she ended up going to the hospital anyway, to the point where her kidneys completely shut down, and not only a year before that.

Speaker 1 9:44

I was experiencing the death of my daughter, but I was also experiencing the deterioration of my wife at the time. The deterioration of my wife at the time Still no vision, still no purpose, still no direction. Thank God I had mentors at the time who could sprinkle little things in my ear to make me understand that you are the priest of your home. You have the power and authority to pray over the things and they shall happen. You have the power and authority to be able to call out whatever is trying to deteriorate your wife at the time. At that moment. That was a part of the most pivotal time in my life where I kind of stepped up to the plate and walked in my calling. At that moment I prayed, I spoke scriptures, I said her name in scriptures. I prayed, I spoke scripture, I said her name in scriptures to the point when I went to sleep I still was praying in my sleep, woke up the next morning and she went from no kidney function to complete kidney function, just like that. It was a move of God. I'm like hooray, I understand my purpose Not really my purpose Not really.

Speaker 1 11:15

Still had to go home and deal with the fact that I had to work multiple jobs to try to make ends meet, to try to figure out how to get out of this bind that I put myself in because of my poor decision making. Had to figure out how was I going to recover from my decision-making end up hooking up with another mentor of mine who start to strengthen my mindset where it comes about being a good manager of the resources that God gave to you. Some things I listened to, yeah, some things I didn't. I can be very stubborn at times, but I feel like what God was doing at that moment was planting seeds of greatness inside of me, seeing different inspirational people that I looked up to from a stage that had a lifestyle that I can taste in my taste buds. But only thing I had to do is be able to trust in my ability, even with the limitations that I had on my life. The limitations was my thought process around success. The limitation was my thought process around finances. My limitation was my thought process around relationships. So, as I grew, I continued to try to work on these different things, experiencing more trials and tribulations in my life, experiencing ups and downs of relationships in my life, even to the point of relationship with one of the closest people in my life, my mother. Experiencing, not because I had to work through some things. I needed time to myself to try to cope with myself.

Overcoming Limited Thinking

Speaker 1 13:20

Why do I tell you this? Because that's where I came from. I came from being an individual in 19, 18, 20s that didn't quite understand who he was and who he was going to become. I came from a spot where I didn't understand that God made me a creative. And, yes, I need people, yes, I need relationship, but God made me enough. I struggled with that, even in relationships, even up to recent years. I can say Am I enough? So I say all this to say this is that you cannot be limited by your own thinking, is that you cannot be limited by your own thinking. You cannot be limited by your own mindset, because what that begins to do is steer you away from your purpose. When you limit your mindset, you limit your purpose. When you limit your mindset, you cannot see clear. What do I mean about clarity? Let's kind of break this down a little bit. As you see, I have prescription glasses on. Fun story, fun fact about me starting to learn this process of wearing prescription glasses.

Speaker 1 14:56

Me, I didn't learn how to read until fourth grade, actually, the fifth grade. I remember when I was transitioning from fourth grade to fifth grade, they wanted to help hold me back to fourth grade. So my mother, being the great person that she is, she took me to the eye doctor. The eye doctor said oh, his vision's fine. And she's like no, you don't understand. And he said, no, he doesn't need it. Give him the lowest prescription that you got is what she told the doctor. So he did. And my mom went up to the school and said the reason why my son is having trouble reading is because he couldn't see. Let me reference this I had the lowest prescription I can see, but my mom fought for me so that I wouldn't be held back.

Speaker 1 16:03

At that moment, at a young age, I was like, okay, it is my responsibility To learn how to read now. My mom went to back for me. She fought for me to learn how to read now. My mom went to back for me. She fought for me. She did everything she could to make sure that I didn't get in hell back. So now it's on me.

Speaker 1 16:25

So I began to listen to cassette tapes. Yeah, I'm that old Cassette tapes, audio tapes of Hooked on Phonics. Anybody know Hooked on Phonics? I'm going to tell you straight up Hooked on Phonics did not work for me. The reason why I say that? Because I didn't learn how to read by phonics. Even to this day, I learn how to read through memory. I memorize words. That's how I learned how to read. Read through memory, I memorized words. That's how I learned how to read. The reason why I say that? Because what I did do I would take the books the Hook on Phonics books and I would take the cassette and I literally just would follow the words on the paper until I memorized the words. That's how I did it. So by the end of the fifth grade, going from not being able to read, I ended up reading at a seventh grade level, just simply because I changed my mindset about reading.

Handicaps as Superpowers

Speaker 1 17:25

When you change your mindset, you can accomplish your goals. Change your mindset about your handicaps or what you believe is a handicap in your life. I believe that when you begin to follow your purpose, it's always going to be things that try to hold you back. That's what a handicap is. It's to remind you what your limitations are, not to limit you, but to show you that purpose is at the end of that limitation. If you just stay the course, stay progressing. Purpose at the end. What am I saying? What if I told you that having a handicap is a superpower? What do I mean by that?

Speaker 1 18:27

Let's look at this in scripture In 2 Corinthians 12 and 7,. I'm reading in the message version, 2 Corinthians 12 and 7,. I'm reading in the message version and it says I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Just to give you a frame of reference, this is Paul talking about the thorn that's in his flesh that he asked God to take away, but he didn't take it away. That Thor was his handicap that tried to limit him. Let's talk about this.

Speaker 1 19:00

Your handicap is meant to keep you humble. If you don't realize that you have to be in a state of humility in order to achieve your purpose, you will never achieve you. Why do I say this? What is being held up if you're not in touch with your limitation in staying humble?

Speaker 1 19:18

Currency In Proverbs 22 and 4,. It says Humility is the fear of the Lord, and his wages are riches, honor and life. Riches, honor and life that sounds like a purposeful life to me. If you're living in constant realm of understanding that me. Staying humble will connect me to riches, honor and life. That's your currency. The second one is resources. Humility connects you to resources. Matthew 5 and 5 says blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The resources that are on this earth is tied up for you if you understand your limitations and stay humble. What is the third thing? Elevation. Matthew 23 and 12 says this and whosoever exalts himself will be humbled. He who humble himself shall be exalted. Your promotion is tied to your humility.

The Currency of Humility

Speaker 1 20:39

Not focusing on the handicap, not focusing on the limitation, but understand that that limitation is meant to keep you humble Changes your mindset about what a handicap is, does it? Your humility grants you access to things that are already yours. Believe it because it is so. Stay humble. Don't allow your limitation to hinder you. Don't allow your vision to be unclear. Don't allow the things that you have went through in life to keep you there. Since 18 years old to now, I have focused on my health. I have focused on my mindset. I have focused on my relationships. I have focused on my relationships. God is building the framework for my life just simply because I did what Changed my mindset. Hope this message helped you. Just wanted to give you a brief synopsis of my life so you can understand the host, the person who God has ordained for this time to be able to create this wonderful content that I can share with you. Talk to you soon. Love you with the love of Christ Peace.