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I embraced hip hop for a while and it really kinda became my religion. And so striving to be in those spaces is what really kinda help me define my identity in those spaces as opposed to trying to be like the crowd. I'm Dominic Pettis EL, but everybody at calls me IB and I am the program's director for Guitars Over Guns. So I'm kind of like overseeing all of them, the high schools, middle schools. We also had a community programs and so I have been in the music scene for a very long time in Chicago. And I think that, that's when I started to get introduced to the aspect of mentoring. I started to go to Young Chicago Authors and that opened up a space for me to go into classrooms and rap it in front of the class. And they'd be like, can I get your autograph? And I'm like, man, this is crazy. And then having sort of that breakthrough in my life where I was like, you know what? I'm growing to be a leader. I'm growing to make an impact to other people. Now it's like more of a position where I'm pouring it into other people. And so I think you kind of get to a point where you become fans of each other. We become fans of people's journey. I think sometimes we strive so much to get to where we wanna be, and we forget about enjoying the journey. But appreciate those corners, appreciate those moments where you had to fail and learn. 

In order to help my mentees be the best versions of themselves, I need to exemplify that myself. I've learned that I need to not exert myself too much and spend time focusing on self-care so that I can present the best version of myself.

Dominic Pettis

About Dominic

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