Co-founder Story: What a rollercoaster!

I am going to bounce off of Sammi's post, about her journey, and be super open about mine as well. I encourage others to do the same!

Like most of you, my sport was everything to me for most of my life. I knew from a young age that basketball was going to be my future. From early mornings, late nights, multiple workouts a day, no free summers, missing out on being a kid, etc. Basketball was all I knew.

In 6th grade, a NAIA school saw me play at their camp and the head coach told me, "You will always have a scholarship here." In 8th grade I went to a junior/senior only camp at a D2 school and the coaches brought me to their office and tried to get me to sign that day until they found out I was 14 years old. A year later and I received my first D1 offer. This trend continued through high school, so as you can imagine my head was about to burst. I thought I made it already, but that didn't stop the grind that I was on.

During high school I was battling a lot of knee pain and my junior year I almost never practiced. I only played games and could barely do that. Colleges would invite me to workouts and to play on visits and I had to make excuses on why I couldn't. This was the first low for me because it 100% effected my recruitment.

Senior year, my dad randomly loses his job, my family sells everything, and we move from Ohio to Florida. Things didn't work out exactly how they were planned in Florida, but thankfully Dad was offered another job back home in Ohio. I was so happy we were heading back to Ohio so I could finish my basketball career at my original school. However, we now basically have nothing and no where to live. Long story short, I was homeless for months. I didn't go to school for awhile and I just bounced around from hotels, my buddies houses, and other people's houses in the community. I immediately wanted some security so I committed, earlier than I wanted, to Flagler College. After I signed, Ohio University offered and that is where I wanted to go all along. Talk about being confused!

I stayed with Flagler and played 30+ minutes a game my freshman year. I was expected to be one of our leaders, but it was definitely a struggle. We lost a lot and even lost like 8 games by 2 points or less. Needless to say it was a rough season and my first time being apart of a losing team.

Going into my sophomore year I went to the hospital because I couldn't breath well while being active. This was always a thing, but seemed to be getting worse. I did some tests that only three hospitals in the country could give me and they told me, "If you continue to workout and play as hard as you do, your heart has a high chance of exploding." WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? So now I have to decide if I want to play and risk it. Like an idiot, I did. After almost a year of dealing with that, they made a conclusion that my lungs are underdeveloped and my heart enlarges because it overcompensates for them. As I am dealing with this, I am trying to fight for my minutes. They are slowly trickling down because I wasn't able to participate in everything. Skip to the end of the year and my trainer was trying to set up a meeting with my parents, the other trainers, the team Dr., coaches, and myself because she planned on medically retiring me... and not for what you think. I got knocked out in back to back games and I have had a history of concussions, so she planned on ending my playing career.

The meeting was cancelled because this is when covid began. S/O to covid for that! I never returned and hit the transfer portal. There is also another reason I hit the transfer portal, but you can ask me about it another time if you really want to know. Lol. Covid made it tough because I wasn't able to visit any of the schools that offered me. So, I ended up at Thomas More University and I wasn't extremely happy with the circumstances. However, it turned into one of the best things that ever happened to me. Even though there were still a lot of mind games being played and tough times, I met some of my best friends and even a business partner! Also, we didn't really lose a lot which was icing on the cake.

My senior year I tore my knee and this was the end to my basketball career. We were one of the best teams in the country when this happened. I got the privilege to watch our team in the final four from the sidelines.. we lost by one and this has stuck with me to this day. That is so small to some, but so big to the athletes who get it. I felt like everything I had worked for just crumbled down right in front of me. I cried for a month straight. Every time I got in the shower I would just let it out. I was so mad and upset at myself for letting down my teammates, it ate me alive. All of a sudden I was lost and I had no idea what to do. My identity and who I was my whole life was just gone, out the window it went. WHAT I DIDN'T KNOW IS that God had WAY bigger plans for me other than basketball. He knew without this event that I wouldn't have been able to leave basketball or see the bigger picture to life. Thankfully this happened because it opened my eyes to so much more!

I started an inspection business right out of school and it was going really well until it wasn't. I terminated that and went to Florida. This is when the worst hurricane ever recorded hit right above my house for 24 hours straight. I truly wasn't sure if I was going to make it out alive and sadly many didn't. Even though it was one of the biggest tragedies I've ever seen, I tried to find the positive in it. I started selling roofs with my dad for a big roofing company. We did well and they eventually asked us to take over the whole Florida division. I'm not going to lie, I don't get excited about roofs too often, but it was such a blessing. I was still trying to fill my cup though. This is when Sammi and I began talking and trying to find what was really needed to have a greater impact on others. HERE WE ARE NOW! I still run the roofing company, I am in the process of hiring/training people to open my inspection company back up, but what really does it for me is this community and the people in it!

It really is crazy how the lowest of lows can lead to the highest of highs if you let them! All of our plans have been altered, but I know many of us have bounced back even better from it. I shared my story to you all, so you can see that it all works out in the end. We all struggle with something, but if you keep looking/moving forward, it will always result in more for you!

If you made it this far, I am sorry this was so long! I know we all go through similar things and a lot of times no one ever knows. I haven't shared a lot of these events with people, but I want everyone to know this is a safe place full of support for you and your story. Please contact me on here for anything and everything! I am so excited to grow together. The partnerships, resources, and courses that are coming will be amazing and super helpful! This is just the beginning of something great for us all!

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