My Story of Perseverance

This is part of my story and due to its personal nature is the hardest entry I will write. Some will find it "cheesy". Others will find it self-serving. Still others might even find it pointless. But, someone will find it motivating and inspiring. I am writing this to that person.

As a kid, I was small, quiet, shy, and in my opinion, just average, but there was my grandmother. She always told me that I was big, and smart, and cute, and great at everything. She told me that I could do anything that I wanted to. I believed her. Thank God she was right.

At the age of 9, my grandmother asked me if I wanted to learn how to play the "fiddle" (not the violin - trust me there's a difference). I wanted to please her so I said yes. She paid for my lessons with the best fiddle player I have ever heard. Before the year was up, she began entering me into fiddle competitions against other kids my same age. I stood on a stage, in front of a microphone and crowds of people who were watching and hoping that their kids would win. At the end of each competition, I disappointed quite a few moms and grandmothers. My grandmother always told me I was the best and I believed her. I never placed lower than 2nd, but usually 1st (and I won $25 to $50 each time - I couldn't believe that they paid me to do that).

I continued winning for the next 3 years until I put down the fiddle to play the trombone. Thankfully, I maintained my healthy self-esteem and was the best at trombone too. I won 1st place in most of the competitions. I was the "1st chair" of my band's trombone section. I played solos in the Jazz band and solos in the marching band, including the state champion band when I was just 15. I stood on the 45 yard line of the University of Texas football stadium and played a beautiful solo - totally fearless and absolutely unaware of the possibility of failure.

After a few years of music, I decided to quit the band to focus on sports. Several years before this, I was little and slow. Instead of giving up on sports, I just kept working at it. As a 14-year old, I began to grow, got faster, and generally began to "figure it out". By my freshman year in high school, I made the varsity track team for the 400m dash and the mile relay. I wasn't slow anymore. In practice, I ran until I literally puked every single day, then I kept running. In my sophomore year, I blew out my ACL (knee ligament) and had to run with a bulky, fiberglass brace for the next 2 years after two knee surgeries. In each of those 2 years, I was voted the MVP of my varsity track team, despite running on a bad knee.

Academically, I was a straight-A honor student and an officer in the National Honor Society. I graduated high school with honors and went straight to college at the University of North Texas. It was at this stage of my life that everything temporarily fell apart. I went thru 3 different academic programs, was placed on academic probation, and at one point was 1 hour away from being placed on academic suspension. I got an A in that 1-hour basketball class and the rest was history. I started making the deans list, re-took all of the classes I failed, and finally graduated with a degree in Kinesiology (coaching, PE, personal training, etc).

I knew I was going to be a strength coach until the Summer of '98 when I spent one training camp with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a volunteer strength coach. What a great experience this was, but it helped me realize that I needed to change career paths because I wanted to be able to spend time with my family while making a fortune professionally. That just wasn't going to happen soon enough for me in the NFL.

Two years later, my boss asked me a life-changing question: "Chris, do you think you could run this place?" "Of Course," I said, and I had no idea whatsoever about how to do it, but I knew I could do anything, so I said yes. Years later, we're breaking records. Since then, I went back to school to get my MBA (Master's of Business Administration) and I am so proud and thankful that my grandmother was still alive to see it. Sadly, she later passed away and I will never stop missing her and I will NEVER forget her - enough said.

The keys to my success (and the main point of this entry that I hope you will take away and use for yourself) were the unbelievable and infinitely loving supportiveness of my grandmother, my subsequent huge belief in myself and my abilities, extraordinary hard work and perseverance, never turning down a great and life-changing opportunity, and a laser-sharp focus on my goals. You need to believe in yourself. Otherwise, how can you expect anyone else to? Always work hard and set big goals. Never turn down a great opportunity. These are the lessons from this part of my life.