Never Give Up: Entrepreneurial and Personal Resiliency

There I was, sitting in a large conference room across the table from the Under Armour marketing team and one of basketball’s greatest players, Steph Curry. It was the kind of thing I had long dreamed of. My years of designing and hustling to build an agency had given me an opportunity I would have once thought impossible. I was presenting my work to two of the biggest brands in sports.

I had no right to be there; it certainly hadn’t been an easy road. I hadn’t done the typical things. I hadn’t gone to college; well, I guess I should say I didn’t last long. I never worked for a design agency or had any formal training. Most of what I had done had been little more than fumbling through endless iterations of business ideas and failing over and over again.

Steph Curry and the Under Armour team had prepared a series of mood boards to help guide our conversation, the kind of thing you imagine in high-stakes marketing meetings. The boards were a collection of artwork and images they felt demonstrated the direction of the campaign they were looking for someone to create. There, in the middle of their curated ideas, was an image of a basketball, covered in writing. I recognized it immediately, because six years before, I had made it.

It had been in one of my darkest times. Frustrated and struggling to make it as a designer, I was leaned back at my desk fiddling with a used basketball I had bought at a thrift shop. I grabbed a sharpie and started sketching on it. The message was simple—"Never Give Up." I was writing it to myself and, having shared a photo of it online, I hadn’t thought about it again. Now, six years later, somehow they had managed to find it and include it in their inspiration boards. Is something like that chance or coincidence? I took it as something divine.

At that moment, I knew why I was there. I didn’t need a piece of paper to show my worth, or a roster of clients to impress someone. God created me for this moment. My father had shaped me for this. The trials, the hardship, the victories and all the lessons learned in between brought me to that room, in that place, for that moment. That moment would change my life forever. Yes, finding yourself in a room with Kevin Plank and Steph Curry is amazing, and yes landing that contract, signing the paper felt really good, but it was also a realization of something far more important.

Fatherhood Hustle

My dad grew up a very poor pig farmer. He fell in love with the cheerleading captain and decided he would one day marry her. It didn’t come easy though. Prom and high school dates were easy enough, but to propose he needed a ring, and to get a ring, he needed money which he didn’t have. But things like that never stopped him.

He had big dreams for the future; he wasn’t going to allow his circumstances to dictate his vision. So, after graduation, he convinced his friend to drive from Missouri to Alaska to work on the pipeline. He could make enough money there to buy a ring and marry my mom.

His friend lasted a week before heading home, but my dad was determined and decided to stick it out. Once he had made enough money, he hitchhiked home. He applied the same determination and hard work to his career as well. He shaved his incredible beard, learned how to tie a tie, and convinced the bank to give him a loan to start our family’s first printshop.

I started designing when I was fifteen, working in the front office of that shop. I taught myself Corel Draw on a Windows 95 computer. My passion for creating continued to grow. As a young man, I was as hungry and determined as my dad had been, but I couldn’t quite figure out my path.

With no direction or real idea of what I wanted to do. I took a random job in Oklahoma City. I worked for a non-profit during the day and stayed up most of the night learning more about design from YouTube. I started telling people I was indeed a professional designer before I even knew what that was. But they gave me a chance and before long I was making more money at night working on logos than I was at the non-profit. I took my leap into freelance and fell flat on my face. I had no idea how to run a business or create consistent revenue, but I learned. I stuck with it, just like I had seen my dad do.

Eventually, in 2017, Flight was born, a real design agency. I had the sole passion to work in the NBA, to design for the professional clients I loved and followed. We quickly scaled and built a dynamic team of designers, filmmakers, and engineers. We somehow landed the Thunder and shot a commercial that ended up on TNT and ESPN that season. We went on to help start the NBA season by creating the intro to the game and with an explosive live experience from a local rap artist and a complete live arena take over.

Eventually our clients spanned from publishing houses like HarperCollins, to sneaker companies like Under Armour. We worked with local businesses, all the way to one of the largest churches in America. Passion projects were our focus, and we had a ton of fun pursuing them. I felt like I had finally found my way.

Signing that contract with Steph Curry was one of the highlights of my life, but the thing it left me thinking about was my dad.

The Moment Everything Changed

When I was seventeen, my family went on a road trip to the Olympic Mountains. My dad was driving when the brakes went out on our RV. I had just fallen asleep at the table when I was woken by my mom screaming. As I looked over, I saw my dad standing up at the wheel stomping on the brakes, but nothing was happening. We hit car after car as we continued down the mountain with nothing slowing us.

I was weightless and realized in a moment we were no longer on the road. I don’t fully remember the actual impact, but my dad was killed in the wreck that day. He was the only one. The rest of my family made it out alive and no one else on the road had been severely injured. As we unburied my dad’s body from the wreck, his last words were: “Is everyone ok?” He was worried about us.

I sat at that table with Steph Curry, and I thought about my dad. I too went on to marry my high school sweetheart. Like him, I struggled and managed to start a business. Today, I have three incredible boys of my own. My dad gave me so much. His life gave me lessons I still learn from.

I pray now that I leave a legacy like his. A man driven by a dream, but intentional and aware of the time he has on earth. Life can be hard, but God is always good. Having a father is good. Being a father is good. There is enough in that, isn’t there?

Success is not a dollar sign. Success is not a destination. Success is laughing around the dinner table sharing dreams and talking about what we love. I hope my sons have success of their own. I hope I’m there to celebrate it with them. I hope that they see me as fearless. That by my example they are always willing to roll up their sleeves and figure it out, too. I pray that when they don’t know what to do, they remember that there is always a way. That in the pursuit of their dreams that they won’t give up.