"At a young age, it was really all about basketball and family. I grew up playing basketball. I think I started at five years old at Lucia Sanders Rec Center. My auntie was one of the biggest influences, and she got me into the rec center and that was the only sport ever played. At a young age, it was just basketball all the time. If I wasn't playing at Lucia Sanders I was following her around and or we were working Pro Am leagues every summer. I got a chance to be on the basketball scene all the time, whether I was playing or sitting at the rec center or at the Pro Am leagues handing out jerseys or checking players.

 

I was all about going to the NBA, because that's what I saw. I didn't really have any dreams to do anything else except for when I started to realize that I needed to have a plan B just in case. In elementary and middle school, I definitely knew it was something I wanted to do for a long time, something I wanted to go to college to do, and something I wanted to do after I graduated college. 

 

Growing up, I had goals on my wall and things that I've written down that said I wanted to go to school for free and play basketball somewhere. My biggest thing was just making sure that basketball took me on to the next level after college. But I took a very non-traditional route. I didn't get my first offer for junior college or anything related to going to college and playing basketball until the wee hours of my senior year. I didn't get my first offer or two until around July going into my freshman year of college. It was one of those things that I just had to keep fighting to the end of the clock to even get an opportunity to go to college and play basketball. 

 

Therapy helped me realize that basketball at a point had been all I had played and ever did. I didn't really do anything outside of that, and it was the main part of who I was as a person. I think when I started taking therapy, it made me think more about what my purpose was. At that moment I really honed in on what I really wanted to do in life after basketball, and it was still unclear. I knew at that point that if I didn't really know going to therapy was allowing me to think positively and find my purpose. Now, I probably wouldn't be where I am today.

 

Purpose for me is helping people, whatever that looks like. Whether it's real estate, outside of real estate, sports, or financial literacy. Anything that I've started a business doing, or had an idea or concept of doing has been centered around helping people"