Welcome To My Origin Story

I was born and raised in a small suburb of Rochester, NY called Webster. All things considered, it was and is an amazing place to be brought up in; great schools, great people, great community. From the ages of 17-20, I was enrolled in college with no real sense of direction or for what my purpose was going to be. I think I changed my major at least four times. After a frustrating day, I shared with my mom that I was headed to the local Army recruiting station to which she replied, "yeah right" with complete disbelief. Of course, now that my idea had been challenged, I was definitely heading for the recruiters. About two weeks later I was taking the ASVAB test and signing a 4-year contract to serve in the United States Army. In hindsight, this was the best decision I have ever made.

I learned invaluable skills in leadership, communication, IT, SATCOM & many other things, but most importantly it gave me direction. When I started to live on purpose with direction I felt unstoppable. I ranked up remarkedly fast, moving from Private to Sergeant in just over 2.5 years. Having achieved all of my military goals and then meeting the love of my life (Jena Wojcik), I decided to step away from the Army so we could start a life together in Augusta, Ga.

Shortly after getting out of the Army, I began to slide back into the darkness that is a lack of purpose. I didn't feel as though I had any direction, or that I was a part of something greater than myself. After a couple rigorous months of introspection and personal development, I came to a conclusion; I had to figure out my WHY. We often use the word why in an inquisitive manner in order to determine the purpose of something, so I figured I could apply that to my life. Turns out, someone wrote a book on this! A big shout out to Simon Sinek and his book Start With Why. Sinek's book taught me to understand the ideas I had, and how I could then put them into practice; how to figure out my why.

MY WHY: to connect with and inspire others so that they may find and live out their purpose.

So, what am I doing about my why?

I answered this question by doing two things that truly leverage my strengths: I started ForTheNation Podcast & became a Real Estate Agent.