I had a memory come up last week from my time as a college volleyball athlete at UNC-Chapel Hill which reminded me of a time in my life where I was trained to push past what I believe possible and develop resiliency.

Our Head Coach, Joe Sagula, always challenged the team to make an effort for every ball. If a teammate “shanks” a pass (meaning it bounces off their arms in the direction they didn’t intend), the team should make an effort to save the ball and play. 

In some instances, the play seemed to be within reason of being saved and logically, most people would make an effort for the ball. When the shanked ball was slightly beyond what the mind would believe is possible to save, naturally, the team member may not push themselves to make the attempt.

Below is a stream of consciousness with little editing.

Many people ask me how I came to work for Organifi. There is a simple story and a much more in-depth version of how my intentions and choices in life brought me to work at such a great company.

The short-short story is that I met, now-CEO, Djamel Bettahar through our mutual friend Kevin at a brunch he hosted in May 2016. And, the rest was, eventually, history.

When I met Djamel, I had built a 9-year sales career in a variety of industries – sold billboards for a top corporation, jumped ship to a startup without a proven technology, became the first employee at a, now very successful, SaaS company, participated in a holistic health coaching program, learned to code full-time, and helped launch a new city for a coding bootcamp.