The CEO's Journal- Entry 10: 2018

2018 has been the most incredible, busy, stressful and successful year I have ever experienced. Man was it exciting!

In 2018, ELEVATE has donated to and helped 13 organizations and initiatives. I’m super proud of that number and plan to increase it even more in the new year. It’s important to me that as we continue to grow, we continue to ‘elevate’ the community as well. We also managed to get one of our items into a store which was a major accomplishment to us. It signaled to us that we were on the right track. Since then, we have created and released our own custom line which included tracksuits, leggings, sports bras, cropped sweaters and more. Each and every month the quality of our apparel has increased SIGNIFICANTLY and by mid-2019, ALL of our apparel will be custom items with ELEVATE tags. That tag will be a symbol of ELEVATE becoming a legitimate and incredibly high-quality brand. I’m pumped that we were able to get to this point. It’s only up from here!

Personally, I have made some really big changes within myself as well. For one, I decided NOT to play university basketball this year which was a HUGE deal to me. Basketball used to be everything to me but over the year I began to realize that my passion was in inspiring and helping people. I wanted to create a real movement towards getting as many people as possible to realize that they can accomplish anything they set their mind to. I used to use basketball as a tool to inspire other athletes. But now, ELEVATE is the vehicle I am using to inspire everyone with any type of goal or dream. I feel like we’re inspiring real change!

I even spoke to a class about entrepreneurship which is a BIG deal to me. I used to be an extremely shy and quiet kid growing up. To this day, public speaking is still nerve wracking, but I am proud that I fought through that. I hope that I managed to teach and inspire some students in the process.

We have some BIG goals for 2019. Some would even call them crazy. But that’s okay. Based on the progress we have seen in 2018, I know that we can meet them. I thank each and every one of you for supporting ELEVATE this year and I hope that we will continue to have your support in 2019. Once again thank you so much and happy new year!

- Austin