The CEO's Journal- Entry 19: The Marathon Continues

April 22, 2019

I took a few days off for the Easter holidays. I hate taking breaks but I guess they’re healthy sometimes? Anyways, today I’ve been working hard to play catch up and the rest of the week is going to be really busy for me as well.

Today though I had the pleasure of training Regan King and Ethan Vey. I’ve worked with these two a fair bit in the past and am pretty pleased with their development so far. They are going to be the best players on their high school teams next season and I’m going to try to add as much to their games as possible this off season. Speaking of training, my week is looking pretty packed with sessions. My assistant coach, Eman, went back home to Toronto for the summer and so right now I’m taking over the entire workload. As I’ve said many times before I love training the athletes so I’m definitely not complaining.

Oh and today Island Story professional player Daniel Gordon challenged me to an unofficial dunk contest. I uploaded a video of my dunking and Daniel messaged me saying that I’ll never surpass him as a dunker. Being the competitive individual that I am, I happily accepted the challenge and by the end of the summer, we’ll see who the better dunker is.

April 23, 2019

Had a lot to catch up on today. So to ensure that I really got to focus without any disruptions I headed to the library and banged out a good few hours of work. I would have stayed there much longer had the library not closed at 5pm (I forgot their hours are different between semesters). After getting kicked out of the library I headed to the gym for a nice leg workout. I’m going to make sure Daniel regrets challenging me to a dunk contest.

Once I completed my lift I had a solid training session with 10th grade basketball player, Rebecca Crowe. Rebecca is a really skilled player but after that first session I have the impression that she doesn’t realize how good she really is (or can be). This is actually a common issue that I see a lot of players dealing with. The main difference between the players that excel in games and those that do not, usually comes down to a matter of confidence rather than skills. So I’m going to work on improving Rebecca’s confidence just as much as her skills. I’m looking forward to working with you some more Rebecca!

April 25, 2019

University marks came out today… I passed! This means I am now only 2 semesters away from graduating. I’m definitely excited about being finished. Not necessarily to have the degree but to be able to focus 100% on Elevate and on continuing to build this thing distraction-free.

But on the subject of school, there’s an important point that I want to make to everyone..

I know a LOT of people who get insanely stressed and worked up over their grades. Now don’t get me wrong, school is VERY important. But I know a lot of people who almost feel like each and every semester will make or break everything for them. Like if they fail a course that their whole life will fall apart. If you’re one of these people I want to remind you that this is NOT the case. Let’s play this out for a second. Let’s say you failed a course and have to repeat it again next semester. What does that mean? Graduation get delayed a year? You have to pay to take the course again? Your parents going to be disappointed? Do any of these things really mean the end of the world? Money can be made again. Your parents will (or atleast SHOULD) still love you regardless of your grades. And if you get delayed a year, so what. The average person gets to live how long? 80 years or so? What does one year really mean compared to that? Having to repeat a course or even a year is not as big of a deal as it may seem in the moment. Now I get it, school is just more important to some people than others. But I’m sure you all know how important Elevate is to me. I try to keep that same approach with my business. I literally have 60+ years to build this. Whenever I’m hit with setbacks I remember this and suddenly the setbacks don’t seem like such a big deal anymore. Most of us are in a rush to ‘make it’ and achieve our goals as quickly as possible. This is a good thing but it’s also important for us to remember that at the end of that day, the failures and bumps along the way can not ‘break’ us without our permission. So regardless of your marks this semester, don’t get discouraged. You’ll get that degree as long as you refuse to give up.

April 27, 2019

I’m at a pop up shop at the Rally for Ruby basketball tournament all weekend. My friend Sam Tobin has put together an amazing tournament for grade 11 student athletes. The tournament was originally organized as a way to help pay for his mother’s cancer treatment but after she passed, Sam used the money raised to help a local family and build a well over in a village she supported. I’m very thankful that Sam invited me to the event and I hope to be able to attend every year.

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you at the 1st Annual Elevate All Star Weekend! Austin