Still Pushing

I grew up in a single-wide trailer. The sounds of my childhood weren't crashing waves or birds singing in the morning. They were cats fighting underneath our trailer.

At some point my body kept growing, but somewhere along the way I started comparing and stopped living. I watched the world out of a bus window — where people got dropped off, how they lived, what I didn't have.

Two moments have never left me. Both came from teachers — the people we trust to build us up.

The first was in middle school. I was walking away from a teacher who stopped me cold. "Heiss. Don't walk away from me. You'll never amount to anything."

The second was in high school. Meant as a joke. But jokes have a way of finding the cracks. "Why don't you just get on your mower and drive away. You're not going to amount to anything."

When you're already comparing yourself to the world, words like that don't bounce off. They settle in.

But they didn't stop me.

I was running my own version of Shark Tank long before it was on TV — except the only investor was me, the budget was almost nothing, and the board of directors was a kid with big dreams and bad odds. Most of my ideas went nowhere. Then one did.

At 16, broke and hungry for something different, I took what little money I had and bought a lawn mower. That mower, and a partnership with my brother, started a business that grew faster than I could have imagined. And somewhere between the early mornings, the late nights, and the raw inexperience of two kids figuring it out, something was happening that I couldn't see yet. I was so focused on wanting to show I was making it that I almost missed what was actually happening.

The experience was making me.

That's what this space is about. Not my resume. Not a highlight reel. It's about the journey — the people, the faith, the hard lessons learned closer to the ground than the corner office. It's about learning to pause long enough to notice that the moments that matter most are the ones right in front of you.

The lawn mower was never just a lawn mower. It was the beginning of an education that no classroom could have given me.

I'm still pushing. I hope you'll come along.