My journey with stress has been a unique one. When I was 7 years old, the federal government took my Dad’s business and our house and accused him of white collar crimes. The case was thrown out, but they wouldn’t leave him alone and he was ultimately convicted . He was sent to prison when I was a freshman in college. Dad served his time, but the government would continue to take money from him and haunt him for the next 20 years. All of this took a heavy toll on our whole family.

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In 2018, my dad died after a brutal experience with pulmonary fibrosis. My aunt and cousin also died, I was let go from an artificial intelligence job that I loved, and the government tried to take my innocent, widowed mom’s home. I was diagnosed with a chronic inflammatory disease, heart issues, sleeping problems, and had so much back pain that there were many days when I could barely move. I went to the ER four different times because I thought I was having heart attacks. It turned out that they were all anxiety attacks. Being a man from Texas and a former football coach, that’s still hard for me to admit. All of the stresses over the course of my life had reached a critical mass. ​