Ever since this economic slide — call it what you want, teetering or down — people ask me the same question: as a small business, with tariffs and job loss and all this volatility, how will you survive?

To answer that, I have to tell the truth about my first two and a half, three years in business: I spent them chasing sales. Fighting for every ticket. Doing everything I could to get the next order. Sales matter — you need them to breathe. But I’ve learned something deeper: it isn’t the daily sale that keeps a company alive. It’s kinetic energy, focus, faith, and belief.

And faith and belief are twins — you can’t have one without the other, and you can’t hold either if you stop dreaming. The dream is the seed. The seed grows faith. Faith matures into belief.

I dream of selling a million bottles. Faith took root when I let myself see it. Belief is what I carry now: we will sell a million bottles. So my focus shifted — away from chasing today’s receipt and toward building the foundation that can hold tomorrow’s harvest.

In business and life, success doesn’t start in the bank. It starts in the mind — with the seed you plant and protect.

Every business gets curved. I don’t care how successful they look — every one of them has found themselves on the shoulder with the hazards on. Some throw on a spare. Some plug the tire long enough to reach the next stop. Others just grip the wheel and bang their heads, asking, “Why me?”

I was talking to my cousin — she and her husband run a construction company. During the 2008 crash, they took a hit so hard they thought it was the end. Instead of folding, they pulled everyone into a room and told the truth. They asked who wanted to ride it out. Those who needed to leave, left with love. Those who stayed agreed to a temporary 20% giveback so the company could breathe. They went to their backers, bought time, and then — here’s the part people miss — they didn’t chase quick money. They rebuilt the foundation.

They trained their team. They trained themselves. They fixed the weak boards, upgraded the tools, tuned the process. Within a year, they were stronger than they had been before 2008. Today they’re one of the strongest Black-owned construction companies in Colorado. Thirty-plus years in and still growing.

They didn’t just talk belief — they worked it. Faith with a tire iron. Belief with a raincoat on.

Here’s the part many successful owners don’t say out loud: real growth can feel like isolation. Not because people changed — because you did. The gossip, the noise, the club — it stops calling your name. You’d rather build.

I talk about my wife and my son when I’m with friends. When I’m with my wife, I talk about the business — our business. If a conversation isn’t helping someone or building something, I don’t have a lot of energy for it. My father taught me that: if you’re not in a position to help, why talk about it?

The closer you are to your success, the more isolated you become. But isolation isn’t loneliness — it’s growth. It’s becoming more aware. It’s a better understanding of who you are. It’s enlightenment about what you truly want. It’s the moment you realize what’s most important to you.

When you reach that place, you’ve surpassed the noise. You’re no longer chasing comparison — you’re building your legacy. And there’s nothing deeper or stronger than that.

Success doesn’t start in a boardroom. It starts in childhood — in the seeds planted long before you know you’re growing.

From the moment my son was conceived, I began speaking greatness into him. Every night I talked to his mother’s stomach: You will be great. You will do great things. After he was born, I whispered the same words as he slept: You are great. You will do great things.

Now he’s eight years old — one of the top students in his class with a 9.5 reading average and a 9.4 in math that rises and dips but always stays high. When he picks up a book, you can’t pull it from his hands. That’s not coincidence. That’s cultivation.

From the start, I built his world with symbols of who I wanted him to become. Owls on the wall for wisdom. Elephants for prosperity. Air balloons for rising above. And a Dr. Seuss quote above his bed that reads, “The more you read, the more places you will go.”

Every image in that room speaks to his subconscious. When he falls asleep, he’s surrounded by wisdom. When he wakes up, he opens his eyes to prosperity. Every night he dreams of rising above.

What you see every day becomes who you are. The first thing your eyes meet in the morning and the last thing they see at night shape the story your mind keeps telling you.

I teach him that questions are tools — that asking why is how you grow. Because curiosity feeds consciousness, and consciousness builds confidence.

People say, knowledge is power. But I tell him, knowledge without knowing how to use it is just paper and ink. A key means nothing if you don’t know which lock it opens.

So I teach him not just to learn, but to understand — not just to hold the key, but to turn it. That’s how you build belief into a child’s mind — and that’s how belief grows into destiny.

I believe the energy we put out becomes signal. Some call it miracle. Some call it faith. I see it like skipping rocks on water — each skip sends out a ripple. If your rocks are positive, the ripples surround you. If your rocks are negative, the ripples surround you as well — carrying the effects of that energy, whether positive or negative, back to your shores.

Those ripples don’t disappear; they reach the shores of your own mind. Everything you send out comes back and settles into the soil of who you are. Your mind is a garden, fed by the waters of your words — no matter if those waters come from faith or fear. Because faith and fear are both roots; whichever one you water more will shape what your seed becomes.

So plant the seed. Don’t dig it up every five seconds to check if it’s growing. Just let it grow. Tend it. Water it. Pull the weeds so they don’t choke it out and steal the light. Because that’s what some people will do — they’ll choke your energy, they’ll suffocate your growth, they’ll try to steal your light.

Remove anger — even when it’s hard. Find clarity in your heart, mind, and soul. Then be quiet. The universe speaks. God speaks. Guidance shows up in the stillness, and it nudges you toward the work you were made to do.

As for me, I choose the positive rock, again and again: we will sell a million bottles. In my mind, it’s already done. So I build the room to hold it.