"Today was a good day..."

What's up everybody and welcome to the show, they call me Trop, and Troppy Boy thought you should know...

Seems like each time that I post I start it with something relative to, "it's been awhile." Honestly, it has been a while. And a lot has happened in that "while." I think that the last time I posted, I was gearing up for a big season at BBCC and living in Moses Lake, WA. Well, I never got around to that "big season" and I am currently living in La'ie, Hawaii, going to Brigham Young University here. How did I end up here? Well we'll see what I let out in this post. I don't think a day goes by where I don't day dream about what that "big season" would have been like for me. I was ready to have big season as an individual and also ready for our team to do big things. We had lost some key players, but were keeping a great main core with the reigning MVP leading the pack (shout out to B who's doing big things at Seattle U now). My confidence was high and I was ready to come in and make more noise than I ever had before on a basketball court. Well, long story short, I didn't tear my ACL or break my leg or anything like that, I simply just felt like I needed to move on from Moses. I used the wrod "simple" but i'll let you know right now that I think that was the toughest decision I have ever made. Why would I give up something that I love and have the opportunity to keep doing? I don't know, I just felt like it was right...

Well, after making that decision I ended up at home trying to figure things out. I had one more class to take to get my Associate's degree and so I took that at the CC near my house while I worked full time. I had never lived a life without basketball being a vital priority in it. It was my "job" but it was also my hobby. Most of my free time was spent trying to be better at it. So now with it not at the focal point, I was in kind of a void. I didn't have other hobbies but at the same time, I wasn't really wanting to play at that point in time because it just brought up somber feelings for me. So I could either sulk or go out and try to find other things that I could love. Even though I love(d) basketball, there were a lot of things that I never really got to do because I was so busy with it every year. There were some things that I could do now that I wasn't playing for no other reason than just because I could. Without always having to worry about games and practices and getting better as well, I was able to be much more consistently relaxed. I loved being able to visit places in Seattle that I had never been before. I got to go to Halli's soccer games. I got to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas that year stress free and with family without having to worry about practices and games. Not playing sucked, but there were some positives with it as well.

During that fall, I met someone that believed in me more than anyone I felt ever had; even myself. They consistently told me that I could do anything and be anything that I wanted regardless of what it was. They totally changed and helped to shape my overall mindset. Because of that person I decided to just be a do'er and go after dreams. I bought my first screen press having never had any experience with it before. I had been wanting to make shirts for awhile but I had never gotten around to do anything about it. So one night I just decided "I'm done hoping and wishing for things, I'm just gonna start doing them." That night I bought the press. I almost tried to change my own clutch knowing nothing about cars but honestly believing I could do it. I mention these because I feel like this is the start of the mindset that has driven me from there to now. I honestly believe we can do anything that we want. If you want to bad enough, you'll figure out how to do it.

I ended up finishing the credits I needed to get my associates degree and somehow got accepted to and decided to enroll at BYU Provo. I was trying to decided between there and BYU-Hawaii. BYU-Hawaii was a super foreign concept but I just wanted to go for it. Obviously I decided to go to Provo but after a few weeks of being there, I wished that I had chosen to go to Hawaii. I was shopping at the DI with QB1 and there was a BYU-H sweatshirt hanging on the wall and that's basically when I decided.  So with that mindset, rather than deciding to just stay and tough it out, I reapplied and got into Hawaii again. I felt like I was supposed to go there.

Provo was cool though and I'm glad that I got to experience it. I took this entrepreneurship class and that's really where the beginnings of Trop Clothing started. I was blessed to have Adobe programs fall into my lap(shout out to Nate Dogg for that) and I just started getting after it. My grades weren't the greatest because of a combination of that and Provo just gives way too much freakin homework. Lol I will forever cringe at the sound of Accounting because that class that I took there. After finishing the semester there, I was trying to decide what I should do for the summer. I didn't feel like I should go home and I had to make some money. My friend in Vernal told me I could come up there and work in the oil fields and stay with him and his family. I didn't love the sound of working in the oil fields but I knew that I would be able to make a lot of money. Before going out there though, my friend convined me to come up and stay with him in Rexburg for a little bit. So I did. While I was there he told me that I should just stay there for the summer and try to flip houses with him and his dad and sell some t-shirts. Honestly to me and my entrepreneurial spirit, this sounded so much better to me than working in the oil fields. So for the first few months of that summer, I slept on his couch and lived out of my car. We didn't flip one house and Trop Clothing didn't do much either but I had some of the funnest months of my life while I was there. So huge shout out to all the people that were there that made it so awesome.

After their semester, I decided to go home for the rest of the summer. Trop Clothing made some more ground but mostly we just played. Honestly that was probably the best summer of my life. Not a very productive one in terms of finances or things like that but so good in terms of coming into my own and loving life. I took off for Hawaii after that summer and I have been here ever since.

People kind of look at me weird when I tell them that this is the 5th school that I have been too. And I agree that it kind of just makes me look reckless. In my mind though, I'm grateful for all those experiences because it was just me trying. Trying to figure everything out and I like it because it kinda symbolizes my path and what it's taken for me to get to where I am. It was just real and raw attempts to do what I wanted to do and figure things out and I am proud of that.

If you've read this far, shout out to you. I don't know if my life is that interesting but this is a little look into what Troppy Boy has been into for the last few years. Life is crazy but so much better when you live it being yourself and trying to do what's right for you. People may question your decisions and such but the ones who really love you will always be in your corner.