The Childhood Hobby That Shaped Me

I was a spelling bee kid. A serious one. Flashcards, dictionaries, the whole thing.

I remember seeing the national spelling bee on ESPN when I was nine and turning to my mom to say, “I’m going to make it there one day.”

A few years later, I did. I represented San Antonio in the Scripps National Spelling Bee and it changed everything.

The week of the bee was electric with hundreds of kids each carrying their own dreams and word lists. I met people who became lifelong friends. We’d sit in hotel lobbies quizzing each other until midnight. It was the first time I found a community built entirely on curiosity.

But the lesson came in defeat. In eighth grade, back for my second try representing Indianapolis, I got the word proprietorial. I knew it instantly. But I broke my rhythm, skipped a syllable, and lost.

It hurt. I tore up my placard. I cried. I was young and thought I’d failed at the only thing that mattered.

Looking back, that moment taught me everything I now know about resilience, focus, and pressure.

Because life is full of moments where you know the answer but still stumble—where execution, not knowledge, decides the outcome. You learn to breathe, refocus, and step back up to the microphone.

That same discipline carried into baseball where I was a pitcher. Standing on that mound taught me another lesson. Ignore the noise and look for the signal. The crowd yells, the dugouts chatter, but the only thing that matters is the catcher’s sign and your next throw.

That’s campaigning. You face the noise—the gossip, the doubt, the headlines—and you still have to deliver the next pitch.

Those lessons shaped how I lead: preparation, composure, and recovery. The spelling bee taught me how to lose with purpose. Baseball taught me how to win with focus. Politics requires both.

And the truth is the work I’m doing now—rebuilding trust, reconnecting people to power—feels a lot like those early lessons.
 

You study. You practice. You fail publicly.
 

And then you show up again anyway.