Mine is a Story of Healing & Growth — Just Like Yours.
After my first company failed, I fell into a deep depression. I simply didn’t know how to respond to my challenges and despite still having so much love, success and remaining opportunities around me – I nearly ended my own life at 26.
Fortunately, I was able to learn what I was supposed to in my rock bottom. Not only that, I was also fortunate enough to learn from some amazing people and eventually find my own life’s purpose as well: helping others like me transform their lives in a similar way that I did — only more on purpose.
I Was 9 When I Learned that I was Adopted.
After being born to a 17 year-old girl who made the incredibly painful decision for someone else to raise me — I was legally relinquished and adopted by a lawyer and his wife in East Texas.
And for the first 10 years of my life in Lufkin, I wanted for absolutely nothing and frankly loved every second of my life with my Mom, my Dad and my entire family there. That’s me, my brother and my Mom in the photo right there.
Look at how happy we all are.
Even after getting the news that I was, in fact, not biologically related to anyone I’d ever thought of as my family — very little actually changed. Family is family is family and, despite many painful moments along the way — that truth couldn’t have been more true for me and my life.
A few years later, however, my Mom died of cancer — and life set me on a journey that took me places that I never could’ve imagined.
I was 15 when my Mom passed away — and 16 when I left home for good.
And in many ways, that’s when my life truly began.
For reasons that are much easier to accept and understand today, my Father struggled mightily with the loss of my Mother. In my view, he was simply as overwhelmed as could be with the new reality of raising two adopted sons on his own — and thus, what he had to give us / me at that time was genuinely very minimal.
So much so that I left home about a year later and moved in with my best friend. After a semester or so with Matt and Margie and Max and Mark and Don and Loretta, I moved in with my girlfriend, shown right with my Mom, whose family was courageous and committed enough to take me in for good.
I no longer had a stable home — nor a “real family,” I thought — but I did have a duffle bag full of clothes and a long list of people who loved me apparently. Even if I wasn’t really able to actually see that at the time.
My Grandmother Put Me Through College — Where My Pain Really Started to Show.
With the help of Wilma Louise right there - who was strong and as sharp as she was adorable - I still had some semblance of family and support in my life.
Not only did she help me pay for school, she plainly moved hell & high water at times to make sure I had what I needed — even from 11 hours away in Missouri.
And while I still bleed burnt orange to this day as a UT Austin graduate, my time in college was mostly just fertile ground for all of my insecurities and suppressed pain to express itself on anyone who came close enough to see just how devastatingly sad, scared and alone I was.
It was there in West Campus where I truly learned how to hide my shame and anxiety, rationalize my cheating and toxic behavior and genuinely smoke, drink and party with the best of them.
Though it wasn’t all bad - I did meet some actual life-long friends and also accomplish some incredibly cool things along the way. I also feel genuinely lucky that I actually survived this part of my life.
Fatherhood at 22, Married Entrepreneur at 23 — and I Met My Biological Mom at 24.
It was a perfect storm of events for me.
And while all of these things happened in a way that truly led to so much genuine suffering for me and everyone else involved, they also were all such beautiful, invaluable experiences in my life.
At that age, I simply didn’t know what I didn’t know.
Though I didn’t have any real professional identity after college, I did have some money that my Grandmother had left me and I did have an insatiable need to prove to everyone how smart and special I was (to make up for how lost & alone I felt).
And since Austin is one of the startup capitals of the world, I didn’t think too long about pushing way too many chips in the center of the table chasing a fairy tale story and some press clippings. And while I love parts of that for me - starting a company and risking lots of money to prove something to your parents that abandoned you / did their best at the time simply isn’t something that I recommend.
The real thread to highlight here, however, is my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Jenna, who was there for me through every ounce of it. After my Mom died, it was her that convinced her parents to let me move in with them. And after we’d gotten pregnant as seniors at UT, it was her that knew that no matter what - we were meant to have that baby.
It was her that sent in the paperwork that eventually led to the reunification with my biological Mother and it was her that snapped that photo bottom right of the exact moment of us meeting for the first time.
And perhaps most of all, it was her that remained steady and patient and committed while I struggled at seemingly every step of the way. Without her - not only would there be no success story to write of or invaluable service to provide others — there also simply wouldn’t be my favorite part of the whole story at all.
Then We Did A lot of Work — And Created Something Beautiful.
I’ve lived it.
And I’d choose it again and again and again.
That doesn’t mean that it’s easy all of the time.
In fact, at times it’s still incredibly difficult - as anyone raising a family and running a business already knows.
But those smiles are real.
And the joy and the warmth and the peace and the purpose and the power in our lives, as a rather simple family of five, is real too. So are the incredible friends and family in our lives now too.
And that’s the thing that I will forever be most proud of: the immaculate relationships that I’ve created in my life. As a husband, a father and a family — and also as a friend, a colleague and a powerful leader / coach to so many amazing, talented people that I’ve been blessed to work with.
Those are the gifts of all gifts that I will forever cherish above all.
My name is Scott McElroy and that’s my story.
Thanks so much for being here.
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