One year ago, this video changed everything for me. A tumor was discovered in my leg while in Montana. I was back in Texas waiting on a biopsy to know whether or not I had cancer. I wasn’t in the best headspace. This footage was sitting there and I didn’t want to edit or post it bc it was outside of my comfort zone. You know, filming yourself… It was the first time I filmed a scene of me sitting like this. Due to the F it nature of waiting on the news, I posted it to TikTok late at night and almost deleted it immediately. But I fell asleep. I woke up then next morning with a 115k followers. I thought I was on someone else’s profile. I had 50K when I went to sleep. That number grew to 150K by lunch and was at 230K when I went to bed. It hit 350K and eventually 500K the following week. It got 10 Million views on its best day. Over 40 million in total. This was overwhelming and was a blessing of a distraction from what was going on in my life. Not just bc of some vanity metrics but because of the pain I read in the comments - they meant so much more to me. Tens of thousands of comments. From all of the world. I felt all of it. My pain and your pain. It’s what drives me. It’s why I’m filming a show, why I launched a coffee, a newsletter and a film festival. It’s all about going for it. These were all “one day” dreams. I wasn’t going to wait on life. And you shouldn’t either. Just leave it better than you found it. PS. I didn’t end up having cancer, but it was 2 months of mental agony until I knew. I haven’t talked about this bc it’s still something I’m dealing with and maybe I’ll share more in the new year. I’m having surgery later this morning. Very grateful for this experience.