Tell me about your vision. Yeah, I appreciate
you having me on. My vision as a person, as a
man, as a business mentor, is just to impact
somebody's life, to make their life a little
bit better each and every day. I'm a firm believer
that the true definition of a man is how he treats
someone that can do nothing for him. So my vision
is to continue to grow every day, be curious,
not judgmental, learn a little bit, and help
as many people as I can along the way, live a
happier, healthier life. whether that's through
Ascend or whatever company I need to do after
Ascend or whatever I may do, but just finding
ways to help people live their life to the fullest
potential. The definition you just mentioned
of a man, where did that come from? That actually
came from our defensive coordinator at Wake,
at Wake Forest Football. He said that one time
at a huddle, and I never forgot it. That's awesome.
I knew you kept it with you. That will be with
me to the day I die. That became my definition.
That's amazing. So tell me more about your vision.
How did you get started on this path of focusing
on who you are as a person and helping others
that can't do anything for you? Yeah. No, for
sure. You know, just to go back a little bit,
you know, I kind of grew up my whole life, played
anything with a ball, right? Football, baseball,
basketball, lacrosse, you name it. Went to college
to play football at Wake, major in economics
there, minor in communications. But that whole
point in my life up until sophomore year, I had
this identity as like an athlete and my ego was
through the roof. And I wasn't caring of others.
You know, I thought only of myself. I wasn't
somebody that I look back and I can't believe
I was that person. So that groundwork kind of
laid out what I didn't want to be, right? Because
I lived something that wasn't me. It wasn't who
I was. It was this ulterior identity that was
Walker Ferguson, but it wasn't who I was called
to be. So that kind of prefaced the back end.
So I understood what I didn't want to be. to
move into what I did want to be. So once I humbled
myself and I gained a cultivation of gratitude,
humility, integrity, courage, action, communication,
family -oriented love, and non -judgment, which
are my nine values. Once I kind of cultivated
those in my life, I was opened up to a new way
of living. And that came through my faith, through
my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Growing up,
I knew about Jesus, but I didn't have that personal
relationship with him until I was at my lowest
point, my sophomore year. where I was rebuilt,
I was able to grow. And through that process,
he showed me the way of loving and serving others,
right? Being a servant leader. So that's kind
of my vision is it came from a place of where
I was knowing who I was and how I felt and how
I treated others and what I didn't want to do
anymore moving forward. So that aspect of my
life, everything I knew I wanted to do after
was going to be how can I help someone else?
How can I? love every single person, love everything
around me, like see the value in everybody. And
when somebody, you know, maybe it's does something
that doesn't really, I don't really like per
se, or, you know, hurts my feelings, understanding
that that's not them. That's like the ego that
they're portraying or that false identity portraying,
but then the day understanding that like, all
there is, is love. So once I kind of understood
that, that branched me into, you know, ascend,
right. When Hampton came in with the idea for
some meditations and, you know, helping others
live a happier, healthier life through. you know,
breathing through a meditation practice. So that
was kind of the vision of helping people any
way we could through that. And, you know, we're
starting with athletes. If you want a vision
on more of like a business side of things, I
can talk into that, but that's kind of on a personal
level. No, that's, that's awesome. Tell me more
about, you mentioned that once you humbled yourself,
tell me about that story. Like, I feel like that,
that probably is this story behind your why.
No, for sure. I mean, to be honest with you,
growing up, I kind of had it easy going. Lived
in a great household, went to church every Sunday.
I got two beautiful sisters, and I just enjoyed
life. I didn't really face that much hardship
growing up, to be honest with you. And I always
knew where my next meal was coming from. My parents
gave me every opportunity to excel and do good.
And that kind of instilled this. confidence of
me being like, I'm the guy, right? Like I can
do what I want. Like, and that kind of continued
all the way until I got to college. Cause you
know, in high school, you know, you're one of
the best athletes, you know, in middle school,
growing up, you're one of the best athletes.
And then you get to college and bam, like everyone
is better than you, right? Like that's a slap
in the face right away, especially playing power
five football at Wake Forest and ACC, you know,
kids are faster than you. They're stronger than
you. They're smarter than you. They basically
are better than you in every single way, right?
So then once my identity was stripped from football,
other things in my life, football kind of pointed
out to other areas of my life that I was struggling
in, right? And relationships on the home front,
socially, the way I treated others, like my friends
even, right? And that... brought me to like cultivate
a sense of humility to understand football was
kind of that way of me seeing that like i'm being
very arrogant and then now i was able to translate
that into other areas of my life and basically
not be blind right you know in the christian
faith you know if like you can be blind right
you can like do things not understand what's
going on but then when you accept jesus as your
lord and savior open to a new way of thinking
you're open to a new life and then you're unblind
and you can see things right so that was kind
of like my story of you know football was really
huge for me to humble myself to expose other
areas of my life to lose this false sense of
ego this false sense of pride and all these different
bad attributes that i had to cultivate the three
of gratitude you know humility integrity and
love because that's all we really have yeah i
i love that you talked about your values the
nine values that's amazing not a lot of people
think about that at this stages of life um but
now that you have been through part of that journey
where you were humbled and now you are centered
into where you want to go. So where do you see
yourself taking your vision with the meditation
app or still you want to be in the football journey
or there's something else that you see on the
horizon for yourself? Like what do you see yourself
doing? Yeah, so football's done. You know, done
playing ball, hung up the cleats. And, you know,
I'll be really excited for the next chapter.
You know, where I see Ascend growing is, you
know, me and Hampton said when we first started
this thing, we never wanted to create a billion
-dollar company. We wanted to create a company
that helped a billion people live happier, healthier
lives. So the vision for the first year is working
with strictly athletes, right? Because I know
Hampton kind of told you about the app, but we
were athletes. We had a subscription to Calm.
We love how it gave base meditations, base sleep
stories, but nothing felt, you know, personalized
for the user, right? So I want to basically give
a resource that I wish I had when I was going
through those tough times to learn how to breathe,
to cultivate a sense of gratitude, to reshape
my mind into being a positive thinker to athletes
like myself, right, who are in that position
I was in. Because we're all in that position,
believe it or not, whether you're a starter or
not. So from there, we understand the vision
for the first year is how can we get into athletic
departments? How can we... Partner with teams
or universities, athletic departments to give
subscriptions for free to all student athletes
so they can create a meditation plan, create
a meditation on the go, create a sleep story,
cultivate these values that I was able to create
through my own journey and making that easier
for them to live a happier, healthier life. So
the first year, it's really focusing on athletes
for individual subscriptions. As well as, you
know, athletic departments to be able to provide
this resource to the athletes. So that's kind
of the vision for the first year, right? Growing,
scaling, bringing on new developers, fundraising,
hiring a marketing company, getting out there,
getting more ways to get out there. And then
Hampton probably talked more about this too.
But really catering the product towards athletes,
right? Our homepage, our information page, having
it very catered because that's our niche right
now, right? But that's kind of the vision for
the first year. And then moving on past that,
you know, I see us targeting universities, right?
I see us, you know, that transition from high
school to college is so hard. Being a resource
for students in a pre -orientation program. So,
you know, mom and dad dropped you off at college,
you know, or whoever your garden is dropped you
off at college. Ascend is a resource. where essentially
you're going through a tough time, you're missing
home, you're dealing with stress, anxiety, or
you want to gain a mindful edge, you can use
this app and it's free to all students through
a university package. So that's kind of the way
I see it growing and expanding. And then outside
of like the education university level of helping
students and the youth, I see it evolving into
businesses, right? People on Wall Street, I'm
sure yourself, I mean, business is tough. You
never know when someone's going to go pencils
down or a deal is going to close or... It's competitive.
People are always trying to gain an edge on each
other. But having a space to calm down, reset,
and also be able to visualize your goals through
an application is huge. So I definitely want
to target businesses in the future as well. But
to preference, to get the SparkNotes version,
the first year is really targeting athletes and
athletic departments and growing that, dominating
our niche, and then growing on the university
level for all students and then to businesses.
Oh, that's awesome. You've thought this through
quite a bit. I'd like to think so. Also, I do
want to preface too, Hampton, and I talk about
this all the time, he's vision, I'm action. So
he comes up with a lot of the ideas and the ways
of growth and that I normally get things done.
But I also come up with ideas here and there
as well. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that.
Absolutely. My next question to you, Walker,
I think you've already touched something on this.
I think your meditation app and your vision,
if I talk about it, would be incomplete without
your thoughts on leadership. So to you, Walker,
what is a great leader? What defines a great
leader? A great leader, I mean, it goes back
to the definition of a man. How can you help
someone that can do nothing for him, right? The
way I want to lead is I always want to put the
team first. humble myself, understand that the
bus doesn't roll without the team, right? I'm
a firm believer. You know, Jim Collins' book,
Good to Great. You got to find the who before
the what. And when you find the who, the bus
starts rolling, right? The wheels start turning.
And we've done a very good job of finding people
to join the team who meet our company values,
who believe in the mission and see the vision
of where we're going. Being able to support them
in any possible way I can, right? I never, if
something's wrong, I'll be the first one to say
it's my fault, right? If something's going great,
I'm the first one to give, I want to be the first
one to give praise to every team member that's
doing great, right? And that's how you lead.
You serve others, right? Servant leadership.
And that's literally straight, like Jesus was
the greatest servant leader. And you can learn
so much from him, from reading the word, from
studying who he was, right? He fed thousands,
right? he all the miracles he performed healed
the sick like he was constantly serving other
people and that's what i want to do i want to
serve others so they can you know perform their
best and live the happiest, healthiest life and
achieve their goals? How can I assist them to
keep learning and growing? Thank you for being
here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in
to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to
move forward. This is going to get more and more
fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.