I didn't plan to talk about fear when I sat down with the camera. Someone had asked me how I'm so fearless, I gave a throwaway answer, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it. Fourteen years as a gymnast, losing my dad at 18, and eighteen years in Austin real estate all trained the same instinct: the thing that scares me is usually the thing worth doing. Building Chateau Chloe was the clearest test of it. Here's the whole conversation in my own words, including the one thing that still scares me.
Fourteen Years of Waking Up Scared
Someone asked me recently how I'm so fearless. I didn't have a good answer in the moment. I said something like "I guess I was just born this way." But I kept thinking about it, and I landed on two things.
I was a gymnast for my entire childhood and adolescence. I woke up afraid most days, because there was always a big skill waiting for me. Sometimes that fear was fuel. Sometimes it was just fear, plain and anxious.
Every time I conquered something, the high lasted about five minutes before I was on to the next skill. Gymnastics runs on perfection, and there was always a girl in the gym doing something bigger, higher, straighter, with an extra flip added on. So even landing the thing that scared me never felt like an achievement. It felt like catching up.
I got the twisties twice. If you don't know the term, it's when you lose all sense of where you are in the air. Up and down stop meaning anything. Simone Biles has talked about this publicly, and hearing her describe it was the first time I felt like someone understood what happened to me.
Before the twisties, a triple twist was like drinking water. My body just knew. After, it became a routine I had to recite in my head. Go up. Count to two. Tuck your head. It stopped being muscle memory and turned into something closer to a ritual, down to needing to touch my shoulder three times before I could try again. My coaches were furious. They put me back in level one, a level 10 athlete jumping over barrels with four and five year olds, and I clawed my way back to going backwards again.
I bring this up because gymnastics is dangerous. You're running full speed, flipping and twisting, and finding your landing twenty feet in the air. I've watched girls fall on their necks. I've seen broken backs. Fear, in that gym, is a completely rational response.
Fourteen years of waking up scared every single day trained me to believe that if I wasn't doing something that scared me, I wasn't doing something great. Doing something difficult was just part of that competitive drive. I don't think anyone gets to greatness without being scared along the way. Being around all those other girls, watching them do things that scared me and making it look easy, made my desire to be great bigger than the fear itself. Honestly, I was often more afraid of my coaches than I was of the skill itself, and that fear pushed me through just as much as the ambition did.
Losing My Dad at 18
The second thing that shaped how I move through fear is losing my dad when I was 18.
I have this vivid memory from when I was four or five years old. My dad would get up at 5 AM for work, and I'd get up too, just to hang out with him while he got ready. When it was time for him to leave, I'd watch his red Chevy truck pull out of the driveway, standing on the windowsill with my nose pressed against the glass, waving goodbye. From the moment he pulled out to the moment he turned the corner out of the cul-de-sac and disappeared from view, I'd stand there and wait. And right at the very last second, he'd put his hand out the window and wave, because he knew I was still standing at that window. I always remember this scared, anxious feeling underneath it, this sense that maybe that would be the last time I'd see him.
Nothing in my household gave me a reason to think that. In fact, my parents rarely left the house. I don't know where the fear came from. But some part of me was always bracing for it.
So when he was diagnosed with cancer, it felt less like a shock and more like something I'd already been preparing for without knowing it. There's a strange relief that comes when the thing you feared most finally happens, because you stop having to carry the fear of it. Watching someone you love die of cancer is its own kind of hard, and I'll spare the details, but if you know, you know. When he was gone, there was pain, and there was also relief, because he wasn't in pain anymore.
My dad was a simple man. He liked mowing the yard, being with his kids, swimming, watching sports. You couldn't get him to buy a new pair of jeans if his life depended on it. He didn't want much, and I don't think he had regrets about the life he built. He was at peace with it. That's the way to go, and a lot of what I do, and why I do it, comes from wanting the same thing for myself. He was 50. I'm 38. Fifty doesn't feel far away anymore.
Losing a parent young does something specific to you. Once you've survived the thing you feared most, very little else scares you the same way. I think that's the real gift my dad left me, the superpower of being able to say fuck it, why not.
What I'm Actually Afraid Of
Here's the honest part. I'm not afraid of things that are in my control. Building a house, spending my own money, running my own time, calling my own shots. None of that scares me.
What scares me is the stuff I don't control. Being vulnerable. Telling someone how I feel. Having kids.
Having kids might be the scariest thing on the list. I think about what happens if my kid ends up hating me. What if they have a disability I don't know how to navigate. What if I mess up the discipline part and raise an entitled moron. I run every worst case scenario before I let myself picture the good one, the beautiful life that could come out of it.
I'd rather flip three times in the air or rebuild my house from scratch, because in both of those, I'm the one in control. Having a family means someone else could fall out of love with you. There are too many variables between wanting a happy family and actually getting to keep one.
That's my spiel on fear. I didn't plan to go here when I sat down with the camera. But it's here now.
How This Shows Up in My Austin Real Estate Business
Fear works as a decision filter for me. If something sits inside my control, I take the risk and figure it out on the way down. That's how I ended up interviewing more than twenty builders, walking away from my first one right before we broke ground, and designing a house around New Orleans values instead of resale comps. It's the same reason I keep opening the doors. 3,500 people came through my home in 60 days, and none of that happens if I wait to feel ready. When I advise Austin buyers and sellers, the filter is the same. Name what you actually control, then move.
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