Welcome to ENKRA

This all started in grade 6. I was slightly below average in school, average in sports, average at everything.

Then I had a teacher who would not let students settle. His standard was above 70 percent, and he would retest anyone who fell short — again and again until they got there. He understood that this age is where a young person either starts building a strong, confident identity or does not.

I took that chance and it became the best school year of my life. My marks climbed. I reached the top of my class. For the first time I proved to myself I could be excellent at something — and I did not even know it was in me until he pulled it out. I made valedictorian that year. It taught me a lesson I never let go of. If you are disciplined enough to chase something, it pays off.

That was the beginning of the best three years of my life.

It carried into middle school. I stayed at the top of my class and threw myself into sports, excelling at every one I tried. Then the summer before grade 8 I found fitness. A new goal — lose weight, build muscle. I learned everything I could and made a complete transformation. I still remember people who had not seen me all summer stopping to tell me how different I looked. Getting admiration for work I had actually put in was one of the best feelings I have ever had.

That was the first time I changed myself through nothing but my own determination and willpower. And in doing it, I built a bulletproof identity. Someone who could do anything he set his mind to, physically and mentally.

Then grade 9 came. New school, new people. I was working out every morning and noticed I was as big and strong as some of the grade 11 and 12 students. My confidence carried into everything — friends, family, all of it.

Then I injured my back.

I did not know it at the time, but that was the beginning of seven years of self-destruction.

After the injury it was one thing after another. My back. My shoulder. My leg. My health. My social life. I took eight months off training and the motivation drained out of me. I gained weight. I tried to climb back the same way I got there the first time — pure self-discipline — but now it would last a couple of months and then disappear for months. For seven years, the self-motivation that once came so easily failed me over and over.

So much of who I was had been built on being healthy, fit, and strong. When that got stripped away, every other part of my life went with it.

And here is the part that still hurts the most. I did not just lose the goals. I lost the years. I told myself I could not go out, could not enjoy anything, because I had not earned it yet. So I waited. Year after year. The memories I should have made in that time never got made, and I do not get them back.

In grade 11 and 12 I started nicotine. Vaping first — I quit because I could not breathe. Then pouches. Eight months in, I had a chest palpitation that sent me to the hospital. I stopped immediately and cleaned up my lifestyle, but not all the way. The nicotine had fried me. For two and a half years after that hospital visit I lived with chest pain and internal vibrations, and there were stretches where I genuinely thought I was dying every day.

I am building ENKRA to help as many people as I can achieve their goals, get past addiction, and become the version of themselves that feels the way I felt all those years ago. It is also redemption for me — for the seven years I let slip, and for all the moments I was too stuck to let myself have.

I know what it feels like to be on top of your game, actively chasing what you want. It is the most freeing feeling in the world. It feels like the whole world is yours for the taking. If this app works, those seven years will not have been wasted.

The idea came from watching my friends and myself. All of us were all talk, no action. Wanting it, planning it, saying we were going to do it — and never moving.

There was only one thing that ever actually got any of us to change. A bet. Or someone challenging us so hard we finally had to do something about it.

That is what ENKRA is.

ENKRA comes from the Greek word Enkrateia — the power to command yourself.