James Park keeps a sticky note on his monitor at Apex Athletics' Austin headquarters. It reads: "You already survived the worst day." He put it there in October 2021, two weeks after his bank account hit $4,100 — the lowest it had been since college, the lowest it would ever be again.
"I remember staring at that number," he says, swiveling in a beat-up office chair between two whiteboards dense with membership projections. "And thinking: this is fine. I've already decided. There is no other version of this story."