This Is Davis.

Meet Davis, an almost Boise State University alum. Davis will graduate from BSU in May, earning a BBA with an emphasis in supply chain management. When he's not tending to his student responsibilities, you can find Davis tending to customers at Barbacoa where he has worked for the last two years. Although, his position as a server is currently on pause due to COVID-19. When he’s not working or school-ing, Davis spends the majority of his free time in the great outdoors, specifically flyfishing.

Davis was born and raised in Southern California. He grew up in Escondido, a city in San Diego’s North County region. Davis completed all of his adolescent education — elementary, middle, and high school — in Escondido as well. When thinking back to his childhood, Davis remembers one clear dream he had as a kid. He shared,

“I’m named after a professional golfer, Davis Love III. At an early age, I wanted to be a professional golfer, just like him. Growing up, my whole room was golf themed — I had golf wallpaper, a bunch of posters of Davis Love, and just numerous golf decorations all over my room. I played golf early on and started playing competitively at a young age. I feel like every kid wants to be a pro football player or a pro basketball player or just a pro ‘whatever sport they play’ player and I wanted to be a pro golfer. I guess that was my ultimate dream you could say.”

Despite being from California, Davis was no stranger to the Pacific Northwest. I asked him to tell me about his most fond childhood memory. Immediately after I asked the question, his eyes lit up with excitement. He responded right away — “Sunriver.” He continued,

“It’s more like my most fond childhood memories but every summer, going to Sunriver, Oregon with my family. My grandparents had a place up there and I started going when I was just a few months old. We’d go up every summer, anywhere from two weeks to a month, and then occasionally in the winter for ski weeks. In elementary school, we didn’t start school until September and my birthday is in August so we were always up there celebrating. But that place — that’s what gave me my love for being in the mountains and enjoying the great outdoors. If you’ve ever been there, it’s just so awesome. There’s everything to do and it’s super safe, especially coming from Escondido where there are some pretty sketchy parts of town. In Sunriver, I could ride my bike all over and I didn’t have to tell my parents where I was going. There was a river where you could fish and kayak and it was just a completely different scene than Southern California. It was like Disneyland for me.”

In August of 2016, two weeks before the start of college, Davis traded the sun for snow as he made the move to good ol’ Idaho. Unlike most college students who say goodbye to their parents before heading to school, Davis’s family was actually waiting for him in Boise. Prior to Davis starting college, his parents had decided they wanted to relocate — they were tired of living the fast-paced, high-priced California lifestyle. After looking at different spots across the country, his parents were mostly interested in three areas: Colorado, Phoenix, and Boise. So what made them choose Idaho? Davis explained,

“My mom’s sister and her family live up here so we had visited the area before. My dad went to Arizona State University and remembered how brutally hot the summers were — he didn’t want to deal with that again. My dad grew up in Denver and was interested in moving back, but the city has changed so much since he was there — it’s a huge compared to what it used to be. Boise was ranked as a great, and pretty inexpensive, place to live. It also has an outdoor aspect to it while still offering a little city life and my parents liked that.”

In August of 2015, at the start of his senior year, Davis’s parents had finalized their decision — they would be moving to Boise in June. With the move being set in stone, they encouraged Davis to look into Boise State as an option for college. In October, Davis toured the campus, was pleased with what Boise had to offer, and applied to the university. He received his acceptance letter and that was that. At that point in time, the whole college thing didn’t excite Davis too much. He laughed when sharing with me,

“I kind of lacked goals and dreams in highschool. I thought, ‘well, I guess I want to go to college and get a degree’ but I was really lacking motivation in the academic department. Thankfully, I found myself and that motivation a little bit more in college.”

Davis went on to explain how school was a really big struggle for him growing up. He shared,

“I was never super interested in school. I know a lot of kids feel the same way growing up but I also have attention deficit disorder (ADD) so it was ten times worse for me. I really lacked the ability to stay focused and I didn’t have an interest in school. It’s not that I’m a terrible student — and I’ve gotten a lot better as I’ve gotten older — but I definitely struggled with it growing up. Every summer, my parents would get me a tutor so I was always doing at-home summer school. My friends never had one and I was always confused about why I had to do it but it was just because my teachers insisted that I stayed ahead of the learning curve there.”

It’s clear that today, things are different. As I mentioned earlier, Davis will be celebrating his college graduation — a huge accomplishment and milestone — in just a few short weeks. Given the amount of academic dedication and discipline that college demands, it’s quite evident that Davis’s interest in school shifted at some point. I asked him to tell me about how he overcame this struggle in life. In other words, how did he transition from having no interest in school to becoming a soon-to-be college grad? He explained,

“Well, when I was first diagnosed with ADD my doctor suggested putting me on medication and that helped me a ton but I also knew that I wasn’t really stoked on the idea of having to rely on medicine. I knew that I didn’t need to take a medication to be able to focus and I didn’t enjoy the side effects and the way it made me feel sometimes. As I got older, I formed more of an opinion about it and looked towards finding natural ways to help myself stay focused. If I’m not focused then I don’t get my work done and if I don’t get my work done then I’m stressed so I wanted to figure out other ways to prevent myself from going down that spiral. I’ve found working out to be a great way for me to clear my mind and relieve any stress or anxiety I have. I’ve also made sticking to an organized, daily routine a priority and that helps me stay focused and prevents me from falling into distractions.”

Clearly this routine has worked for him. I was eager to hear more about how Davis structures his life to stay on track. I asked him to tell me about his typical day. He answered,

“My typical day, or at least what I’d like to say is typical or ideal, would be to wake up, drink some coffee, make some breakfast, and go over my school schedule to see what I have due for the day. From there, I either work on homework or I’ll go workout. If I work later on that day, I make it a priority to go to the gym before my shift. After I workout, I’ll come home, make some lunch, and either do homework or just hang out before work. If I work, I usually get off by 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., so definitely a little late. If I don’t work, then I’ll spend the rest of the day getting caught up on homework and hanging out with my roommates or my girlfriend. That’s a typical weekday for me.”

After hearing about the routine he has dialed in, I asked Davis to reflect on who he is today and how he’s changed as a person over the years. Davis concluded that there are a few aspects of his personality that haven’t changed. He shared,

“I’ve always been a pretty straightforward and open person. I’m friendly and honest about who I am. I try to find humor in things, whether it’s trying to relate to someone or getting through a difficult situation in life. I think humor is a great outlet, especially when you’re getting to know someone — sometimes it’s easy to connect with someone if you can just make them laugh.”

As for how he’s changed?

“Obviously I’m more mature, that just comes with age. I’m definitely more driven. I understand my responsibilities and what I need to do to better myself in life. Again, I think that just comes with maturity and age. And I still love to fish — that has not changed and will never change.”

As we neared the end of our interview, I warned Davis of the last few questions I would ask — the questions that would really make him sit back and think. As always, I started with, “What things are most important to you now? Why?” Davis replied,

“Family, definitely — and when I say family, I mean friends and significant others too, that all ties into family for me. Also, just who you surround yourself with. I’ve gone through ups and downs in life and I think a lot of that has to do with who I was around at the time. If you’re around good people, you’ll feel motivated to make smarter decisions and just be a better person so choosing who I surround myself with is really important to me. Freedom is also important and I think that can be related to having good health and being able to do what I want in life. Whether it’s going out and fishing, snowboarding, hiking, or camping, just having the freedom and ability to do what I want is something that’s so important and I will never take for granted. I think freedom can also tie into work. Right now I work as a server and it’s a good gig but I don’t plan on doing that forever. In the future, when I land a job and start my post-college career, I would love to have a work/life balance that allows me to be free to take trips and live life.”

Next, I asked Davis to explain to me his “why” — the things that get him out of bed in the morning and give him a sense of purpose. He answered,

“I think it’s the unknown of the future. What happens to you in life, there’s definitely situations and circumstances that you can’t control, but I think there’s a great majority of it that you can. For every struggle I’ve faced, the payout or ability to overcome it has been so rewarding to me and that’s a lesson that I can apply to my future. I’m excited about life and living it to the fullest and finding out what the future holds.”

Lastly, I asked Davis to tell me about where he sees himself in ten years — to tell me about the 31-year-old Davis and what he’s been up to. He didn’t have to think before responding, “I hope that I’ve caught double the amount of fish that I’ve caught up to this day in life.” If you can’t tell by now, he’s an avid fisherman. After a little more thought, he added,

“I hope that I have a job that has a great work/life balance. I don’t need to be rich but I hope that I’ll have enough money to not have to worry about money in a sense. I hope that I can stay with the girl I’m dating right now and potentially raise a family with her. The two of us are so good together — I really love her and we’re very compatible. So yeah, I want to have a family, I want to have a job, and I want to be adventuring. I want to be exploring new places.”

Walking away from the interview, I realized a few things. First, this guy was born to walk the world with a fishing pole in his hands. But really…every question I asked received a response that somehow linked back to fishing. It’s safe to say that Davis has found his passion. Secondly, it’s easy to make excuses in life. In other words, it’s easy to say, “well this is how I am so this is how it’s going to be.” But what happens when you don’t let excuses rule your world? Well, just ask Davis. He went from being an easily distracted kid with no interest in school to a college-educated, young business professional with hands-on internship experience to show for it (btw…he spent his last semester doing a data analytics internship for a local nonprofit, Jesse Tree, which helps prevent homelessness and evictions in the Treasure Valley). Lastly, I really just felt inspired by the energy Davis carried with him. He had such an optimistic, go-with-the-flow attitude that was balanced out by his determination and hungry-for-success mindset. The main takeaway of our conversation, for me anyway, was that you really can do whatever it is you put your mind to. Might sound cliché but it’s true. Life can only control what you give it the power to.