United States

I grew up in San Diego, California, where my life revolved around tennis, school, and spending time with friends. Then, during my early teens, everything began to change as obsessive-compulsive disorder slowly took over my life. OCD wrecked my grades in school and tore apart my friendships one by one. By the time I was sixteen, it felt like my mind had become a prison.

By the end of high school, I didn’t feel mentally or emotionally ready to start college. I decided to take a gap year, and luckily found a job writing for a tennis magazine, which gave me the opportunity to cover professional tournaments around the world. While I still struggled with OCD every day, that year introduced me to solo travel and gave me my first glimpse of a life that wasn’t completely controlled by my anxiety disorder.

After my gap year, I enrolled at the University of Miami. Like many college students, I needed a way to support myself and, somewhat unexpectedly, found a job promoting nightclubs. What started as a part-time job eventually grew into my own nightlife marketing company. Then COVID hit. I became isolated and constantly on edge, and my OCD began to worsen significantly. One night during the pandemic, while lying in bed scrolling online, I stumbled across a fact that stunned me: more people had traveled to space than had visited every country in the world. In that moment, an idea took hold that changed the course of my life.

From that moment on, I set out on a mission to visit every country in the world. Over the next several years, the journey challenged me in ways I never could have imagined. From crossing the mountains into Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to ending up extremely ill in a hospital bed in rural Algeria, I was pushed further outside my comfort zone than I ever thought possible. Because of those experiences, I learned to manage my OCD in ways I never imagined I could.

On April 3rd, 2025, I completed my journey with North Korea as my 195th and final country. Now, I share the stories and lessons from that journey. As a speaker, I have the honor of helping others challenge the limits they place on themselves so they too can discover what they’re truly capable of.