"Blazing Beginnings: My First Taste of Risk and Consequence"

Man, looking back on those early days, it’s wild to see how much of a free spirit I was from the get-go—and with my brother Kenn right in the thick of it. That whole time was like a crash course in leadership, whether I meant to take it on or not. Here I was, 5 years old, Kenn my little sidekick, pulling him into every escapade I could dream up. Our parents had no idea what they were in for with the two of us on the loose.

One of the clearest, most vivid memories I have from that time—well, it’s kind of funny now, but not so much back then—was when I was five and Kenn was three. It was one of our classic, early-morning jailbreaks. We’d sneak out while the house was quiet, meet up with Glen, the kid from across the street, and dive headfirst into whatever adventure we could cook up. That morning, we managed to get a pack of matches and some newspapers, which, let’s face it, is just a disaster waiting to happen for kids our age. We wandered over to the prison grounds (yes, we actually lived next to a prison), set up our little campfire, and got that stack of newspaper going. Then, in a split-second of brilliant decision-making, I kicked the whole thing under a tree.

The tree lit up like nothing I’d ever seen before—total chaos. The fire just roared up, and suddenly it wasn’t a game anymore. In that instant, all three of us knew we were in big trouble, so we did the only thing we could think of: run. But Glen didn’t get far; he stepped on some glass barefoot, went down crying, and bolted back home. That left Kenn and me hiding across the street, crouched behind a car, watching my dad step out of the house in his underwear, yelling our names like a town crier.

Eventually, we peeked out, and he spotted us. He took one look at us, one look at the burning tree, and I could see the fire department pulling up too. Somehow, he kept us out of trouble with the fire investigators. But oh, he made sure we didn’t get away with it scot-free. I got my first taste of "crime and punishment" that day.

In business, you’d think a story like that would scare me off risk forever, but the opposite happened. That early thrill—feeling the stakes, learning the hard way, knowing I had to make some kind of move—it all stuck.

Part 4

By Kirk Buxton - Founder & CEO Kirk's Probiotic Soda

Tags: #Kirk Buxton #Kirk's Probiotic Soda #CEO #CEO Insights #Recovery #Courage To Comeback