Tune in this week with Jen as she welcomes guest Kristoffer Doura. Kristoffer shares with us his story of a near death experience that ultimately led him into the path of becoming a financial advisor and giving back through non-profits.
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Getting things done through the power of WE with Kristoffer Doura
Hello, and welcome back to Success to Significance. I’m your host, Jen Du Plessis. Hey, I wanna thank you for listening in today or watching in if you’re watching us on YouTube. If you’re not watching us on YouTube, please don’t forget to go subscribe to our channel Jen Du Plessis. And of course, we have the link down in the show notes here as well.
But thank you for joining us today and listening in to this great episode with Kristoffer Doura. And I wanna think, you know, if you’re listening and you’ve listened a bunch of times, I pretty much mess up everybody’s name, . I pretty much mess up everybody’s name every time after I even ask and everything.
But Kristoffer Doura, it’s funny because Kristoffer and I are friends and I still can’t pronounce his last name, but I won’t ask you to pronounce mine Kristoffer, cause it’ll put you in a bind, . But I wanna welcome you to the show.
Well, thank you so much, Jen. You’re amazing. Uh, I, I felt the energy in Malibu.
We met, uh, almost, I’d say almost a year ago, more or less. Yeah. Getting there. It was just amazing. Just to connect with you. I, I, I realized immediately that you had a presence about you. You had an aura. Um, when I shared a little bit of who I was, you and I connected immediately after, and I said, You know what?
This is something I want in my world, somebody I want to have around. And then I wanna grow with this person as well. So I’m so thrilled today to be on your show. Uh, looking forward to sharing some amazing nuggets about my life, uh, to the audience. So let’s, let’s shoot for it.
Yeah. I love it. I love it.
Yeah. Thank you for those kind words. I really appreciate that. Well, let me take this opportunity to introduce you just very lightly and a little bit so everyone knows who we’re talking to here. Uh, Kristoffer, uh, you know, I, first I wanna say, I wanna say it in this way because we’re gonna take this path in this, in this interview here today, which is that you are a former professional, um, NFL football player, and we’ll talk about that a little bit.
Um, and now you have, uh, transitioned into being an executive financial professional and international speaker, a mentor, um, who values dedication, service, and excellence. And I will tell you that I’ve seen that and I’ve witnessed it even when you don’t even know, I’m looking, I’m watching you when we’re in networking situations, , and, um, but you bring this unique perspective to, um, Perspective that you’ve gained from your multidimensional leadership professional experience to organizations empowering them to unleash untapped potential of their employees, which we’re gonna talk about here a little bit.
You are, uh, well I know as of the recording of this, you are now part of a collaborative book, right? Called WTF OMG. Do I have it backwards?
No, no, no. You nailed it..
WTF OMG. Right. With, with our, our wonderful David Corbin that we all love to death and I’m, I’m so excited for you. I, you know, like I was telling you in the Green Room, I wanted to be in that book, but we just have too many other things going on right now and that just happens.
But you are about ready to, uh, release your first. Book in, uh, November of 2022, called Let’s Get It. And I wanna talk about that book a little bit as well, um, today. So again, welcome. I’m so excited to have you here. Um, so let’s, let’s get started with, I wanna hear your story. I mean, I’ve heard your story several times, but I wanna talk a little bit about your story, um, about where you’re from, uh, you know, and why and how, Um, this whole process, because I.
I see it as, you know, I’m an athlete too, so I see it through, um, being an athlete where, you know, these values of dedication, service, and excellence come through, but that actually isn’t where it happened for you.
Yes. Uh, well, you know, I got a second chance at life. Um, my near death experience, uh, put me in a position to realize my true values.
Um, I’m a God fearing man, and I do believe in prayer every morning when I wake up. That’s my routine, you know, I wake up, I say my thanks, uh, I pray, uh, and then I make my bed. I make a cup of coffee, and then I, you know, get into my group . Right, right.
That’s so funny. I do the same thing. We, I make my side of the bed.
And then the poor husband’s still in it, and it’s, and he makes his side be when he gets up too. It’s funny.
And it’s amazing because, you know, I’m, I’m very much about family values. Um, my, my ethnicity, I’m from Haiti. Um, my. My family’s from the island. Uh, you know, my parents left, had me and my two sisters or siblings in New York.
Uh, it was too cold for us there, so we decided to transition to move to Florida . Um, you know, I’m six foot, 7 85 inch wingspan and in a green stock when you think about it. Right, right. You know, um, I inherited my height from my uncle who was seven feet tall. So by the graces of my uncle and lineage, I had the ability to be athletic.
Yeah. Um, decided, you know, high school football was gonna be kind of the tryout for me. One year, Jen and I got a scholarship at University of Charleston at West Virginia. I, uh, I completed my master’s in business within a five year, uh, space. Um, and then I had two options. Either go to Corporate America or Go Pro.
Yeah, you only get one shot at going to the league, Jen. And I was not giving that up.
And you had your education, so that was great. Yeah.
Correct.
You knew that was your backup.
It was, it was for me, um, Trading Places, that movie with Dan, um, Akroyd and Eddie Murphy, which had really me, um, hooked to finance and that’s why I decided if I go to college and learn business, I’ll be okay.
But if I am able to complete my education through sports, then that’s amazing. So right. I always had it in me to have a fallback plan, but at the same time allowed my athleticism to be the driver. Now, you know, I, I walked on to Miami Dolphins, uh, in the NFL in 2010. It was amazing, a great journey for me.
Um, but, you know, I pushed myself. It was always kind of the underdog that had to kind of overcome, and, and I always loved those stories because we worked the hardest and we pushed the longest. And when you think about it, I had a career that that fell short. When I first came out into the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, um, I had the ability to go to a different team, even in Canada and, uh, play for the Montreal, the West.
Um, with that being said, I got released, but then came back to Pittsburgh and that’s when everything changed through my world. Yeah. Um, Again, I, I, I, I always say it’s a tingle in my spine to relive that emotion. Yeah. Um, it, it happened in a, in a, in an outburst. Um, one thing led to another where I was on the field in training camp in Pittsburgh.
Um, I collapsed into what was going on. I got picked up and placed into an ambulance and rushed over to the U P M C hospital. Now, if anybody knows about the U P M C hospital, it’s one of major general hospitals in the east region. Yeah. We’re talking helicopter pad. Landing every 10 minutes cuz something happened.
Ferociously. Now when, when you think about what happened to me when I got there, well the hospital didn’t want a liability cuz they had a football player roll it in on a stretcher. And then when they realized that I had a blood clot in my leg, and that was the reason why everything kind of, you know, sprung out.
Dehydration, put me in the hospital when they diagnosed me. The blood clot was so bad, there wasn’t enough circulation of blood flow pumping outta my leg to my heart. Wow. The next lines the doctors mentioned to me, Kris, it doesn’t look good. We’re gonna have to cut your leg off and amputate because there’s not a circulation of flow.
Now, I’m 22 years old at this time, Jen, no family support, right? I’m all by myself. I don’t know any of these 16 physicians talking to me and, and I’m in fear. Blood pressure’s through the rouse, and all I can think about was, God, just make sure I get through. Yeah, I prayed and, and we went into the operating room. I heard the decibel, the, the tone of the nurses that were pushing the stretchers, say, Kris, it’s gonna be okay.
I was in fear tingles in my spine when we decided to go into, uh, the operation. Um, it took about 16 hours Wow. And the fasciotomy, and they had to remove the clot as they performed the incisions. Jen, my heart failed and died. A flatline and it, it’s still a little emotional. Mm-hmm. , you know, I got a second chance at life, and I’m so humble because by the grace of God, it wasn’t my time yet.
Yeah. Yeah. I was revived by the two square pegs. They had to shock me back, resuscitate me back to life. Thankfully, I was in shape. And I wasn’t one of those humongous offensive linemen that just didn’t stay in shape, right? I was quick on my feet. So because of me being athletic and always keeping my health first, my health is what saved me.
When I, when I woke up that next morning, the, the first group of humans that I saw were my parents and my siblings and I broke down. Yeah, I couldn’t, I couldn’t bear it Jen in the tears. When you say big men don’t cry. Well, I’ll tell you why. that day when I woke up, I, I just felt like, you know what? Everything had been taken away from me.
I was on the stretcher, I was down, and the leader of the family had to look. Up to my family looking at me in this way that that destroyed me. And I knew at that very moment I said, My values is family, not about the football business, not about the opportunity that it opened up for me. Yes, it was great. I got a scholarship, I got, I got to the pros.
But when I realized so much more ahead of us family for me was what’s important. So I decided that very moment to hang up the cleats. Yeah. And you know, one thing led to another where after three months of being hospitalized, I lost about 65, 70 pounds of mass, 350 pound offense in lineman, and I transitioned to becoming a 280 pound man.
I went from refrigerator to LeBron James, thin . So when you think about that, that was the inkling for me to say, I gotta get out of this hospital. It took eight months to rehab and that’s when I just said, You know what? I’m never going back into football into a relapse. I’m gonna transit. Back to my master’s degree and get into finance.
Yeah. And here I’m.
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Listen to the FULL Episode HERE
Learn more about Kristoffer Doura
BIO:
Kristoffer Doura is an Executive Financial Professional, International Speaker, and Former Professional Football Player who values dedication, service, and excellence. Kristoffer brings unique perspectives gained from his multidimensional leadership professional experience to organizations, empowering them to unleash the untapped potential of their employees. Using real-world examples, Kristoffer sheds light on how each person’s invaluable talent to their organization can positively impact their mission.
Having worked with small and medium-sized businesses, fortune 500 companies, and public figures across the nation, he has developed an impressive portfolio that highlights his expertise in the following areas:
•Wealth Management,
•Insurance Planning,
•Retirement Planning,
•Business Succession Planning,
•Estate Planning,
•Legacy Planning,
•Wealth Transfer,
•Education Planning,
•Asset Protection,
•Advanced Planning,
•Charitable Planned Giving,
•And Premium Finance
The benefits of working with Kristoffer Doura are that you will gain access to Generational Wealth Planning and Wealth Preservation. He aims to serve families, high net worth individuals, qualified investors, corporations, and nonprofit organizations. Contact Kristoffer Doura to gain access to your prosperous future today!
Get in touch with Nick:
Email: kdoura1@gmail.com
INSTAGRAM: @Zoe_the_legend
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