In April of 1990, our Founder’s mom was traveling with her singing group when their plane crashed in the mountains of Colorado. Shortly after her death, he had an inspirational dream that included talking with her on that mountainside. He felt like he would know that place if he saw it, and had always wanted to go there. Fast-forward 27 years later, Travis was in a professional rut.

One day, a mentor gave him a nudge, “Why haven’t you visited that mountainside yet? What better time to go and get inspiration?”. He committed Travis to call his sisters and plan the trip. The day before they were preparing to leave, he remembered some money that had been returned to him from her wallet shortly after her death. He considered it ‘Sacred Money’ and had never planned to spend it. He suddenly had an idea.

He told his sisters about the money and asked: “Why don’t we have mom pay for our dinner? Why don’t we have her pay for our river rafting experience?”. Travis spent that money on a life-changing experience with his sisters – remembering their mom, listening to her favorite songs, and playing her favorite board games. And the entire time Travis was in flow expanding on the concept of sacred money and its connection to the unhappiness epidemic in the world.

The ah-ha for Travis was this question: Could software do for others what my mentor did for me – inspire people to intentionally set aside sacred money towards meaningful goals that would move the needle on their personal happiness? And what if their company could help them?  He then spent 3 years researching the science of happiness, gaining experience, and interviewing business leaders to validate assumptions. He started working on Worklyfe full-time in January 2021.