When faced with adversity in a venture, do you seek an easy way out or embrace a challenge? How can mentors help push you to overcome adversity? How can faith be a resource in the startup journey?

These were the questions at the heart of “Choosing Hard: Tales of Faith, Grit, and Alumni Collaboration from ND Entrepreneurs,” a panel discussion at the IDEA Center on February 20, 2025, organized by Sheedy student Brian George ‘25 and his Routora startup partner Luke Blazek ‘25.

“Luke and I have been incredibly fortunate to learn from many mentors at Notre Dame as we turned our idea into a business,” George said. “We wanted to create an outlet where others could learn from the experiences of entrepreneurs at different stages.”

George sensed that conversations about faith and entrepreneurship were rare. He wanted to create an event where founders could share how faith serves as an anchor in their work, helping them stay grounded in times of adversity.

The Choosing Hard event brought together students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and other guests to explore what it means to choose hard – a mantra popularized by Notre Dame head football coach Marcus Freeman.

Although most people link the mantra “choose hard” with Notre Dame football, for George and Blazek, another association came to mind.

In October 2024, Blazek had heard Notre Dame football chaplain Father Nate Wills give a homily on the theme, using it as a call to embrace faith, commitment, and meaningful challenges in daily life. George and Blazek saw an opportunity to apply Wills’ perspective to entrepreneurship.

George and Blazek have experience in that space. They are the co-founders of Routora, a fleet management software that optimizes multi-stop routes to reduce fuel costs, drive time, and carbon emissions for businesses. George is a finance major with a science, technology, and values minor and Blazek is a political science major with minors in economics and innovation and entrepreneurship.

They were joined on the panel by Alessandro DiSanto, who co-founded the Hallow app; Tracy Graham, who established Graham Allen Partners; and Chris Murphy, who serves as chairman and CEO of First Source Bank.

George and Blazek designed the panel to encourage vulnerability. They invited the founders to open up about the real struggles they faced, the moments of doubt they endured, and the role faith played in helping them stay grounded.

When Adversity Becomes Advantage

As George and Blazek framed the focus of the panel, they drew from personal experiences.

In 2022, Blazek was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that forced him to take a year-long medical leave from school. Still, his and George’s partnership endured. Amid Blazek’s medical appointments and living a thousand miles apart, they continued building Routora.

“During the darkest periods of my life,” Luke shared, “Brian believed in me.”

George felt the same support from his co-founder. He, too, knew what it meant to overcome challenges. George had arrived in the United States as an immigrant in 2007 with no knowledge of the English language. For the first several years after arriving, he struggled to form basic sentences, and had undergone years of speech therapy and ESL instruction.

“Those early struggles ingrained lessons about persistence and repetition, shaping how I now approach both business and relationships,” George said.

Their resilience and faith in one other paid off. Today, Routora serves tens of thousands of users and has partnered with the City of New York.

“Turn adversity into advantage, uncertainty into opportunity, rejection into resolve,” Blazek said.

Lessons in Leadership

George and Blazek were joined by preeminent leaders in fields as diverse as faith-driven entrepreneurship, business leadership, and banking. Each shared their journey of overcoming obstacles and finding purpose in their work.

Alessandro DiSanto, co-founder of the Hallow app, left a successful finance career to create the number one Catholic prayer app. He emphasized the importance of balancing passion and hard work.

“Each of those in isolation without the other can lead to big problems," he said.

DiSanto spoke about the Lord’s Prayer and the significance of the phrase “Give us this day our daily bread.” He noted that the repetition – “day” and “daily” – is not redundant. It serves as a reminder to focus on the present rather than becoming overwhelmed by the unknown.

Tracy Graham is a serial entrepreneur and now runs his own private equity firm, Graham Allen Partners, based in South Bend.

Graham grew up on Chicago’s South Side. The son of a single mother who never finished grade school and a father he never met, Graham’s life changed when he received a Notre Dame football scholarship. Then, when injuries ended his NFL dreams, it changed again. He had to find a new path.

“I never knew about business. All I knew was that I wanted to go pro,” he said.

For Graham, that second new start began when fellow panelist Chris Murphy took a chance on him and gave him an $80,000 loan. That was 28 years ago.

He credited the Notre Dame network for opening doors and shaping his career.

“The power of Notre Dame and the people of Notre Dame was strong enough to propel me to be anything I wanted,” he reflected. He also emphasized how the discipline he learned from football translated directly to business.

“You need to get reps, stay late, depend on teammates, and be committed to a mission.”

Chris Murphy, Chairman and CEO of First Source Bank, shared insights on leadership and service. Although he initially planned to follow his family’s medical legacy, he eventually found his true calling in commercial banking.

In 1971, he joined his father-in-law to purchase what would become First Source Bank. Between then and now, he grew the company from a $7 million investment to over $2 billion in equity without taking on debt.

Murphy encouraged attendees to focus on significance rather than success.

“Most success is measured by the things you have—the house, the car, the toys. But when you die, all those are gone. What you want is significance. The way you get significance is through the people you touch, the lives you affect, and the goodness you've done that is left behind when you're gone.”

A Call to Action

For George, the primary goal of the Choosing Hard event was to give audience members a renewed sense of purpose. Founding a startup isn’t easy. But, as Father Nate Wills, Marcus Freeman, and the evening’s panelists all urged, there can be merit in “choosing hard.”

George recognized how his time at Notre Dame and in the Sheedy Family Program had helped him cultivate these values.

George said, “Organizing this panel and hearing from the other speakers reminded me of my own goals or values: thinking critically, serving boldly, and embracing discomfort to grow.”

Originally published by Chris Hedlin at sheedyprogram.nd.edu on March 21, 2025.