We recently connected with Joe Adams and have shared our conversation below.

Joe, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I grew up in an amazing household with both of my parents and my younger sister. Growing up, I was always pushed and expected to do well in both school and athletics. That being said, I did well in athletics but always got by with doing the minimum in school.

After high school, I went on to college with dreams of making it onto the football team at Gardner-Webb University. Several weeks after starting school, I went the opposite direction and ended up getting hooked on pills. I went from being a life long athlete to being an overweight, lazy, addict. It was at the point that I was snorting pills on a daily basis and would quite literally gather up whatever change I could in order to feed that habit. I would even do a little work for my dealer in exchange to get what I needed.

After a year in school one day I had an awakening. I will never forget staring at myself in the mirror fueled with hatred of the person that I saw in front of me. That day, I made the decision to change my life because I loved myself so much that I could no longer bear being the person that I had become. From there, I made the decision to go with my best friend at the time to an Air Force recruiter. I started signing paperwork immediately and the next journey of my life began.

I spent six years in the Air Force as an F-22 weapons mechanic/loader. Throughout this time I built discipline and started to fall in love with fitness. When I got deployed in 2012, I really started to hone in on fitness and nutrition on an entirely different level and continued on to compete in a bodybuilding show about a year after coming back to the states. While I have no desire to compete again. I competed at this time solely to show myself what I was capable of as an individual. From then on, fitness always held a special place in my heart.

After the military, I had quite the wild ride. From starting school again, traveling the world, motorcycle clubs and so on. It was a lot of crazy experience that I have embraced as part of the journey. I started to really work hard in school working towards my exercise science degree at Middle Tennessee State University. At the time, I was also working as a full time personal trainer. I was on track towards success and was in a really good place for the most part.

On October 18th, 2018 my life changed forever. I left class that day and hopped on my Harley to take a joy ride around town and enjoy the beautiful weather. I was riding through a residential area and was coming up on an intersection with a traffic light. Once I had entered the intersection I looked over to my left and saw a car coming at me from about thirty feet away. My brain immediately shut off. My motorcycle and the car had made impact on the front passenger side, by bike swung around into the left side crushing my left leg, throwing me into the windshield and then launching me exactly 90 feet through the air landing me in a field.

I woke up, completely in shock. I rose my head and saw my left femur sticking out of my thigh. Chaos was happening around me, I remember it so clearly. Long story short, a life flight had been called for me. As they loaded me on the stretcher I remember asking the paramedics if I was going to die which the responded with “we are going to try and keep that from happening.” What seemed like moments later, I woke up after emergency surgeries with doctors in shock that I had somehow survived. I had acquired several injuries which include a traumatic brain injury, an aortic aneurysm which had been bleeding into my right side collapsed lung, six lacerated organs, three broken ribs, three hip fractures, a broken femur, broken tibial plateau, broken right patella, broken right tibia, broken left fibula, two crushed ankles, two broken feet, many broken toes and a loss of at least half of my blood.

Given the damage, I immediately was grateful for life, everyone around me and the journey ahead. I knew then that this was meant to be and it honestly lit a fire in me that has become inextinguishable. I shared the journey of my recovery which had beaten all odds and was blessed with the platform to inspire so many people. This was my relentless pursuit. I charged forward with ferocity. Physically I have pushed myself to become more capable than ever. Im climbing mountains, underground bareknuckle fighting, lifting almost daily and so on. No plans to ever be slowed down.

The following year, I crutched my way back into the classroom and shortly after realized exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to build a brand based on this experience and mindset. The plan was to use this story to inspire and help others to acquire this mindset and utilize it in their lives. I started to work on the name, process and logo and by the beginning of 2020 I launched Relentless Pursuit.

Joe, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Our mission with Relentless Pursuit is to push those that represent the brand towards greatness in all that they do. By representing this movement, individuals make an oath to never settle. Setting one goal, achieving it, then another in an ongoing cycle throughout their lives. Becoming relentless towards each and every pursuit. Together, creating a community with this mindset to help ourselves and those around us to surpass all else and achieve only greatness.

When I was creating the logo, I wanted it to have a powerful meaning. I appreciate ancestry and ancient symbolism. One of the oldest symbols is known as Ouroboros. This symbol depicts a serpent encircled, biting or swallowing its tail.One of the main meanings of it is that it represents something infinite, endless, whole. I also wanted to tie a wolf into the logo for many reasons but mainly because wolves are a great representation of alway being in pursuit of prey. Thus, the wolf ouroboros was created which represents an infinite/endless pursuit.

When this started, it was just an apparel company that meant something. I ran the business out of a guest bedroom where I kept all of my inventory and would often set up at expos/events. The rest of the business was promoted through several social media platforms.

At the beginning of 2022 I was going through some heavy life changes and while the brand was still doing its thing, I felt as if the wheels where just spinning in the mud. I needed to take things to another level, I needed to be ALL in. That being said, I moved forward with attaining a facility and building a headquarters. I moved the business into RPHQ in June right by my home in Murfreesboro, TN. Since then, the business has expanded into so much more than apparel and creativity is flowing like never before.

Under this roof at RPHQ, we now have the apparel/inventory warehouse. I host an amazing podcast called “The Relentless Pursuit Podcast” in the studio here with my co-host and producer Logan Hyder of Cinema83. We have an office with two full time massage therapists. Additionally, by February 2023 we will have a build-out completed for a recovery room with an ice bath, bio chamber, leg compression equipment and more. My dream with the HQ is to expand the size of it, keep what we offer but also offer more under one roof.

I think one thing that sets RP apart from others is that it is starting to offer more and more under one entity. Apparel, podcast, personal training, recovery and soon more.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Authenticity. I believe that a superpower of this brand is being authentic and keeping it real, always. Eliminating what others think of you and using rawness to move forward and drive the passion. I love to connect with our followers, share the story of how this started along with all of the other happenings in life. I want those that are a part of this to feel like they can connect with the brand on a personal level and understand that given whatever circumstances in life that they can achieve great things. Again, authenticity is a key aspect of this. Life is crazy and there are some many brands out there, but given all of the chaos people on a grand scale are searching for something that they can truly connect with.

Another thing that has been effective is passion. I absolutely love everything about Relentless Pursuit and that shows. Naturally, people are drawn to things that are fueled by passion.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Having expectations of others. I hold myself to a high standard and have huge expectations. Unfortunately, I have had to learn to no have the same expectations/standards for others. You think that if you do this and that for individuals that they will do the same for you. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I have worked with associates and different people to try and build a loyal relationship with equal value on both ends ultimately ending up disappointed in the end and losing more than given, including what were beautiful relationships. That being said, I cannot allow this to effect my relationships in life and business. This forces me to become more wary and not allow myself to get disappointed when expectations of others are not met. Fact is, this is something I am still unlearning but we keep moving forward regardless and cannot allow these mishaps to disrupt our peace or derail our goals. More often then not, there are still so many out there worth investing in and growing with.

Contact Info:

• Website: relentlesspursuitlifestyle.com
• Instagram: @relentless_pursuit @relentless_hq @tn_sweetpea_
• Facebook: Relentless Pursuit
• Youtube: The Relentless Pursuit Podcast
• Other: The Relentless Pursuit Podcast also on spotify, google and apple. Also, our tiktok at relentlesspursuit_

Image Credits
@leahellisphotography @karlynstanleyphotography