DINNER PARTY

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when ceo of at&t business anne chow moved to DFW in 2015, she needed an emotional outlet. “I had all of the life stressors happening all at once—a geographic move, new job, new house,” she says. “And I was also rolling up to a milestone birthday.” Chow had hoped when she reached that birthday, she’d be fit and healthy. “It was the exact opposite,” she says. So, she went searching for a means of re-grounding herself, discovering it at the grand opening of a Title Boxing Club near her home. She could only do few of the boxing moves demonstrated in that first class, but she still signed up for a year-long membership on the spot. “It was just a realization that I needed to do something for myself,” she says.

LEFTOVERS

The one-liner from the 1999 movie Life inspired the name for Garcia’s business. “You gonna eat your cornbread?”

Chow quickly became hooked on the novelty and intensity of the sport. “What I do love about it is that it requires incredible focus physically, mentally, and emotionally, and it serves like a complete release,” she says. It has also helped her build a community. “I’ve met some of my closest friends in Dallas [through the sport],” she says. “I call them my ‘boxing besties.’” She has attended professional boxing matches and UFC fights with this group, and once even had dinner with Muhammed Ali’s daughter, Leila. “These are things that never in a million years would I have thought would be part of my recreation that I would still enjoy,” she says. At the beginning, Chow embraced the sport perhaps too enthusiastically, training daily. “There was a point back then that I was going every day, which is probably not great because I tore my rotator cuff,” she recalls. The possible culprit? Her favorite move, the right hook. “I feel like it’s my best, most-powerful punch,” Chow says. The surgery and recovery were brutal, knocking training out of her regimen. “The reason why I was crying so badly was because I realized that I would not be able to do boxing for a while,” she adds. Now, after making a full recovery, Chow says boxing helps keep her leadership skills at their best. “I find that when you are feeling good physically, and when you are feeling grounded physically, that is the foundation for bringing your best self to work,” she says. Chow works with her personal trainer and takes class-

BOUNCING BACK es a few times weekly, but she Anne Chow is getting back to boxing after hopes to up her cadence. “I’d a rotator cuff ear love to get more dedicated time temporarily knocked her out of the ring. and work on my technique even more,” she says.

GREATER GOOD

Cornbread Hustle and Cheri Garcia help ex-inmates fid second chances.

Cornbread Hustle is fundamentally like any other staffing age y, but it’s unique in that it provides second chances for the formerly incarcerated. Founder Cheri Garcia understands the need for redemption after she kicked a high school methamphetamine habit through entrepreneurship, “a career that offered me the same highs and lows of meth,” she says. She shifted her focus to volunteer in prisons teaching an entrepreneurship program. Cornbread Hustle’s mission is to walk alongside the ex-inmates to provide employment guidance, and its resources are shared with prisons across America. In 2021, 1,200 clients have found jobs amid a pandemic. “People who have lived with nothing are the ones that give the most, and those are my people.” — Catherine Rosas