Daily Inspiration: Meet Malcolm Regisford

Today we’d like to introduce you to Malcolm Regisford, holistic wellness enthusiast, former Division 1 athlete and author of the new book, Tapped in Wellness: An Introduction into Performance, Health and Mindful Living through Plant-Based Eating (Holistic Mindfulness Book, Nutritious Plant-Based Recipes).

Hi Malcolm, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
This journey starts with my path in athletics. I played basketball my whole life with aspirations of playing at the highest level, the pros. Everything from about middle school onward was geared towards being as successful as I could in this area which built a strong identification with my work ethic and my identity as an athlete overall. Fast forward some years and I have achieved one of, if not my biggest life goal which was playing Division-1 college basketball and having a significant role on the team. The summer going into my Junior year at Colgate University I injured my ankle and learned I would have to have surgery. This set me back as I was due for a pivotal year in my athletic career so I tried to get back to playing as soon as possible. It turned out I wasn’t healing as planned and was playing well below my full capacity which didn’t help my healing. I ended up reaggravating the injury which sidelined me for the remainder of the year. From there I had to face what my life would look like without basketball which was hard to do and I had to heal physically. The injury changed how I was treated in the program and really rattled me so I started to shift the focus inward and understand myself better as a person to help me heal. Along with that I changed the way I trained and rehabilitated my body and adopted plant based eating as means to accelerate healing. A family friend who was an NBA trainer at the time and plant based himself told me to try it and see how it made me feel. I did it for a few weeks but felt a radical shift in my body, mind and spirit. So what started as an experiment to get back playing snowballed into a full lifestyle change and implementation of practice across three pillars of the Tapped In Wellness lifestyle philosophy (Mental/Spiritual Wellness, Physical Wellness, Nutritional Wellness) and now we are here.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t always been smooth no, from having to overcome the adversity i was facing with healing myself amidst a less than ideal situation in college to actually learning what it meant to adapt and sustain a plant based, holistic wellness lifestyle, to then deciding to step away from basketball after college and reckoning with an identity crisis, it has not always been smooth. These were some challenges but they all informed my greatest good and led me to where I am now where I couldn’t feel more fulfilled. So while it was difficult at the time, I’m grateful for how it all played out.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
While my platform has become a business, it is very much run on creativity and flowing with what I want to put out into the world. I’ve always been a creative person but if you would have told me some years back that this is where i would be, i would have said “no way”. I think it just speaks to the idea that you don’t know what life has in store and if things only went the way we planned, how much different would things be? All that to say, I pride myself on staying connected to my creativity and that is one of the most important aspects of how I think I’ve been able to be successful so far.

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think pursuing any goal is a risk because we really have no idea what life will throw at us or how it will unfold so yes i think i’ve taken a lot of risks in life and put myself in positions to be a bit uncomfortable but we need a bit of that to push us to what we want. One of my biggest risks was giving my online platform my full attention and trying to grow it in the way envisioned. Social media is so sporadic and you never know what will catch on but I believed in what I was putting out and luckily people resonated with it so risks are essential to growth and expansion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tappedinwellness.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tappedinwellness/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tappedinwellness

Image Credits
Talia Diniwiddie (@maryvinestreet)