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My Mission
Every day, millions of people face mental health struggles, yet too many don’t receive care that addresses the root of their pain.
That’s why we’re building a new way to receive support—a tool that enables anyone to have access to individualized care, practitioners deliver in-the-moment support for their clients, and practitioners get rewarded for behavioral support—not just sessions.
Most of the healthcare system today looks at behavioral patterns and immediately focuses on prescriptions and talk therapy, we are laser-focused on science-based behavioral interventions.
Because real healing doesn’t just happen in therapy sessions—it happens in everyday moments.
As the founder of Journey Nudge, I want to share why this mission is deeply personal to me, and how my own experiences shaped the problems we’re solving today.
Growing Up in a First-Generation American Household
I grew up in a household where emotional pain was ever-present. My parents, Italian immigrants, worked tirelessly to build a new life in America.
But mental health wasn’t something we talked about at home. If my sister or I struggled, the response was usually, “It could be worse,” or “Just push through.”
Well-meaning, but ultimately, it felt like something was wrong with us for feeling the way we did. This was the mindset I grew up with—one that many first-generation American kids can relate to.
Soccer: My Escape
For years, soccer was my escape. I’d played since I was young, with dreams of going pro. It gave me control, an outlet where I felt like I could shape my own path. But when I got injured, those dreams fell apart.
I spiraled into depression, as many athletes do when their bodies give out. My uncle stepped in at my lowest point and helped me focus on my health, reminding me to take it one step at a time. With his help, I started rebuilding—physically and mentally.
Piece by piece, I regained my confidence. But just as I found my footing, life took another turn.
The Turning Point
In 2008, during the financial crisis, my uncle lost his job. Depression set in, followed by a car accident that led to a painkiller addiction.
A year later, he took his own life.
The person who saved me from my own darkness fell into his own.
That moment changed everything for me. I realized just how broken our mental health system is—it treats symptoms but rarely addresses root causes.
This became my mission: to fix it.
Finding Help
In the aftermath of my uncle’s death, my mental health suffered. I tried finding help for myself and my sister, who had developed severe OCD.
But we quickly learned how difficult it was to find a therapist who resonated with us. Even when we did, there was no clear guidance on how to apply what we learned in therapy outside the session.
Therapy seemed confined to that 60-minute window, with no reinforcement in the moments that really mattered—when we were alone with our thoughts and habits.
I kept wondering:
“What do we do when life gets tough again? When the old patterns resurface, and the therapist isn’t there to guide us?”
Building Journey Nudge
That’s why I built Journey Nudge. It began out of a personal need.
After a therapy session, I noticed inertia set in and made it hard for me to change habits. The day unfolded as it usually did, and soon enough, it feels like an uphill battle just to remember the insights, let alone act on them.
You know the feeling—you want to do something when you feel motivated, life goes back to its usual rhythm, the same old thought patterns and behaviors seep in, and continuing the work starts to feel out of reach.
That’s when I realized I needed more than just the therapy sessions themselves. I needed something to guide me throughout the day, something that would keep those insights alive and actionable.
It felt like I wanted my therapist with me at all times, to step in during crucial moments and ask, “Did you catch that? What should we do here?”
I needed reminders to help me take those valuable lessons and have them top of mind to eventually apply them in real-time, in the messy context of everyday life.
So, I built a simple platform to do a very basic version of that: reminders from my reflections sent via text.
It quickly became clear how powerful those small nudges could be in turning awareness into action, and all it took was a simple reminder.
But when I introduced this to my practice as a personal trainer in 2016, I saw the impact these small, well-timed nudges had on my clients for nutrition, exercise, and sleep.
They stayed on track in ways they hadn’t before. A gentle reminder saying it’s okay to go over your macros sometimes, made the nights where 1 cookie would turn into a whole sleeve much less frequent.
I later used the platform to send faith-based nudges to my sister because that’s what she was into and one comment she made was “somedays the nudges are what give me hope.” I’ll never forget that.
That’s the moment I knew there was a lot of people out there struggling that could use this type of support.
Now, Journey Nudge serves thousands of people—leaders, students, athletes—helping them become the best versions of themselves, one small nudge at a time.
Legacy
I’ve seen firsthand the devastation caused when mental health care fails. My family’s struggles, my journey through injury and depression—it all drives me to build something better.
Today, my (1) love for coaching, (2) experience with business building, (3) commitment to mental health and making changes to how we use technology have brought me to Journey Nudge.
This is me sharing my story, because I know I’m not alone.
Journey Nudge is for people like my uncle, my sister, and the millions who feel stuck in patterns they can’t break.
If this story resonates with you, please reach out and let’s see what we can build together.
With Love,
Lorenzo