On the west coast of Florida, in the small community of Hudson, there’s a business with a name that sounds more like a mantra than a company: The Grit Game. At its helm is Laci Davis — co-founder, president, mentor, and, perhaps most notably, a believer in the magic of what-ifs.
“I’d hand every pool pro a magic mirror,” she says, “one that shows them what’s possible if they’d just stop getting in their own way.”
That blend of optimism and grit is what earned Laci recognition as one of the Talking Pools Podcast’s Top 10 Mentors of 2025 — an honor she never set out to win, but one she embodies daily through the lives she’s impacted.
Listen to Interview with Laci Davis here 👇
Glitter, Theater, and a Little Disney Magic
Long before she was strategizing industry partnerships, Davis was an artist. As a fine arts major, her world was color, texture, and yes — glitter. “The herpes of craft projects,” she laughs. “It sticks with you forever.”
She studied theater too, where she learned that every moment is a performance, whether you’re standing on a stage or presenting an idea in a boardroom. That lesson carried her to Walt Disney World, where she joined as an intern after already building a career in photography and public speaking.
It was there, inside the “Most Magical Place on Earth,” that she learned a harsher truth: not everyone wants you to succeed. Some colleagues dismissed her; others lifted her up. Both experiences became part of her playbook.
When the Grit Gets Tested
Her path hasn’t been without setbacks. Early on, when she co-founded not one but two companies in under 20 months, the pressure nearly broke her. “There were days I wondered if I’d made the biggest mistake of my life,” she admits. “I’d be staring at my laptop at 2 a.m., asking myself, Am I cut out for this?”
But those nights gave way to mornings where she chose to push forward — fueled not by certainty, but by belief in the people around her. That choice, over and over again, is what transformed doubt into a driving force.
Building The Grit Game
Today, The Grit Game is more than a rep firm or a marketing agency. Under Davis’s leadership, it has become a hub for mentorship and creativity. Her team doesn’t chase every shiny product. Instead, they champion innovation with purpose, matching pool pros with solutions that actually make their lives better.
She calls it “problem-solving over pressure.” In her eyes, the old brass-knuckle sales playbook is dead. What works now? Empathy. Listening. Integrity.
And she doesn’t just preach it — she lives it. By mid-2025, she had set out to hire four to six new employees. Instead, she welcomed thirteen. To Davis, they weren’t just hires. They were proof that kindness and vision could scale.
The Culture of Wins
Inside The Grit Game, wins — big and small — aren’t quiet. They’re celebrated. Slack channels explode with emojis when a rookie lands their first deal. Public shout-outs remind the team that they’re rowing the boat together.
“I know what it’s like to feel overlooked,” Davis says. “So when someone shines, I want the whole room to see it.”
Looking Ahead
Her dream is simple and impossibly big: a more connected, more human pool industry. She calls her team “road warriors” — not hunters, but guides helping pros see the possibilities waiting for them.
And if she could hand them all a gift? That same magic mirror. She imagines placing it in their hands, watching their eyes widen as the reflection shifts — not just showing who they are, but everything they could become.
It’s the same reflection that’s carried her from glitter and stage lights to grit and mentorship. And in that reflection, one thing is clear: Laci Davis isn’t just changing an industry. She’s changing the way people see themselves.
