From the time he was 8 years old until his early twenties, Christopher Bustamante's life had one organizing goal: get paid to play football. Not a hobby, not a phase — the thing he built every day around. Asked about the biggest loss he's taken chasing a dream, his answer isn't about a tryout that fell through or a contract that never materialized.
What he was chasing while it mattered most
While Christopher was fully consumed by getting to the next level, his mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. There was a procedure available in Mexico that offered a real chance at treating it — but it required about $100,000, money he didn't have. He was broke at the time, still entirely focused on a football career that hadn't paid off yet.
She passed away before he'd even started down the entrepreneurial path that would eventually become CB3 Media.
What he'd change, if he could
Asked directly what the biggest loss was, Christopher doesn't point to football at all. He points to time — the years spent singularly focused on a dream that hadn't arrived yet, instead of the mother who wouldn't be there for whatever came next. It's a distinction worth sitting with: not regret over the pursuit itself, but over what it quietly cost him while he was inside it.
Where that drive went
What Christopher took from that period wasn't bitterness — it was a recalibration. He describes realizing that the same discipline, energy, and time he'd put into football, if redirected into business, made success feel inevitable rather than hoped-for.
That redirected drive is the same one behind CB3 Media's climb — the cold DMs, the free first client, the Shark Tank roster covered elsewhere on Gateway Growth. It didn't start as a business plan. It started as grief that needed somewhere real to go.
Watch the full reel, and read more of Christopher's story.