Joe M. González is a disabled Navy veteran, founder of Mother Ocean Fund and Aquatic Tribe—two interconnected organizations turning ocean conservation into a sustainable business model. In 2016, an irresponsible driver rear-ended him at 85mph, left him in a coma for two months and bedridden for 2.5 years, then walked away free after lying to police and blaming Joe for the accident.

The system failed. Joe started popping Oxys like Pez and surrendered completely. What brought him back wasn’t willpower or positive thinking—it was a framework he discovered through Vipassana meditation and ayahuasca ceremonies: everything difficult that enters your life is a roommate with a double-edged sword. You can’t evict disability, rage, pain, addiction, or trauma—but you can refuse to let them run the household. Joe calls it being the landlord.

He’s been practicing it from the back of his truck for the past three years while building both organizations with $100K of his own money and zero outside funding. He’s sponsored 18 adaptive divers, planted over 500 coral fragments, and built a marketplace platform where every dive booking funds ocean conservation. He just finished his MBA at 57 years old and is executing a 90-day sprint to sign 100 dive shops across South Florida.

His first book, My Double-Edged Roommate, publishes through Aqua Publications with 100% of proceeds funding Mother Ocean Fund. Dum spiro spero is tattooed on his arm: While I breathe, I hope. Joe doesn’t believe in overcoming. He believes in managing. The roommates are still here—disability, chronic pain, rage at injustice, the whisper of addiction. But he’s still the landlord. And he’s building a mission bigger than his pain.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​