When Danielle Bakic ('13) graduated from UNT at age 25, it was two months after she had given birth to her second child.

"It was very hard. It was one of my biggest accomplishments, and I was very proud of myself. It actually helped the trajectory of my confidence in life," says Bakic, who didn't start college until she was 20. "My dad told me that I would never finish college because I'm pregnant, and I said, 'Watch me.'"

Bakic has lived her life upending doubts from herself and others. Now, as a swimming coach and owner of the Swimming Fishies Swim School in Argyle, she teaches children and adults to face their fears through her lessons and affirmations. Creating the popular program took 10 years of hard work and perseverance.

"I realized fear is a choice. I was living in so much fear in my life, and I chose, 'I'm not going to live in fear today about this.' And so just by speaking that line over kids helped me to feel better about myself and help me to realize the impact that I'm making in this community, because drowning is a leading cause of death in children under 4. The fact that I get to prevent that is so incredibly rewarding."

Stroke of Faith

Bakic, who grew up in Highland Village, had been a lifelong swimmer and swam competitively in high school. But the stress from competition led to anxiety and burn-out, so she pivoted to coaching at age 18.

A few years later, she was a stay-at-home mother and found she could make good money teaching swimming lessons in backyards and community pools. She taught lessons while majoring in interdisciplinary studies, with specialties in elementary education, art and linguistics.

Throughout the 10 years, she came up with lesson plans organically and documented everything. She taught in her own backyard until neighbors complained about the noise and traffic flow, and Bakic's family had to move. They found another home with a pool and got approval to teach lessons from the HOA, until two years later when they had to leave again due to the same issues.

She drove around the area, asking people with pools if she could use them to teach swimming lessons. One time, she was using up to 10 people's backyard pools in a summer.

"Can you imagine how stressful that is -- operating all 10 locations, going to them, making sure my coaches got there on time? When we got kicked out the second time, my husband's like, 'I've had enough of this, I'm just going to build you a swim school.' He found property in Argyle, and he designed and built the whole thing, and it's incredible."

They've been in that building for four years. The walls at her building are covered with murals of fish and sweet treats in bright colors that she painted herself, using lessons from her art classes at UNT. She has 70 affirmations imprinted around the facility.

"I made it super magical and fun -- cotton candy clouds hanging from the ceiling, and doughnuts and ice cream everywhere."

'Brave and Strong'

Bakic is transitioning from coaching to business leadership. She now has three locations -- the original building in Argyle, a backyard in Krum and the swim program at the Oakmont Country Club in Corinth. Another building in Aubrey is in the works.

She wrote two books -- My Swim Adventure for older children and My First Swim Adventure for toddlers -- that are distributed to pool companies to give to their clients with kids to help support water safety. She also created a device, which received a patent, that sits between the swimmer's legs to prevent the bending and opening of legs and helps train muscle memory.

Most of all, she gets the satisfaction of knowing she helped others learn how to swim -- and more.

She remembers when a pair of 3-year-old twin girls cried for five days straight during their lessons, but they eventually learned to swim. A few weeks later, their mother sent a video of them riding horses for the first time.

"I just cried, because I'm just like, you know what? I did not just teach these girls how to swim. I taught these girls how to be brave and strong, and how to believe in themselves, and how to do hard things."