Just when everything seemed to be going wrong for Xander Neff, it all turned around in the blink of an eye. This is Xander’s incredible story. Xander was born September 22nd, 1993 in Summerville, West Virginia. He came from a poor family as his father worked as a coal miner while the mother often took on babysitting opportunities. At 14, Xander had been working on a farm performing numerous tasks. These tasks included cutting grass, hauling hay, clearing trails, and taking care of a farm. It was at age 15 he found himself working other various jobs such as Dairy Queen and maintaining and running a Marina at Summersville Lake. He did both, all while still continuing to work on the farm.
In 2012 Xander was only 18 and was involved in a devastating snowboarding accident which resulted in a traumatic brain injury that had left him paralyzed from the waist down. After the accident he immediately began physical therapy in hopes to be able to one day walk again. That day came sooner than he had imagined. He realized that he was able to wiggle his toes. It was a small step forward but it was still incredible. Some more time passed and Xander was now able to walk all on his own. He’s beat all odds.
Learning to walk all over again gave Xander the push that he needed to make the decision to join the United States Army in 2013. To his disbelief, he ended up Graduating in the top tier of his company at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri as a 31 Bravo Military Police Man. He was also selected to continue his training at Lackland Airforce Base in San Antonio Texas as a Military Working Dog Handler. He was loving life and his career. In 2014, Xander graduated and was sent out on a hardship deployment to Camp Humphrey’s South Korea for a period of 12 months. Unfortunately for him that didn’t last long as he was injured in a training simulation with a painful hypermobile lateral meniscus tear.
Xander had returned back to Fort Bragg NC in 2015 where he had to have surgery on his knee. In 2016, he was medically retired from the United States Army with an Honorable Discharge. Xander ended up moving to Tampa Florida after the military where he was down on his luck and ended up homeless. With obstacles piling upon him, he had no choice but to live out of his car for a whole month.
Times were tough for Xander and he turned to Instagram in hopes to inspire someone to keep going. He decided to write an inspirational post for all to see. In this post he wrote about never giving up on your dreams, no matter what curveballs life may throw your way. With just $3 left to his name, the post went viral and spread around the world. An entrepreneur saw the post and called offering Xander a position on their traveling dance crew and offered a plane ticket to get there. The traveling dance crew led Xander to the beginning of his new life, living in Las Vegas working in a professional dance crew.
At a later point in life Xander was introduced to the modeling world by accident. A friend of his from Fort Bragg, North Carolina had asked him to come down to Tampa, Florida to help him drive to a photoshoot. Xander decided to tag along and was standing on the sidelines when the photographer asked him if he would ever consider giving modeling a shot.
Xander’s first photoshoot resulted in 3 of the images being sold for different book covers. This is the moment that started off Xander’s Modeling career and brought him to where he is today. He has 26 Covers and features. He now Models Professionally and manages his own Modeling Agency called XK Luxury LLC. Xander continues to travel the world and create content to inspire others. He wants to inspire and motivate others to chase their dreams no matter what obstacles come their way. His amazing story should be proof of what we can achieve when we put our minds to it.