This is the beginning of what I hope to be a journey that many of you will take with me over the next few weeks, months or maybe years. However long God intends for this information and process to continue to bless you and me. My name is Brian, I am married with 3 beautiful kiddos.
My wife and I own and run a successful business which has given us the opportunity to do what is truly important, my newly discovered desire to change and challenge the patterns and habits on men and especially fathers. We have had a very serious shift in our morals and beliefs as men in this world and I have discovered a passion to help change that.
THIS IS MY STORY
All my life, "Go to school, get good grades, get a degree and work hard for the rest of your life." Sound familiar? I gotta tell ya, like most of you, I'm not scared of hard work. What I was told to do, I got focused on. I am here to tell you, I was focused on getting a job. Getting my degree and pursuing my career. Graduating high school with a 104 GPA and finishing college in 4 years after transferring 3 schools and loosing 34 hours of credit, summer school is rough every year!
I was at the wise old age of 23. I was finishing my college career and making that transition into the all engulfing Corporate America. But, things were on path and moving in the right direction, slowly of course, but who is ever satisfied with the pace at which they are rewarded for their work? I pursued a outside sales job for a local print company, selling print jobs door to door to companies that needed any type of 4 color print material done. That company eventually went out of business. During that time I was actively pursuing a job with Wells Fargo Bank, doing my best to get my foot in the door.
Fast forward a few years...my wife and I decided to start a business from home. Still maintaining our full-time jobs but looking for anyway possible to get more of what we really desired in life...choices! Its been an incredible journey of struggle, growth, pain and success. Tons of friendships created, travel, and wonderful opportunities to impact people all over the world! The last decade has been a crazy one...both in struggle and success.
But, my message is not about my business success.
Here is what has happened. Humbly, I am here to tell you friends, this is not about my success, its not about my business, its more about what I didn't know I was getting myself into.
You see, over the last 10 years of my life, I have been challenged to be a better me. My wife and I have attended tons of personal growth conferences, conventions, seminars, etc. You name it, we have been all in since the beginning. We have passionately and persistently worked harder on ourselves than anything else.
This is where the slight edge began to sharpen. The slight, subtle changes we didn't notice was happening right before our eyes. The engaging of people's hardships and working hand in hand to provide true applicable changes, something very special has happened...
Over these last 10 years, we have been sowing consistently into the lives of our business associates and our new formed friends. For those of you that understand the parable of sowing and reaping, you understand, sowing means at all cost. Whenever, however and whomever is needed, you serve, without any expectation of anything in return.
You see friends, it really all started to take shape 9 years ago, when my greatest friend, Chris, was advised by his wife to attend a mens retreat through our church. Like most men know, men don't do things alone, we take our friends, hence, Chris said we should go together.
Little did I know, this weekend would impact my life and would eventually change the lives of so many across the country and soon to be other countries. Little did I know how it would change my life, my mission, my relationships and all importantly, my ministry.
This image, for me, represent the last 9 years of growth, experience and service to my brothers. The humble hearts of men that have been desiring to fill the void, the emptiness and the leadership in their homes. I have learned through these 9 years of mentorship with men, that every man has very similar struggles and desires. Most want to lead their spouse, but don't know how. Most want to lead their kids, but don't know how. Most want to lead their communities and churches, but don't know how. But, more often then most, men desire to have relationships with other men that are Godly, relationships with Godly men that can hold them accountable and be there when they are truly needed.
But its not just about relationships...but very importantly about having those relationships when you need them most. This I know! These last few years have been interesting, from having my father murdered without cause or ever finding out who did it. A year later my wife and I losing our son, Hudson, followed a year later with the loss of a little girl, Reese. After deciding our family wasn't complete and with the odds stacked against us, we attempted for another child. 12 weeks into this next pregnancy, our home was struck by lightening and everything we owned burned to the ground! So here we were pregnant, in a high risk pregnancy, with a slightly stressed out wife, 2 kiddos old enough to know what was going on so asking a lot of questions and now homeless with very little to our name. You can maybe imagine the stress. This friends, is where brotherhood matters. This is where the years of relationships and serving others that the harvest arrives in your life and you are more grateful than ever that you were obedient to your friends. I'll tell you this, the first place this starts is riding yourself of your ego. Humbling yourself to a level of complete surrender to your Lord and Savior.
Until this moment, you as a man, will never grow the way you were meant to grow. Which believe it or not, we were meant to have dominion of all things, to go forth and multiply the earth. Sounds like manly talk, cause it is. All men desire this, but for some reason in todays world, they find themselves struggling to achieve that fulfillment.
Listen men, it starts at your foundation because no matter how much you decorate, deceive or mask your image, if your spirit/your foundation is not solid, your image NEVER will be.
So, I am here to tell you, my life is very different today than it was 10 years ago. I will be spending time sharing my story, my successes and failures, all for one purpose...
To help men better their lives.
Now Ladies...know this, your life is only made better with a man that is rooted in solid foundations. Please learn from my journey and share this with the men in your life...
Together, lets change a man, change a family, change a kingdom.