My Story So Far

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I’ve worn a lot of different hats throughout my life. I’ve been a soldier, a medic, a business owner, an entrepreneur, a pastor, a husband, a father, and a leader. I’ve experienced success, made mistakes, walked through some difficult seasons, and started over more than once.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned along the way, it’s that life has a way of teaching us lessons we never expected to learn.

I certainly don’t have everything figured out. I’m still learning, still growing, and still trying to become a better version of myself than I was yesterday.

But to understand who I am today, you have to understand a little about where I came from.

Growing Up in Oklahoma

I was born in Enid, Oklahoma, and spent my early childhood in the small town of Alva, in northwestern Oklahoma.

I grew up with my mom, dad, and two sisters, one older and one younger. We lived out in the country on a little bit of land. Looking back, those early years were pretty simple. I spent a lot of time outside, running around, exploring, and doing the things country kids do.

In 1990, my parents divorced.

I was still young, and honestly, that was a difficult time in my life. My dad moved to Arkansas, while my mom, sisters, and I remained in Alva.

Having my dad so far away was hard on me. I struggled with the separation and with some of the changes happening in my life. At that age, I didn’t necessarily understand everything that was going on. I just knew things were different, and I was having a hard time adjusting.

By 1994, my mom felt it would be best for me to move to Arkansas to live with my dad. She understood how important it was for me to have him actively involved in my life, and she made what I know couldn’t have been an easy decision.

So, in the middle of my fourth-grade year, I packed up and moved to Arkansas.

I moved in with my dad, stepmom, and three stepbrothers in the small community of Witcherville, Arkansas.

It was another major adjustment. I was leaving behind the place I’d grown up, my mom, my sisters, and everything that had been familiar to me.

Starting over in a new school in the middle of the year wasn’t necessarily easy, either.

But looking back, I can see how that move helped shape the direction of my life.

I attended school in Mansfield through my sophomore year before transferring to Greenwood High School for my junior and senior years.

Finding My Place Through Sports and Music

Like a lot of kids growing up in Arkansas, I eventually found myself playing football.

I started with Little League football and later spent a few years on the football team in high school.

Now, when I say I played football, I probably need to clarify something.

I was on the team.

I practiced with the team.

I wore the uniform.

But for the most part, my actual playing time happened on the sideline.

I certainly wasn’t the star of the team, but I enjoyed being part of it. There was something about the camaraderie, being around the guys, and working together that I appreciated.

Football was one part of my school years, but music became something I genuinely enjoyed.

In sixth grade, I joined the school band and started playing the trombone.

It turned out to be something I really liked, and honestly, I believe I was pretty good at it.

I continued playing the trombone all the way through high school graduation.

Over the years, I participated in both marching band and concert band. Band became a big part of my school experience, and it gave me opportunities I probably wouldn’t have had otherwise.

One of those opportunities was a school trip to Washington, D.C.

During that trip, our high school band had the privilege of performing a concert on the steps of the United States Capitol.

That was a pretty incredible experience for a kid who had grown up in small-town Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Standing on the Capitol steps, playing music with my fellow band members, is one of those memories that has stayed with me.

Looking back, I appreciate how those experiences gave me opportunities to be part of something bigger than myself.

Football and band were very different activities, but both required commitment, practice, and learning how to work with others.

And while my football career certainly wasn’t going to earn me a college scholarship, I’m grateful for the experiences and friendships that came from those years.

Where My Faith Journey Began

While attending school in Mansfield, something happened that would ultimately change the direction of my life.

I rode the school bus with the children of a local pastor.

Those kids were always inviting me to church. They didn’t just invite me once or twice, either. They kept asking.

Eventually, I decided to go.

I don’t think any of us realized at the time just how significant those invitations would turn out to be.

After attending church for several months, the Lord began working in my heart. I came to know Christ, and my life began to change.

Looking back, it’s amazing to think about how God used something as ordinary as a few kids inviting another kid to church to make such a lasting difference.

A couple of years later, I began sensing that God was calling me into ministry.

I was still young, and I certainly didn’t understand everything that calling would mean for my life. But I knew there was something God wanted me to do.

I began preaching at churches around the area while I was still a teenager. Eventually, as a young adult, I became licensed to the Gospel ministry.

Of course, knowing God has called you to something doesn’t mean you’ll always get everything right.

I certainly haven’t.

Over the years, I’ve made mistakes. I’ve taken some wrong turns, made decisions I wish I could change, and gone through seasons when my life wasn’t where it needed to be.

But one thing I’ve learned is that God’s faithfulness isn’t dependent on my ability to get everything right.

Even during the seasons when I wasn’t walking as closely with Him as I should have been, that calling never completely left me.

Looking back over my life, I can see how God continued working, sometimes in ways I didn’t recognize at the time.

And when I found myself headed in the wrong direction, He was faithful to draw me back toward the path He had for me.

That calling, which began when I was just a kid riding a school bus in Mansfield, has remained part of my life ever since.

I think about those pastor’s kids from time to time.

They probably had no idea what God was doing through those simple invitations.

But I’m certainly grateful they kept asking.

Becoming an Eagle Scout

Another influential experience during my younger years was my involvement in the Boy Scouts of America.

I joined Scouting when I was 11 years old, and early on, I set a goal for myself: I wanted to become an Eagle Scout before my 14th birthday.

That was a pretty ambitious goal for a kid that age, but I was determined to accomplish it.

Three days before my 14th birthday, I completed my Eagle Scout Board of Review.

I became the first recorded Eagle Scout in the history of Troop 330 in Mansfield, Arkansas.

That accomplishment meant a lot to me then, and it still does today.

But what has stayed with me even more than earning the rank are the lessons I learned along the way.

Scouting helped develop my understanding of leadership, responsibility, service, integrity, and perseverance. It taught me the importance of setting goals and following through on commitments.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but those values would become foundational in almost every area of my life, from military service to business ownership, ministry, and raising a family.

My First Lessons in Work and Responsibility

Like a lot of teenagers, my first jobs weren’t particularly glamorous.

After moving to Greenwood, I started working at a local grocery store, sacking groceries and stocking shelves.

It was pretty straightforward work. You showed up, did what needed to be done, and made sure the job was finished.

Later, I traded grocery sacks for sandwich bread and became what Subway officially called a “Sandwich Artist.”

That’s still a job title that makes me smile.

I also spent time working at a local deli owned by a Marine veteran and his family.

Looking back, those jobs taught me a lot more than how to stock shelves, make sandwiches, or serve customers.

I learned about discipline, honesty, integrity, and responsibility.

I learned the importance of showing up when you said you would, doing the work you were hired to do, and following through on your commitments.

Working for a veteran-owned family business also gave me an early opportunity to see those values practiced in a workplace.

At the time, I was just a teenager earning a paycheck. I wasn’t thinking about becoming a business owner, building companies, or developing some grand leadership philosophy.

But those experiences were teaching me lessons I would carry into the military, emergency medicine, business ownership, and ministry.

I’ve come to believe that some of the most important leadership lessons aren’t learned in a classroom or at a conference.

They’re learned through everyday experiences.

Sometimes they’re learned while sacking groceries, stocking shelves, or making somebody a sandwich.

And one of the simplest lessons I’ve carried with me is this:

Do what you said you would do.

It sounds simple. But I’ve learned over the years that it says a lot about a person’s character.

Answering the Call to Serve

In 2001, during my junior year of high school, I felt a strong desire to serve my country.

I was 17 years old when I enlisted in the Arkansas Army National Guard as a medic.

Shortly after finishing my junior year, I left for basic training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

After completing basic training, I returned home for my senior year at Greenwood High School.

I graduated in May 2002, proudly wearing the title of Greenwood Bulldog, and shortly afterward, I headed to San Antonio, Texas, to complete my military medical training.

By October of that year, I had finished my training and returned home.

I had no idea how quickly my life was about to change.

In December 2002, we learned that our unit was preparing for deployment to Iraq.

In February 2003, less than a year after graduating high school, I left for Fort Polk, Louisiana, to begin preparing for war.

By early April, I was in Iraq.

I spent my 20th birthday in a war zone.

There’s something about that experience that changes your perspective on life.

Just a short time earlier, I had been sitting in a high school classroom. Now I was halfway around the world, serving as a combat medic in the middle of a war.

I was young. I was inexperienced in a lot of ways. And while my military training had prepared me for the mission, there are some things you simply cannot fully prepare yourself for.

War has a way of forcing you to grow up quickly.

That first deployment was the beginning of a chapter in my life that would affect me in ways I wouldn’t fully understand until many years later.

War, Family, and the Struggle to Come Home

After returning home from my first deployment, I married my high school sweetheart, and we began building a family together.

We welcomed our first child, a son.

Not long afterward, I found myself preparing for another deployment to Iraq.

Before leaving, my wife and I had a conversation that I imagine many military couples have had.

The reality was that I was going back to war, and there was always the possibility that I might not come home.

We decided we wanted to have another child.

While I was deployed, my wife was pregnant with our daughter.

One of the moments I will never forget happened when I came home for my two-week leave during that deployment.

Within about a day of arriving home, my daughter was born.

I got to spend nearly my entire leave with my wife, our young son, and our newborn daughter.

For two weeks, I got to experience being home, being a husband, and being a dad again.

Then I had to leave and return to Iraq.

Eventually, I came home for good from that deployment.

But the truth is, I wasn’t the same person who had left.

Two deployments to Iraq had changed me.

I struggled with things I didn’t fully understand at the time. Adjusting to life back home wasn’t as simple as stepping off an airplane, taking off the uniform, and picking up where I’d left off.

I had changed. Life had changed. And I struggled to find my place in it.

Some of those struggles, along with decisions I made along the way, contributed to the end of my first marriage.

That was another difficult chapter.

I moved back in with my dad and stepmom and found myself trying to figure out what came next.

There are seasons in life when you feel like you’re moving forward, and there are seasons when you’re just trying to get your feet back underneath you.

For me, that was one of those seasons.

Leadership in Afghanistan

My military career continued, and over time I advanced through the ranks, eventually becoming a sergeant, an E-5.

I would deploy one more time, this time to Afghanistan.

During that deployment, I served as the lead medic for an agricultural development mission.

Our mission involved a team of approximately 60 people, and I was responsible for leading the medical component of our operations.

It was a different mission from my previous deployments to Iraq, and it gave me opportunities to work alongside people from different backgrounds, experiences, and areas of expertise.

It also challenged me as a leader.

I had to make decisions, take responsibility, solve problems, and look after the people entrusted to my care.

Looking back, some of the most valuable leadership lessons I’ve learned came from my years in uniform.

But eventually, I reached a crossroads.

After returning from Afghanistan, I was approaching the end of my military enlistment.

My two children were growing up, and they had begun expressing concerns about my continued military service.

They didn’t want to grow up without their dad.

Those conversations stayed with me.

I loved serving my country, and the military had become a significant part of my identity. But I also knew my children needed their father.

When my enlistment ended in February 2013, I made the decision not to reenlist.

After nearly 12 years of service, including three combat deployments, I closed that chapter of my life.

I was proud of my service, but I also knew it was time to focus on a different mission.

A New Chapter With Jessica

After returning home from Afghanistan in early 2012, I met a woman named Jessica.

What I didn’t know at the time was just how much my life was about to change.

Jessica had a beautiful five-year-old daughter named Rayanna. It didn’t take that little girl very long to wrap me around her finger. Before I knew it, she had stolen my heart and become my second little girl.

Jessica and I fell in love, and in November 2012, we were married.

We began building our life together, bringing our families together and learning what it meant to navigate life as a blended family.

In May 2015, Jessica and I were blessed with the birth of our son, Ryder.

Becoming a dad again was an incredible blessing. Our family continued to grow, and life certainly wasn’t slowing down.

But God wasn’t finished growing our family.

Several years later, an unexpected opportunity came into our lives. Our nephew, Brylyn, from Jessica’s side of the family, was just two months old when he came into our care.

What began with us caring for a little baby boy became another beautiful chapter in our family’s story.

Today, Brylyn is our seven-year-old, full-of-life little boy, and I can’t imagine our family without him.

Both Ryder and Brylyn are on the autism spectrum.

Raising two boys with autism has brought its own unique challenges, but it has also taught Jessica and me a tremendous amount about patience, understanding, flexibility, and learning to see the world through a different lens.

Our boys don’t always experience or process the world the way other people do. We’ve had to learn to recognize their individual needs, understand how they communicate, and approach things differently than we might have expected.

And honestly, they’ve taught us just as much as we’ve tried to teach them.

There are difficult days. There are moments of frustration, exhaustion, and uncertainty. But there are also incredible moments of joy, laughter, accomplishment, and pride.

Our family doesn’t always look or operate like what some people might consider a typical family.

And that’s okay.

We have also become a homeschooling family with our two boys. Homeschooling has allowed us to create an educational environment that is tailored to their individual needs, learning styles, and strengths. It gives us the flexibility to move at their pace, celebrate their progress, and support them in ways that work best for them.

Homeschooling has brought its own challenges, but it has also given us more opportunities to learn and grow together as a family.

Jessica and I have been through a lot together. We’ve built businesses, made major life changes, moved across state lines, stepped into ministry, and navigated the everyday challenges of raising a family.

Through it all, we’ve continued learning, growing, and building our life together.

Family is one of the most important parts of who I am. And while I haven’t always gotten everything right as a husband or a father, I continue striving to be better today than I was yesterday.

That same commitment to growth that I talk about in leadership starts in my own home.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset.

Even when I was younger, I knew I wanted to own a business. I wanted the freedom to build something, create opportunities, solve problems, and take responsibility for my own success or failure.

In 2009, while I was still serving in the military, I started Patriot Contracting Group, a construction company.

I built and operated that business for several years and learned a tremendous amount about entrepreneurship along the way.

Like most business owners, I discovered pretty quickly that having a good idea and running a successful business are two very different things.

There’s a lot that goes into building a company. You have to learn how to lead people, manage resources, serve customers, make difficult decisions, and keep moving forward when things don’t go according to plan.

But I loved it.

In 2016, I decided I wanted to explore a different opportunity.

I closed the construction business and launched Dipstx Mobile Oil Change in the Fort Smith, Arkansas, area.

At the time, the concept of bringing oil changes directly to customers wasn’t something people in our local market were accustomed to.

We were introducing a different way of doing business.

Instead of customers taking time out of their day to sit at a service shop, we brought the service directly to them.

The concept gained traction, and the business grew.

But I wasn’t content with operating just one location.

I began looking at how we could develop the business into a franchise system.

Around 2019–2020, we accomplished that goal.

Dipstx Mobile Oil Change became the first mobile oil change franchise in the United States.

While independently owned mobile oil change businesses already existed across the country, we were the first to bring that business model to market as a franchise opportunity.

Being able to build something from a local business in Fort Smith, Arkansas, into the nation’s first mobile oil change franchise remains one of my proudest entrepreneurial accomplishments.

It was an incredible experience.

It taught me about business development, systems, branding, leadership, and what it takes to build something that can operate beyond its original founder.

More importantly, it reinforced something I had been learning for years.

I enjoyed building businesses, but what I really enjoyed was developing people and helping them succeed.

When God Started Redirecting My Life

In 2022, I began sensing that God was leading me in a different direction.

At the time, I was involved in the franchise business and had a business partner.

Walking away from something I had spent years building wasn’t an easy decision, but I felt increasingly convinced that it was time for another chapter.

I left Dipstx and accepted an opportunity in western Kansas to serve as the director of an emergency medical services operation.

It was a return to a profession I had spent much of my adult life involved in.

As a paramedic and military medic, caring for people had always been an important part of my life.

Now, I had an opportunity to lead an entire rural ambulance service.

Our organization had approximately 30 employees and volunteers.

Rural EMS presents unique challenges. Resources can be limited, distances are greater, and the people serving their communities often carry tremendous responsibility.

But I loved the people I worked with.

I loved their dedication, their willingness to serve, and their commitment to their communities.

During my time there, I had the privilege of leading a team of people who cared deeply about what they did.

That experience reminded me that leadership isn’t simply about being in charge.

It’s about the people you’re responsible for, the environment you help create, and the impact you have on those around you.

Returning to My Calling

The call to ministry had been part of my life since I was a young man.

I had preached as a teenager and eventually became licensed to the Gospel ministry, but over the years my life had taken a number of different directions.

There had been seasons when I was actively involved in ministry and seasons when I wasn’t.

There had also been times when my own decisions had taken me further away from where I believed God wanted me to be.

But that calling never completely went away.

While living in western Kansas, I began sensing that God was leading me toward pastoral ministry.

Eventually, I resigned from my position as EMS director and accepted the opportunity to pastor a church in the area.

It was my first pastorate.

For approximately a year, I had the privilege of serving that congregation, preaching God’s Word, caring for families, and walking alongside people through different seasons of life.

Pastoral ministry brought together several things that had been developing in my life for years: my faith, my desire to serve others, and my passion for leadership and personal growth.

It also taught me lessons I couldn’t have learned anywhere else.

Ministry is about people.

People who are celebrating. People who are hurting. People who are struggling with questions. People who need encouragement, direction, or simply someone willing to listen.

I learned a lot during that season, both about ministry and about myself.

Looking back, I can see how the calling God placed on my life years earlier had continued to shape my journey, even through the seasons when I wasn’t always following the path I should have been.

Eventually, Jessica and I felt it was time to return home to Arkansas.

Once again, we found ourselves closing one chapter and beginning another.

Returning Home and Building Again

After returning to western Arkansas, I began rebuilding and expanding some of my business interests.

I restarted Patriot Contracting Group, this time with a greater focus on building a team and developing the business so that its success didn’t depend entirely on me doing the work.

I also continued growing Blue Giraffe Promo & Marketing, a company I had started while navigating my earlier business and leadership roles.

Blue Giraffe focuses on helping businesses build and strengthen their brands through promotional products, apparel, print, signage, marketing, and related services.

I enjoy the creativity involved in helping other business owners bring their ideas to life.

Over the years, I’ve been involved in several different businesses and industries.

Some have been successful. Some have taught me expensive lessons. Others have simply run their course.

But each one has taught me something.

I’ve learned that business ownership isn’t just about generating revenue.

It’s about solving problems, serving people, creating opportunities, and building something that makes a difference.

And perhaps more than anything, it’s taught me that leadership matters.

Learning to Understand How My Mind Works

Something I’ve come to better understand about myself over the years is that my mind doesn’t always work the same way other people’s minds do.

I’ve spent much of my life navigating ADHD-related challenges and traits associated with the autism spectrum.

For years, there were things about the way I thought, worked, interacted with people, and processed information that I didn’t fully understand.

I’ve always been someone who sees opportunities everywhere.

My mind can jump from one idea to another, sometimes faster than I can put those ideas into action.

I love people. I enjoy conversations, building relationships, speaking, and being involved in things.

But I also need time alone to recharge.

There are times when being around people, even people I genuinely enjoy spending time with, can leave me mentally exhausted.

I’ve also had to learn to recognize when I’m taking on too much, when my mind is becoming overloaded, and when I need to step back.

For a long time, I viewed some of those things primarily as frustrations or weaknesses.

Today, I’m learning to better understand how I’m wired.

That doesn’t mean everything is easy. It certainly isn’t.

But understanding myself has helped me begin looking at both my strengths and struggles differently.

And it’s reinforced something I believe deeply.

Everybody has a story.

Everybody has challenges.

And sometimes the things we struggle with are the very things that help us understand and connect with someone else.

Discovering the Importance of Intentional Growth

Somewhere along the way, particularly during the years following my military service, I began taking a serious interest in leadership and personal development.

I started reading, studying, listening, and evaluating my own life.

I wanted to understand what made some leaders effective and others ineffective.

I wanted to understand why some people seemed to keep growing while others remained stuck.

But more than anything, I wanted to become a better person myself.

I had experienced enough of life’s difficulties to know that simply getting older doesn’t automatically make you wiser.

Experience doesn’t guarantee growth.

You can go through difficult things and never learn from them.

You can make mistakes and keep repeating them.

You can spend years in leadership positions without actually becoming a better leader.

I began realizing that personal growth requires intentionality.

That word, intentional, became increasingly important to me.

I had to become intentional about my decisions, my relationships, my faith, my habits, and the kind of person I wanted to become.

I couldn’t change everything that had happened in my past.

But I could take responsibility for what I did moving forward.

And I began to understand that becoming a better leader starts with becoming a better person.

The Birth of The Leadership Mindset

As I continued studying leadership and personal development, I wanted a way to share some of the things I was learning.

That’s really how The Leadership Mindset began.

It wasn’t originally some elaborate business plan or media strategy.

It was simply an outlet for me to share my thoughts, experiences, lessons, and observations about leadership, life, and personal growth.

I wanted to talk about the things that had helped me, the things I had struggled with, and the lessons I was still learning.

Over time, that small idea began growing into something more.

It developed into a website, a blog, a podcast, speaking opportunities, and eventually books.

I began developing keynote presentations and messages centered around leadership, personal development, resilience, faith, and the lessons we learn through everyday life.

Becoming a published author was another milestone I never would have imagined during some of the earlier seasons of my life.

But what matters most to me isn’t having my name on a book cover or standing on a stage.

It’s the opportunity to reach someone.

Maybe it’s a business owner struggling to lead a team.

Maybe it’s a veteran trying to find purpose after military service.

Maybe it’s someone whose marriage has ended, whose plans have fallen apart, or who feels like they’ve made too many mistakes to start over.

Maybe it’s a young leader who just needs someone to believe in them.

Or maybe it’s someone who simply wants to become a better version of themselves.

If something I’ve experienced or learned can help that person take one step forward, then sharing my story is worth it.

Faith, Leadership, and Purpose

One thing I’ve come to realize is that the different parts of my life aren’t nearly as disconnected as they might appear.

Military service taught me about responsibility, sacrifice, and leading under pressure.

Emergency medicine taught me the importance of remaining calm, making decisions, and caring for people when they’re at their most vulnerable.

Business ownership taught me about perseverance, taking risks, managing resources, and creating opportunities.

Ministry taught me even more about faith, service, relationships, and the responsibility we have to care for others.

And my personal struggles have taught me about grace, humility, resilience, and the importance of continuing to grow.

All of those experiences have helped shape how I view leadership today.

I don’t believe leadership is confined to a job title, a position, or an organization.

You can lead in a boardroom, a church, a classroom, a business, or your own home.

You can lead without ever having a single person report to you.

Leadership is about influence, responsibility, service, and the impact we have on the people around us.

My faith is central to how I understand that responsibility.

I believe God has given each of us opportunities to influence and serve others, and what we do with those opportunities matters.

That’s why The Leadership Mindset has become more than simply a place to talk about leadership.

It’s an extension of my personal mission and, in many ways, my ministry.

Grow Today. Lead Tomorrow.

Throughout everything I’ve experienced, I’ve continued coming back to one personal mission:

To lead, equip, and develop people to be greater today than yesterday.

That’s what drives much of what I do.

Whether I’m speaking to an audience, working with a business owner, sharing something through my podcast, preaching a sermon, writing a book, or having a conversation with someone over coffee, I want to make a positive difference.

I want people to recognize that they aren’t defined solely by their past, their failures, their circumstances, or the challenges they’re facing.

We all have room to grow.

I certainly do.

There are still areas of my life I’m working on. There are things I wish I had handled differently. There are relationships, decisions, and experiences that have taught me some hard lessons.

And I’m sure there will be plenty more lessons ahead.

But I’ve come to believe that growth isn’t about reaching some point where we’ve finally arrived.

It’s about being willing to learn, make adjustments, accept responsibility, and keep moving forward.

I can’t go back and change yesterday.

But I can do something with today.

And so can you.

Grow Today. Lead Tomorrow.

Because people matter.