My Story
A Never-Ending Story: Not Yet Complete, And In Many Ways Just Beginning
My dad used to tell me that today was the first day of the rest of my life. For so many years that line bugged me, mainly because it was my dad saying it.
I am beginning to see in my early 60s how true those words are now.
Every day I get to begin again. To live out this thing called life.
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is just that. Tomorrow.
So the real story is all about today and what I do with it.
But the story of my today is rooted deeply in the backstory of my yesterday. Within the interesting tapestry of my experiences through those yesterdays is a clue about who I am and what I bring to my coaching engagements, my advisory and facilitation services, my speeches and my related business and personal encounters each and every today.
Looking back at 40 years across ministry, retail, TV production, commercial storage, professional speaking, headhunting, web marketing - I can see the thread I couldn’t see while living it.
I was learning to see patterns across wildly different contexts. That diversity isn’t scattered background - it’s exactly what makes me effective as a coach and advisor. I can see what others miss because I’ve lived in completely different worlds.
Here’s that story.
The Early Years
I was born a missionary kid in Chile in the mid 60s. At the age of three, I moved to Canada.
I grew up a preacher’s kid. Just check out that suit jacket and bowtie!
I loved school, mostly because of what happened around it. I was involved in every extra-curricular activity I could be.
Music, sports, student council. I would often leave football practice in full tackle gear and run to band practice where I played tuba.
Full contact tubist!
I was chosen as Valedictorian for my High School graduation by teachers and fellow students.
Ministry: Learning to See Underneath
I went to seminary to become a church minister. I got married and soon after graduated with religious education degree with a dual major in music performance and pastoral ministry.
Then right after graduating, into the ministry I went. I was a minister in only two churches. First as a youth and music minister. Then as a senior minister.
What I learned: People’s presenting problems are rarely their actual problems. The business challenge is almost always a personal challenge in disguise. The question people ask isn’t usually the real question.
This understanding - that you have to work underneath the surface - became foundational to everything I do now.
Despite my heritage, ministry wasn’t for me. But those years taught me to see what people carry underneath what they show.
Menswear: Understanding Identity and Presentation
After leaving ministry, I got involved in the menswear business. I started as a sales person in a small regional menswear chain and quickly became the store manager. Months later I was recruited by my former boss to help him launch a brand new store.
We grew that one store to seven stores in a couple of years… and then into no stores. Yes! That’s Zero! We blew it up! Really good in fact.
It was painful, but I learned an awful lot through the whole process.
What I learned: How you present yourself matters. But more importantly - the gap between who you are and who you’re trying to be creates tension. Successful people often dress for the role they think they should play rather than who they actually are.
I also learned what it’s like to build something fast and watch it collapse. That failure taught me more than success ever could about ego, overconfidence, and the danger of momentum without foundation.
For a short time I was an independent haberdasher for executives. I made custom clothes for them. I helped them with their wardrobe. But inwardly I knew my passion was to speak.
Professional Speaking & Television Production: Finding My Voice
So I did. And over time that evolved into a career of its own. For almost 10 years I traveled around the English speaking world delivering seminars, motivational speeches and keynote addresses.
Within that context I began consulting companies as well. I worked with government organizations, large Fortune 500 companies, and small businesses. My most unusual client was a little Indigenous Australian Medical Center in the outback of Australia. I worked with military personnel and nurses, retail staff and so many more wonderful people.
During this period, I also produced and hosted two television series in Canada - business magazine shows where I interviewed experts and CEOs. One was regional, the other went national.
This opened up a completely different dimension of learning.
What I learned from speaking: How to read a room. How to shift energy. How to ask questions that land. How to challenge assumptions without triggering defensiveness. How to use stories to reveal patterns.
What I learned from television production: How to ask questions that draw out insights, not just soundbites. How to make people comfortable enough to say what they actually think. How to structure a conversation so the best material emerges naturally.
But more importantly - I learned to leverage media as a counter-intuitive marketing tool. The show wasn’t just content. It was relationship-building at scale. It was positioning. It was a way to have conversations with people I wanted to learn from while building authority.
This completely changed how I later thought about podcasting (before it was cool), how I wrote my book “You Are The Logo,” and how I approach all content creation. Media isn’t about broadcasting your message - it’s about creating conversations that build trust and reveal patterns.
I also learned the limits of inspiration. You can motivate people in a room or on a screen, but if you’re not there when they get stuck in implementation, the inspiration fades. I wanted deeper, longer-term impact.
Commercial Records & Shredding: Operations and Complexity
After 10 years and 1,000,000 frequent flyer miles, I was tired of daily airport living. I became Managing Partner of a commercial record center and shredding operation.
I fell in love with an industry that I continue to have deep roots in to this day.
What I learned: Operational complexity at scale. Regulatory compliance. Liability management. The unglamorous reality of building systems that actually work. How family businesses operate. The psychology of succession.
This industry became a laboratory for understanding service businesses, particularly owner-operated companies dealing with growth challenges, family dynamics, and succession planning.
After growing that company, I sold my share in it, and moved back into a new entrepreneurial realm.
Building Flourish Press: Integration
In 2003, I launched my current company, Flourish Press.
The goal for my new company was to build a business whose primary mission was to see others flourish. People, companies, enterprise… I wanted to nourish extraordinary success in those I had the privilege to work with.
I’ve had two television series under my belt. My second show was distributed nationally in Canada - where I interviewed business leaders and told their stories.
I continue to be a speaker at conferences and corporate events. I’ve written an Amazon bestselling book (You Are The Logo) and continue working on more.
I produced and hosted a podcast (before podcasting was cool) in the records and information management industry for almost 3 years called the RIMproReport. I’m currently hosting two other podcasts.
I founded a web marketing and website development company called WebVitality, which I owned and operated for 15 years before selling it recently.
What I learned: How to build a business that serves your life, not consumes it. How to create recurring revenue. How to sell a company. How to navigate the psychology of exit.
All of this was happening while I was coaching clients through their own challenges - which meant I was living what I was teaching.
The Work That Matters Most: Village Elder
For 25 years now, I’ve been doing the work that brings me the greatest joy and fulfillment.
Some people call what I do a “portfolio career.” I call it 40 years of pattern recognition that allows me to serve business owners in a way generalist coaches can’t.
I work as Executive Coach, Strategic Advisor, Thought Partner, Meeting Facilitator, and Speaker. But underneath all those titles, I think of myself as a village elder.
At 60, with all these experiences behind me, I get to serve business owners who are navigating transition points. The ones who’ve hit a ceiling. Who’ve become the constraint in their own success. Who’ve built something remarkable that’s now holding them hostage.
I help them see what they can’t see.
How the diversity matters:
Ministry taught me to work underneath the surface - that presenting problems aren’t the real problems.
Menswear taught me about identity, presentation, and the gap between who we are and who we think we should be.
Professional speaking taught me to read rooms, ask questions that land, and use stories to reveal patterns.
Television production taught me how to draw out insights, structure conversations, and leverage media as relationship-building at scale.
Commercial records taught me operational complexity, family business dynamics, and succession challenges.
Building and selling businesses taught me the psychology of entrepreneurship, exit, and what it means to build something that serves your life.
All of it feeds into how I work now:
I work at two levels simultaneously - the business strategy everyone can see, and the personal patterns underneath that create the business symptoms.
I ask questions that make clients uncomfortable in a good way. Eventually: “How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?”
I bring pattern recognition across 15+ industries - so I can show clients how their challenge appears in completely different contexts.
I work in multi-year partnerships with approximately 30 clients at any given time. These aren’t quick fixes. They’re long-term relationships where we do both business strategy and depth work.
My belief: Your business exists to serve your life. When it’s the other way around, something’s broken.
I get to work with extraordinary leaders in business, education and not-for-profit as a trusted partner. I support entrepreneurs, owners and executives who are willing to look underneath - not just at what’s happening in their business, but at how they might be creating it.
I love what I do. Every day.
The Really Important Stuff
I am in love with and married to the most beautiful woman in the world. Without question, I am the luckiest man in the universe to love and be loved by Becky. Not only is she my wife, she is also my life and business partner. She makes me want to be a better man every day.
I am the proud dad to Sawyer and Knox and adoring step-dad to Emma. My kids remind me every day what is really important in life. It’s been a huge privilege to see each of them make an impact in the world.
I’m a Grandpa to a wonderful granddaughter and grandson. They are joy unspeakable.
Cancer: The Gift That Changed Everything
In the fall of 2016, I was diagnosed with Stage 3B Rectal Cancer.
It was terrifying. The treatment was brutal. But it was also the experience that crystallized everything I now believe about business and life.
When you’re facing mortality, you get very clear about what actually matters. The business achievements, the revenue targets, the professional accolades - they fade fast. What remains is: Did I love well? Did I make a difference? Did I build a life I admire?
This is where “your business exists to serve your life” stopped being a nice philosophy and became my North Star.
I wouldn’t wish cancer on anyone. But I also wouldn’t change it for the world. It gave me clarity and urgency. It reshaped how I show up in my work and why I care so much about helping business owners build lives they admire, not just businesses that look good on paper.
I’m stable and healthy now, and got to ring the bell after 5 years of testing and monitoring for any recurrence.
Becky and I live on the banks of the mighty Niagara River in the town of Lewiston, NY, looking across the river to Canada - our home and native land.
Evolving
My story is not done… it continues. It is a never ending ride.
I’ll not share it all here as there is not enough room to write it all.
But it is magnificent. And I continue to author it that way.
The current chapter: At 60, I’m serving as village elder to business owners navigating the messy intersection of business growth and personal evolution. Helping them see patterns they can’t see. Asking questions that open paths from symptoms to root causes. Building multi-year partnerships that transform both businesses and lives.
I hope you’re authoring your story in a way that serves your life.
The Rest of My Story
While my story above gives you a glimpse into who I am… I also wanted to share some extra things that might help you to get to know me even more.
Tri-National Chile by Birth. Canadian by Parent. American by Love. 3 years in Chile. 38 in Canada and the rest in the USA. Each one is home to a part of me.
Farm Sense I spent many years as a kid on the farm. It instills a certain “farm sense” in you. I secretly wish more people had it. I’m lucky that my wife, Becky, has it. Fact is, we learned it on the same farm!
Infinite Curiosity Always Asking Why! Especially about you. What do you do? Why you do it? Who are you? What’s your story? What happened to you? Tell me more.
Big Stage Excitement I prefer speaking to a group of 1000 people than 5. Both are quite appealing though. There’s an energy to an audience that thrills me.
Grocery Shopping Guru I map out the store in my mind and write my shopping list to mirror where things are in the store. Then I shop. If you are willing, I’ll give lessons. Some people might think I’m a little extra intense about the whole process.
Chipmunk Challenged No, those little critters are not cute. They are guerilla warriors who have become my arch-rivals around my property. Want to trigger my dark side? Mention these tiny pests.
Books, Books, & More Books If there is one thing I could not live without, it would be books. I LOVE my books. I am grateful that so many people have gifted a lifetime of knowledge into a simple, elegant package that I get to read.