Another Lesson From God

October 2024 — the move was complete.
Sisters, Oregon. The new beginning I’d been working toward for months.

I pulled in with that mix of exhaustion and hope — the kind of hope that whispers, “This is it. This is where it all starts to turn around.” But here’s the thing about our plans: God usually smiles at them and says, “That’s cute.”

I was staying at my soon-to-be ex in-laws’ ranch for a bit (it’s a beautiful place to be), which — let’s be honest — isn’t exactly where a man goes to rebuild his soul. It was temporary, but I had a plan. I had direction. I had it all figured out in my head… until I didn’t.

Then came the moment when reality hit: the plan wasn’t going to work.
And yeah, I could sit here and unpack all the reasons why — but the truth is, they don’t matter. The story behind it isn’t important. What mattered was the message underneath it.

Sometimes, God reroutes you because your plan doesn’t take you where he needs you to go.

He doesn’t do it to punish you — he does it because he loves you too much to let you keep missing the lesson.

For me, that lesson was simple but hard as hell to learn:
Your plan will almost never go exactly how you wrote it.

And the goal isn’t to have a “Plan B.”
The goal is to develop the muscle that lets you pivot when things fall apart — to radically accept the moment, make peace with it, and shift direction without losing faith.

Because sometimes, what feels like a dead end is really just God saying,

“Good job, son. You made it this far. Now, let me take it from here.”

And if you can trust that, brother — if you can surrender your need to control every step — that’s when faith starts to feel like freedom.

Learning To Stand Alone

One of the first lessons I knew I had to face head-on was learning how to be single again.

Not just “not married.” Not just “on my own.”
But truly single — as in learning who the hell I was without someone else to define me.

I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to drag my divorce into my new life. I’d already lived that story once before. My last heartbreak took me five years to get over — five long years of denial, bargaining, anger, and sadness.

I wasn’t doing that again. Not this time.

So I made it my mission to figure out how to heal differently.

That’s what led me to my first community — Single On Purpose, founded by John Kim.

I’d read one of John’s earlier books called I Used to Be a Miserable Fck* (yeah, the title hooked me), and it hit me right between the eyes. Then I picked up Single On Purpose — the book that would become my manual for rebuilding.

It came with a workbook, too — which was perfect for a guy like me. I didn’t need more theory; I needed action. Something I could actually do every day to stop living like a ghost in my own life.

So I started working through the pages — writing, reflecting, showing up to calls, being honest, even when it stung. And the wild part? I started to trust people again.

Real people. Like-minded men and women trying to figure out their lives — not pretending, not performing — just doing the work.

And that’s when I realized something powerful:

Healing doesn’t happen alone. It happens in community.

That space — that group — reminded me that there’s strength in vulnerability and that showing up messy is still showing up.

This wasn’t the finish line. Hell, it wasn’t even halfway. But it was the first real step toward becoming whole — not for anyone else, but for me.

Because before you can love again…
you have to learn how to stand alone and love yourself enough to stop running.

The Second Choice

Something in me had started to stir again.

I’d been hanging out in this community called Single On Purpose, and it taught me something that hit hard: you can read every book, binge all the podcasts, and scroll through all the motivational clips in the world — but none of it matters until you actually show up, take action, and surround yourself with people who want to grow, too.

That was my first real lesson in community.
Growth doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens shoulder to shoulder.

Then one night — or maybe it was two in the morning — I was deep in a doom scroll. You know the kind… thumb on autopilot, brain numb, life just kind of passing by one short clip at a time.

And that’s when it happened.

A short video pops up — something about the King’s Community and The Warrior’s Way Mindset. I almost scrolled right past it, but something inside said, “Wait… this feels different.”

Thirty seconds of curiosity — that’s all it took to change the entire trajectory of my life.

These two communities, led by Rick Yee and JR Harvey, would become the very thing that tore down my depression, crushed my shame, and rebuilt my belief system from the ground up.

But at first? I was terrified.

I joined one of their live calls, coffee in hand, camera off, heart pounding. I recognized the guys running it — the same men from that video — and I thought, “Holy shit… I could actually talk to them right now.”

But fear kept me quiet.

So, I did what I’ve always done when I don’t know what to say — I listened. I took notes. I just absorbed.

And as I listened, something started to click. These men weren’t pretending. They were talking about real pain, real accountability, real healing. The kind of conversations I’d been starving for — ones that made me realize I wasn’t broken; I was just unfinished.

A week went by, and that quiet voice inside me started whispering again: “Take a step.”

I didn’t have much money, but I picked up a short gig that paid about $750. Then came the opportunity — a joint program the two communities ran called Crown & Shield. It cost almost $600.

I didn’t even hesitate.

That week’s pay was supposed to get me through the month, but I thought, If I’m serious about changing my life, this is the move.

So I jumped.

What I didn’t know at the time was that this decision — that one simple “yes” born out of desperation and faith — was going to become the second defining choice in my transformation.

The first was deciding to move to Oregon.
The second was deciding to rebuild the man I was meant to be.

That’s when I stopped trying to be a “Nice Guy.”
And started becoming a Good Man.

Recognizing My Past Beliefs

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t — you’re right.” — Henry Ford

At the time, I didn’t realize it, but my belief system was wrecked.

On the surface, I could talk about growth, mindset, goals — all the right buzzwords — but deep down, I was being conquered by my own doubt and fear. My perspective on life had twisted so badly that I couldn’t see the truth anymore. Every decision I’d made up to that point was built on shaky ground — a foundation of insecurity, not faith.

And that’s when I started to really see it — the Dream Team of Destruction living inside me:
Doubt. Fear. Denial. Anger. Sadness. Bargaining.

The all-stars of kicking your own ass.

These weren’t just emotions; they were anchors — holding me to an identity I was supposed to outgrow. They whispered, “You’re not ready.” “You’ll fail again.” “You don’t deserve better.” And I believed them because for years, I’d trained myself to.

A month into this new chapter, I realized something: this journey wasn’t going to be quick or easy. It wasn’t going to come from another book, another quote, or another podcast pep talk.

This was going to be a fight.

A long, hard-fought war against the old version of me — the one who took the easy route, played small, and waited for someone else to tell him who he was.

No one was coming to save me.

If I wanted out, I had to break my own damn path.
Forge my own way.
And stop taking the comfortable detours that led me right back to mediocrity.

That’s when I knew — belief isn’t about motivation.
It’s about ownership.

And brother, the moment you start owning your beliefs instead of being owned by them…
that’s when the real battle begins.