Arriving in Orange County: Books, Family, Baseball, and Perspective
The trip to Orange County started like many of my travel days do: full schedule, full heart, and a clear intention to create impact.
We landed, headed straight to my friend JJ Maza’s office to sign about one hundred copies of my book for his event, then planned to visit my aunt and uncle at the house that used to belong to my grandparents. That house has been in my family for more than fifty years. Later that night, we wrapped the day by watching the Angels play the Texas Rangers. It was a full day, but every piece of it mattered.
Because when you are intentional about impact, even your travel days become part of the story.
A Simple Author Hack: How I Pre-Sign Books to Create Better Connections
At JJ’s office, we walked into a room stacked with boxes of books and a Sharpie waiting on the table.
This time, we did something different.
At a previous event, I made the mistake of trying to sign and personalize every single book in real time as people lined up. It was inefficient, rushed, and it limited how present I could be with each person.
So now my process is this:
I sign all the books in advance.
I add a note or message inside.
When someone comes to the table, I simply add their name and personalize the book in the moment.
That small change has a big impact. It allows me to actually look people in the eye, shake their hand, listen to their story, and have a meaningful conversation instead of just scribbling signatures as fast as possible.
If you are an author or planning a book launch, consider this your signing hack. Pre-work on the books so you can be fully present with the people.
Because the book is important, but the human connection is what matters most.
Lessons From the Stage: When Nothing Works as Planned
While we were talking in the office, I shared a story from a speaking event in Chandler, Arizona. I was scheduled to speak after Rick Ruby. I had prepared my slides, my videos, and all the tech. Everything was ready.
Then I stepped on stage and nothing worked.
No slides. No video. No visuals.
In that moment, you have a choice. You can freeze, or you can work.
I chose to work.
I spoke from the heart. I read the room. I adapted the message to what the audience needed in that moment. About five minutes before I finished, the tech team let me know my slides were finally available.
I told them, “I think we are good.”
That experience helped me shift how I approach speaking. Years ago I tried to memorize everything, line by line. Now I use slides as guideposts, not a script. I let the energy of the room tell me what direction to go.
When you stop trying to be perfect and instead focus on being present, everything changes.
Going Back Home: The House That Made Me Feel Safe
Later, we arrived at my aunt and uncle’s house in Fountain Valley, California. It was my grandparents’ house for decades. I spent summers there as a kid. The moment I walked through the door, it all came back.
The courtyard looks different now. When I was a kid, there was a fountain and an olive tree where the table is today. Upstairs, there is a balcony with a room that used to be “my” room when I visited. I would sneak out onto that balcony and hang out, feeling like I was on my own little island in the world.
That house even influenced the home my wife and I bought in Florida. When we saw the double doors, it reminded me of my grandparents’ place. I knew immediately, “This is the house.”
Out back, the pool is still in the same shape it was when I was a kid. The slide and diving board are gone, but the memories are not. I can still see myself as a little boy, going down that slide with my dad and my sister, over and over again in the summer heat.
Last night I slept there and had the best sleep I have had in over a year. My sleep score was the highest I have seen in a long time. I believe it is because that house represents something simple and powerful:
I felt safe there as a child.
When you return to a place where you felt safe, your nervous system remembers. It grounds you. It reminds you how far you have come, and how protected you truly are, even in the middle of life’s storms.
Charlie’s Chili, Newport Beach, and the Presence of My Dad
The next morning we went to one of my favorite places on the planet: Charlie’s Chili at the Newport Beach Pier.
My dad used to bring me there when I was younger. It is where I had my very first breakfast burrito, back in March of 1991. The place is still packed, still buzzing, still serving surfers, locals, and families.
If you ever visit Newport Beach, you need to go there and order the Surfer’s Burrito. In my opinion, it is the best breakfast burrito on the planet.
After breakfast, we walked down to the beach. This is also where I first tried surfing. My cousin would come up from Huntington, and we would spend hours in the water. A lot of falling. A lot of big wipeouts. A lot of laughter.
When I walk that beach now, I feel my dad’s presence. I feel the weight of memory and the gift of legacy. These are the moments that remind me why I do the work I do today.
Stepping Onto the Impact Event Stage
From there, it was time to get to work.
I was in Irvine, California, to deliver a new keynote at the Impact event for my friend, JJ Maza. We had built three new models to teach from stage: the Adversity Paradigm, the Adversity Backpack, and the Adversity Accelerator.
This talk was deeply personal. It was not just about leadership or production. It was about pain, loss, faith, and what you decide to do with the hardest things that ever happened to you.
To explain that, I had to start with my story.
My Son CJ, the Darkest Season, and the Decision That Changed My Life
I was born the son of a drug addict. I was born with a limb difference. I am a survivor of infant loss.
None of those things define who I am, but they shaped who I became.
In late 2019, my wife and I received a voicemail from our IVF clinic. We had been trying to have a baby. I already had two children from a previous marriage, but my wife wanted to become a mother.
The voicemail said, “Congratulations, you are pregnant.”
We were ecstatic. After all the effort, emotion, and sacrifice, we were finally there. As 2020 began, we went through the labs, ultrasounds, and tests that every hopeful parent knows well.
Then things started to shift.
Measurements were off. Timelines did not match. Doctors began ordering more tests and sending us to specialists. For a while, each new test came back “okay.” Then, suddenly, they did not.
At 26 weeks, during an ultrasound, the tech would not look at us. My wife, who practices medicine, knew something was wrong.
The doctor came in and said, “I need you to go home, get your things, and come back to the hospital. Your son has fluid buildup. We need to start treating him today so we can deliver him early.”
This was June 2020, in the middle of COVID.
We checked into the hospital. Every day they monitored him, scoring his progress. We rode the emotional roller coaster of small wins and quiet fears.
On July 1, they told us, “Tomorrow we are going to deliver CJ at 30 weeks. Prepare for six weeks in the NICU.”
CJ was born July 2. He did not cry. They rushed him away, put him on a ventilator, and eventually told us he had a rare condition called cardiomyopathy hyperplasia. His heart was enlarged, but it did not squeeze well enough to move fluid off his body.
They told us it “just happens.”
I reached into his tiny crib, put my finger next to his hand, and said, “CJ, I am here. Dad is here. I love you.” He grabbed my finger and kicked. He recognized my voice.
Hours later they took my wife back to her room and I went home to sleep after weeks on a pull-out couch.
At 3:00 a.m. the phone rang. My wife said, “You need to get to the hospital. CJ went into cardiac arrest.”
I raced down I-4 through construction and closed lanes, cutting through neighborhoods just to get there. Halfway there, my wife called back and said, “He is stable. Do not wreck your car.” I told her, “I am already here.”
By the time I got upstairs, he had crashed again. They revived him. Then he crashed again. And again.
Finally, I had to make the hardest decision of my life. I asked them to stop.
CJ passed away on July 3 at 6:25 a.m.
We left the hospital without our son.
The next eight months, I went into a very dark place. I questioned everything. I replayed every decision. I wrestled with God, with life, with myself.
“Why me? Had I not been through enough? Why this?”
In March 2021, sitting on my back deck, my wife looked at me and said, “I need you to come home. CJ was meant for more than this earth. God took him to help someone else. You need to deal with it.”
That conversation became a turning point.
That is when I decided corporate America was not my path anymore. I was not going back to a glass office so someone could compare the loss of my son to the loss of a pet and think it was the same.
I knew I was meant to do something different with my pain.
The Adversity Paradigm: From Victim to Architect
I started studying my life. I looked back over every challenge, every painful chapter, and I asked:
How did I respond?
What did I do next?
Who did I become because of it?
I realized that adversity had always been the catalyst for my growth. I just had never framed it that way. So I developed what I now call the Adversity Paradigm.
There are four stages:
Victim – “It is happening to me.”
This is where most people stay. Life is unfair. Circumstances are in control. Story after story about what was done to you.Survivor – “It is happening around me, and I am still standing.”
You made it through, but you still feel defined by what happened.Warrior – “It is happening for me.”
You start to see adversity as a teacher. You extract lessons. You grow stronger. You build resilience.Architect – “It is happening through me.”
This is where you take everything that has happened and use it to serve others. You become a builder. Your story becomes a tool to help someone else get through their worst day.
Losing CJ lives in that Architect level for me.
It is not something I “got over.” I will never get over it. I got through it. And now I use that pain to speak to others about their own adversity and to help them reframe how they see it.
Where are you in the paradigm?
That is not a question I can answer for you. It is a question only you can answer honestly.
The Adversity Backpack: Your Past as Proof, Not Prison
The next model I taught from stage was the Adversity Backpack.
Every one of us carries an invisible backpack. Inside it are the hard things we have lived through:
Losses
Failures
Traumas
Betrayals
Setbacks
Most people do one of two things with that backpack:
They drag it behind them and trip over it every time they try something new.
Or they unzip it and replay the worst moments as proof that they “cannot” do something.
I chose something different.
I decided that everything in that backpack would become proof of what I can survive, not proof of what I must fear.
I can look back and say:
I got through being raised by a drug-addicted mother.
I got through waking up on Christmas morning to find all the presents gone because my mom sold them to get high.
I got through failed businesses and a partner who embezzled money.
I got through the loss of my son.
So when a deal falls apart, a home inspection goes sideways, or a business situation gets tough, I can reach into that backpack and pull out something heavier that I have already faced.
If I survived that, I can handle this.
Your past should not be the anchor that keeps you stuck. It should be the proof that you are built for more.
The Adversity Accelerator: Intentionally Doing Hard Things
The third model I shared from stage was the Adversity Accelerator.
The formula is simple:
Perspective × Response = Alignment²
Perspective is how you see what happened.
Response is how you act through it.
Alignment is whether your choices match who you say you want to become.
The more you intentionally put yourself in difficult situations, the stronger your response becomes. That creates better alignment with your highest self.
I call this intentional adversity.
For example:
I do hard physical challenges. I have completed 75 Hard. I have done the Goggins challenge: 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours. I am currently training for a HYROX event in Chicago.
I sit in freezing cold water in the mornings with my friend JJ because it sharpens my mind.
I push myself in the gym, not just for fitness, but to train my capacity.
Why? Because if I can choose something hard and complete it, I am better equipped for the adversity I did not choose.
The more hard things you do on purpose, the more prepared you are to handle the things you did not see coming.
Your Past Is Your Proof, Not a Ceiling
A few weeks before this event, I spoke to athletes from the U.S. Olympic team. One of them was wrestling with a self-imposed ceiling. It reminded me that even at the highest levels, people struggle with the same stories:
“I am not good enough.”
“I am not smart enough.”
“I am not built for this.”
I heard those stories growing up too. I was told I could not play sports because of my limb difference. I was told I would not amount to much. For a while, I believed it.
What changed everything for me were the friends who treated me like everyone else, not like I was fragile or broken. They held me accountable. They pushed me. They did not lower the standard.
That showed me that the ceilings other people put on you only become real when you agree to live under them.
Today, I treat my past like rocket fuel. It does not hold me back. It propels me forward.
The Real Question: What Will You Do With Your Adversity?
At the end of my keynote, I asked the room a simple but important question:
Where are you in the paradigm, and what are you going to do with your adversity?
You can:
Stay a victim and relive the same stories.
Survive, but never truly heal or grow.
Become a warrior and learn from what happened.
Step into the architect role and let your adversity happen through you to serve others.
Adversity is not in the way. It is the way.
After I stepped off stage, person after person came up to me with tears, hugs, and gratitude. They asked for signed books. They shared their own stories. They told me that the Adversity Backpack and the Adversity Paradigm gave them language and tools they had never had before.
That is why I speak.
That is why I tell these stories.
That is why I left the glass office.
Because your past is not a sentence. It is your proof.
The only real question is this:
Now that you know adversity can be your greatest advantage, what are you going to do with yours?
