The Room I Built

When I was eight years old, my world collapsed. Divorce tore my family apart, my mother disappeared to the other side of the country, and my father drowned his pain in alcohol.

The statistics aren't kind to kids like me—children from broken homes are twice as likely to struggle with relationships and emotional stability, while those raised by alcoholic parents face dramatically higher risks of anxiety, depression, and worse. The deck was clearly stacked against me from day one. I carried this weight throughout my childhood, feeling discarded, worthless, and completely alone.

For years, I spent every day in survival mode, just trying to make it to the next day, week and year without falling apart. I started building walls—emotional ones. I learned that if I could just keep smiling, make people laugh, if I could be the "good kid," if I could achieve and entertain, maybe I'd be safe. Maybe I'd matter. I didn't understand what I was doing at the time—I was just putting on a smile, a kid trying to survive.

But somewhere in that survival, I discovered I was good at performing. Making people proud felt like a superpower when everything else felt broken. So I kept doing it. I graduated high school with a 4.8 GPA and gave myself the most challenging goal yet... getting accepted early to Florida State University so I could skip my senior year entirely.

I got into FSU, spent my would-be high school senior year as a college freshman, graduated with a 3.97 GPA, and eventually landed at CNN. 

Meanwhile, I was chasing music dreams on the side—sending demos, waiting for record labels to validate my worth, living in what I now call the "waiting for approval" room. I eventually wrote "The Prompter Song" for CNN's internal talent competition called CNN Idol—a song about all the behind-the-scenes workers who made live TV happen but never got credit. I won first place and twelve thousand dollars, but more importantly, caught the attention of Jim Walton, the president of CNN Worldwide, who personally called to get me the job in New York.

Years later, when Nancy Grace needed a theme song, I wrote it. They used it for two years, and that first royalty check arrived the very day I was driving west to chase bigger dreams. That was the first time I wrecked the room—the traditional success room—and chose the aligned impact room. See, I thought I needed a record label. Turns out, I needed to own multiple record labels. By then, I had an amazing wife and what seemed like unlimited potential ahead. Or so I thought.

The Room That Broke Me

In 2006, when I drove west, I wasn't just chasing Hollywood. I was chasing something much more important—the chance to rebuild a relationship with my father who had finally gotten sober. For the first time in my adult life, we were actually connecting. He moved just two minutes away from us. We'd talk more, spend real time together, even laugh again—like actually laugh. I felt like I finally had my dad back.

Then, on March 23, 2013, everything changed. My father had asked if he could stay the night at our place while his wife was away. I told him I didn't think it was a good idea because I would be gone that night, back the next day. That was the night he died.

The guilt hit like a freight train. If I had just said yes, would he still be here? The man I'd spent my whole life trying to understand, trying to forgive, trying to love without resentment—gone. And it was my fault.

I spiraled. Hard. I joined a band again, started drinking heavily, took pills—anything to escape the pain. I was completely checked out emotionally. My wife was there, loving me the best she could, but I couldn't see her. I couldn't see anything because I was trapped in a room I didn't even know I was living in.

One night, I stumbled home at 3 AM—and there she was, standing at the top of the stairs. Exhausted. Heartbroken. "Where have you been? Why aren't you answering my texts? I'm lonely. I miss you. I love you. I don't recognize you. I want my husband back."  Then, she started crying.

That's when I finally saw it clearly. The room I'd been living in my whole life: The Performer's Room. The identity where I had to be "on" all the time, where I earned love through achievement, where vulnerability felt like weakness. It had kept me safe and helped me achieve, but it was destroying everything that actually mattered.

How I Wrecked the Room

The room that had once protected me was now suffocating me. And if I didn't wreck it completely, it was going to wreck everything I loved.

So I went to bed that night and made some intentional choices. I started designing the life I actually wanted to live instead of the one I was performing.

And that's when the Wreck the Room framework was born—because in doing so, I realized this was nothing new to me. I had done this time and time again before.

Like when I wrecked the "waiting for approval" room and stopped chasing record labels to build my own.

Like when I wrecked the "traditional success" room and turned down Good Morning America to prioritize my marriage.

Like when I wrecked the "solo entrepreneur" room and partnered with my competitor to create something bigger.

I'd been wrecking rooms my entire life—I just didn't realize it. Now I could do it intentionally.

Helping Others Wreck Their Rooms

When I applied the framework intentionally, everything unlocked. My marriage healed and grew stronger. I landed a job music supervising one of the biggest television franchises in the world—The Bachelor and found myself working regularly with major studios like Netflix, HBO, Sony, Warner Bros., Marvel & Disney. I produced a feature film. Several of my businesses had scaled to 7 figures. It was like every door I'd been trying to force open suddenly swung wide.

But more importantly, I realized I wasn't the only successful person living in the wrong room. I started seeing the pattern everywhere—high-achievers who'd built impressive lives but felt trapped by them. Leaders who were performing success instead of living it. Entrepreneurs who'd climbed the mountain only to realize it was the wrong peak.

That's when I knew this framework wasn't just for me—it was my mission to share it. Because if someone as broken as I was could wreck the rooms that no longer served him and rebuild with intention, imagine what's possible for leaders who are already achieving at high levels but just need to align their success with their truth.

Today, I speak to organizations and leaders across Fortune 500 companies.  I speak to those who are ready to stop performing and ready to start living. I speak to those who are tired of being "successful" on paper but feel empty inside. And I speak to those who know there's another level of impact and fulfillment waiting—if they have the courage to wreck the room they've outgrown.

The greatest gift you can give this world is a fully expressed, fully aligned, wrecked-and-rebuilt version of YOU. And I'm here to hand you the sledgehammer.