The Beginning of the Performance

When I was eight years old everything came apart at once. My parents divorced. My mom moved across the country. My father slipped into alcohol to numb the pain. I remember feeling like the ground disappeared under my feet. Nothing felt safe. Nothing felt predictable anymore.

Kids in situations like mine often struggle for the rest of their lives. They battle anxiety. They battle trust. They battle the belief that they matter. I was one of those kids. I woke up most days feeling forgotten. I went to bed feeling unwanted. I carried the quiet fear that I did not belong anywhere.

So I learned how to survive.

I learned how to be the kid who kept smiling. The kid who never complained. The kid who made people laugh. The kid who achieved because achievement brought attention. I believed that if I worked hard enough or impressed enough people I could earn the love that no one seemed to know how to give.

That survival strategy followed me as I grew up. It pushed me to get straight As. It pushed me to earn a 4.8 GPA. It pushed me to skip my senior year and start college early. It pushed me all the way to CNN where I performed my way into opportunities and praise. I wrote a song for CNN Idol and won. I wrote the theme for Nancy Grace and watched it air for two years. On the outside it looked like a dream coming to life.

But inside I still felt like the eight year old kid who was trying to prove he was worth keeping.

The Success That Did Not Fix Anything

From the outside it looked like life was unfolding exactly the way I had always hoped it would. I was working at CNN in New York, building a career in media while still chasing music. I was winning competitions. I was writing songs that were heard by millions. Every achievement felt like proof that I was finally becoming someone who mattered. But the truth was harder to face.

No matter how much I accomplished, it never settled anything inside me. I kept waiting for the moment when the fear would disappear. I kept waiting to feel secure. I kept waiting to stop needing approval from everyone around me.

That moment never came.

I told myself that the next achievement would be the one that fixed me. The next opportunity. The next paycheck. The next level of success. I kept climbing because slowing down felt dangerous. Rest felt unsafe. Stillness felt like failure. So I pushed harder. I performed more. I tried to outrun a feeling that always seemed one step behind me.

I moved from Atlanta to New York. Then from New York to Los Angeles. I convinced myself that the next city, the next job, the next creative win would be the thing that finally made me feel whole.

I was achieving more than I had ever imagined, but every achievement came with the same quiet ache. The same thought I could never escape. The same truth I did not yet have the courage to face.

Success did not make me whole. It only made the mask look better.

The Moment Everything Broke

In 2006 I moved to California chasing bigger dreams in film and music. But underneath all of that was something much more personal. My father had finally gotten sober. For the first time in my adult life we were rebuilding our relationship. He lived only two minutes away. We talked more. We laughed more. I felt like I finally had my dad back.

One weekend he asked if he could stay at our place while his wife was out of town. I told him no because I had work that night and would be gone until the next day. It felt like a small decision. Just a simple no.

I went to work. I came home. I went to sleep.
The next day I learned that my father had passed away.

There was no preparing for that kind of news. No way to make sense of it. No way to stop the guilt that hit me with more force than I knew how to handle.

I kept replaying that moment in my mind. If I had said yes would he still be alive. Could I have changed anything. I had spent years trying to understand him and forgive him. Now he was gone forever and I felt responsible for losing him twice in one lifetime.

I tried to move forward but the grief was too heavy. I numbed it however I could. I drank. I took pills. I buried myself in music. I stayed out late. I disconnected from everything that mattered. My wife watched me fall apart but I could not see anything past the pain.

One night I stumbled home at three in the morning. She was standing at the top of the stairs waiting for me. Her face said everything. Hurt. Loneliness. Fear. She told me she missed me. She told me she did not recognize me. She told me she loved me and wanted her husband back. Then she cried.

And something in me finally cracked open.

For the first time I saw the truth. I was not running from life. I was running from myself. I was losing the people who loved me. I was losing everything that actually mattered.

It was the moment everything broke.
It was also the moment something new began.

The Truth I Could No Longer Avoid

After that night something inside me finally came into focus. I had spent years trying to work harder, achieve more, and stay busy enough to outrun my pain. I believed that if I kept performing I could keep everything together. I could keep people proud of me. I could keep myself from feeling unworthy or alone. I could keep the world from seeing how broken I felt inside.

But when I saw my wife standing at the top of the stairs, everything I had been avoiding caught up with me. It showed me a truth I had spent my whole life trying not to face.

I was not falling apart because of grief.
I was falling apart because I had been living inside an identity I built as a child.
A room made of performance.
A room made of achievement.
A room that once kept me safe but no longer fit who I was becoming.

I saw how much pain I had caused my wife. I saw how disconnected I had become from the life we were trying to build. I saw how every achievement had become a distraction instead of a foundation. And I saw the cost of staying inside that old room.

For the first time in my life I understood that nothing in my world would change until I was willing to break the identity that was breaking me.

The realization was not dramatic. It was quiet. It felt like a surrender. A kind of honesty that left no space for excuses. I knew I could not keep living the way I had been. I knew I could not keep hiding behind success. I knew the cost was already far too high.

So I made a decision that night. A simple one, but the most important one I had ever made.

I chose to stop performing and finally face myself.
I chose to dismantle the version of me that no longer served my life.
I chose to rebuild with honesty, presence, and intention.

That choice became the beginning of everything that came next.

The Life I Built on the Other Side

When I finally stopped performing and started facing myself, everything began to shift. It was not dramatic. It was steady. I became more honest. I became more present. My marriage started to heal. I let myself feel the grief I had been running from. Bit by bit, I began chipping away at the parts of my life that no longer served me. I started rebuilding from the inside out.

The more aligned I became, the more aligned my world became. I stopped chasing approval and started choosing purpose. I made decisions that reflected who I wanted to be instead of who I thought I had to be. And as my identity changed, so did the opportunities around me.

My career grew in ways I never expected. I became a music supervisor for The Bachelor franchise. I worked with Netflix, HBO, Disney, Marvel, Sony, and Warner Bros. I produced a feature film. I built multiple businesses that grew past seven figures. I created the kind of work and the kind of life that once felt out of reach.

But the most important change was internal. I no longer felt the need to perform. I no longer felt like I had something to prove. I finally felt grounded in who I was becoming.

And as life began to realign, so did the way we lived it. My family and I started creating the kind of life I once thought was reserved for other people. We traveled more. We took extended trips together instead of squeezing life into weekends. We made memories in places I used to only see on screens. I was no longer building a career at the expense of my family. I was building a life that allowed us to experience the world together.

And as I rebuilt my life, I began to notice how many high achievers were living inside the same structures I had lived in.

Successful on the outside.
Misaligned on the inside.
Trapped in patterns that once kept them safe but no longer moved them forward.

I recognized the rooms they were operating from because I had lived in them too. That is what led me to this work.

Today I help leaders and teams break down the patterns, beliefs, and systems that hold them back. I help them clear the space to rebuild with intention, alignment, and purpose. I help them create lives and organizations that reflect who they are becoming, not who they used to be.

Everything I teach comes from the path I had to walk myself.

When you have the courage to dismantle the identity that no longer serves you, you can build a life that finally does.

And once you learn how to wreck what is not working, you can create everything that comes after.

Everyone eventually reaches a moment where what got them here cannot take them any further.