the mastermind - A group of business builders pushing each other and supporting each other to grow.

Many of the other business owners in your industry or community will even seem negative a lot of the time.  It is so common to go to an industry trade meeting and get involved with circles of negativity and complaining.  Many times those in the same industry all have the same problems and they don't know the way out.  It is easy to want to fit in and join in. Business owners often wear the fact that they are SO BUSY as a type of badge of honor.  Many business owners talk about wishing they could relax and they talk about the day when they'll spend more time with family and be more balanced.

You must be ready for your next level.  You need to become ok with even more success.  You need an even bigger mission.  You need to set impossible goals and say out loud your visions that are so powerful that nothing will stop you. 

You need a Clan and Tribe of Business Builders who say it's ok to be more you!  You need them to keep your ego in check and to help you see that sometimes you are an awesome high performer who is too hard on yourself.

We are Owners/CEOs/Presidents and we push each other to be and do more and we support each other in hard times.  We give each other tools and insights and new ways of thinking.  We do life together.  We become friends.  We call greatness out of each other.  We live the strenuous and rugged outdoor life.  We call each other out when we are being a narcissistic jackass or if we are playing too small.  We inspire each other.

When I started this I had grown tired of playing small.  I was looking for a community of high performers to push me and motivate me.  I wanted to be surrounded by business owners who intimidated me a little.

It was important to have a group where I could go deeper and wider than just business.  I want to live a high performance life in all areas, I don't just want to build a successful business.

I want to play full out and influence others to be their best.  I need othes to push me to play full out too.

I want to have deeper intimacy with my wife in many ways...yes including physical intimacy!  ...but also mental, spiritual, and life intimacy.  We want to create our best life together.

I want to be the best parent that I can be right now.

Being around others who are dreaming big and then making it happen will make me better.  I want to serve my community and raise up individuals. Your example will sometimes make me do the right thing when I could have taken an easier softer way.

I'm a coach to high performers who are building businesses and lives and I've made it my 25 year mission to get better and better at this.  I hire coaches, attend seminars, and read books dedicated to helping me to be a stronger coach and leader.  I need to continuously level up and go deeper inside me if I'm going to help you in a bigger way.

I grow by continuing to meet strong and fascinating business builders doing big stuff in the world.   I hang out with other high performance coaches so that I can improve my craft.

The thing I don't want you to know about me is that I often wake up feeling like I'm not enough and that you'll find me out.  I started on the journey of leading this camp in 2018 and then I wimped out.  I watched a video that my friend and high performer client Josh Ott produced and I thought... I'm not the bad ass he portrays me as in this video.

I let my upper limit challenges gain strength in my mind and being and I ran back to a safe place in my business where I could make "enough" money and where I could try to just be content.   

I tried to put "Business Builder Camp" stickers on my truck to help me commit and be all in...but it didn't work. 

But under the surface, discontent stirred.  There was a constant low hum telling me I could do more.  So, I invested in being coached by Rich Litvin.  He called out of me my passion to support men like you and to live a life of adventure and growth with you.  I got back on the path.  

There are many things that are hard for me to share about me but I know they make me a powerful coach.    I was abandoned by my mom at 6 months of age.  (I have gotten to know her in the past 10+ years and I have listened and understand her story)  My dad was unavailable in many ways in my early years due to his drinking and drugging. (He is one of my greatest inspirations as he really turned his life around.)  I became an alcoholic and workaholic and was a poor husband and dad.  I had to take a gun out of my grandfather's hands when I was a teen because my grandparents fought relentlessly and in the middle of the night my grandmother woke me because he said he was going to kill himself.  (He gave me my work ethic and taught me so much and gave up his post children years to raise another one and I'm grateful).  I had a teen daughter who almost died partially because I didn't know how to communicate with my wife and get the help we needed. (She is doing very well now.)  I had to call up the CEO of the company who bought my father's company because I felt guilty over how I handled my exit from the company.  (It all worked out thanks to real and candid conversations.) 

There are many things I have done that others see as powerful but they seem ordinary to me.  I feel like all along the way I have met mentors and guides at just the right time to show me the way and the next moves.   I was the first person from my family to go to college and I eventually graduated with a 4.0 and a master's degree from Virginia Tech after being invited to their most prestigious study program.  While at Tech I met my wife and convinced her to move to Colorado with me.  I cold called companies in Denver and 3 of them flew me out for interviews and I landed my dream job doing drilling and blasting and rockfall protection in the rocky mountains.  Within months I transferred from engineering to sales and project management and sold enough to earn a company diesel truck with a logo on the side! (boy was I proud of that.)

While in CO I became really great at my work and learned high ticket sales and how to work with people but I was a poor partner for Katherine and my drinking and over -working were in high gear.  We came home to PA and were married and I found a new mentor and work I enjoyed in engineering.  Quickly I developed my own clients and was promoted to department manager but I knew I didn't belong in design.  I went to work with my dad at the company he had started 12 years earlier.  We doubled the revenue of the company and more than doubled profits while we were together and implemented lots of systems for scale.  I learned about coaching and consultants  and how to grow a sales team and how to market a product.  We sold the company to a publicly traded firm and I had the chance to pitch the company to buyers on Wall Street.  

I met my mentor, Warren Lewis, which was a huge thing in my life.  Along the way I got sober and started a path to spiritual growth.  My wife and I built a thriving organic meat farm and raised and sold chickens, pigs, beef, and salmon.   We built our home and coaching center on 20 acres.  This is the kind of place where I dreamed of living when I was a child.  

I've worked hard to live a life of intention and the life I dream of.  This happens in fairly big ways and fairly small ways.  I've done 4 cross country trips of 2 weeks or more just exploring, living, and fishing.  I've wanted to live, work, and elk hunt in the Rockies so I made the phone calls necessary and I did it.  I wanted to get in shape and trail run so I did - last year I did a 31 mile ultra marathon on trail and up and down hills in less than 6.5 hours.  My son thought we should build a suspension bridge over the creek so we figured it out and did it.  

I've been building since I was a kid.  My grandfather was an independent coal miner and he taught me how to just do it and improvise and make it happen.  He taught me to keep working hard.  He taught me with our weekend coal delivery service how to make money and how money can be created with vision and hard work and by asking.  

My dad (who came back into my life after my early years) showed me, through his successes and failures in business, about the entrepreneur way.  My uncle as well owns a thriving material supply business/lumber yard and he also played a very important role of showing me the way.

Over the past 6 years I have built a thriving coaching business.  High performer coaching is something that is hard to explain and I don't even understand it.  We have powerful deep conversations about what you are building and what you dream of and what gets in the way... and then week by week and month by month you make progress.  You grow.  You make the vision a reality.  You deal with the nagging doubts in your head and act in spite of them.  You ask others for the help you need and answers and tools show up.

I've been helped by so many mentors and I've been shown so many "secrets" that I want to share that with you.  

I feel uncomfortable saying these things but I've been told it's not bragging if it's true .... AND I know that you have stories like this too.

I've heard that if you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go together.

I want to go fast and I'll do that when we aren't together.... but I want you alongside me and others so we can keep going through the ups and downs and so we can both rest deeply on our porches or play and be present with our children but also build businesses that really make a impact and that we are proud of.