Chapter 1

Monday, April 4th, 2016. I drove my girls into town to school in Chandler, Oklahoma, just like I had done for years. The routine was automatic-backpacks, sack lunches, praying for each of their days as we turned the corner at Lincoln County Liquified Gas, "don't have a good day, have a great day" in my best Ryan Reynolds impersonation, and I love you! I headed home to prepare for my quarterly board meeting that night. I dreaded preparing for these meetings and all the stress and pressure that came along with them.

I parked my car, walked into the house, and suddenly found myself dropping to the floor.

I thought I was having a heart attack. I grabbed the first thing I could find—my six-year-old daughter's Hello Kitty blanket—and curled up in the fetal position. My wife walked into the room to find me there, a grown man who had spent twenty years building and leading organizations, wrapped in a pink fleecy blanket with a cartoon character on it.

The next thing I clearly remember was being in the ER in Edmond. "Your heart is fine," the doctor said. "It wasn't a heart attack. It was a full-blown panic attack. You need to make some major changes in your life, or it could be a heart attack in the future."

That was my fast and furious "highway mindset" coming to an abrupt ending. Not gradually, not with warning signs I could ignore-just a sudden, complete stop. I had been driving hard and fast through life, treating every challenge like another mile to cover quickly, every problem like a traffic jam to navigate around. But what I discovered after my crash was that the internal journey—the real work of healing and growth—isn't a highway at all.

The Crash

For twenty years, I had carried the weight that comes with building something meaningful. I was ordained as a youth pastor right out of college at the University of Oklahoma in 1989. Worked a summer at Kanakuk Kamps in Branson, MO. Spent two years on staff with Young Life in Norman, OK. I married the girl of my dreams in 1993. I earned a master's degree in Human Relations with an emphasis on Youth and Family while working as a counselor for Norman Public Schools, Norman Regional Hospital, and the Judge Couch Juvenile Detention Center in Cleveland County, OK. Then in 1996, I founded and operated Willow Springs Boys Ranch as its executive director.

I knew what it meant to wake up each day responsible for more than just myself. An annual$500K boys ranch budget that had to be raised dollar by dollar. Staff whose families depended on the decisions I made. Programs that promised transformation to kids who desperately needed it. Real estate that required constant attention and represented significant financial risk. Board meetings and donor relations where I felt like I had to defend not just our census, programs, and budget, but our very existence.

I understood the pressure that comes with being a pioneer. Managing all the things that I envisioned. The isolation of creating and leading something new. The weight of mission-driven work with limited resources and unlimited need. The burden of wearing multiple hats while everyone looks to you for answers. For two decades, internally, I carried all this weight. And then, on an ordinary Monday morning, I couldn't carry it anymore.

The Second Crash

Years before my first crash, I had already begun trying to outrun the pressure.

In 2012, while still leading Willow Springs Boys Ranch, I founded EÔTÉ COFFEE in my garage with a red 3-kilo US Roaster. What began as a hobby and an emotional escape quickly became something more. The toasty, smoky smell of roasted coffee offered relief from the financial and emotional weight I carried at the ranch.

Over time, that escape turned into another climb. The hobby became a business. The business became an online store. The online store became a brick-and-mortar presence in Auto Alley in OKC, eventually shipping craft coffee across the country.

After my crash in 2016, I did not change how I was driving. I just changed lanes. I was still using the same familiar roadmap. Push harder. Carry more. Stay needed.

By 2022, the pattern caught up with me again. I was in a different industry, using the same coping mechanisms, and getting the same results. The second crash was not as dramatic as the first, but it was undeniable. It finally forced me to confront the root issues I had been avoiding all along.

One Sunday at church, as our pastor began speaking, my wife Jeannie's mind drifted to an unusual image—like something you'd see in a doctor's exam room. She saw a diagram of a man's nervous system, except this picture was of me. But it wasn't actually the nervous system. It was entangled in a web of things with names like fear, worry, stress, bitterness, resentment, and self-doubt. These things were choking me.

Then Jeannie saw another picture: a garden. These same destructive forces were planted in my garden like weeds. I had a water can and was trying to water all the good things in my life, but they were being choked out by the fear, worry, stress, and anxiety that had taken root. I was actually watering the wrong things.

After my first crash, I had been able to identify these things that had caused me years of pain, but I had only pulled the tops of the weeds. The roots were still there, going deeper and growing stronger after I had cut them back. That's when my family invested in me to attend a seven-day intensive outpatient program at Psychology Counselling Services in Scottsdale, Arizona. The intensive was over 70 hours of work over a seven-day period. It was one of the most challenging things that I have ever done. It felt like emotional bootcamp-it was actually! This experience gave me the breakthrough I so desperately needed and wanted, but didn’t know who to get there.

During my time in Scottsdale, Marilyn Murray introduced me to trauma work along with EMDR work that began to address the deeper patterns beneath my drivenness. I was told that I was "feverishly efficient". I discovered that statement was not a compliment! This time, I didn't just name the "weeds in my garden"-I acknowledged the impact and power they had possessed over me. And I watched God graciously pull those weeds up by the roots, heal my identity, and let the good things in my life have room to grow. Not out of my best efforts, but out of my identity based on who God says I am, not who I believed I was.

Brennan Manning said it best: "God loves us for who we are, not as who we think we should be." This truth became the foundation for rebuilding my identity-not as a performer trying to earn approval, but as someone already loved and called to lead from that secure place. Life at its best happens out of the overflow of who we are in Christ.

The Mountains of My Mind

What I discovered after my two crashes was that the internal journey—the real work of healing and growth—looks more like slowly climbing a mountain than driving in the express lane of a highway. You can't speed through the switchbacks or race up the steep sections. You need different equipment, careful planning, the sense to know when to slow down, and the humility to ask for help. During this new season, I've come to appreciate the Chris Stapleton song, "Mountains of My Mind"—"I've tried all this time, I still can't climb the mountains of my mind." I had reached a place where I had finally come to the end of myself and my own best efforts.

The internal obstacles, the mental barriers, the emotional challenges we face aren't highways to speed down. They're mountains that require patience, proper gear, and most importantly, a skilled guide, someone who knows the terrain, will lead you. The most experienced mountain climbers don't just rely on their own strength and determination. They invest in Sherpas (guides) who know the terrain, understand the dangers, and have developed sustainable methods for navigating treacherous paths.

In overlanding, the journey is as important as the destination.Sustainable leadership requires knowing when to ask for help. You can't climb alone. You need a seasoned Sherpa as a trusted guide. A climber cannot safely Sherpa themselves up the mountain alone.

For years, I would look in the mirror and see anxiety, fear, and depression staring back at me. It was isolating. What I came to realize was that the mental health issues that I saw staring at me in the mirror were a much larger fraternity than I could have ever imagined. I wasn’t the only one who was battling these issues. Yet so many of us do it in isolation.

In 2023, I founded Overlander Consulting and began guiding others with similar experiences…people with that same look in their eyes that I had seen for decades. I became a certified guide with GiANT Worldwide. As I write this book, I've completed Level 1 trauma training in the Murray Method back in Scottsdale, Arizona. I hope to continue on in the Murray Method training. I have found great insight there and have learned some powerful tools to help others. I'm not just sharing what I've survived here; I'm offering what I've learned along the way that works.

The difference between a survivor and a guide is this: a survivor can tell you what doesn't work. A guide can show you what does work and more importantly, how to get there.

Through my journey from breakdown to breakthrough, I've learned that most leadership resources miss the mark. There is great information out there. However, information and inspiration does not always result in transformation.

Why This Book Matters

Many leadership books are written for people who are still climbing their first mountain. They assume you have unlimited energy, clear thinking, and the luxury of implementing gradual change. They don't speak to the founder sitting in their office at 2 AM, overwhelmed by the weight of payroll, staff issues, donor concerns in a nonprofit, and a family that's wondering why he's always stressed about the mission. They don't address the unique burden of men who can't just "find a new job" when things get hard—people who've built something, whose identity is tied to their organization's success, who carry responsibility for entire ecosystems of people and purposes.

This book is for the pioneer, visionary, and leader who's discovered that the road ahead isn't a highway—it's more like a rocky mountain gravel road that narrows to a trail that requires different skills, different equipment, and a different approach entirely. Unlike other resources that offer quick fixes, this book shares wisdom gained on my personal journey with some practical tools, biblical wisdom, and an accountability structure designed specifically for people who build, lead, and create value for others while learning to navigate their own internal landscape…the mountains of their mind.

The Journey Ahead

Over the next fifty chapters, at a measured and sustainable pace, we will walk together through five stages of growth that I experienced on my own journey up the mountain. Remember, it is not a race through each phase. Some will take longer than others. There will be times that you realize that you need to move back down to another phase to revisit old issues or address new ones. The pace is the pace. Give yourself permission to take as long as it takes. Healthy growth and self-awareness are not tyrants. Healing and growth are patience and full of grace. Here’s an introduction to the phases that I have experienced on my journey to wholeness:

Phase 1: Breakdown (awareness and awakening)

Phase 2: Reset (recovery and rhythms)

Phase 3: Rebuild (re-calibration and practice)

Phase 4: Summit Push (calling, tools, and community)

Phase 5: Summit Descent (integration, wholeness,and legacy)

This isn't about quick fixes or motivational platitudes. This is about deliberate, sustainable transformation for people who are carrying too much weight—more than they were ever intended to carry. These are leaders who build, lead, and create value for others while learning to care for themselves in the process. Leading shouldn’t result in burnout and breakdown. Healthy leadership should occur out of overflow.

Each chapter of MOUNTAINS OF MY MIND includes a provocative quote, personal story, practical tools, biblical truth, questions for reflection, and the C.O.R.E. Process (Call It, Own It, Respond, Execute) that will help you move from insight to action with some healthy accountability. This framework isn’t a magic formula. It is a framework for God to speak to you, mind, will, emotions, and spirit.

I won't pretend the journey is easy. Mountains are dangerous, and growth requires facing challenges that we'd rather avoid. It takes time and intention. That is why this book wasn't designed to be read over a weekend. It is designed to be contemplative. The journey takes as long as it takes. For me, it has been almost a decade now before I could share stories of healing and growth. That doesn't mean that God wasn’t there working with me along the way. It just means that you must slow down, sit still with yourself, your thoughts, and God. Listen to him. Let him speak. If you are like me, the place you are in, you didn't get there overnight. Neither will be your recovery and the development of new habits, a new mindset and a new way to live. Invest the time to slow down and do deep meaningful work. This is where the healing and transformation will occur.

I can promise you this: the view from a place of wholeness is worth the time, the climb, and the investment. Doing things the way that we always have is hard. Choosing to do things differently is hard. We get to choose our hard. What I’ve learned from my own experience is that you don't have to make the journey alone. There is a God who sees and hears us. He is a God who wants us to experience wholeness. He will lead and guide us. We only have to be willing to follow and let him lead.

The highway-mindset has to end. What lies ahead isn’t another stretch of asphalt to race down—it is a mountain trail that requires a different set of skills, different equipment, and a whole new approach entirely. The mountains of our minds aren’t going anywhere. There will always be another mountain. Another mountain range. We can either keep trying to drive around them or learn to climb them wisely, one careful step at a time.

Your mountain awaits. Let's begin the journey together!