The Road That Built Fuel Factor

The Road That Built Fuel Factor

I’ve been coaching in one way or another since I was a kid. My first teams were 8th grade football and 8th grade girls basketball, and it felt natural. My family coached. My dad, uncle, sister, brothers, everyone passed something down. It wasn’t a “legacy,” it was just life. You help people get better at something, and in the process you learn who you are. I got the chance to meet so many great coaches from Bob Knight to Tom Osbourne and a whole host in between from my father's coaching connections to coaching along side him.

After playing college football and having to retire early due to concussions and other injuries, I turned to coaching to fill the void of comradery, thrill of victory and working toward a shared goal I had when on the team. I found purpose in coaching the young men and women in my care. Then life threw a wrench in the form of gang violence. Not sure how i was chosen but leaving a bar one night with my brother, we were targeted and beat with in an inch of our lives for no apparent reason. While I was grateful to have come away with only a cracked skull and kicked in teeth, I fell into a state of perpetual anger. The littlest things would send me over the edge and it made it hard for me to connect with my players at the time. I couldn't get out of my own way. I made the decision to move away from my childhood hometown and remove myself from a life I deemed to be making me angry.

When I moved from the Chicago area to Boston, I stepped away from sports. I didn’t stop coaching, though. I just shifted it. I ran restaurants, built teams, taught people how to lead and how to take pride in what they do. A kitchen, bar or a dining room has its own version of practice, film study and game day. Coaching fits anywhere there are people trying to get better. I found my purpose again and with that let go of some of that young man anger I was still carrying with me. I met a wonderful woman that I started a life with. We moved in together, got a dog and were seemingly living a great life.

Then life cracked a bit.

I had proposed to my girlfriend around Christmas time 2016. She didn’t say yes, but we stayed together. Doing it in our apartment created bad memories and put a strain on the relationship so we moved into a new apartment. I still held on to this hopeful idea that “one day” the answer would change. Life started to get better. Then someone broke into her Jeep. She called and asked if I’d left the window down. I hadn’t. She looked again and realized the window had been smashed, everything taken. My heart sank. My golf clubs were gone. My bag was gone. And inside the bag was the ring; uninsured and hidden like some secret backup plan for the future.

All of it vanished in a moment, and so did the version of my life I thought I was building.

I dropped into a depression. The only thing that felt meaningful was the one dream I’d kept tucked away: coaching college football. So I chased it. I put everything into getting on a staff, and I ended up at Bentley University. While I focused on giving my best at coaching the cracks in our relationship grew bigger and eventually led to us breaking up. It gave me perspective on everything that happened leading up to that and how I could change going forward. It gave me the motivation to pursue my purpose of coaching, leading and helping others. So that's what I did at Bentley.

That’s where the earliest pieces of Fuel Factor finally took shape. They had always been there in how and what I coached and preached but were never put into a cohesive framework. During our COVID season, our head coach asked us to build our own coaching philosophy. That challenge forced me to take everything I’d believed about discipline, effort, mindset, and growth and turn it into something I could teach. That’s when FUEL; Focus, Urgency, Effort, Learning, became a real framework instead of scattered instincts.

After COVID ended, so did my time coaching there. I got let go and found myself back in restaurants. I kept tinkering with Fuel Factor on the side, writing pieces of the book, building on the ideas but I was stuck. Half-finished. Drifting.

Then came the next woman I thought I'd marry

We were together for two+ years. When she ended it, it hit hard. It broke something open in me. And as much as it hurt, it also again pushed me forward. That heartbreak is what finally made me finish the Fuel Factor book and publish it. It’s what made me take the brand seriously; website, social media, merch, coaching sessions, all of it.

I was using my own pillars, goal setting, after action reports, Fuel Checks, to get myself out of that hole. Not in a “fix everything overnight” way. More in a “get out of bed and don’t let this spiral run your life” way. Without that structure, I might still be stuck in place, replaying memories and talking myself in circles.

Now I’m building something that matters to me. Something that helps people who feel stuck, overwhelmed, lost, or just ready for more. I’m not speaking from a mountaintop. I’m not better or wiser or immune to heartbreak, setbacks, loss or failure. I’m human, just like anyone reading this. I’ve fallen apart more times than I care to count. I’ve questioned myself. I’ve had to rebuild. And Fuel Factor came from that process, not from perfection, but from persistence.

If any part of my journey feels familiar, then you’re exactly who I created this for. If I can make even a small positive dent in someone’s life, then every rough patch was worth it.

The pillars didn’t just help me build Fuel Factor. They helped me rebuild myself. And now I get to pass them on.