I grew up in a Christian home in California. From early on, I was that kid who loved helping people—missions trips to Mexico, building houses, serving wherever I could. I always had this passion for third-world countries, especially children’s education. I didn’t have everything figured out, but I knew I wanted my life to count for something outside of myself.At the same time, I had a rocky relationship with authority. In high school, I didn’t really like being told what to do. I dabbled with drugs and partying. I knew better, but I still went down that road. The seeds of purpose were there—faith, service, the desire to help—but so was rebellion. Both were real.Looking back, I can see God’s hand was on me even then. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10 ESV). I didn’t understand all that at the time, but I can see now how much of my wiring—to build, to serve, to fight for people—was there early. I just didn’t know how to aim it.By the time I hit seventeen, I knew I had to make a change. I needed to get away from the scene and the people I was around. So I left California and moved to Argentina. It wasn’t glamorous. It was survival. It was me saying, “I have to get out of here if I’m going to live the life I know I’m supposed to live.”I wanted to learn Spanish. I wanted to study the Bible. I wanted to be in an environment where my life could actually be used for good. And honestly, I just needed distance. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6 ESV). That verse became real—not because I was wise, but because I had run out of wisdom. I needed a new path.Moving to Argentina is also where I met Luke. He was fifteen, I was seventeen—we were in a small town where everybody knew everybody. It’s funny how God connects dots years before you even know you’ll need them. At the time, we were just kids. I had no grid for how that friendship would come back around later. But God did. “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9 ESV).I didn’t stop caring about the world just because I left home—I cared even more. I wanted to be in the trenches actually helping people. I didn’t have a plan yet. I didn’t have a five-year vision board. I had a Bible, a suitcase, and this conviction: my life is not about me. Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart… and… You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39 ESV). That’s what I wanted—love God, love people. I just didn’t know how to build it yet.
When I was 17, I packed up and moved to Argentina. Most kids from California were going off to college or starting jobs. I wanted something different. I wanted to learn Spanish, dive deeper into the Bible, and work in nonprofits. Honestly, I thought my life’s calling was to work in children’s education in third-world countries.So I spent about five years in Argentina, working with different nonprofits, traveling, helping build houses, teaching kids. I bounced between 5 or 6 different organizations. Every time, I’d start with big vision and passion—and every time, I hit the same wall.I loved the mission, but I hated the structure. Donors dictated everything. If they wanted a well built over here, that’s where we built it—even if we knew the community’s real need was somewhere else. It didn’t matter what we saw on the ground. The person with the money pulled the strings.And in the nonprofit world, you don’t escape authority. You’ve got a boss. They tell you what to do, how to do it, when to do it. And I’ve never been wired that way. I wanted freedom to innovate, to help in the way I knew was best. But over and over, I realized I didn’t fit.One director even told me straight up, “That’s a great vision—but people don’t donate to South America here. Maybe you should do your own thing.” That crushed me. I thought I was in the exact place God wanted me, doing His work, but the doors kept closing.I was young, frustrated, and confused. I knew what I wanted my life to look like: service, mission, impact. But I couldn’t find anywhere to do it.Scripture says, “Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3 ESV). At that point, it didn’t feel like my plans were being established. It felt like they were being blocked at every turn. But I can see now—God was planting seeds, teaching me how systems work, and showing me that the structure mattered just as much as the mission.By the time I left Argentina and moved to Peru, I carried two things with me: a burning desire to impact the world through children’s education—and a growing conviction that the traditional nonprofit model wasn’t going to get me there.
After Argentina, I moved to Peru. I still had the same passion—kids, education, helping people—but I carried all the same frustrations. I tried working in schools, thinking maybe that was the answer. I loved the kids, but I hated the structure. Waking up every day to a rigid system wasn’t for me. I kept telling myself, “There has to be a better way to do this.”So I decided to try building something of my own. My first business idea was a delivery barber service. It was during the Venezuelan crisis, and I wanted to help refugees who were barbers find work. The idea was simple: you’d order a barber to your house, like Uber. I had the vision, but I didn’t have the focus—or the skill set. I only got about five clients before it all fell apart. My first business completely crashed and burned.And that’s when I hit a wall.I spiraled into depression—not the suicidal kind, but the paralyzing kind. The kind where you just don’t want to do anything. I would lay in bed all day, binge Netflix, and completely check out of life. I had no motivation, no energy, no direction.It got worse. I started partying heavily and fell into drug addiction. For about eight months, I was deep into it—hard drugs, nonstop partying, all while sinking further into debt. At one point, I pulled over $40,000 out of banks through schemes I’m not proud of. Later, out of conscience, I paid it all back. But at the time, I was drowning.I felt like my life had no purpose. And yet, deep down, I still knew I wasn’t supposed to quit. There was always this voice inside me reminding me that God had more for my life. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11 ESV). I didn’t feel it, but I clung to it.Even in the darkest moments, I knew taking my life wasn’t an option. It would’ve been selfish. Because I knew—even when I was addicted, broke, depressed, and lost—I still had a calling. I still had potential. And not living it out was the real waste.That’s when I began to realize: it’s actually selfish to withhold the gifts and the potential God’s put inside of you. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14 ESV). But my light was completely hidden. I wasn’t living for anyone but myself. And I hated it.I didn’t know how, but I knew I had to change.
At one point, I thought the “safe” move was to go back to the nonprofit I’d worked at in Argentina. I even moved all my stuff back there, including my dog. But the day I went to fly out, every airport in the world shut down. I got stuck in Peru with six people crammed into a two-bedroom apartment.It was chaos. The hospitals collapsed within the first 48 hours. You couldn’t even leave your apartment except to buy groceries, and they split days by gender—men could go on certain days, women on others. People were terrified. On the news, you’d see bodies being carried out on stretchers and dropped into mass pits. It felt like the end of the world.And yet, sitting there trapped, I realized maybe this was God’s way of redirecting me. Proverbs says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9 ESV). I thought I had my plan—but clearly, He had something different.So I started looking online for ways to make money. I told myself: “If I can freelance and earn my own income, I won’t have to depend on donors. I’ll be able to fund what I really want to do.”That’s when I stumbled on SEO. To be honest, I didn’t even know what I was doing. I wasted months building a logo, a website, branding—things that didn’t matter. What I really needed was just one client. But I didn’t know that yet.I started freelancing on Upwork and Fiverr. I made some money here and there. But I quickly realized I hated doing the actual service work. I didn’t like managing operations. And I hated the feeling of my time being capped. A mentor helped me see it: “If you’re just freelancing, your reach is limited to your own time. Why not leverage other people?”That was the lightbulb moment. Instead of being the one doing all the work, I could build a team. I could multiply my impact.But at the same time, I was wrestling with my mindset. I’d lived in South America for years, where people had almost nothing yet still had joy. I had convinced myself money was dumb—that it corrupts you. I thought all I should do was “help people” and forget money altogether.But here’s the truth I had to face: money is just a tool. By itself, it isn’t good or evil. It depends on what you do with it. Scripture says, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10 ESV). It doesn’t say money is evil—it says loving it is.And I realized: if I truly wanted to serve people with excellence, I needed to stop rejecting the very tool God could use. “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want” (Proverbs 11:24 ESV). Money, stewarded rightly, could multiply impact far beyond what I could ever do alone.That shift changed everything.
Once I shifted my mindset, things moved fast.I stopped thinking like a freelancer and started thinking like a business owner. Instead of doing everything myself, I built a system. I’d find people who already knew how to do SEO at a high level—people with case studies and experience—and I’d let them do the work while I focused on bringing in clients.From there, it snowballed. Within a year and a half of deciding I wasn’t going to be a freelancer anymore, I had over 100 employees and had already broken into seven figures. We were helping eCommerce brands scale into the tens of millions. Eventually, across all my companies, we’ve been able to drive multiple nine figures in sales.But here’s what’s important: it wasn’t just about the numbers. For me, it was about people.Every new hire wasn’t just a “resource.” They were a person with a family, a purpose, and a need for fulfillment. Business isn’t just transactions—it’s stewardship. “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4 ESV).So when I built my teams, I didn’t want just the “best closer” or the “most talented operator.” I wanted people who aligned with the mission. People I’d actually want to hang out with. People who felt like they belonged.Because here’s the truth: business is about people at every level.Clients are people with problems that need real solutions. Teams are people who want to belong and grow. Leaders are people who are called to serve, not to be served. Jesus said it Himself: “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26–28 ESV).That’s how I tried to approach building companies.And it worked. Not just because of skill, but because people felt it. Clients could feel that we actually cared about their growth, not just our bottom line. Teams could feel that we were building something meaningful, not just chasing dollars.Scaling that fast came with challenges, sure—but the philosophy never changed. Delegate everything you don’t love. Build systems. Empower people. Keep the mission front and center. And view money as what it is: a tool to amplify impact.I’ve carried that philosophy into every company since—Dominus, Qerā Marketing, Profit Whales, Agency Domain. Different names, different niches, but the same heartbeat: help people succeed, and do it with excellence.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is this: it’s actually selfish not to live to your fullest potential.For a long time, I thought my problems were huge. I thought I was stuck. But the reality is—my life was given to me by God for a reason. Your life was given to you for a reason. And when you choose to sit back, play small, and waste the gifts He’s placed inside you—that’s selfish.Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14 ESV). If God created me to be light, then hiding that light under depression, addiction, or fear wasn’t just hurting me—it was robbing others of what God wanted to do through me.That conviction shaped the way I built businesses. I don’t want to spend my life doing things I hate just because I “have to.” Every month, I sit down and list everything I do regularly. Then I ask: how much would it cost to pay someone else to do this? If it’s less than what my time is worth, I hire it out. Because my highest responsibility is to focus on the things God has actually called me to do—the things that create the most impact. That’s not laziness. That’s stewardship. Money plays into this too. For years, I thought money was the enemy. But what I’ve learned is money is simply currency—and currency is meant to flow. If you try to dam up a river, it stagnates and rots. If you try to hoard money, it loses its power. But when you let it flow—to your team, to your family, to nonprofits, to the Kingdom—that’s when it multiplies.Scripture says, “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want” (Proverbs 11:24 ESV). That’s been true in my life over and over again.
So when I think about leadership, I think about it like this:
- Serve people, don’t use them.
- Delegate what you don’t love, so you can focus on what matters.
- Let money flow through you, not just to you.
- And never forget—the end goal isn’t success, it’s eternal impact.
Jesus said it plainly: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21 ESV).At the end of the day, that’s the filter. Every business I build, every investment I make, every stage I stand on—it’s all for something bigger than me.
Today, my life looks radically different than it did in those dark years. I’ve built and scaled multiple companies. I’ve led teams of over a hundred people. I’ve helped drive over nine figures in sales for clients. But more important than any of that—I’ve seen how God can take a broken, addicted, depressed kid and turn his life into something useful for His Kingdom.I don’t build businesses just to make money. I build businesses because they’re vehicles for impact. Every dollar earned is a tool. Every client served is a person impacted. Every team member hired is a life supported. And all of it—absolutely all of it—points back to Him.That’s why my mission now is clear: build businesses with eternal impact.It’s why I tithe. It’s why I invest into nonprofits. And it’s why I’m working to launch my own nonprofit in 2026, focused on children’s education in South America. That calling from when I was 17 never went away—it just took a different path to get here.I believe Jesus when He said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10 ESV). That abundant life isn’t just about me—it’s about how my life can bring abundance to others.So when people look at my story, I don’t want them to just see business success. I want them to see Jesus. I want them to see what happens when you surrender your life, your money, and your talents to Him. Because He’s the one who redeems. He’s the one who transforms. He’s the one who makes life meaningful.And here’s what I’d say to you: if He can take me—from addiction, depression, and failure—and turn me into a leader, entrepreneur, and servant with global impact, then He can do the same for you.“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV).That’s my story. From brokenness to redemption. From selfishness to stewardship. From building my own thing to building His Kingdom.And I’m just getting started.One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is this: it’s actually selfish not to live to your fullest potential.For a long time, I thought my problems were huge. I thought I was stuck. But the reality is—my life was given to me by God for a reason. Your life was given to you for a reason. And when you choose to sit back, play small, and waste the gifts He’s placed inside you—that’s selfish.Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14 ESV). If God created me to be light, then hiding that light under depression, addiction, or fear wasn’t just hurting me—it was robbing others of what God wanted to do through me.That conviction shaped the way I built businesses. I don’t want to spend my life doing things I hate just because I “have to.” Every month, I sit down and list everything I do regularly. Then I ask: how much would it cost to pay someone else to do this? If it’s less than what my time is worth, I hire it out. Because my highest responsibility is to focus on the things God has actually called me to do—the things that create the most impact. That’s not laziness. That’s stewardship. Money plays into this too. For years, I thought money was the enemy. But what I’ve learned is money is simply currency—and currency is meant to flow. If you try to dam up a river, it stagnates and rots. If you try to hoard money, it loses its power. But when you let it flow—to your team, to your family, to nonprofits, to the Kingdom—that’s when it multiplies.Scripture says, “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want” (Proverbs 11:24 ESV). That’s been true in my life over and over again.
So when I think about leadership, I think about it like this:
- Serve people, don’t use them.
- Delegate what you don’t love, so you can focus on what matters.
- Let money flow through you, not just to you.
- And never forget—the end goal isn’t success, it’s eternal impact.
Jesus said it plainly: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19–21 ESV).At the end of the day, that’s the filter. Every business I build, every investment I make, every stage I stand on—it’s all for something bigger than me.