I’ve been quiet lately.
You haven’t seen me much in your inbox. On social media. In the places I used to show up.
And if you have seen me, it’s because of the magic of automation and my wonderful team that kept content publishing in my absence.
But I’ve been gone.
I know it. You’ve probably felt it. And I want to speak to it honestly.
When Everything Falls Apart at Once
It was a hard winter for my family.
A couple months ago, our family experienced a tragedy. The kind that stops everything and reshapes how you see the world.
Our fourth child, a little baby girl, passed away. She was born still. She has a name, Rose, and a resting place where we visit her, grieve, and try to heal.
It pulled me away from all work and shook me to my core.
That’s all I can comfortably share right now.
But that alone would have been enough to reshape a man.
Life doesn’t operate on a neat schedule of pain though.
Within weeks of losing Rose, I nearly lost my dad. Health scares that put everything into sharp perspective about time, fragility, and what actually matters when you strip away all the noise.
And then I lost the biggest brand deal of my career.
The Wix Studio partnership that had funded Creative Crew for 3 years, that had provided stability and let me build something massive for thousands of freelancers and creators, ended.
No drama. No hard feelings. Just business.
But that partnership represented 90% of my business revenue.
Gone overnight.
The Illusion of Security
Here’s what nobody tells you about building a business: you can do everything right and still get humbled.
I’d built what looked like security. Multiple revenue streams. A big audience. Brand partnerships. Courses. Community.
But I’d also become dependent.
Comfortable.
Maybe a little entitled, if I’m being honest with myself.
I thought success would always follow the work. That if I just kept showing up, kept creating value, kept building, the rest would take care of itself.
And then 2025 stripped that away in the span of a few months.
Standing in that hospital room. Sitting by my dad’s bedside. Opening that email ending the partnership.
Each moment peeling back another layer of the illusion I’d been living in about control, about security, about what I’d actually built.
Being Honest About It
I haven’t wanted to talk about this publicly. It’s been too raw. Too personal. Too messy.
But I can only smile and pretend I’m not fundamentally a different man for so long.
There is healing in being authentic, honest, and open, while still safeguarding what’s private and meant only for me and my family.
What I share online isn’t a character or a facade. At least, I want to make certain that it’s not. It’s an extension, a piece of who I am.
I want my kids when they’re older to find these parts of me online and see me, not a character or parody of their dad.
So I will say this: Spring is here, and coming out the other side, I’m not the same man.
I’m changed. A little tattered, sure. But also more grounded. More focused. With a clearer view of what actually matters.
God. Family. Freedom. Purposeful work that serves your family, not the other way around.
What I’ve Had to Learn
Business exists to serve your life, not the other way around.
I’d gotten this backwards. Somewhere along the way, my family started serving my business instead of my business serving my family.
Late nights. Missed moments. Energy I should have saved for my wife and kids spent on projects that looked impressive but didn’t actually move the needle on what mattered.
There is no such thing as “once I achieve X, then I’ll relax” or “once I earn Y, then I’ll be happy.”
You won’t.
Because the happiness, the rest, the accomplishment, the purpose lies within the pursuit, not the milestone.
I was chasing milestones. Bigger deals. More revenue. The next level.
But the pursuit is where life actually happens.
And you are in pursuit right now.
That can make you happy.
That can give you purpose.
But the pursuit is hard.
You’re hungry.
You’re scared.
You’re at risk.
But you’re alive.
You’re energized.
You’re nervous.
You’re in pursuit.
There’s unavoidable suffering to be found in all of it.
I’d been trying to optimize suffering out of the equation. Build systems that eliminated friction. Create a business that just… worked.
But that’s not reality.
And instead of hiding from that, lean into it. Embrace it. Let the suffering be a part of it.
Not in some masochistic way. But in an honest way that acknowledges this is hard, this costs something, and that’s part of what makes it worthwhile.
And I trust you’ll forgive me for veering off into a philosophical tangent. It’s just a part of how I attempt to understand the world and my place in it.
What This Is Actually About
But I’ll bring it back to ground level here:
I care about helping others succeed at doing purposeful work that provides for their families, for their communities, a sense of accomplishment that the work they do matters.
I’ve been doing this for 12 years now. Since my first daughter was born. Building audiences. Building businesses. Learning what works and what doesn’t through expensive mistakes and hard-won victories.
This idea is even at the heart of my agency work with Authority Engines. Sure, on the surface what it looks like I’m doing is designing, building, and assembling email marketing automations and funnels using the Creator Engines framework.
But what I’m actually doing is working hard for my clients, serving them, and enabling them to earn what they worked so hard for. To make an income selling their products and services.
I feel I’m doing right by the talents, skills, and personality I’ve been given by THE Creator to create something that helps others.
Let me tell you a quick story that illustrates this. Stay with me, you’ll like this one:
I have a client who is very influential, a leader in the animal conservation and veterinary space. Think saving rhinos, shooting tranquilizers from helicopters in the African savannah, nursing apes back to health, running away from wild animals.
Pretty cool stuff.
Her goal is to help others, in particular women, to transition from the veterinary profession into full-time conservation work.
She knows how to do this. But her struggle was being able to earn enough from her coaching, products, community, ebooks to put her full focus on serving this community.
So I pitched her on building an automated marketing funnel for her business. Top to bottom. Working my magic, you know?
I was confident that doing this would get her closer to her goal.
She was nervous. Uncertain that handing over a few thousand dollars, all of her budget, to some man she’d never actually met other than seeing a few Instagram Reels would be a wise move.
Fast forward to when we launched her funnel. As of today, she’s earned more than 51k in sales and 23k in annual recurring revenue from her launch.
And it’s only been about 10 days.
A life-changing amount.
She was floored.
I don’t think she expected that to happen.
Now, I didn’t build her audience. Nor did I build the trust she’s earned with that audience.
But I saw that she made something that mattered. She has expertise that her audience desperately wanted. Needed.
And I knew that I had the key to connecting those two pieces together.
The experience and expertise I possessed was the very thing I could offer to get her closer to her dream.
And the rest would take care of itself.
And it did.
So not only did I serve one person and help her achieve her dream. Arguably, I’ve helped hundreds of people get closer to theirs.
That is what gives me purpose when I have to carve hours out of my day to be away from my wife and my children. To lock myself in my studio. Stare at a screen. Type away. Sift through emails. Write content. Humble myself on sales calls. And work hard.
On the other side of that hard work is service to another person who desperately needs what I can provide.
The need to build a purposeful business. To make an income doing work that matters. Provides for your family. And at the end of the day, you can feel proud of.
And that’s what I care about. That’s what gets me fired up. That’s what I want for you.
What I’m Building Now
Creative Crew is shutting down. That chapter is done.
Three years of building something massive for thousands of freelancers and creators. I’m grateful for it. Grateful for everyone who was part of it.
But that chapter is done.
And I am not.
I’m rebuilding. Differently this time. On a different foundation.
Not on dependence. Not on the illusion of one big partnership creating security. Not on chasing the next revenue milestone.
On purpose. On clarity. On work that actually serves my family.
I’ve opened Build with Brad, a small mentorship for people who actually run a business.
Not another free community. Not a chatroom full of noise and tire-kickers.
This is mentorship. Me in your corner. Weekly live calls. Direct access to my systems, my experience from 14 years of doing this.
If your pricing sucks, I’ll tell you.
If your offers don’t sell, we’ll fix them.
If your positioning is confused, we’ll sharpen it.
This is for the serious ones. The ones building something that matters. The ones who need results, not more content to consume.
Ninety-nine dollars a month or 895 a year. Founder pricing that won’t last forever.
And I’m continuing my agency work through Authority Engines, building sophisticated email marketing systems for established creators and consultants using the Creator Engines framework.
This is the work that lights me up. Taking someone who’s built real trust with their audience and connecting those pieces with systems that actually convert.
The agency is already booked well into next year, and I’m actively looking to bring on key players to help me scale this work.
What’s Next
So what’s coming?
The mentorship is already running. We’re doing live calls weekly. Building together. Getting real results.
I’m creating new resources and systems you can actually use.
I’m showing up. Not coasting. Leading.
But I don’t want this to be one-way.
This is an open line.
So help me to serve you. What do you need? What are you working on? What are you stuck on?
Where do you want to go? And how can I help you get there?
Drop a comment. Send me a message. Let me know you’re here. Tell me what matters to you right now.
Let’s pick it up. Let’s go hard.
And God bless you.