One Year Ago, My Business Was Acquired

It’s been a full year now since my business was acquired.

That sentence still feels strange to write because for more than two decades, so much of my identity had been connected to banking. It was where I built a business advising banks and credit unions, wrote two books, grew a top 3% podcast, and eventually stood on conference stages around the world as a keynote speaker.

And then that chapter ended.

What most people probably don’t know is that, for a couple of years before the acquisition, I already felt called toward something different. The harder part was figuring out what that something was. 

So I did what came naturally and quickly jumped into the next thing. I launched another podcast and started experimenting with a new pilot project. I thought I needed to keep moving, building, and creating because that’s all I knew to do. 

But something still didn’t feel right. 

Up to this point, my restlessness and inability to sit still had taken my family on what my wife calls the entrepreneurial rollercoaster. It was a ride they didn't choose to get on. I knew they were tired of the ups and downs, the starts and stops. I also knew that if I wasn't careful about the future I created next, we’d all find ourselves on the entrepreneurial rollercoaster again. 

That’s when I had to admit that I was lost, sitting between a future I had known but outgrown and a future that still wasn't 100% clear. Along the way, I lost both my purpose and my peace, and staying busy didn't help me find either.

Over the last year, and especially over the last six months, I finally took my wife’s advice and started getting quieter. Earlier this year, I decided to pause the podcast and step back from social media. One unexpected gift of that decision was more intentional time with my kids over the summer than I probably ever had before.

Stepping away also gave me space to simply sit and be with myself. That was something I had wanted for a long time, but if I’m truthful, I also feared it because I had spent years filling silence with building, creating, publishing, traveling, and speaking.

Come to find out, the quiet was exactly what I needed.

In the silence, I began finding peace and purpose again. Even more deeply, I started experiencing something I don’t think I had ever fully allowed myself to experience before: Truth in the quiet… be still and know that I am God.

I’m grateful for the silence now because it created space for me to reflect more deeply on questions I had been wrestling with for a long time. And I have come to believe that questions are often the keys that unlock doors of opportunity we cannot see from our current perspective.

Who am I now that I’m no longer “the Banking on Digital Growth guy”? What have the last 25 years of entrepreneurship actually taught me? What work do I want to spend the next chapter of my life doing?

And perhaps most importantly, who am I being called to become?

Come to find out, the answer had been developing for years.

When it comes to publishing books, I think there is an important distinction. You can become an author who publishes books, or you can be an entrepreneur who uses publishing to develop and share your story, perspective, and philosophy that has been shaped by what you have lived and learned.

I chose the second path, and one of the biggest lessons I learned is that what you have lived and experienced can become much more valuable when you take the time to develop it.

The frameworks I created gave my thinking structure. Packaging that thinking and philosophy into published books changed the trajectory of my business because people could finally understand how I thought without having to sit across the table from me. The podcast then helped accelerate and expand that reach, and speaking on stages around the world amplified my voice even further. My reputation quickly started traveling farther than my relationships.

Looking back, though, there was another lesson sitting underneath all of that.

Publishing as an entrepreneur taught me that what you have lived and learned can become an asset far beyond the work you personally deliver. Your experiences create lessons, and when you begin looking across those lessons, patterns start to emerge. Those patterns begin shaping your beliefs, principles, perspectives, and frameworks, and over time they can develop into a philosophy you are willing to stand behind.

When you publish your story and philosophy, people can begin to know and trust you for how you think, not simply what you do.

That distinction has become increasingly important to me because what you do can increasingly be copied, automated, and commoditized. But no one can take away what you have actually lived. No one has your exact combination of experiences, decisions, mistakes, wins, relationships, struggles, questions, and lessons.

Those experiences have shaped how you see the world.

The question is: do all those stories, lessons, ideas, and frameworks stay trapped in your head, or do you take the time to develop them into something that can create value beyond you?

Built Authority is my next chapter.

Unlike my last venture, which took my family on the entrepreneurial rollercoaster ride for 20+ years, I’m writing this next chapter with my wife and kids.  

Built Authority helps founders and entrepreneurs tell their story and develop their philosophy so they can build their authority through publishing.

After running an initial pilot to prove the concept and work closely with Audrey to develop the backend process, we quietly launched Built Authority on July 1. I intentionally didn’t make much noise about it because I wanted to build with intention before I started sharing what we were doing.

I wanted to develop the process and make sure what we were building actually helped people turn years of experience into something meaningful they could own, develop, and eventually publish.

We’re now at the point where we have a proven process and an initial body of work behind it.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to open up more about what I’ve been developing around experience, story, philosophy, and publishing, and what it means to build your authority to become known and trusted for how you think.

Until then… remember, it’s your story. Live it well.