The Moment That Changed My Life Forever
In 2011, after massive business losses, I developed a rare illness called Erythema Nodosum. I was teetering on bankruptcy and unable to walk or work for three months. Day after day I laid in bed feeling humiliated and defeated, desperate to figure out where I’d gone wrong.
Then, one day, I felt a tingling in my body and heard a voice asking me, “Is this what you really want?”
I knew the voice was asking if I wanted the entrepreneurial journey, in all of its ups and downs. A quiet, small voice, buried deep inside of me, replied, “Yes.”
Days later it hit me: all my worst fears had come true. I’d lost $100Ks, three houses, two businesses, my reputation. Heck, I couldn’t even walk anymore.
But I wasn’t dead. My #1 asset wasn’t money, houses, or businesses. My #1 asset was me.
The rebuild started with delegation, and I was terrible at it. I failed at hiring an assistant five times. I tried do-it-myself, through an agency, part-time, full-time, fractional, and direct hire — nearly every combination, and I simply failed every single time.
After the fifth failure I accepted that the problem was me: how I delegated, and how I hired. I asked myself one question that changed everything:
“What would have to be true if I were legally bound to stay with my next assistant for three years?”
That standard rebuilt my career. I got my first-ever outstanding assistant. She took more off my plate in 4 weeks than anyone else had in 4 months. I was free to build my business. My consulting rate went from $40 an hour to $1,000 an hour.
Around 2016, so many of my entrepreneur friends wanted an assistant like I had that I started helping them too. The method became Great Assistant — which then turned into a business by the same name.
Today, Great Assistant has placed 1,000+ higher-level, US-based executive assistants with entrepreneurs. In 2025, Yale’s Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking invited me to teach it.
Along the way, I’ve been doing private consulting for entrepreneurs through my company, Profit Factory. We’ve developed a method for entrepreneurs to follow in my footsteps and replace themselves from the front lines of their businesses too.
I’ve also developed CEO programs, delivered through Profit Factory, that help entrepreneurs make high-level strategic decisions “by the numbers” so they can build a truly valuable business instead of just a glorified job.
In 2026, I took these skills, experiences, and frameworks into a partnership in the legal field called Law Firm Partners, where we help attorneys by taking all the back-office work off their plate so they can focus on the high-level work they prefer to do.
Before all this: I grew up in Edmonton, Canada, served 3 Prime Ministers as a House of Commons Page at 17 (2000), earned a BPE from the University of Alberta (2006), and spent my twenties as a College Pro Painters franchisee and a touring rock drummer. These days I live in downtown Austin, TX.
