This is going to be a memorable year for three Portland men.

Maybe you're one of them.

Do you have something big you've been meaning to do? A project, a vision, an idea you haven't gone after yet?

Not just a nice-to-do or interesting bucket list item. I'm talking about the thing you'd be proud to have given the world. A contribution. Something that outlasts you.

That's what I want to help you build.

For twelve weeks, we'll work one-on-one so you can make it real. I'll be in your corner the whole way.

I know this will be one of the most meaningful things I do this year. I want the same for you.

This is a personal project. Nothing for sale here.

Why I'm doing this

Last year, my wife and I were in Taichung, Taiwan visiting her father.

He's 86 and recently moved back after coming to the States fifty years ago, working himself to the bone, and eventually running the psychiatry department at a major Chicago hospital. He helped raise five daughters and did a lot of things right.

Then he was forced to retire.

The role that had defined him was gone. Then his wife passed and his world got smaller. He can barely get around now, mostly in a wheelchair. His memory is going. And when he feels people aren't giving him the respect he once commanded, he'll lament, "I was a doctor!"

The frustration behind those words made me realize something important. We'll come back to it in a moment.

While we were there in Taichung, my wife and I would walk across town to a beautiful park to practice qigong (a training system that pairs specific movement with focused breath and attention) with a master who is also in his 80s. He's been out there teaching for decades, every Saturday and Sunday, 8+ hours a day. Upright, sharp, full of energy. People travel from hours away to see him.

Two men, same age, radically different destinations.

There's no single formula that separates them. But the contrast was something that bumped around in my mind the whole flight home. The men who stay vital and sought-out into old age aren't just the ones who took better care of their bodies. They're the ones who kept giving. Who kept doing something that mattered beyond themselves. Who never stopped contributing.

That brings us back to your thing.

It matters more than you think. Not just because of how it affects the world around you, but also because of what it does for you, the man who gives it.

What we'll do together

A pattern I've observed in my own life: Doing something great requires becoming someone greater.

Your project is important in its own right, but it's also the forge. And, somewhat circularly, the man you become in the process is what makes the project possible.

Have you ever wished you could train with Yoda?

That's the closest thing I can point to. Someone in your corner who's part teacher, part guide, part coach, part trusted advisor. Someone who knows when to push, when to teach, when to hand you a tool, and when to point you inward to face your shadow. Not just a cheerleader or accountability partner. Someone who's genuinely with you, week after week, in a way most men have never experienced.

You'll feel it in the first few weeks. The support of having someone who's fully invested in the specific thing you're trying to build, and in the man you're trying to become to build it. Real strategy. Real thinking partnership. Real challenge when you're letting yourself off the hook. Frameworks for influence, leadership, energy, focus, and high performance.

And when a specific obstacle comes up, whether it's an inner ceiling, a hesitation that keeps showing up at the wrong moment, or a strategic problem you can't crack, we work it out together. The stuff you can't get from a book, a podcast, or a friend who means well but isn't in it with you.

Alongside that, you'll be learning something most men never encounter: a system of training that combines specific physical movement with focused mental work, developed and refined over centuries. It builds capacities you probably don't realize are available to you: real shifts in how your nervous system operates under stress, how deeply you recover, how clearly you think when the stakes are high. From those capacities come presence, groundedness, and the ability to stay steady when things get hard.

It's physical, but it works at any level of fitness. You'll feel the change in your body before you can name it in words: deeper sleep, faster recovery, a nervous system that downshifts on demand instead of running hot in the background. And it does something special: it shifts your identity at a level below thought.

That shift makes the inner work stick and the outer work possible.

The rhythm looks like this: Once a week, we meet in person out in Washington Park. Once a week, we'll have a dedicated call focused on whatever is most pressing. Between sessions, I'll send you material to prime your mind for the work. And you can reach me by text or email anytime in between.

That's a lot of contact, and it's intentionally set up that way.

By week twelve, you'll have either completed or made serious headway on the thing you came in wanting to do. But something else will have happened too. You'll be moving through the world differently. Sharper. More grounded. More present. Clearer about what matters and what doesn't. The people around you will notice the change. And you'll be carrying a set of tools, physical, mental, and philosophical, that you'll use for the rest of your life.

The big, meaningful thing you came here to build will become real.

About me

I'm not a therapist or a self-help guru. I have a career that pays the bills, so this isn't a business or a sales funnel.

That said, even though this isn't my main thing, there's a strong foundation supporting the work we'll do together. I've spent 35 years practicing martial arts, meditation, movement, and Daoist healing practices, including six years studying directly under masters in Classical Chinese Medicine. I'm also a Certified High Performance Coach through the High Performance Institute.

More than credentials, I've lived a pretty interesting life. Built a skate park in my hometown at 22 (it's still there, 26 years later). Rebuilt my health from the ground up after a car accident revealed I was born with one kidney. Landed a full scholarship to UC Berkeley after barely graduating high school. Built two businesses from scratch, a massage practice and later an e-commerce company built around a massage tool I designed. I'm 17 years into a great marriage and, most recently, spent 18 months traveling the world with my wife, a dream we'd been building toward for a long time.

Same pattern every time. The thing I wanted to do was bigger than who I was, so I became someone who could do it.

That's what you'll need to do, too.

Who this is for

You've built a good life.

You have some sense of what you want to build, even if it's not fully formed yet. If you're still trying to figure out what your thing is, this probably isn't the right container. That's a different kind of work than what we're doing here.

You're self-directed. You don't need to be managed. But you know that having the right person in your corner, someone who brings real tools and asks hard questions, could make all the difference.

You're open to looking inward and being honest about what you find. Not because you're a personal growth junkie (although it's fine if you are), but because you know the thing you want to build depends on it.

And when you commit to something, you follow through. Daily practice, physical and mental. Showing up every week, even the inconvenient ones. Truthful with yourself and with me, even when it's uncomfortable. Going after the thing you're trying to accomplish like a man possessed.

This isn't therapy, and it isn't built for a man in acute crisis. If you're in the middle of a hard divorce, deep in a depression, or fighting an addiction, there are better places to start. Come back when you're on more solid ground.

And because there's no money changing hands, nothing here will force you to show up when shit gets hard. Some men need that pressure. If that's you, this isn't the right fit either.

Assuming none of that's you, here's what I can tell you: you're going to come out of this a different man. Deeper. More inspired. More effective.

I want to hear from you

If this is calling to you at all, raise your hand. This is a first step, not a commitment. I'll set up calls to get to know you and see if it's the right fit. If I don't think it is, I'll let you know why.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

— James (LinkedIn)