The Hercules Project: An Origin Story

I’m not supposed to be here.

Not by the math. Not by the odds. Not by the way the way the world sorts people once they fall far enough. I went to federal prison—and long before that sentence was handed down, I had already decided who I thought I was.

Worthless.

Unfixable.

The kind of man who does not deserve to be loved.

That belief didn’t excuse my behavior—it fueled it. Addiction didn’t create the chaos in my life; it gave me a way to live inside it without feeling everything at once.

The lowest point I’m willing to name publicly is small, but painful. While incarcerated, I conned my mother out of money so I could buy alcohol. Forty dollars. A Mountain Dew bottle filled with gin. Entitlement masqueraded as need.

That night, a lockdown was coming. Breathalyzers. Random pulls. I was lying on my bunk, staring at the ceiling above me, waiting.

Prison is loud.

That moment wasn’t.

It was quiet enough to hear yourself.

And that’s when the voice came—not dramatic, just clear:

“If you can’t get straight in here, there is no chance once you get home."

What scared me wasn’t getting caught.

It was getting out and realizing nothing had changed.

By the grace of God, they didn’t pick me that night. But that wasn’t the turning point.

The turning point was deciding to listen and choosing to be different.

Choosing to be different in prison costs you. You stop being invited to certain tables. Conversations go quiet when you walk up. Alliances fade. And alliances in prison are survival.

But the hardest thing I gave up wasn’t drugs or alcohol.

It was the identity that came with it.

Without the chaos.

Without the substances.

Without the familiar noise of shame and regret.

I had to sit with a question I had avoided my entire life:

Who am I if I’m not broken?

That question terrified me.

Because if I were still empty without the excuses, then the problem wasn’t the substances, the system, or the past. The problem was me. I had a choice.

So, I chose:

To stay sober.

To stay honest.

I stayed when giving up would have been easier.

I wish it were a one and done transformation. But it wasn’t. It was a reconstruction.

Repetitive days.

Boring discipline.

Learning how to keep promises when no one was watching.

Learning how to be alone without becoming lonely.

After prison, that same work continued. Building a life that could hold weight. Repairing trust I had broken. Learning responsibility and leadership the hard way, in blue-collar environments where performance matters and excuses don’t pay the bills.

That’s when I started noticing a pattern.

The people who struggle most aren’t weak. They’re capable. But they’re living lives that quietly contradict what they say they want. They tell me they don’t have time. They don’t know how. They tell me someone else is holding them back.

I recognize it immediately—because I lived it.

They don’t lack motivation. They lack structure.

Their environment keeps feeding the same patterns. Their calendar tells the truth their words avoid. And deep down, many of them are afraid of the same thing I was scared of in that bunk:

Who am I if I stop hiding behind my circumstances?

Here’s what I know now:

You don’t lead better than you live. And you can’t outgrow an identity you’re still protecting.

The Hercules Project exists because inspiration isn’t enough. Advice isn’t enough. Motivation, by itself, is unreliable.

This work is about an inner architecture—aligning how you think, speak, and act until they stop fighting each other. It’s about responsibility without shame, discipline without ego, and building a life that doesn’t require excuses to survive.

Because leadership isn’t built through titles or from the outside, it’s built on honesty within—on choices made when no one is clapping, correcting, or watching.

I’m not a statistic.

I’m an anomaly.

Not because I was spared—but because I chose to find out who I was without excuses.

That choice didn’t just change my life. It changed how I lead myself.

It changed how I carry responsibility.

How I show up under pressure.

How others experience me.

Maybe the problem isn’t your situation. Maybe it’s how you’re showing up inside it.

This is The Hercules Project.

Anomaly over average.Strength with depth.