My childhood growing up.

I often tell people I had two childhoods - the first one we lived in the country isolated from other people. The second one was spent in the city with more social life.

A long journey.

I was homeschooled all of my life which I'm grateful for (as a teenager I hated it). In hindsight, it's a huge part of who I am today. I never learned the politics and games most kids pick up. I spent most of my time reading and playing outside. We didn't watch a lot of TV or play video games.

Homelessness

In 2001 my dad lost his job. Long story short, he worked hard to launch a computer business and when that didn't succeed, we went bankrupt on our house, our car, and we lost almost everything we had.

In 2003, with no place to go we ended up moving into a family transitional facility (aka, a homeless shelter) with dozens of other families experiencing financial crisis. Thank God, we were only there for a few months and were able to move into a trailer park.

Faith and convictions

When I was 11, I had a conversation with God and said "Jesus, I can't live this life without you. If you'll be there for me, I'll commit my life to you." Deep down I felt his voice saying "That's all I wanted from you Isaac." Since then. I've made it my personal goal in life to be a student of Jesus and live out his purpose he designed for my life.

Social interaction difficulties

As me and my sisters began to socialize with other kids more, It became obvious how poor my social skills were. I was very introverted and was terrible at breaking the ice with others. I found it hard to fit in and often wished others would invite me to be their friend and hang out with them. This was a major problem for me until I got into high school.

Family tragedies

In 2010, my older sister Rebekah passed away at home from Acute Leukemia (a cancer that attacks blood cells in the bone marrow). Several years later my younger sister PJ passed away unexpectantly on her living room floor leaving her husband at the time and two children behind.

Between those two seasons of life our family started to break apart slowly. I had siblings that ran away from home and some that attempted suicide. Most of this occurred as I graduated highschool.

Personal development Journey

In high school I read my first personal growth book by John C Maxwell. It was the perfect tool I needed for that season in my life. John Maxwell taught me things through his statements like:

• "People don't care how much you know, till they know how much you care."

• "Be more concerned about making others feel good about themselves than you are in making them feel good about you."

• "You can't build a relationship with everybody in the room when you don't care about anybody in the room."

• "Becoming a good listener, you are able to connect with others on more levels and develop stronger, deeper relationships."

From that point on I committed myself to being a student of personal growth and development. I made it a goal to read more books and have more conversations with people who were farther ahead than I was. I decided I would view people differently - not in the cynical way I had, but choosing to believe the best about each person.

I also was determined that I wouldn't view all the hardships in my family's life as excuses not to succeed. I viewed them as opportunities for me to learn and tap into a deeper inner strength and resolve that others with perfect lives missed out on.

Reshaping my life

I am always working on reshaping my life's story, purpose and mission. I believe our story has defining moments in it that can either help us or harm us. We have the power to choose how we use them. I believe our life has a purpose - not just the meaning we assign each day. But also a general purpose - our world and beyond. We're hear for a reason. And we don't have a lot of time. So let's make each day count. And I believe in mission. You need a plan on how you want to live out your life. When you're on your death bed, will you be filled with gratitude or regret for the life you lived? This is what I'm always moving toward, and Jesus is how I do it.

Helping others

Nothing fills my passion tank more than helping others realize they're capable of succeeding if they're willing to work on themselves. You can't change others, but you can change you. When you learn to let go of the things you can't control and focus on the areas you can, you'll experience more joy, peace and freedom in your life.

That's what I love about life coaching. I get to sit down with others and walk them through the obstacles in their life holding them back. I get to partner with them and help them see what's really possible for their life if they're just willing to be hungry enough for change and humble enough to invest in themselves.