You are not behind.
You are unbuilt.

Read the opening

Before We Begin

You picked up this book because something in you is unfinished.

Not behind. Unfinished. There is a version of your life that exists just past your current circumstances, and some part of you has always known it. The knowing is not the problem. The knowing has never been the problem.

I wrote this book about a gap — that painful, specific distance between who you know you're supposed to be and who you're showing up as every single day. I lived there for years. Not on the sidelines, but fully in the game, half-committed, quoting the principles and skipping the practice.

I grew up in Detroit. I was homeless. I sold drugs to eat. I failed at business more times than I can account for with both hands. And I also built a six-figure organization, raised two sons, and helped dozens of people change their lives. The difference between those two versions of me was not information. I had plenty of information.

I got inside information. Found facts. Read research. …and nothing changed. The idea dimmed. The emotion cooled. The comfort of complacency wrapped me in a blanket of mediocrity, tucked me into a bed of regret, and I slept on success. Again. I told myself I was being strategic. I was scared.

That paragraph is mine. I wrote it about myself. And if you've ever sat on a great idea until it went cold, it's yours too.

What follows is part memoir, part mirror. Some pages will feel uncomfortably familiar. That's the point. I'm not here to make you feel good about where you are. I'm here to walk with you toward where you're going.

Let's begin.

— Brandon Lee