🪓 ARTICLE 1: "Out the Fire, Into the Frost: How the Cold Set Me Free"
“It is better to be criticized by a wise man than praised by a fool.” — Ecclesiastes 7:5
Change of Pace
I didn’t walk out of prison into freedom—I walked into a test.
San Antonio, Texas had raised me, bled me, almost buried me. I knew every street corner like the back of my palm, but what I didn’t know was peace. What I didn’t know was me. After 18 months in the penitentiary and 7 years with the invisible leash of parole wrapped around my neck, I was finally “off paper.” No system tracking my steps. No check-ins. No breath held every time a cop car passed me.
But even then, I wasn’t free.
That’s the part people don’t understand—freedom doesn’t hit just because the gates open. You still got the system inside you. You still hear rules echoing, and you still second-guess your next breath.
And most of all, you look in the mirror and know:
“If I don’t become someone else—someone better—I’ll be right back where I came from.”
I was a man with a past and no blueprint for a future. All I had was the awareness that I needed to become somebody else. Not for show. Not for the courts. Not for the streets. I needed to be a man of valor. A man I wouldn’t feel ashamed to look in the mirror at. I needed to evolve. And as fate would have it, I had a friend who offered a door out.
The Invitation
My boy Mike? A rare breed. Northern white boy with a Black soul, the kind of guy who could pull up to a kickback or a trail ride and be at home either way. I met him in Texas, and we became like brothers—real recognizes real.
One day, Mike had to move back to Michigan for family matters. His dad worked as a foreman at a big commercial painting company out there. Before he left, he looked me dead in the eyes and said:
“When you get off parole, come up here. My pops will hire you. You need a reset, and this’ll be it.”
I told him I’d be there in three months.
I meant it.
Welcome to the Wilderness
When I tell you Decatur, Michigan looked like something out of a documentary on Amish life, I mean that with no exaggeration. Imagine this: you’ve just left the heat, traffic, and concrete of San Antonio… and now you’re in Decatur, Michigan. Where nothing moves. Where trees outnumber people 100 to 1. Where you can drive 30 minutes and only pass three cars—and two of those are pickups with antlers in the back. It was nerve racking.
But I wanted change. Not comfort.
Mike’s family owned 11 acres of land out in the cut. Salt-of-the-earth people. The kind that’d give you the shirt off their back and fix your plate at the same time. Their house was full, so me and Mike stayed in a camper out back.
It wasn’t a sad story. It was actually dope. Two beds, a couch, TV, heat, A/C, a little fridge. We made it a home. There were chickens, ducks, trails, off-road vehicles, gardens, and guns. We’d ride four-wheelers through the woods. I’d watch snow blanket the trees like nature had hit pause. That shit'll humble you.
I hated the cold. But I loved the calm.
I needed that stillness to finally sit with who I was… and who I wasn’t anymore.
Learning to Work Like a King in a Cold World
When I started with Mike’s dad’s company, I had zero experience painting. None. But I wasn’t afraid of sucking—I was afraid of staying the same. So I leaned into it. I soaked up everything. Reading blueprints. Managing crews. Communicating with people who didn’t even speak English. Coordinating projects with high-level decision-makers. Stadiums. Military bases. Medical buildings. Schools.
Jobs that lasted months. Some, years.
I had no college. No certificates. Just raw grit, hustle, and observation. I learned by doing and messing up. I learned by working through snowstorms that blanketed the road so bad I couldn’t see five feet ahead. I drove hours a day. Woke up while the world was still black and moved with the kind of focus I had only ever used to survive.
Now I was surviving differently. I was building.
And yet… I was making $15 an hour.
You want to talk about frustration? Try standing on scaffolding 40 feet in the air, with your fingers numb from cold, while managing a crew of six and thinking, “Why the hell am I still broke?”
That money didn’t match the weight I was carrying. And deep down, I knew my boss didn’t like me. Not personally. Not culturally. I was the only Black man in the entire company. Over a hundred people. Not one other brother. And it showed.
I lived in a town where Black people made up 1.3% of the population. You know what that means? It means in three years, I never saw another one. Not in town. Not at work. Not at Walmart. Not once. Twelve of us in the entire city—and I was invisible to even them.
I’m not the type to cry racism every time life is hard. But let’s keep it a buck: I felt like a fish in a frozen aquarium. I loved all people, and I respected the culture I was in—but that isolation hit different. There’s a specific kind of silence you hear when you’re the only one of your kind in the room. It’s not just awkward. It’s isolating.
Lessons in the Labor
Painting taught me how to think in layers. Not just primer and finish—but vision and patience. Every stroke required focus. Every plan demanded foresight. Every mistake cost time and reputation. I had to stop thinking like a corner boy and start thinking like a craftsman.
You don’t paint a wall. You transform it.
And little by little, the same was happening to me.
I became obsessed with quality. I set standards so high, people didn’t always understand them. I didn’t just want to “get the job done.” I wanted it to be flawless. Why? Because I’d spent too much of my life rushing through things and doing half-assed work—for myself, for others, for money that never really lasted.
Now? I wanted pride in what I created. I wanted to walk away from a job knowing I left my name behind in the walls, even if nobody ever knew.
The Beginning of a New Type of Work
While painting for somebody else, I started to imagine painting my own life. I hated being on someone else’s clock. I hated giving my time away while barely making ends meet. I started researching digital entrepreneurship. Business. Branding. How to monetize knowledge. I didn't understand the whole picture yet—but I was looking at the frame differently now.
I realized that I had discipline now. Patience. Process. And that those skills could be transferred into anything.
That camper I lived in became a monk's cave. I journaled. I studied. I reflected. I went into the woods and had conversations with silence. With myself. With God.
I was being pulled toward something I couldn’t name yet. Not business. Not branding. Just… becoming.
I started thinking:
“What if I applied the same discipline I used to survive… to build?”
“What if this environment wasn’t punishment—but preparation?”
⬇️ Want to walk this journey with me?
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