How SIGN UP! Began — From One Diner Conversation to a Movement for Leadership Wellbeing

It was 2013, and I sat at a diner with my two running partners, Nghiem and Tien. With the new year quickly approaching, we wanted to begin planning races we could participate in for 2014. We were looking to do something big for the year that would challenge and stretch us to grow beyond our current running capacity; because, anything that doesn’t challenge you doesn’t change you. I was the oldest of the group of three. We called ourselves the band of brothers. The question of “why,” surfaced quite a bit when discussing 2014 and the voluntary conditions we were about to subject ourselves to. But, so did the answer, “why not?” Leave it to a runner to determine that there is more to this thing called life than the status quo of living. I didn’t want to be another story of the guy who goes to college; gets a good job with good benefits; gets married and has kids; works until retirement age and then enjoys the remaining decade finally living with a sense of adventure. No. That would not be my legacy. What better way to go against that self-proclaimed prophecy than by running from it–quite literally. The 2014 year would be the jolt of difference I needed to tip gravity in a new direction for my life. This would be the mind-blowing turn of events to alter the course of reality for me, forever. It would also be the year of change. And the yearlong journey delivered on catapulting us from comfort into curiosity for new development. I can’t speak for the other two, but this was a time of spiritual development for me, as well. It was this spiritual change that would become the inspiration for the book, SIGN UP!. That year transformed me in ways I had not before fathomed. So we paid a few hundred dollars to register– and then travel around the country to compete in (and by December of the following year, complete, as a team) 10 endurance races of 13.1 miles and 26.2 miles for 2014. I am happy to have captured the lessons learned in my running career and be able to share them with you as relates to setting and achieving goals in your personal life, through my book SIGN UP! There are 10 chapters. Each chapter ends with an activity for you to perform in order to build your personal success map... aka... your finish line. And I provide you with practical life tools, you'll be able to use right away in the seven main life areas: 1) Social and Family Relationships 2) Career & Education 3) Money & Personal Finances 4) Physical Health, Recreation and Leisure 5) Routine Responsibilities 6) Giving Back and Societal Contributions 7) Mental, Emotional and Inner Wellbeing. I hope my experiences and lessons learned along the way, as a runner, in some way, support your race in life. That was 2013. The lessons from that year—how to set a goal that scares you, break it into steps, and keep going when the whole thing feels impossible—became the seven-life-areas framework of the SIGN UP! book. Then, from 2013 to 2022, I lived a second chapter that made the framework real: 11 years in corporate healthcare, rising through six roles from frontline intake to Assistant Vice President of Training & Development. I built L&D programs for a 2,000-person, 8-state operation. I coached executives. I did the work I was meant to do. And I burned out doing it. Badly. What I learned rebuilding my own life—how energy actually recovers, how identity actually shifts, how sustainable leadership actually gets built—is what I now call the SIGNUP! POWER Method. It’s what I teach every leader I work with today. If this story resonates and you’re ready to write your own next chapter, here’s where to start: