After my divorce, I lost my home when child support payments consumed half my take-home pay.

I found myself moving from place to place wherever I could go, with everything I owned packed in my car. Sometimes I moved daily. Often I lasted no more than a week before having to find somewhere else. At one point, I wound up in a halfway house that a friend of a friend was using.

The place was filthy and infested with roaches. But what broke me wasn't the conditions—it was the constant movement. The never settling. The exhaustion of having no foundation beneath me while trying to maintain my work, my purpose, my dignity.

I couldn't believe that as a grown man with a Master's degree, I was in this situation.

But that season of constant resetting taught me something critical: sometimes you have to keep moving until you find solid ground. And when you finally do find it, you build differently than you did before.

My soon-to-be-published book, "Rise Above the Rim: The 5 Steps to Power for Divorced Men Over 40," chronicles the journey from devastation to elevation. The basketball metaphor runs throughout—that rim that seems insurmountable when you're below it becomes something entirely different once you learn to rise above it.

The statistics tell us the context. By age 55, about 87 percent of men and women have married at least once, and 40 percent have divorced at least once. The average age of men going through divorce in 2022 was 46. If you're reading this as a divorced man over 40, you're part of a massive demographic navigating one of life's most challenging transitions.

What they don't tell you is what happens after. The isolation. The financial devastation. The identity crisis. The struggle to maintain relationships with your children. The fear of starting over when you thought you had it all figured out.

I wrote this book from the trenches. Much of it was composed while I was literally living the struggle—processing my pain through poetry in that Salvation Army homeless shelter, working full-time while still homeless because child support payments consumed half my take-home pay. Every chapter represents not just theory, but lived experience refined through years of coaching hundreds of men through similar journeys.

The Five Steps to Power: Your Roadmap Above the Rim

The framework is deceptively simple: Self-Awareness, Trust, Mindset Shift, Organization, and Leveraging Connections. These aren't just feel-good concepts—they're the actual mechanics of transformation.

Self-Awareness is your launch pad. You can't rise if you don't know where you're standing. The book dives deep into what I call "name archaeology"—discovering who you are and who you've always been. My grandfather used to tell me stories about our family history. Through those stories, he gave me my identity. When I remembered those stories during my darkest hours, I realized I was part of a lineage that refuses to stay down.

Trust becomes your springboard. After divorce, trust is shattered—not just in your ex-partner, but in yourself, in your judgment, in your ability to navigate life. The book provides practical exercises to rebuild that foundation. Research on resilience shows this matters. Among the key factors of resilience identified in middle-aged adults are growth and purpose, managing uncertainty, and spirituality.

Mindset Shift is where the magic happens. This is where that rim transforms from barrier to target. I share the exact mental frameworks that took me from victim mentality to victor mindset. The conversations I had with Dr. Diva Verdun during the long days and years spent developing my coaching philosophy and content kept me focused when I was scared and uncertain. We all need that kind of support when we step out on faith. The book shows you how to develop those frameworks and find that support.

Organization provides the systems that turn chaos into momentum. When everything's falling apart, you need structure. The book breaks down financial recovery strategies, career reinvention approaches, and co-parenting frameworks that actually work for men navigating custody arrangements and child support.

Leveraging Connections reminds you that you can't do this alone. The chapter on relationship building addresses something most divorce books ignore: how to rebuild your social circle when you've lost the couples' dinners and family barbecues. How to date again in your 40s or 50s. How to maintain meaningful connections with your children despite the circumstances.

Beyond Survival: The Legacy Phase

What sets this book apart is where it goes beyond recovery. The final chapters address something most men don't think about when they're just trying to survive: legacy building. Your pain has purpose. Your struggle has meaning. The journey you're on isn't just about your personal recovery—it's about creating a platform to help other men rise.

Research shows that in our forties, there's a stronger sense of resilience and fulfillment, as most people have traversed through the highest of highs and lowest of lows by this time, developing greater resilience to adversity. You're not diminished by this experience. You're refined by it.

I share how one of my former clients happened upon my mother on a street in The Bronx years after our work together. He told her he was remarried with children, had a good job, was happy—and that he could still hear my voice whenever he had to make a difficult decision. That's legacy. That's the multiplier effect this book teaches you to create.

The Connection to The Rebound and Inner Champion University

This book is the foundation for everything happening in The Rebound movement. The weekly newsletter delivers bite-sized strategies and real talk for divorced men navigating life after 40. But the book provides the comprehensive framework—the complete roadmap from below the rim to soaring above it.

Inner Champion University, launching soon, will take these principles even deeper. While the book gives you the methodology and the mindset, the University will provide the community, the accountability, and the ongoing support system you need. Think of the book as your flight manual and the University as your flight school—complete with instructors who've actually made the journey and fellow students navigating the same turbulence.

The Book's Design: Built for Real Transformation

I wrote this book to do three things:

First, give you the complete framework—the actual mechanics of transformation from below the rim to above it. Every chapter ends with concrete action steps you can implement immediately.

Second, show you the path through lived experience. This isn't theory cobbled together from research. This is thirty-plus years of coaching experience refined through personal adversity and validated by hundreds of men who've rebuilt their lives using these principles.

Third, prepare you for legacy. The final chapters address what most men don't think about when they're just trying to survive: how your pain has purpose. How your struggle has meaning. How the journey you're on creates a platform to help other men rise.

Your Invitation

When "Rise Above the Rim" releases, you'll hold in your hands a blueprint forged from three decades of coaching, tested through my own hardest seasons, and proven by hundreds of men who've used these principles to rebuild their lives.

The rim you're staring at right now—the one that seems impossible to clear—can become your launching pad. Every challenge you've faced, every skill you're developing, every relationship you're building is preparing you for impact that extends far beyond your own recovery.

Your divorce marks the beginning of your most important chapter. The one where you discover what you're truly capable of. The one where you realize that your worst chapter can become the foundation for your best one.

Brother, from above the rim, the game looks different. Challenges that once seemed overwhelming become manageable. Opportunities that were invisible from below become obvious. Your struggles become proof of your resilience.

The men who truly rise above the rim reach back and help other men find their launching pad. They build better lives while creating opportunities for others to do the same. They transform their pain into power that extends into future generations.

The Game From Above

The book releases soon. The Rebound newsletter continues weekly. Inner Champion University is coming. But the real work? That starts with you, today, right where you're standing.

Your move, brother.