BROKEN

There is a lesson in life that I believe every person needs to learn: never forget where you come from.

It doesn’t matter how much money you make, how many people know your name, how many championships you win, or how successful you become. None of those things changes the road that brought you there. Your past is part of your story, and the way you remember it can determine the kind of person you become.

My life has never been a straight line from one success to another. I have experienced victories that most people only dream about, and I have endured setbacks that forced me to question everything I thought I knew about myself. I have known the excitement of accomplishment, the pressure of responsibility, the pain of losing what I worked so hard to build, and the loneliness that comes when you realize that the life you once knew is gone.

Looking back, I understand that the most important lessons I learned did not always come when things were going well. Some of the greatest lessons came when I had nowhere to hide from my mistakes.

Success can make you feel invincible. When people applaud you, when opportunities keep coming, and when your hard work begins to pay off, it is easy to believe that you have everything figured out. You begin to think that the next victory is just around the corner.

But life has a way of reminding us that nobody is invincible.

The same determination that helps you climb can become stubbornness when you refuse to recognize that you are going in the wrong direction. Confidence can become pride. Ambition can become obsession. And sometimes, the very things you believe make you strong can prevent you from asking for help when you need it most.

I learned that being strong does not mean you never fall. It means you eventually have to face the truth about why you fell and decide what you are going to do next.

My life became closely connected to combat sports, a world where people quickly discover the difference between talking about toughness and actually being tested. In the fighting world, you cannot hide behind a title when the door closes and you are left alone with your opponent. You must prepare, endure, adapt, and accept the consequences of your decisions.

Those lessons became part of me.

Fighting taught me discipline. It taught me to keep going when I was exhausted, to think clearly under pressure, and to respect the people who were willing to test themselves against me. It also taught me that winning is not always the same thing as being successful.

A championship belt can recognize an accomplishment, but it cannot tell the whole story of a person’s character.

The world sees the victory. It rarely sees the sacrifices behind it. It sees the public image, but it does not necessarily see the private struggles. People may know your name without knowing the person who carries it.

I have had to confront that difference throughout my life.

I have made mistakes. I have experienced consequences. There were times when my decisions took me farther away from the person I wanted to be. I cannot change those chapters, and I will not pretend they never happened.

What I can do is tell the truth about the road I traveled and what it taught me.

I eventually came to understand that your past can either become a prison or a classroom. If you spend your life denying your mistakes, you will never learn from them. If you allow those mistakes to define you forever, you may never discover what you are still capable of becoming.

But if you face them honestly, take responsibility, and do the work to change, even the most painful chapters can become part of something meaningful.

That is why I believe so strongly in second chances.

I know that a person’s worst moment does not necessarily represent the best of who that person can become. I know that people can make destructive choices and still find a different direction. I know that someone who has fallen far can still rise, rebuild, and become a source of strength for others.

That belief did not come from reading about hardship. It came from experiencing it.

I learned that people need more than criticism when their lives are falling apart. They need accountability, but they also need opportunity. They need someone willing to tell them the truth without convincing them that their future is already over.

Sometimes, the person who has been written off by everyone else simply needs a chance to prove that change is possible.

I have never forgotten how important it is to remember where you came from, because it keeps you connected to the people who are still fighting their way forward.

It reminds you that a title does not make you better than someone else. Money does not make you more deserving. Fame does not make your problems disappear.

And it reminds you that the measure of a person is not only what they accomplish for themselves, but what they do with the opportunities they receive.

I have lived long enough to know that life can change in an instant. Plans can collapse. Relationships can change. Businesses can fail. Health can disappear. Everything you thought was permanent can suddenly become uncertain.

When that happens, you find out what you are really made of.

You also find out which beliefs are strong enough to carry you when the things you depended on are no longer there.

For me, the journey toward understanding those lessons was far from over. I still had battles ahead of me, both inside and outside the fighting world. I still had things to lose, mistakes to face, and painful truths to learn.

The road would eventually take me to places I never imagined I would go.

But before I could understand what it meant to be broken, I first had to learn what it meant to fight.

And before I could understand what it meant to rise again, I had to experience what it felt like to lose almost everything I had built.

That is where the next chapter begins.

There is a difference between being tested when you are prepared and being tested when life takes everything away from you.

In the fighting world, you prepare for your opponent. You study, train, build your conditioning, and develop a strategy. You know that pain is coming, and you make the decision to step into the contest anyway.

Life is different.

Life does not always tell you when the next round is coming. It does not always give you time to prepare. Sometimes, the challenges arrive one after another until you are left wondering how much more a person can take.

My proving ground became a series of experiences that tested my confidence, my health, my future, and ultimately my understanding of who I was.

The world I worked to build

I had spent years building a life around fighting, business, and opportunity. I was not someone who wanted to sit still and wait for things to happen. I wanted to create things, develop ideas, and build something that could stand on its own.

That drive took me into opportunities that reached beyond Minnesota.

One of those opportunities involved Japan and a six-figure contract. It was the kind of opportunity that represented years of work and the possibility of building something bigger. I believed in what I was doing, and I was willing to put myself on the line to pursue it.

Then that opportunity fell apart.

Losing a contract of that size is more than a financial setback. It forces you to reconsider the plans you built around it. You begin calculating what has changed, what you can save, and how you are going to move forward.

When you have invested so much of yourself into an opportunity, it can be difficult to separate the loss of the opportunity from your own sense of identity.

I had to learn that distinction.

A failed deal does not mean a person has failed at everything. A setback does not erase every accomplishment that came before it. But when several parts of your life begin to unravel at once, it can become difficult to remember those truths.

And my troubles were not finished.

When life changes in an instant

I was also involved in an ultralight aircraft crash.

Experiences like that have a way of changing your perspective. You are reminded that life is fragile and that the plans you make are never a guarantee of what tomorrow will bring.

You can spend years building toward a particular future, believing you know where you are headed, and then find yourself confronting circumstances you never expected.

The crash became another part of a difficult period in my life, a period when the things I had relied on were becoming less certain.

Financial pressure, personal decisions, and legal problems added to the weight I was carrying.

I will not pretend that every difficulty was something that simply happened to me. Some of the hardest lessons came from the consequences of my own choices.

That distinction matters.

It is easy to blame circumstances, other people, or bad luck. It is harder to examine your own decisions and accept the responsibility that belongs to you.

But responsibility is where change begins.

I eventually had to face legal consequences that brought me to a 40-day workhouse sentence. It was a difficult experience, and it forced me to confront a reality far removed from the life I had once known.

When you are accustomed to being independent, making your own decisions, and pursuing your own opportunities, losing control over your circumstances can be a humbling experience.

You have time to think. You have time to remember. And you have time to consider how the choices you made helped bring you to the place where you are standing.

I had plenty to think about.

January 1, 2011

January 1, 2011, became one of the defining dates of my life.

I walked out with two gym bags and a bicycle.

I was homeless.

There is something difficult to explain about starting a new year without the security most people take for granted. While others were making resolutions and planning their futures, I was facing the immediate reality of figuring out where I was going to go and how I was going to rebuild my life.

I did not walk out with a business waiting for me, a comfortable home, or a guarantee that everything would work out.

I had two gym bags, a bicycle, and a decision to make.

Would I allow the circumstances I was facing to become the final definition of my life?

Or would I start again?

I knew how to fight physically. I knew how to prepare for an opponent and push through exhaustion. But homelessness presented a different kind of fight.

There was no crowd cheering. There was no championship waiting at the end of the day. There was no guarantee that hard work would produce immediate results.

There was only the next decision and the next step.

I had to put my pride aside and concentrate on what I could do rather than spend every day thinking about what I had lost.

A friend gave me an opportunity to reconnect with the world I knew through an MMA gym. That connection became an important starting point. It reminded me that even when you have very little, one person willing to open a door can make a difference.

I was not suddenly back where I had been. I still had a long way to go.

But I had somewhere to begin.

And sometimes, when you are at your lowest point, a beginning is more valuable than a promise.

The price of getting back up

Just as I was trying to rebuild, my health presented another challenge.

At 47 years old, I faced the removal of my infected right middle finger.

For someone whose life had revolved around physical competition, training, and fighting, a health crisis like that was another reminder that the human body does not always cooperate with our plans.

You can be mentally determined to keep moving, but your body can force you to stop and deal with what is happening.

I had to confront the possibility that the road back would not be as simple as deciding I wanted to return.

Still, I was not ready to surrender the future I believed I could build.

I had spent too much of my life working, learning, and developing ideas to believe that one more setback had to be the end of the story.

I began working toward another opportunity in fighting. A three-fight contract gave me something concrete to pursue, a reason to train, and a goal that demanded discipline.

Getting back into training required more than enthusiasm. It required a willingness to work with the circumstances I had rather than the circumstances I wished I had.

I knew that my life was different now. I had experienced losses that changed my perspective, and I could no longer pretend that I was simply returning to the same place I had left.

But perhaps that was the point.

Coming back does not mean returning to the person you used to be.

Sometimes, it means discovering a different version of yourself.

I continued pursuing opportunities in MMA and business. I worked on developing Combohitter, an idea that reflected my desire to create something useful and build again.

I was learning that rebuilding is rarely one dramatic moment. It is a collection of small decisions that begin to add up.

You make a phone call. You show up for work. You pursue an opportunity. You learn from a mistake. You get up the next morning and try again.

Some days, progress feels almost invisible. Other days, you can finally see that the distance between where you were and where you are has begun to grow.

But the work must continue.

More than my own comeback

Throughout this period, my children remained an important part of my life and my responsibilities. Questions of family, custody, and the relationships that matter most cannot be separated from the story of a person trying to rebuild.

There are few things more painful than knowing that your decisions have consequences beyond yourself.

I had to think about the kind of father I wanted to be, the kind of example I wanted to set, and what it meant to build a future that was about more than my own accomplishments.

A comeback is not just about making money again or regaining a position you once held. It is about becoming someone who can be trusted with responsibility.

It is about understanding that people are affected by the way you live, the choices you make, and the commitments you keep.

I wanted to rebuild my business life, but I also wanted to become more intentional about how I used the experiences I had gained.

My past gave me a perspective that I could not have learned from success alone. I knew what it felt like to have people recognize your accomplishments. I also knew what it felt like to be in a position where you needed someone to give you a chance.

That understanding began changing how I viewed people who were struggling.

Instead of seeing only the mistakes someone had made, I began thinking more about the opportunities that might help that person move forward.

Accountability mattered. Choices mattered. But a person’s future mattered, too.

I knew that I could not go back and rewrite the decisions that had brought me to my lowest point. What I could do was use what I had learned to make better decisions and help others understand that they still had choices of their own.

The God Moments That Changed My Perspective

There are moments in life when you begin to see your circumstances differently.

They do not always arrive with dramatic music or an immediate answer to every problem. Sometimes, they come quietly, through a conversation, an opportunity, an idea, or a realization that you cannot quite explain.

I began to recognize what I came to think of as the God moments in my life.

I started asking myself whether my experiences could serve a purpose beyond my own recovery.

What if the struggles I had endured could help me understand someone else’s struggles?

What if the things I had learned through fighting, failure, and rebuilding could be used to help people who felt that their own lives had reached a dead end?

What if the second chance I was working so hard to give myself could become an example of what was possible for someone else?

Those questions changed the way I thought about my future.

I had spent years pursuing opportunities, building businesses, and competing against other people. I had learned how to focus on a goal and work relentlessly to achieve it.

Now I was beginning to understand that the most meaningful goal might not be something I could measure by a championship, a contract, or a bank account.

It might be measured by the lives I could help change.

I continued developing my business ideas, including Combohitter. The idea of building something with little money and finding ways to make it work reflected the same determination that had carried me through so many other challenges.

I also saw the potential for a product to serve a purpose beyond its original design. Rock Steady Boxing, which uses non-contact boxing-based exercise to help people living with Parkinson’s disease, represented an example of how the principles of boxing could be applied to a different kind of fight.

The lessons of movement, repetition, focus, and determination could reach people who would never step into a competitive ring.

That mattered to me.

I began thinking more deeply about the difference between simply having an idea and using an idea to make someone’s life better.

Purpose is different from ambition.

Ambition asks what you can accomplish. Purpose asks what your accomplishments can mean to someone else.

I cannot say that every difficult experience suddenly made sense. Life is not that simple. There were still challenges, and rebuilding still required work.

But I began to believe that my past did not have to be wasted.

My experiences could become tools. My mistakes could become lessons. My recovery could become a message to people who needed to know that their own stories were not finished.

Faith helped me consider that possibility.

I began to see that being broken did not necessarily mean being finished. Sometimes, it means that the life you were trying to build has to be reconsidered so that you can begin building something better.

The proving ground had tested my body, my confidence, my finances, and my understanding of myself.

It had stripped away many of the things I once believed made me who I was.

But it had also forced me to examine what remained when those things were gone.

And what remained was the opportunity to choose a different direction.

I could spend the rest of my life trying to prove that I was still the man I had once been.

Or I could use the life I had left to become the man I was meant to be.

That realization would lead me toward the next chapter of my journey.

There comes a point when rebuilding your life becomes about more than recovering what you lost.

At first, the goal is often survival. You want to get back on your feet, restore some stability, and prove that your circumstances do not have to define your future.

That is understandable. When you have experienced a major setback, you want to know that you can still accomplish something. You want to regain your confidence and show yourself that the person you used to be has not disappeared completely.

I understood that feeling.

For much of my life, I had measured progress through action. If something was broken, I wanted to fix it. If an opportunity disappeared, I wanted to find another. If I fell behind, I wanted to work harder until I caught up.

That approach had helped me accomplish a great deal.

But there are times when working harder at the same things is not enough.

Sometimes, you have to change the way you see yourself, the way you understand other people, and the reasons behind what you are trying to accomplish.

For me, that process became a kind of rebirth.

Not a return to the life I had before, but the beginning of a different relationship with my past and my future.

Learning to see myself differently

When you have spent years building an identity around being a fighter, it can be difficult to imagine who you are without that role.

The discipline, the competition, the training, and the desire to overcome challenges can become so much a part of your life that you begin to measure everything through the same lens.

I knew how to prepare for a fight. I knew how to push myself. I knew how to compete.

But life had shown me that some of the hardest battles do not have a referee, a bell, or a clear winner at the end.

They are fought in private.

They are fought when you are alone with your decisions. They are fought when you have to acknowledge the damage caused by a mistake. They are fought when you are tempted to blame someone else rather than accept your own responsibility.

And they are fought when you have to decide whether you believe your future can be different from your past.

I had to confront the fact that a person can be strong in one part of life and still need to grow in another.

Physical toughness does not automatically make someone wise. Professional success does not guarantee personal peace. Winning a contest does not mean you have won every battle that matters.

Real strength requires honesty.

It requires being willing to examine yourself without making excuses and without deciding that your mistakes have permanently destroyed your worth.

That balance is not easy.

If you avoid responsibility, you cannot change. But if you define yourself only by your worst decisions, you can become trapped in a version of yourself that no longer needs to exist.

I needed to take responsibility for my past without allowing it to become the only thing that mattered about my future.

Faith and a different kind of strength

My faith became an important part of that process.

Faith did not mean that every problem disappeared or that every decision suddenly became easy. It did not mean I could ignore the consequences of my actions or expect someone else to do the work required to rebuild my life.

Instead, faith challenged me to think beyond my immediate circumstances.

It reminded me that my life could have a purpose larger than my personal accomplishments.

It encouraged me to consider how the difficult experiences I had survived might help me understand people who were still struggling.

And it pushed me to ask questions that I had not always given enough attention.

Was I using my experiences only to rebuild my own life, or was I preparing myself to help others?

Was my determination simply about proving that I could succeed again, or could it become a way to encourage people who had lost hope?

Was I measuring my life only by what I could accomplish, or was I beginning to measure it by what I could contribute?

Those questions became increasingly important.

I began to understand that faith is not simply something you talk about when life is going well. It is also something you have to examine when you are disappointed, uncertain, or forced to confront the limits of your own control.

Sometimes, faith means continuing to do the right thing when you cannot see the outcome.

Sometimes, it means accepting that you have to change.

And sometimes, it means recognizing that the experience you desperately wanted to escape may eventually help you serve someone else.

I could not change my past. I could not recover every opportunity I had lost or undo every mistake I had made.

But I could choose how I responded to those experiences.

I could choose to become more compassionate without abandoning accountability. I could become more aware of the struggles other people face. I could use my own experience to remind someone else that one bad chapter does not have to be the end of the book.

That possibility gave my life a different kind of direction.

The value of a second chance

Over time, I became increasingly aware of how easily people can be defined by the worst thing they have done.

A person can make a mistake and spend years trying to escape the label attached to it. Someone who has served time may discover that the punishment does not end when the sentence is completed. A person who has experienced homelessness may find that others see the circumstance before they see the human being.

The same can happen to people struggling with addiction, poverty, family problems, or the consequences of poor decisions.

Their circumstances become their identity in the eyes of others.

I knew that a second chance does not erase responsibility. People must still face the consequences of their actions. Trust must be earned. Change must be demonstrated through behavior, not merely promised.

But I also came to believe that people need a realistic opportunity to demonstrate that change.

If someone has served their time, accepted responsibility, and is trying to move forward, what happens when every door remains closed?

How can someone rebuild a life without an opportunity to work, learn, and become productive?

How can we expect people to make better decisions if we refuse to recognize the possibility that they can change?

Those questions mattered to me because I had seen how quickly circumstances can shift a person’s life.

I wanted to be part of creating opportunities rather than simply judging the people who needed them.

That meant looking for ways to connect people with work, develop their skills, and help them understand that they could still contribute something valuable.

It meant recognizing that helping someone get back on their feet can benefit more than one individual. It can strengthen a family, improve a neighborhood, and give someone a reason to keep moving forward.

It also meant being honest about the responsibility that comes with a second chance.

A hand up is not the same as telling someone that nothing they do matters. Real support includes expectations, encouragement, and a path toward greater independence.

That was the kind of approach I wanted to represent.

I did not want my story to become a claim that I had everything figured out. I wanted it to demonstrate that growth is possible, that mistakes can teach us something, and that the future remains worth working toward.

Turning experience into service

As I continued rebuilding, I thought more about the people who had helped me and the difference that one opportunity could make.

I thought about the people who were still fighting battles that the rest of the world could not see.

I thought about the homeless person who needed more than a lecture, the former inmate who needed a legitimate opportunity to work, the young person who needed guidance, and the family trying to find a way forward.

I wanted to use what I had learned to help wherever I could.

That desire connected the lessons of my business life, my fighting career, and my personal struggles.

In the ring, I had learned that preparation matters. In business, I had learned that ideas require work and persistence. In my personal life, I had learned that decisions have consequences and that rebuilding takes time.

Together, those experiences gave me a different understanding of leadership.

Leadership is not simply being the person who speaks the loudest or stands at the front of the room.

It is being willing to accept responsibility. It is understanding that decisions affect other people. It is recognizing problems and doing the work required to address them.

And it is being willing to stand beside people who need help without treating them as though they have nothing to contribute.

I began to see my past as a source of experience that could be used in service of something larger.

My goal was no longer simply to recover my former position in life.

I wanted to build something meaningful with the life I had been given.

Becoming reborn

Being reborn does not mean pretending the old version of yourself never existed.

It means being willing to learn from that person.

It means recognizing the mistakes without becoming permanently imprisoned by them. It means carrying forward the discipline and determination that served you well while being honest about the attitudes and decisions that may have caused harm.

It means understanding that the person you become is shaped by the choices you make after the moment when everything changes.

I was still the person who had competed, built businesses, pursued opportunities, and endured hardship. Those experiences were not erased.

But I was beginning to see them differently.

The fighting career had taught me about perseverance. The setbacks had taught me humility. The experience of rebuilding had taught me patience. My faith had challenged me to think about purpose.

I was learning that a meaningful life could be built around more than personal victories.

I could use my experience to help people find work. I could encourage those who felt forgotten. I could support efforts that gave people a chance to rebuild. I could continue creating businesses while looking for ways those businesses might contribute to something beyond my own success.

Most importantly, I could recognize that the same determination that once drove me to overcome opponents could be used to help overcome problems in the communities around me.

I did not need to abandon everything I had been. I needed to become more intentional about what I did with it.

My faith challenged me to think beyond myself. It reminded me that the value of a life is not measured only by personal accomplishments, but also by the lives touched along the way.

I had spent years learning how to fight.

I was no longer interested in proving that I could get back up.

I wanted to show what a person could do after getting back up.

And that realization led me toward the fourth chapter of my life: the possibility of turning experience into leadership and a personal comeback into a broader vision for Minnesota.

When I look back at my life, I can identify moments that seemed ordinary at the time but eventually became turning points. Some came through adversity. Others came through opportunities I never expected. And some were moments when I felt God was pointing me in a direction I had never considered.

One of those moments happened in 2020.

When I tell people that I heard a voice wake me up at three o’clock in the morning telling me to run for Governor of Minnesota, I am not kidding. I believe that was one of my God moments—a moment when I was being shown a path I had never imagined taking.

Politics had never been part of my plan. I had never been involved in the political world, never imagined myself running for public office, and certainly never pictured myself pursuing the highest elected position in my home state.

Looking back, I can laugh about it because the idea seemed so far removed from the life I had been living. But there was something about that moment that stayed with me. I could not simply dismiss it and move on.

I had become increasingly frustrated with what I saw happening around me. I heard people complain about problems, watched communities struggle, and saw issues that seemed to continue without meaningful solutions. I began asking myself a question that I believe everyone should consider at some point:

If you are going to complain about what is wrong, are you willing to step forward and help change it?

It is easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize. It is easy to point fingers, blame politicians, and argue about which party is responsible. But eventually, I realized that if I truly wanted to make a difference, I had to be willing to step into the arena myself.

So I accepted the challenge.

I did not know how politics worked. I did not understand all the rules, the procedures, or the relationships that influence the political system. I was walking into a world where many people had spent their entire careers learning how to operate, and I was starting from the beginning.

I was nervous. I was stepping into unfamiliar territory, and I knew there would be obstacles.

But I was scared to do it, not afraid to do it.

There is a difference.

Being scared means recognizing that you are facing something unfamiliar and that the outcome is uncertain. Being afraid means allowing that uncertainty to stop you. I had faced enough challenges in my life to know that discomfort was not a reason to quit before I started.

I had been an underdog before. I had faced opponents who looked stronger on paper. I had experienced moments when the odds were stacked against me. I understood what it meant to take on a challenge that other people might consider impossible.

Politics became another proving ground.

The David-and-Goliath Campaign

When I entered politics, I quickly discovered that I was not walking into a world where everyone welcomed an outsider with open arms. I did not feel embraced by either major party, and I did not find that simply identifying as an independent meant I would automatically be accepted by the established political system.

I was an outsider trying to understand a system that often seemed designed for people who already knew how to navigate it.

But that was not going to be enough to make me walk away.

I have always believed that if you want to accomplish something meaningful, you have to be willing to learn. You have to ask questions, find people with experience, listen to advice, and put in the work necessary to understand what you are trying to do.

I had done that in business. I had done it in MMA. I had done it when developing Combohitter. And I was willing to do it in politics.

Every campaign has felt like another version of David versus Goliath. I was not coming from a traditional political background, and I was not entering the race with the same established political machinery that major-party candidates could draw upon.

But I did have something I believed was important: a willingness to work, a desire to learn, and a genuine interest in helping people.

I was not entering politics because I wanted to become a celebrity. I was not looking for applause, recognition, or a title to put after my name.

I was trying to understand how I could make a difference.

For me, this was never supposed to be Republicans against Democrats. It was never about winning an argument for one party or proving that everyone who disagreed with me was wrong.

It was about people.

It was about understanding the problems Minnesotans were facing and asking what could actually be done to improve their lives.

That distinction has become the foundation of my political philosophy.

I am not interested in being another politician who tells people what they want to hear. I want to be a solutionist who is willing to do the work required to address the problems they face.

Why Built for This Matters

My first book, BROKEN, tells the story of hardship, mistakes, setbacks, faith, and the determination to get back up. It is about the experiences that tested me and the lessons I had to learn along the way.

My second book, Built for This, represents the next part of that journey.

Because there is a difference between surviving what life throws at you and preparing yourself to take on the responsibility of something bigger.

Being built for something does not mean you have never struggled. It does not mean you have never been knocked down or made mistakes. It means you have been through experiences that forced you to develop discipline, resilience, perspective, and the willingness to keep learning.

My life has given me plenty of those experiences.

I know what it feels like to work toward a goal and lose an opportunity. I know what it feels like to rebuild when the resources you once depended on are no longer available. I know what it means to start over with very little and still believe that your future can be different.

I also know that determination alone is not enough. You must be resourceful. You must be willing to seek advice from people who know more than you do. You must recognize when you need help, and you must be willing to learn from the experience of others.

That is how I approached developing Combohitter. I reached out to people for mentorship, advice, and knowledge that could help me turn an idea into something useful. I understood that being resourceful was not a weakness. It was part of the process of becoming successful.

I believe the same principle applies to governing.

No governor can personally know everything about every issue facing a state. A good leader must be willing to bring knowledgeable people to the table, listen to experts, question assumptions, and evaluate solutions based on whether they can work.

Being Built for This does not mean believing you have every answer.

It means being prepared to face difficult questions, accept responsibility, learn quickly, and keep working when the easy answers are not enough.

Leadership is a responsibility, not a reward.

And it means recognizing that the people of Minnesota deserve someone who approaches the job with the seriousness it requires.

I believe my experiences have helped prepare me for that responsibility—not because I have lived a perfect life, but because I have learned that challenges demand action, mistakes require accountability, and meaningful change requires work.

Another God Moment

I believe that the call I felt in 2020 was another God moment in my life.

When I look back at the different chapters of my journey, I see how experiences that once appeared disconnected eventually influenced the direction I took.

My involvement in MMA taught me how to face opposition, prepare for challenges, and keep moving when circumstances were difficult. My business experiences taught me to develop ideas, seek mentorship, and find practical ways to turn plans into results. My personal struggles taught me humility and helped me understand how quickly life can change.

My faith challenged me to look beyond my own ambitions and consider how those experiences could be used to serve others.

Running for Governor brought those lessons together in a way I had never anticipated.

I do not believe that faith excuses a person from doing the work. I believe it gives me a reason to do the work with greater purpose.

If I believe I have been called to take on this challenge, then I have a responsibility to prepare myself, listen to people, learn what I need to learn, and approach the task with humility.

I cannot simply say that something is God’s plan and expect the job to be done for me. I have to put in the hours. I have to face the difficult questions. I have to make the effort to understand the problems and identify solutions that can withstand scrutiny.

Faith is not a substitute for action. It is part of the reason I choose to act.

I have often wondered why I was given the experiences I had. Why did I have to learn some lessons the hard way? Why did I have to experience losing so much before I could fully appreciate the importance of rebuilding? Why did I find myself drawn toward helping people who were struggling?

I cannot claim to know every answer.

But I believe those experiences gave me a perspective that I can use.

I know that people need more than speeches when they are struggling. They need someone willing to listen, understand their circumstances, and help them identify a practical way forward.

I know that communities need more than politicians who show up during an election and disappear when the cameras are gone.

And I know that a state cannot build a better future if its leaders spend all their time fighting one another instead of addressing the problems in front of them.

Perhaps this is another chapter in which the experiences of my past are meant to serve a larger purpose.

That is how I see this campaign.

I am not asking people to believe that I am perfect. I am asking them to consider whether a person who has experienced adversity, rebuilt his life, learned from his mistakes, and continued working to create opportunities for others can bring a valuable perspective to the Governor’s office.

I believe I can.

Putting My Own Oxygen Mask On First

Running for Governor has also taught me something important about taking care of myself.

The stress of politics took a toll on me. I gained weight, and I realized that if I was serious about pursuing this responsibility, I needed to take my physical and mental well-being seriously again.

About a year ago, I made the decision to get serious about my fitness.

I understood that I could not expect to take care of others if I neglected the person who would have to do the work.

There is a reason airline safety instructions tell you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping the person next to you. If you cannot breathe, you may not be able to help the person who needs you.

I began applying that principle to my own life.

If I wanted to take on the responsibility of serving Minnesota, I needed to make sure I was doing my part to remain physically capable, mentally focused, and disciplined enough to keep going.

This was not about trying to look like a fighter again or proving that I could return to my former athletic condition. It was about preparing myself for the demands of the challenge ahead.

I needed the same discipline I had learned through training: setting goals, following a plan, accepting that progress takes time, and refusing to let temporary setbacks become excuses to quit.

I also had to recognize that taking care of myself was not selfish. It was part of being responsible for the commitments I had made.

The people of Minnesota deserve someone who understands that public service requires energy, preparation, sound judgment, and the ability to keep working through difficult days.

I wanted to make sure I was doing everything reasonably within my control to be ready for that responsibility.

The lesson was simple: if I expected to help others, I had to be willing to do the work on myself first.

I See the Job, Not the Paycheck

I want to be clear about something.

I am not running for Governor because I see a paycheck or a prestigious title. I see a job that needs to be done.

I see people who are struggling and problems that need serious attention. I see opportunities for Minnesota to become stronger economically, more accountable in how public resources are used, and more focused on preparing the next generation for success.

I am not looking for a pat on the back. I am not looking for applause. I am not interested in belittling my opponents to make myself look better.

My decision to run is based on the belief that I can bring a different approach to the work.

I believe a leader should be judged by the effort they put in, the decisions they make, the people they listen to, and the results they help produce.

I cannot promise that every problem will have an easy answer. No serious person should make that promise. But I can say that I believe difficult decisions deserve attention, preparation, honesty, and persistence.

I do not intend to quit simply because a decision is unpopular or a problem is complicated.

That is what I mean when I say this is about getting the job done.

I have spent much of my life facing challenges that required preparation and perseverance. I have learned that talking about what needs to happen is not the same as doing it.

The job of Governor is no different in that respect. The responsibility is enormous, and the consequences of decisions affect millions of people.

That is why I believe the position should be approached with humility and a willingness to work—not as a prize to be won, but as a responsibility to be earned.

Showing Up When People Need Help

One of the reasons I remain committed to helping people is that I have seen how much it matters when someone is willing to show up.

When I spend time at Dorothy Day or the Saint Paul men’s homeless shelter, I am reminded that homelessness is not an abstract political debate. It involves real people dealing with real circumstances.

People have different stories. Some are facing multiple challenges at once. Some are trying to find stability after a series of setbacks. Others need help connecting with services, work, or a path toward a more secure future.

You cannot understand everything about a person’s situation simply by looking at them.

You have to be willing to listen.

I want leaders to understand that helping people begins with recognizing their humanity. It also requires asking what can be done to address the conditions that keep people struggling.

Compassion matters, but compassion must be accompanied by practical action. We need to understand what support is available, where gaps exist, what resources are being used, and whether the approaches we rely on are actually helping people move forward.

I believe the same principle applies to every community in Minnesota.

I want to hear from people about their concerns, their goals, and what they believe their communities need. That includes people from different cultural backgrounds, different economic circumstances, and different political viewpoints.

I do not assume that one person can speak for an entire community. I believe the responsibility is to listen to many people, understand where their experiences overlap, and work toward solutions that address real needs.

I want to be present not only when there is a campaign event, but when there is difficult work to be done.

That is how I believe trust is earned.

Not through a slogan. Not through a party label. Through showing up, listening, following through, and being accountable for the work.

A Solutionist, Not a Party-Driven Politician

I describe myself as a solutionist because I want to approach problems by asking what can be done to fix them.

A solutionist does not begin by asking which political party benefits from a particular idea. A solutionist begins by asking whether the idea addresses the problem, what it will cost, what consequences it may create, and how its success can be measured.

If a proposal from a Republican can help Minnesota, I want to examine it seriously.

If a proposal from a Democrat can help Minnesota, I want to examine that seriously.

If an independent thinker, a business owner, a community leader, a worker, or a person with firsthand experience offers a better approach, I want that idea to have a fair hearing.

Good ideas should not be rejected simply because they come from the other side of a political aisle.

That does not mean I will agree with everyone. It does not mean that every proposal deserves approval. It means that the decision should be based on its merits rather than on the party affiliation of the person who suggested it.

Minnesota does not need its leaders to agree on everything. It needs them to recognize that the people they serve cannot afford endless political battles that leave real problems unresolved.

My loyalty is to the people of Minnesota and to the responsibility of serving them honestly.

I believe government should be accountable to taxpayers. I believe public resources should be managed responsibly. I believe policies should be judged by their real-world effects. And I believe the people affected by government decisions deserve to be heard.

I want to approach problems with an open mind, but I also want to be clear about my principles.

Being independent does not mean being without convictions. It means being willing to think for yourself and to evaluate an issue based on what you believe is right and what the evidence supports.

I am not interested in following a party line just to keep political insiders happy.

I am interested in finding the best available solutions and doing the work necessary to put them into practice.

That is what I mean when I say I am running for the people.

Restoring Confidence in Minnesota

I believe Minnesota needs strong leadership and a renewed commitment to accountability, public safety, economic opportunity, and responsible government.

Our state has enormous potential, but potential alone is not enough. People need to see that their leaders recognize the problems they face and are willing to address them.

When stories about fraud, crime, and government failures dominate the public conversation, confidence suffers. Residents begin to question whether the people entrusted with responsibility are doing everything they can to protect the public and use resources properly.

I believe those concerns deserve serious attention.

This is not about making Minnesota look bad or suggesting that every part of our state is broken. It is about recognizing that when serious problems occur, we must be willing to confront them honestly.

We cannot rebuild public confidence by ignoring legitimate concerns, making excuses, or attacking everyone who asks questions.

We rebuild confidence by examining what happened, establishing accountability, correcting failures, and putting safeguards in place to reduce the chances of the same problems happening again.

We must also be willing to measure whether our solutions are working.

If a policy fails, we should be prepared to learn from that failure. If a program is effective, we should understand why and consider how its successes can be sustained. If a process wastes money or creates unnecessary obstacles, we should examine how it can be improved.

This is the kind of practical approach I want to bring to public service.

My goal is not simply to criticize the people who came before me. My goal is to help Minnesota move forward.