How a brief conversation at a Hawks and Kaiser Permanente event led to a deeper discussion about purpose, family, discipline, impact, and legacy through the Impact Access Process.
I recently met Jaz, Managing Director of Development at OneGoal, during an Atlanta Hawks and Kaiser Permanente event at State Farm Arena. We only spoke briefly, but I enjoyed our conversation. Like many young leaders seeking to grow, Jaz wanted to grab coffee and pick my brain about leadership, purpose, family, and the nonprofit landscape.
Instead of a coffee meeting, I invited him into my Impact Access Process.
My process is simple: Ask me up to five Should Ask Questions.
A Should Ask Question is different from a Frequently Asked Question. Frequently Asked Questions seek information. Should Ask Questions seek transformation. They require conviction, courage, curiosity, and focus. They are the questions you believe only that person can answer based on who they are, what they have experienced, and what they have become.
Here are Jaz’s five questions and my responses.
- From my observation, you lead a life propelled by purpose and faith. In what practical ways have you ensured that your purpose as husband and father remained in order, particularly when your kids were younger?
When our daughters were young, I discovered my purpose through a simple but transformational exercise.
For 40 days, I answered four questions:
- What do you worry about?
- What do you cry about?
- What do you dream about?
- What brings you joy?
The number 40 is significant throughout Scripture because it is often associated with testing, preparation, and transformation. By wrestling with those four questions for 40 days, I eventually uncovered my mission:
To be significant, serving millions by bringing them into a relationship with Jesus Christ, beginning with my wife Kelli and our daughters, Mackenzi and Mackenna.
Everything starts there.
I’ve been a follower of Christ since I was young, and my faith taught me that my marriage is not separate from my relationship with God. The way I treat my wife is directly connected to my relationship with Him.
Ephesians 5:25 challenges husbands to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
That’s a high standard.
When it came to raising our daughters, I was intentional from day one. I was born in 1976, and I hope to live until 2076. Both of my grandmothers lived to be 95 years old, so longevity runs in my family.
I wanted to prepare my daughters not just for their childhood, but for adulthood. Not just for success, but for significance.
I wanted them to become the type of women who would be capable of serving others, serving their communities, and one day helping care for their parents as we age.
Many parents wait until their children are older to become intentional. We chose intentionality from the beginning.
Purpose isn’t something you discover and then schedule around your family.
Purpose starts with your family.
- What are the strategic disciplines you employ to progress and grow daily?
My definition of discipline is simple:
Doing the things that need to be done, especially when you don’t want to do them.
For me, growth starts with spiritual discipline.
Every day I read Scripture through the Bible App and support that reading with Dr. Tony Evans’ commentary. I love the Lord, but I don’t always feel like doing a deep dive into Scripture.
I do it anyway.
I make my bed every morning.
That may seem small, but making my bed strengthens my discipline muscles. Every act of discipline reinforces the next act of discipline.
Recently, I completed my first marathon. Now I’m pursuing all eight World Marathon Majors, beginning with the Boston Marathon on April 19, 2027.
That goal requires discipline in:
- Sleep
- Nutrition
- Training
- Recovery
- Time management
But one of the most important disciplines I’ve developed concerns people.
When I turned 50, I made four promises to myself:
- Know the definition of a fool.
- Don’t be a fool.
- Spend no time with a fool.
- Don’t die in the presence of a fool.
The people around you influence your growth, your opportunities, your thinking, and ultimately your future.
Discipline isn’t punishment.
Discipline is protection.
- More deeply than what can be read online, what drives your passion for and belief in the younger generations?
The Latin root of the word passion means suffering.
Often, what you’re passionate about is connected to what you’ve suffered through.
My passion comes from lived experience.
It comes from trauma I witnessed in my home and in my community as a child.
I was fortunate enough to survive those experiences long enough for my pain to become purpose.
I think about growth through four stages:
Passion → Purpose → Grit → Significance
My passion was shaped by suffering.
My purpose gave my suffering meaning.
My grit allowed me to endure.
My significance allows me to serve.
Now I’m pursuing a fifth stage: symbolization.
A symbol is someone whose life continues teaching after they are gone.
When I think about young people, especially Black youth in Atlanta, I think about opportunity.
Research tells us that if you’re born into poverty in Atlanta, your chances of escaping it are alarmingly low.
I was one of the young people who made it out.
That creates responsibility.
I don’t simply want to inspire young people. I want to provide them with frameworks.
I’ve written books, built programs, and developed systems that help young people move from survival to success and from success to significance.
One lesson stands above all others:
Financial capital matters. Social capital matters just as much.
Relationships open doors.
Networks create opportunities.
Community creates mobility.
My dream is that the children growing up in Bankhead today become the homeowners, business owners, leaders, and neighbors of tomorrow.
Not because they escaped their community.
Because they helped transform it.
- What tools and systems do you currently employ to stay focused and move your organization forward?
Tools and systems are different.
A tool helps you do a task.
A system helps you do the task repeatedly and consistently.
When I think about systems, they require four things:
- An exhaustive list of what matters.
- Specificity.
- Simplicity.
- Sequence.
Recently, I completed a certificate in Sports Philanthropy from George Washington University. One of the most valuable lessons reinforced something I’ve believed for years:
Inputs lead to outputs. Outputs lead to outcomes. Outcomes lead to impact.
Most organizations stop at outcomes.
We focus on impact.
Here’s the difference.
Input
A coach spends two hours mentoring a young person.
Output
The young person attends mentoring sessions consistently.
Outcome
The young person improves academically, behaviorally, or athletically.
Impact
The young person graduates, gains employment, builds a stable family, creates wealth, and positively influences future generations.
Outputs happen quickly.
Outcomes happen over time.
Impact can last for decades.
At LEAD Center For Youth, we constantly ask ourselves:
“Are our inputs and outputs producing outcomes that eventually create impact?”
Because despite having thousands of nonprofits in Georgia, economic mobility remains one of Atlanta’s greatest challenges.
We don’t simply want better programs.
We want transformed lives.
- It’s often said that the wealthiest place is the cemetery. When you expire, what are the things God gave you that you believe He would be proud that you didn’t return with?
God gave me a talent for coaching.
I define coaching through the acronym COACH:
Cultivate growth
Create opportunities
Advance progress
Build confidence
Harmonize a shared journey of learning
Beyond that talent, God also gave me spiritual gifts:
- Discernment
- Leadership
- Hospitality
- Prophecy
When I think about prophecy, I don’t simply mean predicting the future.
I mean challenging the status quo.
I want to leave this earth having fully used those gifts.
I’ve had the privilege of giving communion to both of my grandmothers before they passed away at age 95. I was also present when one of my greatest mentors, T.J. Wilson, passed.
What struck me in each of those moments was peace.
They weren’t fighting to stay.
They had done what they were called to do.
That is my goal.
I want to leave knowing I used everything God entrusted to me.
Not perfectly.
But fully.
Every day, I think about standing before God and seeing the opportunities I embraced and the opportunities I ignored.
That thought motivates me.
Because most people are not held back by talent.
They’re held back by courage.
They’re afraid to do what they’ve been called to do.
They’re afraid to say what they’ve been called to say.
Purpose begins with conviction.
Conviction produces courage.
Courage creates action.
Action creates impact.
My mission remains the same:
To be significant, serving millions by bringing them into a relationship with Jesus Christ, beginning with my wife Kelli and our daughters, Mackenzi and Mackenna.
Whether I reach millions directly or indirectly doesn’t matter.
What matters is planting seeds.
The shade I enjoy tomorrow will come from trees planted today.
Some of those trees I may never see.
But I trust they will grow.
And that’s enough.
Final Thought
Jaz asked five excellent Should Ask Questions.
Questions like these create conversations worth having because they force us to examine not just what we’re doing, but why we’re doing it.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that life is not about becoming successful.
It’s about becoming significant.
And significance isn’t measured by what you accumulate.
It’s measured by what remains after you’re gone.