Founder – Achievers Roundtable

The Founder

I’ve always wanted to have a ranch and be a hunting/fishing guide, raising elk and releasing them in the Rocky Mountains. The dream is always been to get you close to these majestic animals. I’ve been an outdoorsman ever since I was a little boy, being introduced to it by my father. We’ve always been a hunting and a fishing family. Whether you shoot with a camera or fish to catch and release, I’m fine with that!

From a young age, I was an entrepreneur, starting at age 11 I worked at a golf course as soon as I got home from school, clearing golf balls off the shooting range, putting golf carts away, and making sure they were washed clean and charged for the next day. Additionally, there was a canal that flowed through the golf course. After I got off work, I would dive the waters for golf balls in the canal, the ones people hit into the water, and then sell them back to the same people who hit them there in the first place! That was my first taste of entrepreneurship. I also had a little snack stand set up on the eighth hole with lemonade and a few treats in a cooler!

At age 14 I started my own lawn care business with just a string trimmer and a lawnmower purchased from the local Ace Hardware. I charged $15 a yard, including fertilizer. As you can imagine that was pretty cheap and business grew rapidly. I had some friends help me out, but found out quickly that not everybody had the same work ethic. It takes grit, drive and integrity in your work. You must push every day. Not everybody is built with that same level of intensity or integrity. I found that doing most of the work myself was best in the beginning.

During my junior and senior years of high school, I worked for a landscaper in my church for seven dollars an hour. Hard work is how I started, and hard work is how I continue today. I love one of my dad’s favorite quotes! “No one has ever climbed downhill.”-Dad

After high school, I did some church volunteer work and served in Bangkok, Thailand, for two years. That experience taught me a lot about service and giving back to others, not just teaching Values and principles, but also spending many hours teaching English and helping people build their cinder brick homes with tin roofs. It was a blessing and a life lesson about what success truly looks like. I will never forget, seeing the smile on peoples faces and the “a-ha” of how they felt when we finished a home for them. It was the most fulfilling and satisfactory feeling I have ever experienced.

Upon returning home, I married my high school sweetheart and began the dream of building the elk farm. However, I didn’t have any money, so how would I begin? – I started working in construction, knowing it was hard work and something I was familiar with. I built a company from one person to over 100 in six years’ time.

LIFE DOESN’T GO AS EXPECTED

At the age of 27, I experienced a devastating, life-altering accident when a one-ton bale of hay fell over backward while I was feeding the animals on our ranch and landed directly on my head, breaking the bones in my neck and rendering me a quadriplegic with limited function beneath the breast line, arms, and hands. The dream of being a hunting “guide” and fishing angler was completely done, or was it?

After a bit of therapy and much contemplation and thought, I wondered if there wouldn’t be another way to be a “guide.” I spoke in my church a few times about my experiences, trying to relate them to every day people in every day life, and before I knew it, schools were asking me to speak at their elementary, middle, and high schools. I began to realize that I didn’t need to wear camouflage to “guide.”

Here we are 24 years Post accident, and I have shared my messages with NBA teams, NFL teams, Fortune 500 companies, and written seven books. We have purchased the ranch, which we call Royal Creek Ranches, and we have the Achievers Roundtable Mastermind!… an exclusive group of highly driven individuals that seek to be successful in their own right and serve others in the process. That’s what this whole website is about. That’s what our mission is! That’s what I love doing. I love being a guide and teaching leadership skills that I have learned from top organizations all around the world. I love watching people grow and scale.

Over the years, I have loved working with other self-driven individuals and entrepreneurs who understand that we decide our fate and that possibilities exist only within our minds and only there can they die. My wheelchair has taken me further than my shoes ever would have. Now, after being in all 50 states at least 50 times and traveling to 89 countries sharing messages on leadership, entrepreneurship, communication, mastering change, and teambuilding, we have created this mastermind group and ranch for the benefit of others.

I absolutely love facilitating the growth of other people and have loved the transition that has got me to where I am today. I love helping people achieve their goals and realizing the potential of others.

Shondell and I have two biological children who were born before my accident. We adopted our daughter, Gracie, when she was just three days old from Guatemala, and we adopted our son, Kaleb, from Ethiopia when he was nine.