Author

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In 2010, I returned home from the Korengal “Death” Valley. Seven days of heavy combat in one of the most dangerous places on earth changed my life. It was a tipping point. After ten years
of service, multiple deployments, numerous conflicts, and explosions, I was suffering from a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. I was in a dark place and on the verge of losing my marriage and career. As a juvenile delinquent from the mean streets of Los Angeles, I found a way to survive. Twenty years later serving in the military’s elite special operations, I found myself fighting for my life once again. This time, against myself: I questioned the purpose of my existence. It was quite an internal war, but I found hope. It was a miracle. Next, it was time to help others.
In 2011, my wife and I established SOF Missions, a faith-based non-profit organization serving people across America. After multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have experienced the darkest hours of combat, knowing first-hand the struggles of veterans returning home. This led our team to create and produce the award-winning film Surrender Only to ONE, a faith-based film following real-life stories of elite combat warriors. Creating awareness was not enough though. Therefore, we established The Resiliency Project, a holistic program dedicated to helping veterans battle visible and invisible scars of war. Our mission is to help our warriors find their purpose, embrace resiliency, and live a life of wellness. Since the inception of SOF Missions, we have established groups and worked in various capacities throughout thirty-two different states, serving an estimated eighty thousand people.
Our national efforts were recognized by the Department of Defense and I was selected as the 2018 Spirit of Hope Award winner, named for entertainer Bob Hope, which “epitomizes the values of Bob Hope: duty, honor, courage, loyalty, commitment, integrity, and selfless dedication.” I am passionate about making an atomic impact in the world. It took countless years and plenty of fails in order to find my ultimate purpose. This book is a genuine effort to pass on what I’ve learned and to help others find their purpose and ignite a movement.
The model presented on Igniting Movements comes from my doctoral studies. I researched movement theories and over a hundred of past and present movements. In my dissertation, I crafted a Movement Rubric that groups movement characteristics into four categories: Human-Agent, Ideology, Organization, and Strategy. Through the lens of this rubric, I conducted document reviews on select historical and contemporary movements, as well as semi-structured interviews with leaders of successful organizations across the country. I also conducted a document review on military special operations, which helped articulate practices and standard operating procedures. The research illuminates common critical factors that exist in each movement.
To learn how these factors can be applied in today’s non- profit world, I compared them to the current practices within SOF Missions. I developed change initiatives and implemented them within the organization. The results have been outstanding! Our initiatives created a spark that ignited a small movement.
This research offers like-minded people an opportunity to implement critical factors in their organization, so they too can ignite a movement. Igniting Movements is a manual for those that have answered their God-given calling and want to implement pragmatic practices that have brought success to thousands of nonprofit organizations. The common critical factors are keys to success. Each pillar is necessary and the synergy within each must exist. Obviously, there are the intangibles or what many call the “X” factors that can’t be explained. However, this book is a blueprint, and, if you’re serious about succeeding, Igniting Movements is the first step to ignition!