The Work Begins Now
If you’ve made it this far, thank you. Not because you’ve read another book. But because you’ve been willing to ask difficult questions. Questions about your heart. Your leadership. Your relationships. Your purpose. Questions that don’t have quick answers.
My hope has never been that this book would simply fill your mind with information. Information alone has never changed the world.
People do.
People whose hearts have been transformed. People who choose faith over fear. Grace over judgment. Presence over performance. Service over status. Love over control.
That’s how the Kingdom has always moved forward.
One life at a time.
The Soldier
Before I send you out, I have to tell you one last story about myself — because it explains why I’ll never stop fighting for the things in this book.
In high school, I ran track, and my dream was to be the next Carl Lewis. But by my junior year, reality kicked in. I wasn’t getting faster. If I had kept chasing that dream, I wouldn’t have been dreaming anymore — I would have been living in a fantasy, drifting further from my true destiny.
So I released it, and I locked in on a new dream: becoming a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army.
I was a leader in JROTC — second in command of the Corps of Cadets. I got accepted into a military academy with an early commissioning program. And I earned my commission. Gold bars on my shoulders.
My dream was Second Lieutenant.
My destiny was becoming a leader.
I didn’t understand the difference at the time. I do now. Dreams are the vehicles God uses to carry us toward destiny. Sometimes the dream is the destination. More often, the dream is the training ground.
Because here’s what happened to that soldier.
I was trained to fight. Paid to fight. And when my time in uniform ended, God didn’t discharge the soldier. He redeployed him.
I’m from the hood, but I ain’t from the streets — and I have spent my life fighting a different war. Not against people. Against the hate, the neglect, the hopelessness, and the indifference that eat young people alive in communities like the ones that raised me and buried Boo.
You’ve read this whole book. You know the battlefield now. The invisible wounds. The armor kids wear. The ecosystems designed against them. The kids scanning the stands. The ones checking to see if someone is still there.
That is the war. And every coach, teacher, parent, counselor, and pastor reading this page is already standing on the battlefield — whether you’ve enlisted or not.
This chapter is your commissioning.
Your Trench Is Waiting
When you close this book, life won’t suddenly become easier.
Your students will still struggle. Your children will still test your patience. Your team will still lose games. Your church will still have conflict. Your organization will still face challenges. People will still disappoint you. You will still disappoint yourself.
None of that changes.
What changes is how you enter the trench.
You no longer enter believing your job is to fix everyone. You enter believing your job is to faithfully love the people God has placed in front of you.
That’s different. One creates pressure. The other creates purpose.
Dream From the Inside Out
A soldier needs a mission, and a mission begins with a dream. So before you go, let me teach you how to dream — because the trenches you’ll build start there.
“As a man thinketh, so is he.” Dreams start with a thought. Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, and your actions shape your life. Scripture says that without vision, the people perish. Without a dream — without direction — something in us surely dies. It’s a quiet death. But it’s death nonetheless.
Two things I’ve learned about dreams.
First: dreams are not fantasies. When your dream becomes a fantasy, you need a new dream. I had to release Carl Lewis to find the gold bars. Releasing a fantasy isn’t quitting. It’s steering.
Second: some people dream from the outside in — limiting their dreams to what they see others doing, to what their environment says is acceptable. I want you to dream from the inside out. From the depths of your soul. Because people who don’t dream are limited by culture, race, sex, religion, and economics.
Dreamers have no limits.
Langston Hughes wrote a short poem called “Dreams” that I have carried with me since I was young — the image of a life without dreams as a bird with a broken wing that cannot fly, as a field gone barren and frozen over with snow. [PUBLISHER NOTE: “Dreams” (1923) is in the U.S. public domain; verify rights for full reproduction here, or retain this paraphrase.]
Hold fast to your dreams. Because I’ve seen what Hughes saw:
Is your life a barren field, frozen with snow? We live in communities that are barren fields. There’s no hope because there are no dreamers. A lot of fighters — not enough dreamers.
Will you be one?
The slave dreamed of his freedom. I am the hope of the slave. My dream has led me to the freedom I have today — and every young person you serve is somebody’s dream waiting to be watered.
You Will Never Know the Full Impact
One of the beautiful frustrations of leadership is that you’ll rarely see the whole story.
You’ll encourage a student who remembers your words twenty years later. You’ll pray with someone who tells their grandchildren about that moment. You’ll coach an athlete who someday becomes the kind of parent they never had. You’ll listen to someone who was quietly deciding whether life was worth living.
You may never know.
That’s okay.
Farmers don’t dig up seeds every morning to see if they’re growing. They plant. They water. They trust.
Leadership is much the same. Faithfulness comes before fruit.
The Small Things Are Never Small
Don’t underestimate ordinary moments. A smile. Learning someone’s name. A note. A phone call. Showing up at the hospital. Sitting quietly beside someone who has no words left.
Jesus spent thirty years preparing for three years of ministry — and even then, much of it looked ordinary. Walking. Listening. Eating. Praying. Loving.
Never confuse ordinary with unimportant.
Don’t Build Your Kingdom
One of the greatest temptations in leadership is believing the work belongs to us.
It doesn’t. These are not our children. They’re God’s. Not our players, our church, our school, our organization. His.
We’re stewards, not owners — and that sets us free. Free to serve, to celebrate someone else’s success, to release what we’ve built, because it never belonged to us in the first place.
I learned that one in a cave. I wouldn’t wish the lesson on you. But I wouldn’t trade it either.
Become the Person You Needed
As I look back over my own life, one question keeps coming back to me.
What kind of adult did I need when I was younger? Someone who listened. Someone who believed in me. Someone who told me the truth without making me feel worthless. Someone who came to check on me. Someone who stayed.
You know my story now. The boy no one was watching. The boy scanning the stands. Maybe that’s why this book exists.
Because every generation has the opportunity to become the adult they once needed.
Imagine what would happen if enough of us chose to do that. Families would change. Schools would change. Churches would change. Communities would change.
Not because of a new program.
Because of transformed people.
The Invitation
So here’s my invitation. Here are your orders.
Go notice the kid everyone overlooks. Go encourage the teacher who’s ready to quit. Go call the parent who’s carrying more than anyone realizes. Go mentor the young coach. Go apologize when you’re wrong. Go forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it. Go ask better questions. Go slow down. Go become more curious than critical. Go choose grace without abandoning truth. Go build relationships that make people stronger. Go create environments where people don’t have to pretend. Go remind people that failure isn’t final. Go help someone discover hope again.
Go build a trench.
Pause
Reflection
Before you close this book, ask yourself one final question.
Who has God placed in my life that needs me to enter their trench?
Write down the names. Pray over them. Commit to them.
And one more, from a soldier to a soldier:
What is the dream God has planted in you — the inside-out one, the one your circumstances have been telling you to shrink?
Write it down. A dream that isn’t written is just a fantasy. A dream that’s written can outlive you.
Then begin.
Not someday.
Today.
Final Trench Tools
Before you begin another meeting, another practice, another school year, another season of parenting, pray this simple prayer:
Lord, help me see people the way You see them. Help me love them the way You love them. Help me tell them the truth with grace. Help me become the kind of person who makes others feel safe enough to become who You created them to be. And when my own heart grows weary, remind me that You entered my trench long before You asked me to enter anyone else’s.
Amen.
Final Words
If you’ve forgotten everything else in this book, remember this.
People are not projects. They are image bearers. Behavior is not the whole story. Every heart is being formed. People become best in safe relationships. Leadership is stewardship. Character matters more than reputation. Presence changes people.
Healthy hearts build healthy relationships. Healthy relationships build healthy cultures. Healthy cultures build healthy ecosystems. And healthy ecosystems help people become.
So wherever God sends you next — into a classroom, a gymnasium, a church, a counseling office, a boardroom, a neighborhood, or around your own kitchen table —
Go with courage. Go with humility. Go with compassion. Go with truth. Go with grace.
I was trained to fight. I chose my war.
Now choose yours.
And wherever you go…
Go build a trench.
Afterword The Trench I’m Building Now
As I finished writing this book, I realized something that took me years to understand.
I thought my calling was to build successful teams. Then I thought it was to build schools. Then I thought it was to build organizations.
Today, I believe God has always been asking me to build people.
Not perfect people. People who know they are loved. People who tell the truth. People who carry hope. People who enter the lives of others with courage and compassion.
And I don’t want to leave you with the impression that these are just reflections from a man looking backward. So let me tell you what I’m building right now — because I would never ask you to build a trench I’m not building myself.
For fifteen years, I’ve kept a blog called BECOMING. Its banner reads: The Process is the Purpose. Everything in this book was written there first, in real time, before I understood what it meant — the collaboration essays in 2011, the grief in 2012, the graduations in 2014, the healing in the years since. I didn’t know I was writing a book. I was just becoming, out loud, over time.
That process has now become an organization. It’s called the Ascend Basketball Network. Its position is three words you’ve read all through this book: collaboration over competition. Programs connecting instead of competing. Every partner keeps its own identity, its own coaches, its own culture — what we share is a standard, for development, for character, and for the doors we open together. My own training organization sits inside it. It’s called REPS — and if you’ve read Chapter 7, you know that name isn’t branding. It’s biography.
And here’s the detail that means the most to me. One of the partner organizations is led by Seth — the man from Chapter 11, the twelve- year-old I once spoke life over, who found me in Atlantic City and spoke it back. He built something of his own, and now we’re building side by side.
The legacy didn’t just come back around.
It signed on.
Now, about the size of it. We’re not trying to gather hundreds of organizations. We want twelve.
Why twelve? Because Jesus chose twelve. Not because He couldn’t attract more — crowds followed Him everywhere. Because becoming happens in relationships, and relationships have a limit. You cannot know a hundred partners. You can know twelve. You can eat with twelve. You can enter the trenches of twelve.
And I go in knowing something else about that number, because Jesus knew it too.
Among any twelve, there will be a Judas. There will be a Peter — someone who denies you in the hard moment and needs restoring afterward. Jesus chose His twelve knowing exactly that, and He built His church on that roster anyway.
So will we.
You cannot let the fear of something going wrong prevent you from doing right. Betrayal, denial, disappointment — that’s not a flaw in the plan. That’s the human experience. It’s part of every trench there has ever been. The only way to avoid a Judas is to love no one, trust no one, and build nothing.
That’s not an option for people like us.
If this book has encouraged you to become one of those people — someone who builds anyway, loves anyway, enters anyway — then every lesson learned in my own trenches has been worth it.
Thank you for walking this journey with me.
Now…
Go help someone become.
Notes & Sources (Scaffold for the endnotes section — to be completed with the editor. Listed by chapter, these are the research-based claims in the book and the primary sources that support them.) Epigraph, Ch. 7 — “Life doesn’t get easier. We learn to do hard better.” Kara Lawson, Duke University women’s basketball, remarks to her team, 2022 (widely circulated video). Confirm quotation and secure permission or verify fair use for epigraph.
Ch. 3–4 — Trauma and behavior; ACEs. Adverse Childhood Experiences: Felitti, V.J., Anda, R.F., et al., “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults” (the CDC-Kaiser ACE Study), American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 1998. See also CDC ACEs resources.
Ch. 4 — Attachment. Bowlby, J., Attachment and Loss; Ainsworth, M., et al., Patterns of Attachment (1978). Popular treatment: Perry, B. & Winfrey, O., What Happened to You? (2021).
Ch. 6 — Fear and the developing brain; safety and learning. Perry, B., The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog (2006); National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, “Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Developing Brain” (Working Paper 3).
Ch. 9 — Redlining and engineered segregation. Rothstein, R., The Color of Law (2017). For York specifically: local historical records and reporting on housing segregation and the 1969 York race riots; verify local claims with York County Historical Society and York Daily Record archives.
Ch. 9 — Juvenile justice outcomes. Research on detention and recidivism: Annie E. Casey Foundation, “No Place for Kids” (2011).
Ch. 9 — Unsolved murders in York County. Verify current count and dates with York Daily Record / York Dispatch reporting before print.
Ch. 11 — Men, social connection, and longevity. Holt-Lunstad, J., et al., “Social Relationships and Mortality Risk,” PLoS Medicine, 2010; U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation” (2023). Note: the “men die sooner after losing a spouse” framing should be softened to reflect the research (elevated mortality risk, strongest in socially isolated men).
Ch. 12 — Langston Hughes, “Dreams” (1923). First published in The World Tomorrow, 1923; U.S. public domain. Verify for territories outside the U.S. if rights are sold internationally.
Permissions checklist (to document in writing before publication): Boo’s family (already granted — confirm in writing); Seth Leonard; Ivann Anderson (story + artwork); Brandon; Tricia; Marshall and Darlene; Rosalind (or counsel’s review); Nia’s family (disguised, but review); the valedictorian’s quoted line (news-reported public remarks — verify wording against the York Daily Record, June 2014).
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