Zero Chaos Coffee
Before the brand, there was the war.
14 years in the U.S. Army. Three combat deployments across Iraq and Afghanistan. Two divorces. Therapy. A book. A family. Zero Chaos Coffee is what came out the other side.
Fort Jackson. May 2001.
Three Deployments. Two Wars.
I enlisted in May 2001 and reported to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Basic Training. Advanced Individual Training. 63B — light wheel vehicle mechanic, later redesignated 91B.
It was a normal start. Structure, routine, discipline. Learning a trade inside a system built around accountability and performance under pressure.
Then September 11th happened while I was still in AIT.
I watched it with everyone else. And like everyone else, I understood immediately that the career I thought I was starting had just become something different. The country changed that day. I changed that day — permanently.
I enlisted before the world changed. Whatever I thought my service would look like — it wasn't that.
These are the places. Anyone who knows, knows.
Iraq
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
The Wars Ended. The Work Didn't.
Fourteen years. Three deployments. Then civilian life.
I won't go into detail about what I carried home. Anyone who's been there knows. What I will say is that it took real time and real work to get to a better place. There were two marriages that didn't survive the weight of everything I was working through. That's hard to write — but it's true, and the people who've lived it will understand without needing an explanation.
What turned things around was two things working together: therapy and reading. I did the actual professional work. And I read everything I could find on leadership, systems, performance, and how people function under sustained pressure.
Those two things shifted my thinking in a direction I couldn't find on my own.
Silence the noise. Clarity over chaos. That wasn't a brand concept — it was what I was chasing just to function.
I'm now married to an incredible woman. Two kids who are the reason behind all of it. The family I have now is what I was building toward through everything that came before — even when I couldn't see it yet.
The Reason Behind All of It
Family isn't the goal. It's the filter.
My wife Kristen didn't just support this — she made it possible. The late nights, the doubt, the rebuilding after everything that came before. None of this exists without her. That's not something I say lightly. I've learned the difference between people who say they're in your corner and people who actually stand there when it costs them something. She stands there.
Ethan and Greyson are why the standard doesn't bend. Every system I build, every decision I make about what Zero Chaos stands for — it runs through one question first: what does this teach them? I want them to see that the hard work is the point. That goals aren't things you wait to be handed. That clarity — about who you are and what you're building — is something you fight for every day.
They are the reason this started. They're the reason it won't stop.
Kristen · Ethan · Greyson
The Work Led to a Book.
The Questions Became Research. The Research Became a Book.
The same questions I kept working through — why do people break under pressure, why do good leaders make bad decisions when the stakes are highest, how do you build systems that hold when everything falls apart — became research.
SEIZED: Why Leaders Break Systems Under Pressure and How to Stop It
Drawing from 14 years of service, three combat deployments, and hard-earned experience rebuilding after failure — SEIZED examines why leaders collapse under pressure and what it takes to build the systems that hold. Written for anyone who leads people when the stakes are real.
Get the book on Amazon →Writing SEIZED sharpened everything I was learning about clarity, structure, and daily performance. Zero Chaos Coffee grew directly out of that thinking. The same principles behind why leaders break under pressure are the same principles behind why a consistent daily ritual changes how you move through your entire day.
SEIZED is the foundation. What's being built on top of it is a full leadership program and consulting practice — real frameworks for people who carry real responsibility. Not theory. Not corporate workshopping. Experience-based, pressure-tested, and built for the people who need it most.
This is the start of that journey. The book is available now.
The Principles Behind the Brand
Three Things. No Exceptions.
Not a mission statement. The three things I run my life around — and the three things this brand is built on.
Zero Chaos Coffee wasn't built in a lab or designed by a marketing team.
It was built by someone who needed it to work — and built it to the same standard he held everything else in his life.
That standard doesn't change.
Start with what the day requires.
The system works the same way every time. That's the point.
Find Your State →