This piece introduces a personal philosophy formed during a period of collapse, reinvention, and deep self-examination. “Be an Eleven” is not about perfection, competition, or external validation; it is a framework for breaking cycles, rejecting fixed measures of success, and committing to continuous growth.
What began as a personal reckoning evolved into a lens I now apply to leadership, systems, and life itself.
Breaking Cycles & Redefining the Measure of Success
I was at a low point. My marriage was coming to an end and I moved out, I was eight months into my job search without an offer, and my unemployment benefits were running out in two weeks. My patience was being tested more than it had been in a long time. I was living with my parents and waking up every morning, getting dressed as if I was going to work that day. But instead, I was at my parent’s dining room table submitting my resume into an endless supply of applicant tracking systems (ATS). “You’re still looking for jobs?” My dad said one morning after coming home from his midnight shift. He’s been there 35 years. “Yeah,” I said, “I got nothing else better to do.” He smiled. I always have some kind of smart-ass thing to add on my responses to him. That’s why my dad would always call me a wise guy growing up as a kid.
At the time I was employed as an Adjunct Instructor at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). My parents lived in Illinois, which is a two and a half hour drive away from there. Two days a week I made the trip to teach the evening class. I was going to therapy at the time too and started to come to accept the reality that I was going to be starting life over as a 35 year old divorcee.
Every day I told myself, “This is God’s fight,” and my whole life is systematically dissolving to leave me bare so I could learn a lesson.
I got a job offer one week away from my unemployment benefits running out. Next thing I knew I was walking into the next dimension of my life, leaving behind the ashes of my old self to start experiencing life fresh with an older and wiser perception.
My life once was the way I envisioned it would be growing up as a kid. I was a suburban husband with two step-children. I had experienced holidays, family vacations, in-laws, football practices, and piano lessons. I was making breakfast, mowing the grass, taking care of sick children through the night, and burying the family pets that passed away. I was groomed to be those things because that’s what my dad would do. But ultimately, those things had to be taken away from me so I could have the focus and time to process my new reality.
I went out on the dating market and learned about some strengths and weaknesses in myself. I was already working on myself physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally at this point for a few years. But when I discovered how game worked, all of that physical development I did to make my body competitive on the market didn’t mean much.
However, physical fitness actually brought my mind at peace, especially after stressful days. It gave me time to exert pent up energy and helped to relieve anxiety and depression. So I was going to keep doing it, but this time I was going to do it for me.
It got me thinking about markets how we measure things in them. On the dating market, if you are a perfect ten you have it all – physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional perfection.
Measurable perfection in the dating market is perceptive. So in my case, I can get physically fit for the market to consider me a 10. But my true motivation is to get physically fit until I consider myself a 10.
Yet, no one ever truly sees themselves as perfect. There is always room for improvement when we look at ourselves in the mirror.
So an individual that is constantly working at being the best version of themselves, better than a 10, is what I call an 11. It is unachievable, and always gives you something to work towards. Its status is in of itself constantly improving.
From that point on I chose to find every way possible for me to be a better version of myself in all areas I could, even if I thought I was good enough. I started boxing and it felt great. My diet was changing so I could build a bit of muscle too and so I had more positive energy.
In my past life I was a husband living by the same standards everyone else was living by, I was operating in the traditional scale from 1-10. Stuck in a cycle. Being a husband and parent in suburbia was perfectly fine for me. I made it. But how would I become the best version of myself when all my attention was on everyone else? My life was an old cycle that needed to be broken. That’s when I understood why God took it all away.
Breaking cycles is required. One can’t repeat old cycles and become a better version of themselves.
Being an 11 is also about breaking the cycles of past generations too.
My dad is a pretty masculine guy. He’s always got his walls up, and it has honestly always been like that my whole life. He was raised in a really strict environment. There was one time when I was in high school going through a lot of issues with my parents and my dad wasn’t able to tell me he loved me in one of our therapy sessions.
Probably because I was being such an asshole kid, but still. It hurt.
I carried that with me through the years with a victim mentality about it. But behaving with a victim mentality isn’t productive. It’s not what an 11 would do. So little by little I started telling my mom I loved her at the end of our phone conversations. She would say it back when my dad would be in the room too. These days I can kind of sneak a, “Love ya,” in there for my dad occasionally without it being too awkward. Ultimately, this behavioral adjustment will break a cycle generations of men in our family were stuck in and make the future generation better.
I talked earlier in my opening about the time I told my dad I was looking for jobs because I had, “Nothing else better to do.” I was being a wise guy when I said that. But I was really stuck repeating a cycle by constantly putting resumes into the ATS without an end in sight.
The moment my dad asked, “You still looking for jobs?” He was really telling me that I was repeating a cycle and needed to break out of it. He was telling me to be something better. To be an 11.
