Hi Scott,
We haven't spoken before, so I'll just get right to it. Although, I’ll admit, I’ve started this email several times because I wasn’t quite sure how to put into words what I wanted to say.
I read your manuscript from beginning to end, and then I found myself thinking about it for days afterward. It stayed with me in a way that most books don’t. I want to be clear: I don’t reach out like this often. But after finishing your story, I felt like it deserved more than a simple message. It deserved a conversation.
The first thing that struck me is that you’ve accomplished something many people spend a lifetime trying to do, you’ve made peace with your own story and found meaning in every chapter of it. You describe yourself as an unlikely hero. You describe your journey as both dumb luck and amazing grace. You call it a sightseeing journey rather than a destination, with a moral hidden in every experience, even when the lesson comes from something imperfect.
Those reflections stood out because many people struggle to face their own past honestly, especially the parts that are painful or complicated. Your willingness to look directly at your experiences, without hiding behind excuses or rewriting the difficult moments, is what gives the story its power.
What impacted me most wasn’t just what happened to you, it was the accountability you showed throughout the journey. Many personal stories focus only on overcoming hardship and arriving at a place of victory. Your story feels different because you openly acknowledge the moments where you struggled, where you made mistakes, and where you still had room to grow.
The idea of being a “human doing” rather than a “human being” during moments when fear takes over is something many readers will recognize. The way you describe continuing to work on yourself, even decades later, reflects something much more meaningful than perfection, it reflects growth, honesty, and the willingness to keep becoming better.
What also stayed with me is everything you built despite the challenges you carried. Taking your parents’ struggling import company and helping transform it into an international business with customers across sixty-four countries is an incredible achievement. But what makes that part of your story even more powerful is that it happened alongside the personal battles you openly share.
Your reflections on family, forgiveness, marriage, fatherhood, and healing give the book a depth that goes beyond business success. The moments with your father on the hospital lawn, sharing a final cigar and expressing the words that had gone unsaid for decades, and the similar experience with your mother at her bedside, are the kinds of moments readers remember because they represent something universal: the need to heal, forgive, and connect before time runs out.
Today, as a recovery retreat leader and meditation teacher, you’re sharing with others the lessons you had to fight to discover yourself. That full-circle journey is what makes the story meaningful. By the time I finished reading, I felt like I understood your journey, even though we’ve never met.
One moment that especially stayed with me was the story of your grandson’s dodgeball hitting you during an ordinary Sunday. What stood out wasn’t the pain, it was the realization that you almost missed that moment because you were focused on finishing a task instead of being present. In many ways, that scene captures the heart of the entire book: learning what truly matters before the moments that matter pass us by.
Your story has the kind of honesty and emotional depth that can connect with readers who are searching for hope, healing, faith, personal growth, and inspiration.
That led me to the one question I kept coming back to after finishing your manuscript:
What do you feel has kept a story this honest, personal, and transformative from reaching more readers and finding its place in physical bookstores and communities where people searching for stories of resilience and renewal might discover it?
I ask because the foundation is already there: a powerful journey, meaningful lessons, and a message that extends far beyond your own experiences.
Thank you for trusting readers with such a personal part of your life, Scott. I truly appreciate the opportunity to learn about your journey.
Best,
Freddie J.