CHAPTER 1
LIFE
Have you ever had the feeling that sometimes the tough times last forever? For me, the '90s were a rough decade.
In many ways it is a miracle that I survived those years to be able to share them now. In 1991, a few weeks after high school graduation and my eighteenth birthday, I was on my way to Army boot camp. I will never forget that feeling of excitement, anticipation, and fear. I have always felt excited when starting a new adventure.
It was my first time traveling out of state alone, and I really had no idea what I had gotten myself into. The Army was all about learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable. It was about embracing pain instead of avoiding it. I quickly learned how to break through self-imposed physical limitations, and it was empowering, to say the least.
Although it was difficult, I can look back and see how much what I learned has served me well throughout other areas of my life. My time in the military taught me that I am capable of doing far more than I had ever thought possible. We all are.
Two things I learned in the Army are resilience and adaptation. You had better be able to adapt to constantly changing circumstances and pressure. When the Army finds out you are scared of heights, they send you to air assault school to rappel out of helicopters or airborne school to jump out of airplanes. I learned how to live in a stressful environment 24/7 and to accept it as normal.
It's amazing what we can get used to. In basic training I was as far from happy as I ever thought I would be. Getting yelled at, being shamed, embarrassed, and constantly pushed to muscle failure is not much fun — and definitely nowhere near happiness. However, it was an escape from Illinois and a great first step in discovering who I was. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had already become quite the "escape artist." At fifteen, I discovered alcohol, and by seventeen, there was no happiness without it. Somewhere along the way, I bought into the lie that alcohol was a requirement for happiness and that I was so much more fun when intoxicated.
I imagine that you can relate to some level. We all have a past and we all have some type of pain associated with it. What I have learned is some of that pain can actually be used as fuel for our future. Most people are familiar with the term post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but less are familiar with the term post-traumatic growth (PTG). For many, their past becomes debilitating to their future, but for some the mess becomes their message and they find purpose beyond their pain. My hope is that you will discover your purpose and walk out the fullness of your destiny and calling.
Basic training taught me how to focus on the here and now. I ended up graduating at the head of my class, earned my first promotion, and was ready to move on to bigger and better things. During the next three years, I would relocate several times, and live in Fort Riley, Kansas; Fulda, Germany, and Fort Stewart, Georgia. Fort Riley is a small military town, and is best known for the origin of the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 3–5 percent of the world's population. There were 50,000 soldiers stationed in the town during the start of this epidemic, and it is largely suspected that the flu originated there. The flu virus infected 500 million people around the world including people on remote Pacific islands and in the Arctic and resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths. When I arrived there, the days were filled with pain and the nights were lonely as I adjusted to my new assignment. I will never forget arriving and heading straight into the field in November without the proper winter equipment. Within a week I was second-guessing my decision to join the service. It doesn't take too many nights of guarding and digging holes at 2:00 a.m. with Kansas winds trying to knock you over to question your choices that led you there. Those years away from home were filled with many lonely nights.
With each assignment the loneliness never left.
I remember arriving in Germany on December 23, 1992, and still feeling so empty and lonely. It would be something I would battle for years. It was like there was this dark cloud hanging over my head that would never go away. During those years, I was deeply depressed. The only time I felt relief was when I went out drinking with the guys. This led to a pattern of living for the weekend and just surviving through the week. I hid it well, but I was dying inside and didn't know why.
After three years I finished my Army commitment and was ready to tackle bigger and better things. I spent the last year of my time in the Army taking personality tests and exploring career options. None of the traditional careers or employment opportunities appealed to me at all, and I just knew I wanted to do something big, something that wasn't the norm.
When I left the Army on July 30, 1994, my first idea was to become an actor. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Go big or go home, right? I was scared to death of speaking in front of people, but I was excited about all the challenges that acting school would bring.
My father was a top executive at a car manufacturing plant in Illinois and helped me get a part-time job there to supplement my income while I pursued my dream. I only worked Mondays and Fridays and could focus on school the rest of the week. I felt accomplished because I had done my time, left the Army, and learned a lot, but I was excited about the future! Like most young men at twenty-one, I was ready to take on the world.
I was once told that a rocket ship on the way to the moon is off track 97 percent of the time and has to make constant adjustments to stay on course or it will completely miss its target. Our lives are the same way. When I look back to these decisions, I see how important they all were. We have to constantly be changing and adapting to stay on course to our ultimate destination. When life gets stale, it is a sure-tell sign that we have drifted off course. The great news is that we can choose to make adjustments whenever we like. You can reinvent yourself and do a complete 180 turn if that's what gets you back on track.
There are a lot of detours on the road to happiness, and I found them all.
Maybe you took a shortcut to happiness and didn't experience what I did, or perhaps you found your own ditches to fall into. The important thing to remember is that a ditch is just a ditch. Get out, and don't stay in it. If you need a tow truck, don't panic; there's always a way out of the ditch.
My journey is funny when I look back at it, but it wasn't at the time. I traveled through a lot of different phases thinking that it was my life path. I did not know that some of those phases were just big detours and dead ends.
In 1994 I discovered this thing called karaoke. I had already become quite the partier during high school and in my time in the Army, but college was a whole new level. It introduced me to marijuana, shrooms, acid, and some other drugs of the day. In college I got a PhD in partying! Ultimately, I was asked to sing in my first band. I remember thinking, Wow! I could totally do this for a living!
I loved to listen to Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, and many other rock bands back then. Some of them were my heroes. Interestingly enough, many of the artists I loved so much have either died from suicide or drug overdoses in the last few years. Not the best role models. Talk about being on the wrong path!
I remember watching The Doors movie and Tombstone over and over, thinking, I'm going to fight like Doc Holiday and party like Jim Morrison. For almost the next decade this would become my life mission statement. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a very unhealthy vow. The seed had been planted, and the lyrics that played over and over in my head spoke death and destruction. Today I know better, but back then I didn't.
What thoughts are you allowing to establish and define the foundation of your life?
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My first real rock band was called the Mountain Oysters. When the headliner canceled at our first show, we were asked to play the whole night. This wasn't going to be easy, so I did what I had always done since age fifteen when I got nervous or overly excited — I started drinking alcohol.
We suffered through the night playing '90s covers, but our first original, titled "Painkillers," was a huge hit. I was instantly addicted to the idea of fame, fortune, and living the rock and roll lifestyle. It was an adrenaline rush for sure! One of the things I tell parents today is to be aware of that adrenaline rush and the effect it can have on our kids whether it's a video game, the rush of the kill, the achievement, the next level, or a party. What if we could create that same rush in a healthy way? Maybe with a family hike every week or something that can build our children's lives and not destroy them.
The key is to stay proactive in our leadership goals for our families and ourselves and to recognize the things that the enemy of our soul would love to destroy us with.
Looking back, of course we all wish we could hit rewind. Some people say they would not trade their bad experiences for anything because it made them who they are, but there are certain moments of my life I'm not willing to repeat. I hope by telling my own story that I can give you some insight into yours and impact your journey to success.
If the road has been hard, have faith! You are definitely not alone, and I'm excited to be a part of your journey. You were not created just to endure life but also to enjoy life!
By 1999, I had dropped out of college twice, received about every misdemeanor you could imagine, experimented with a whole new slew of drugs, and gone full-time at the automotive plant working second shift. Other than band gigs on the weekends, I was miserable. By this point, I lived in an old weigh station with about six to seven roommates at any given time. We only had half a bathroom.
Don't laugh. It's a stark contrast from where I am today, and it was a dark, dark season of my life. I was running one hundred miles per hour in the wrong direction.
I was determined to do music for a living and nothing else. My new band was writing originals, and we went into the studio and recorded our first album. This was going to be my ticket out of the car business.
So many things seemed to be going right at this time. We were packing clubs, jamming with incredible bands, having our songs played on the radio, and even spent an hour after one show signing autographs. I remember pulling up to a stoplight while one of our songs was playing on the local radio and seeing a guy in the car next to me jamming out with the windows rolled down. I had no idea who this guy was, but he clearly loved what he was listening to — a song I had written. I just knew I would soon be touring the world, living in hotels, and partying like a rock star. It seemed like things were going so well, but when I look back now, I can clearly see that I was sowing seeds of destruction.
What dreams have you dreamt that perhaps you shouldn't have?
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CHAPTER 2
A WOMAN AND MY BROTHER
Somewhere along the way, I fell for a woman who was older than me and had four kids. Not sure what I was thinking at the time, but in some very codependent and unhealthy way, we thought we needed each other. Back then I was always tuned into the "what's in it for me?" radio station (WIIFM), so this woman always took second place to my dreams and needs.
Partially due to my neglect and selfishness, "my girl" and one of my best friends got together. This seemed like the end of my life at the time. I had been completely and totally betrayed. If you can't trust your closest friends, then whom can you trust? This led into one of the most profound, depressing times of my life. At twenty-five years old, I was moving home once again.
I was suicidal during this time in my life; the next year was like a fog. I don't think I paid attention to anyone or anything around me. I was miserable, destroyed inside, and consumed with my own selfishness. Have you ever been so involved in your own personal tragedy that you can't see anyone else's?
May 1, 1999, is a day I will never forget.
One Friday night, I got a call at work that my younger brother Skye, who was fifteen at the time, had gone missing. He had taken my sister's car and disappeared. He had driven by his ex-girlfriend's house, showed her that he had a gun, and then went missing. It had been hours, and no one had seen or heard from him. We were all very worried but hoping for the best. Skye had taken my car when he was younger and had a reputation for getting into trouble. He was that kid who had no fear and lived like every day was his last.
I will never forget waking up to my father screaming that Skye had died.
Some stranger knocked on the door around 10:00 a.m. in the morning to let us know that Skye was gone. He had shot himself in the head with his friend's parent's gun. He left a note for each of us to let us know he loved us. One of the motivations for me to write this book is in memory of my brother Skye. If the words in these pages can save one life, than this is all worth it.
When I found out the news, all I could mutter was a weak, "It should have been me."
When something like this happens, everyone directly or indirectly involved feels some sort of responsibility. My little brother's girlfriend had broken up with him a few days before, and when he tried to talk to me, I just blew him off. I was wallowing in my own depression and didn't see how badly he was hurting.
My parents had gone away for a short weekend and wondered if not leaving would have changed anything. Each one of us sunk deeper into the what-ifs.
Skye had asked his friend to drive in the car with him but he didn't. This type of situation causes so many what-ifs and "wish I would haves." Life is so short. Make sure you tell those that you love how you feel often. Tomorrow isn't promised to anyone, and today is a gift, which is why we call it the present. I cherish every memory that I spent with my little bro. I have many fond memories of Skye Bradley Kneller and hope to see him again one day.
From that moment on, things went from bad to worse. My drinking and drug use intensified to dangerous levels and within nine months I had reconnected with my previous girlfriend and ruined that relationship, quit my job, and left my band. I did not want to live anymore, but after seeing what my parents had gone through with my brother, I couldn't bear the thought of putting them through any more pain. I needed to get away from all of it, so I found a way.
In January of 2000, I quit my job, cashed out the $7000 that was in my 401K from my five years at the car factory, grabbed my brother Brett, and disappeared into the mountains of Arizona. I needed to sober up and get away from it all. We bought a book called Hidden Arizona and headed west. I thought that maybe hiking into the Grand Canyon or writing music at the top of Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona, would give me a new perspective. I will always cherish that time with my brother Brett. We climbed mountains, explored caves, fished in lakes, hiked the Grand Canyon, explored Sedona, ate steak in Tombstone, and toured the Biosphere 2.
In March of that same year, my ex-girlfriend got in touch with me; we decided to give our relationship another shot and get married. Talk about old things you shouldn't pick up again.
The old things are always going to come back to you. Giving this relationship another chance turned out to be a big mistake; neither one of us had changed, and we had no foundation to build on. At best, we were building a house out of straw.
Our marriage had about as much chance to succeed as a fish living on top of a roof. Within six months, we were separated (and divorced shortly after). Then came more bands and more roommates, more parties, and more wasted life. I had finally bottomed out.
