When Character Is All You Have Left

I want to tell you something about the foreword in my new book — because it was written in a place neither the author nor I ever expected to be.

Todd Chrisley wrote the foreword to Maximizing Mindset, Second Edition. Most people know Todd from television. What they may not know is that Todd and I became friends inside a federal prison camp — two men who had built successful lives, accused and convicted of things we did not do, navigating a system that had failed us.

I want to be clear about what happened in that environment. We didn't sit idle. We didn't collapse into bitterness. We mentored. We helped young men who had lost their way find hope, purpose, and a vision for a future they didn't think they had. We chose, every day, to be a light in a dark place.

Todd watched me apply the very principles I've spent decades teaching — Accountability, Empathy, Gratitude — not from a stage, but from a prison bunk. And he writes in his foreword something I carry with me every day: it is easy to have a positive mindset when you are sitting in a corner office with a view. It is an entirely different beast to maintain that mindset when you are locked up.

He's right. And that is exactly why this second edition matters more to me than the first.

I built my career on these principles — in the Army during Operation Desert Storm, commanding 250 soldiers across two countries. In Charleston, building Berenyi Inc. into a leading design-build firm over three decades. In the community, founding Rein & Shine for veterans and people with disabilities, mentoring hundreds of business leaders across the Lowcountry.

But I had never been stress-tested like this. And the foundation held.

Todd received a full pardon from President Trump. My engineering license has been reinstated by the state of South Carolina. And both of us have come out the other side with a deeper faith, a stronger conviction, and a message we are compelled to share: these principles work.

Not just in boardrooms.

Not just in comfortable seasons.

They work in the hardest places imaginable.

If you are in the middle of your own storm right now, this book is for you. Read it not as theory — but as a blueprint proven under fire. That is exactly what it is.