Bethesda Designs - Relaunch 2026

11/02/2026

It's been just a little over a year since I launched my business and a book.

The first year of entrepreneurship is often a wild adventure in self-discovery, and in gaining a deeper understanding of what you are creating, who you are creating it with, and who you are creating it for.

Rebuilding:

This relaunch is really a story of rebuilding, and my vision for doing that in 4 ways:

• Build people

• Build together

• Build great things

• Build a lasting legacy

Over the past year, what started as the idea to be an author, speaker, and podcaster, grew into an innovation studio that took on a life of its own and expanded into three distinct "studios" with common threads between them.

Common Threads and Common Themes:

Common threads that include things like:

• Being an Incubator of marketplaces

• An Ecosystem of communities

• And a Platform for platforms

Which then formed around some common themes that have developed into studios:

• Innovation Studio

• Flourishing And Thriving Studio

• Uncocooned Studio

The History:

In many ways, the business started a year ago, but in other ways, it actually started decades ago. So I'll talk about not only where it is now, but about its earliest beginnings way back when.

God is really the one who interrupted my plans, shook me out of complacency, and reset my course and destiny.

Although I started out in entrepreneur life as my mom designed and grew her business while I was growing up, and I had various sparks of a startup over the years, I had gotten very comfortable in the structure of a executive position in a corporation and the predictability of a steady paycheck.

That is, until God gave me a very abrupt shove in the direction of business building.

I thought success would look like being a CTO (Chief Technology Officer)

But hitting a ceiling in the company where I was working, caused me to take a deep honest look at myself. And I re-discovered my creativity and innovation that had gotten lost along the path of climbing the corporate ladder. And in turn, rediscovered who I am and what I really want out of life.

Now, what my life actually looks like is being a designer, innovator, author, speaker, artist, musician, health expert, philanthropist, and business leader - an innovative creator who also loves to encourage and inspire others. The technology is still in there too, but just a smaller piece of the overall mosaic than I originally thought.

And things such as mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, cybersecurity warfare, along with the pressure to grow at a company that was private equity owned, and mentoring in the startup and investment world, helped forge an enterprise mindset that allows me to see ways to scale and build businesses in unconventional as well as conventional patterns.

But at its core, it all began in the ashes of my mom's business decades ago. The name Bethesda Designs was inspired from the concept of the pools of Bethesda being a place of healing for all the pain coming from that loss.

My Expectation:

My expectation was that God was going to restore what I had lost.

Restoring Me:

But the reframe God gave, was that He was actually going to rebuild ME.

Restoring Covenant Partnerships:

And along with that, He began to heal the wounds of Betrayal, Rejection, and Abandonment in order to restore my faith in humanity and restore my desire for covenant partnerships and building with others.

Expansion:

Then God expanded my vision to build things so much bigger than myself. Visions and Dreams born from Audacious Optimism around what is possible. To build things so big, that they could only be accomplished with help from Him and help from an amazing tribe of warrior builders, willing to come along side each other to build as well as willing to fight to protect the things that truly matter. People are the prize and everything else is just the bonus and the overflow.

Metaphors:

There are some metaphors that help describe the progression of this transformation.

• The breaking - loss, adversity, disappointment, and pressure

• The restoration - healing, renewed identity, faith, trust, and strength

• The reconnection - covenant relationships, community, belonging, and shared purpose

• The rebuilding - vision, creativity, innovation, and courageous action

• The Multiplication - elevating others, generational influence, and enduring legacy

These metaphors include:

• The phoenix and beauty from ashes - what appeared destroyed becomes the birthplace for something new.

• The diamond that gets stronger under pressure - adversity reveals and refines extraordinary strength and beauty.

• The mosaic and unity - what appears to be disparate pieces become a beautiful picture when brought together.

• The butterfly and metamorphosis - the disassembling, rearranging, and struggling can transform and bring about the emergence of something completely unexpected, brand new, and spectacular.

With underlying principles from Isaiah 61:3-4 and Nehemiah 4:17-18.

Transformation:

These transformations bring us back to the 3 studios:

• Innovation Studio is about transforming possibilities

  • What we imagine, design, and build, and how we push past current conventional thinking to expand the limits of what is possible

• Flourishing and Thriving Studio is about transforming people

  • Healing, Wellness, and How people grow, lead, and thrive

• Uncocooned Studio is about transforming destiny and legacy through storytelling and creative experiences

  • Stories, characters, and experiences that inspire hope, joy, and transformation

So as we look at the relaunch of Bethesda Designs - We can see:

• The Heart of Bethesda Designs

  • Bethesda Designs is about grace, healing, restoration, beauty, hospitality, generosity and belonging. The pools of Bethesda in ancient times were a place of healing. And the name Bethesda means house of grace, which embodies all these things I've mentioned.

• The calling is to Rise and Rebuild

  • A God-inspired vision to create something greater from the ashes

• The ambition is to have Generational Impact

  • To build enterprises that elevate others, impact nations, and inspire and influence generations

• The expression is the 3 studios

  • Innovation Studio

  • Flourishing and Thriving Studio

  • Uncocooned Studio

• The multiplier is My Tribe

  • Those high-performing builders, creators, leaders, and partners who carry the vision forward.

So how can I possibly do all of that?

The answer is not simply that I'm multifaceted, strong, creative, or capable of juggling a lot of things. But it's that my experience in leadership, what I often call "God's Bootcamp", the often brutal struggle to overcome hard things, breaking points where I wasn't sure if I would make it through, and a deep humility and gratitude born out of fierce dependence on God and interdependence on others, has taught me the paradox of building a business, leading others, and being visionary.

The visionary doesn't have to be the person that does everything and does it alone. Instead, the visionary needs to see what is possible, cast the vision, inspire the right people to come together, and help them develop the talents and skills already inside of them, to accomplish something extraordinary. Who you build with, and who you build for, are what matters so much more than even what you build.

Because what you build is fueled and taken to new levels by the audacious optimism and common vision of those who you build with, my fellow visionaries.