From Rock Bottom to Foundation — The Mission That Found Me
It all begins with an idea.
The Weight Behind Every 'No'
“Why did you leave your last job?”
I knew the question was coming, and each time it did, I tried to put my best foot forward—explaining the situation with maturity, accountability, and even a few personal references lined up to vouch for me.
But it didn’t seem to matter. The moment my answer veered into the territory of real-life messiness, I could feel the energy shift. Maybe it was in the pause that followed. Maybe I imagined it. But the message was the same: "You’re not what we’re looking for."
Every “no” felt personal. Every rejection chipped away at something I had spent years building—my confidence, my identity, my belief that I still had something to offer.
And yet, it was in those same moments that something deeper began to form: a new sense of perspective.
The Realization: Privilege, Perspective, and Purpose
I had a strong resume. A degree. References. A family that supported me. I never went hungry growing up. I had structure, discipline, and access to resources. And still kept being rejected.
So I started wondering: If this is how hard it is for me, how impossible must it feel for someone without the same advantages? Someone who didn’t grow up with support? Someone whose past wasn’t a blip but a system stacked against them?
The answer to the question I never asked was right in front of me.
People don’t just need help after they fall.
They need the tools, skills and mentality to be ready to fall and know they WILL get back up. As long as they keep pounding away, small strikes, everyday.
Where do we get that? Who prepares us to fall?
Who can help us not JUST to survive… But enable us to THRIVE!?
And I wanted to be that someone.
Laying the Blueprint: Why Life Coaching Resonated
That word—Life Coach—hit me sideways when it popped up on one of those random career quizzes. At first, I laughed. But the more I looked into it, the more I realized: this wasn’t a fallback. This was everything I had been trying to do for myself, and now, I could learn to do it for others.
I wasn’t trying to fix broken people. And I’m still not.
I wanted to reach people who were still standing—but crumbling on the inside. People who had no language for what they were going through. People who needed someone to shine a light, not hand them a spotlight.
What Mining Mentality Really Means
I started building my framework based on the mindset that had brought me out of my darkest place—what I now call the Mining Mentality:
Awareness: You don’t change what you won’t acknowledge.
Ownership: Even when it’s not your fault, it’s still your responsibility.
One Small Step: Momentum beats motivation every time.
Sustained Reflection: Progress only sticks when it's measured.
This wasn’t about toxic positivity or hustle culture. It was about showing people that their life was worth digging for.
The Mining Mentality: Digging Deep, Building Up
It all begins with an idea.
Most people fear hitting rock bottom. But what if rock bottom isn’t the end? What if it’s just the beginning of the dig? The Mining Mentality doesn’t just teach you how to survive collapse—it shows you how to extract value from it. It’s a mindset that says: your pain holds purpose if you’re willing to dig. Your lowest point is where the foundation for your strongest life begins.> “Just as miners descend into the earth, chipping away at rock to reach veins of gold, we journey inward—through reflection, struggle, and experience—to uncover the strengths that shape a meaningful life.
Unlike the earth’s limited treasures, the riches within us multiply the more we seek them. Our potential is a self-replenishing mine of value and vitality.”This isn’t metaphor for metaphor’s sake—it’s the truth. Mining is dirty, difficult, and dangerous. But beneath the surface of our struggles lie regenerative strengths: resilience, empathy, adaptability, wisdom. And unlike gold, these grow the more we use them.
The Four Pillars
Awareness: Survey the Ground
Miners don’t drill blind—they study the terrain first. Awareness is about getting honest about where you are, what’s fractured, and what’s buried.
Ownership: Grip the Pickaxe
You can't hire someone else to dig for your growth. It’s your mine. Your life. Even if it’s not your fault, it’s still your responsibility to go in and get the gold.
Momentum: First Strike
Small actions chip away the heavy rock. Even one honest conversation, one habit, one decision—each one clears the tunnel for light to break through.4.
Integration: Reinforce the Tunnels
Once you've mined value, you don’t leave it exposed. You shore up your systems—routines, reflection, support—so your transformation doesn't cave in under pressure.
“The Layoff and the lantern”
It all begins with an idea.
Meet Eric
Eric Lewis is 36 years old. He worked in the accounting department at the U.S. Department of Education for nearly a decade. Steady, humble, always reliable. Married to Melissa, a third-grade teacher, and father to Ava (6) and Julian (3). The kind of guy who kept a spreadsheet for groceries and cracked dry dad jokes when things got tense.
He didn’t see the pink slip coming.
One morning, an all-staff email mentioned departmental restructuring. By Friday, his badge stopped working. Budget cuts, effective immediately. His supervisor cried more than he did.
It wasn’t personal. That’s what they all said.
But to Eric, it felt like identity theft.
Part 1 – Financial Freefall
Eric rated Financial as a 10 in importance—stable income was how he protected his family. But his current score? Maybe a 3. He wasn’t drowning in debt, but the free fall was starting to creep into everything: his sleep, his stomach, his temper. He kept replaying worst-case scenarios: What if I don’t find work before unemployment runs out? What if we lose the house?
Mining Mentality Action (Financial): Eric’s small step came after a breakdown in front of the fridge. Melissa gently handed him his own self-assessment worksheet—the one he had downloaded weeks earlier out of curiosity.
His action that day?
He wrote down the contact info for their mortgage provider and their bank.
He called the unemployment office—not to ask about benefits, but to set up a virtual session with a career counselor.
Tiny movements. First strikes. But they steadied him.
Part 2 – Purpose in Collapse
What hurt more than the money was what it meant: Who was Eric now?
He used to be “the guy who kept the department running.” Now, he felt like the guy who hit refresh on job boards every 10 minutes and couldn’t explain to his kids why he seemed so distracted during storytime.
He rated Purpose as a 9 in importance. His current score? 2. He wasn’t sure if another government job was what he wanted. But what else was he trained for? What else made sense?
So, he started small.
Mining Mentality Action (Purpose): Eric picked up his old journal from a drawer. He wrote one prompt across the top of the page:
> When have I felt most useful—not impressive, but useful?
That night, he filled three pages. It wasn’t a map, but it was a compass.
Part 3 – The Unexpected Gold: Family
When Eric looked over his worksheet again, one thing surprised him—Family was the only category where his “importance” score and his “current” score were aligned.
Suddenly, the slow mornings walking Ava to school weren’t interruptions—they were the highlight of his day. He started showing up more in the kitchen, learned how Julian liked his sandwiches cut, and noticed Melissa smiling more at night.
It didn’t fix everything—but it reminded him what wasn’t broken.
This didn’t erase the pain of his job loss. But through the Mining Mentality, Eric stopped seeing the layoff as just a loss—and started using it as a lantern.
Blog Post Title Four
It all begins with an idea.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.