About Freedom to Launch
For fifteen years I’ve worked with families of young men and women who’ve become stuck. Some wrestle with mental health issues or addiction, others are simply disconnected and unmotivated. However it happens, the pattern leaves everyone exhausted and unsure what to do next. I understand how hopeless that can feel. I also know what it’s like to lose your way and rebuild, because my path here wasn’t a straight line.
How I Found This Work
If you’d asked high-school me what I planned to be, I would have said “pilot.” My dad flew helicopters in the Army, and at fifteen I started flying lessons, soloing by sixteen and earning admission to Embry-Riddle. The future seemed set, until it wasn’t. ADHD made math and physics a grind, and the military track I was pursuing demanded relentless academic precision and a multi-year commitment. Doubt crept in. I stepped back.
What followed was a familiar story to many families I now serve. A season of drifting. Community college classes I didn’t finish. Weekends that bled into Mondays. Eventually, a blunt comment from a friend is what shook me awake. “You’re the smartest guy I know who isn’t doing anything with it.” I switched my major to psychology the next day.
Starting over wasn’t glamorous. I learned how to study from scratch. An English professor taught me how to craft a proper thesis. I put structure around my time and kept personal distractions second to academic progress. Two strong quarters led to a transfer to Otterbein College for my B.A. in Psychology, then to the University of North Texas for a master’s degree focused on family systems and adolescent/young adult counseling. In graduate school I fell in love with neuroscience and the mind-body connection. How we change not only through insight but through action, repetition, and environment.
Becoming a Specialist
I opened a private practice as soon as I earned my LPC in Texas, supplementing it with experience in community mental health, inpatient treatment, insurance work, and group clinics. Then came a critical invitation to join the Amen Clinics in Plano, where I worked alongside psychiatrists, used SPECT brain imaging, and served high-profile, high-net-worth families.
That’s where I first saw Failure to Launch as a distinct, growing pattern. Families with resources could unintentionally fund avoidance. Young adults could stall out at home without immediate consequences, and well-meaning parents (understandably worried about mental health, safety, or future prospects) often stepped in to solve problems their kids needed to learn to carry. It wasn’t about laziness or bad parenting, it was about a system rewarding the wrong behaviors.
Few clinicians wanted to engage these messy, emotionally charged situations. I did. I began building a pragmatic, family-systems approach that combined clear boundaries, stepwise habit building, and collaboration with parents. Word spread, and I became the go-to resource for Failure to Launch in the Dallas Fort Worth area.
As the problem grew nationwide and I noticed how little had been written to guide professionals, I authored the first book on the topic: Failure to Launch: Guiding Clinicians to Successfully Launch the Long-Dependent Young Adult. Meanwhile, I continued private practice work focused almost exclusively on this population. I’ve seen hundreds of families over the years.
After thirteen years in Texas, my wife Jillian and I moved home to the Midwest with our two kids, Elleanore and Oliver, and a bustling crew of cats and dogs. I built another thriving practice in the Columbus metro area and kept refining my methods. The pattern was clear: when parents had a structured plan and the tools to implement it at home, outcomes improved. When they didn’t, the cycle tended to repeat.
Why Freedom to Launch
In recent years I’ve faced an uncomfortable truth: the need has outpaced what one clinician can provide in a therapy room. Waitlists grew. Families outside my licensed states couldn’t access me. And many parents didn’t want therapy, they wanted a step-by-step plan, with scripts and structure, that they could use immediately.
The Freedom to Launch Course is my answer to that need.
The course distills nearly two decades of clinical practice into an accessible program for parents. It gives you the same tools I’ve used with families in my office: how to set firm but fair boundaries, stop enabling without abandoning, reduce conflict while maintaining connection, and help your child move toward responsibility, work, and independence. An initial family assessment personalizes your path so you’re not guessing which lever to pull first. Video lessons, worksheets, and ready-to-use scripts translate insight into action at home, where change has to happen.
For parents who want ongoing encouragement, we’ve added a private community. It’s a place to compare notes with people who understand exactly what you’re facing, to borrow language that worked for someone else, and to keep momentum when the first boundary conversations feel hard. Many members have completed the program and return to share what helped them turn the corner.
I’m still a clinician at heart. Freedom to Launch doesn’t replace therapy when therapy is needed. It equips families with a practical framework that complements it, or stands on its own when access, time, or readiness make therapy unrealistic. Most importantly, it allows me to help far more families than the four walls of a counseling office will ever allow.
What I Believe About “Stuck”
Here’s what I’ve learned after thousands of sessions:
- Stuck isn’t a character flaw. It’s usually a system of short-term relief that has accidentally crowded out long-term growth.
- Parents are the leverage point. When you change the home environment, namely expectations, boundaries, and language, your child has to adapt.
- Clarity beats intensity. You don’t need perfect motivational speeches, you need clear steps you can repeat calmly.
- Relationships and responsibility grow together. You can be kind and be firm. In fact, that combination is what launches adults.
Those beliefs shape everything I teach. They’re why the course is practical, structured, and relentlessly focused on what you can control at home.
A Life Outside the Work
I’m grateful for the life this work has given me – a home base in the Midwest near extended family, weekends cheering for the Philadelphia Eagles, and conversations that range from AI to cars, gardening, and snow-skiing. If I ever open a group practice in a Colorado ski town and run sessions on the mountain, you’ll know a long-time dream came true.
Why I’m Still Here
People sometimes ask whether I get tired of the fight. If, after all these years, the problem feels too big. The honest answer is that failure-to-launch is more prevalent today than when I began. Economic realities, digital life, and well-intentioned enabling all make the slope slippery. But I also know that change is possible, and I’ve seen it again and again. A young man or woman who starts showing up on time, finishes the certification they abandoned, pays their own phone bill, and looks you in the eye with pride. A family dinner that isn’t a negotiation. A parent who sleeps through the night again.
That’s why Freedom to Launch exists. To put the most effective parts of my clinical playbook in your hands, wherever you live, so you can start leading change at home today.
Today, I’m proud to lead a small team of parents, educators, and creative professionals who share the same mission. To make effective, compassionate solutions for failure to launch accessible to every family that needs them. Together, we’ve turned years of in-office practice into a dynamic learning experience, complete with research-based curriculum design, high-quality production, and a supportive parent community.
Freedom to Launch isn’t just my work, it’s a collective effort built by people who believe in helping families reclaim peace, confidence, and hope. If you’re ready to trade guesswork for a plan, we’d be honored to guide you.
