Chapter 11 — Connecting The Dots
By the time I found the Dogs, I had already lost almost every place I once called home.
My father had died from cancer before I had the chance to say goodbye.
Not long after, my daughter moved away for college.
Then I left the high-demand religion I had been born into, escaped from, returned to, escaped again, and eventually returned to one final time.
Leaving for good was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made.
It was also one of the most necessary.
Almost overnight, the people I had considered my support system were gone.
Family.
Friends.
Community.
Belonging.
The structure that had surrounded my life disappeared, and even though I knew leaving was the right decision, freedom did not immediately feel free.
Sometimes freedom feels like standing alone in an empty room after finally finding the courage to unlock the door.
I had escaped.
But I had nowhere to go.
Then I found the Dogs.
Or perhaps, in some strange way, they found me.
It was 2023.
I do not remember the exact day yet. I will find it later.
What I remember is the feeling.
Something about them was different.
At the center of it was a young man known as Bark—the Chief Woof Officer.
He was twenty-six years old.
Half my age.
And somehow, wise beyond his years.
It was not simply his intelligence that caught my attention. It was his vision. His imagination. His determination. Most of all, it was his ability to follow through.
Ideas are common.
Execution is rare.
Bark had both.
He was building something that did not appear limited by age, religion, culture, background, or location. People from all over the world were gathering around a shared vision—not because someone had appointed him above them, but because they had chosen to follow.
A leader chosen by the people.
For the people.
I recognized something in him immediately.
Potential was too small a word for it.
This felt like preparation.
The strange part was that I later discovered I had crossed paths with Bark’s work years earlier.
I had already seen the signal.
I simply had not been ready to receive it.
Timing has always played a larger role in my life than I understood while I was living it. Some people arrive too early. Some lessons arrive too late. Occasionally, something finds you at the precise moment you finally have enough experience to recognize what it is.
This was one of those moments.
At first, I entered the community to learn.
I listened.
I watched.
I introduced myself to the people, studied the culture, the technology, and the possibilities developing around them.
I had spent more than a decade researching cryptocurrency, digital ownership, online communities, and the ways technology could create opportunities across borders. I believed the next generation of leaders would not be defined by where they were born or which institutions had given them permission.
They would build their own institutions.
Their own economies.
Their own communities.
Their own worlds.
The Doginal Dogs appeared to be doing exactly that.
I believed they had the potential to become the number-one digital collectible community in the world—not merely because of the artwork or its future value, but because of the people gathering around it.
I watched them show up every day.
Then I watched them do it again the next day.
And the day after that.
Consistency revealed what hype could not.
This was not simply an NFT project.
It was a leadership incubator disguised as a collection of pixelated dogs.
I came to learn.
Before long, I was asked to host a space within the community. It was great to learn about other people and their stories.
That transition felt natural because teaching had always been part of who I was. I had taught patients and families as a nurse. I had taught young DJs how to hear music differently. I had mentored people who needed someone to believe in them before they could believe in themselves.
Now I was surrounded by people from across the world who were learning publicly, building openly, and imagining possibilities most people could not yet see.
For the first time since leaving the church, I felt connected to something larger than myself again.
It felt like finding a tribe; my pack.
It felt like discovering my purpose.
It felt like the beginning of the life I had been preparing for since childhood.
But purpose is rarely as simple as it first appears.
Sometimes the thing that fulfills you is also the thing that exposes every place inside you that still needs healing.
The Dogs would challenge me more than almost anything I had experienced before them.
They would inspire me.
Teach me.
Test me.
Surprise me.
They would help me rediscover parts of myself I had buried.
And force me to confront the part of myself that still believed love had to be earned through sacrifice.
I entered with my arms wide open.
Despite everything life had already taught me.
Despite every betrayal.
Despite every reason I had learned not to trust too quickly.
I wanted to help.
That had always been my instinct.
See someone struggling.
Lift them.
See someone overlooked.
Recognize them.
See someone standing outside the circle.
Make room.
I believed these young men and women were being shaped into leaders of the next generation. I wanted to give them everything I had learned so they could travel farther without suffering every injury that had taught me the way.
So I showed up.
Spaces sometimes lasted through the night.
Then into the next day.
Sometimes three days seemed to blend into one continuous conversation.
I supported nearly every Dog and every room I could. I promoted people without asking what they could do for me. I shared ideas that had taken a lifetime to develop.
I hosted daily spaces of my own while continuing to support everyone else.
I gave time.
Energy.
Creativity.
Leadership.
Encouragement.
Money.
Eventually, I invested tens of thousands of dollars—
including emergency savings I had spent years developing the discipline to protect.
I did it because I believed deeply in what we were building.
I believed in what I saw.
I believed in the people.
I believed I was witnessing the beginning of something the rest of the world would eventually recognize.
I purchased the second-to-last VIP ticket for their first official event in NYC so another Wizard, Shift could represent Dogwarts with a seat at the table.
I was still fairly new in the community and planned to support daily without attending myself.
They would not allow that.
They offered me a general admission ticket and insisted I join them as well.
So I accepted the ticket and despite every challenge to be there, I showed up.
Prior to that I worked with a Wizard artist, Coco to create a piece of art for my one of one shirt…
Intended for the raffle to bless back the community for how welcoming they were.
It was so cool being there at an amazing NYC Italian bakery, owned by Doginal Dogs, Rock & his lovely wife, RealMJ. They generously hosted an incredible breakfast followed by the raffle.
From there, I represented the Dogs wherever the journey carried me.
New York.
Las Vegas.
Miami.
Denver.
Across highways, airports, boats, conference rooms, livestreams, and stages.
Sometimes the Dogs stood beside me.
Sometimes I represented them alone.
Either way, I carried the same belief:
The mission was larger than any one person.
I hosted shows.
Supported builders.
Connected people.
Helped create gatherings.
I rented places where people could stay, build, and celebrate together.
I drove across the country to help members of the community before continuing to the next event.
I gave because I believed we were building a legacy.
And when you believe you are building a legacy…
The cost can exceed anything you prepared for.
By Las Vegas, I began realizing that even meaningful work requires boundaries.
Nothing dramatic had to happen for the lesson to become clear.
I had entered with both hands open.
But generosity without limits can slowly become imbalance—
even when everyone involved has good intentions.
I wanted to give people a hand up.
But I was beginning to understand that helping others should not require abandoning myself.
One helps everyone grow.
The other eventually leaves someone depleted.
Slowly, the distance grew.
The support faded.
And I responded the same way I had responded throughout most of my life.
I gave more.
I worked harder.
I tried to become more useful.
More valuable.
More necessary.
I lifted others before lifting myself.
At the time, I called that leadership.
But purpose without boundaries can become self-destruction.
I had spent my life teaching people to recognize their value…
While quietly abandoning my own.
I treated others the way I wanted to be treated.
But I had missed the first part of the lesson.
The only way to truly do that…
Is to begin by treating yourself that way.
With patience.
Respect.
Honesty.
Forgiveness.
The same things I offered so freely to everyone else…
I had rarely offered to myself.
To understand why I kept giving long after the balance had disappeared…
We have to go backward.
Before the Dogs.
Before the Spaces.
Before the investments and the cracks.
Back to the weight I had carried into that community without fully understanding it.
Back to the life I had spent surviving.
Back to the cost of carrying it alone.
When the story returned to the Dogs, I finally understood what I had carried into that community with me.
I had not arrived empty-handed.
I brought decades of experience.
Leadership.
Creatativity.
Discipline.
A lifetime of lessons earned through survival.
But I also brought wounds I had never fully healed.
I brought the belief that love was something I had to earn.
That belonging required sacrifice.
That leadership meant carrying more than everyone else and asking for less in return.
That if I gave enough, worked enough, proved enough…
I would eventually earn peace.
But peace cannot be earned through self-erasure.
Support does not require self-destruction.
Leadership does not require disappearing inside the mission.
So I pulled away.
Not because I stopped caring.
Because the way I was participating had become unhealthy.
I needed to rebuild my own life.
My health.
My home.
My music.
My business.
My identity.
I needed to learn how to give from alignment…
Instead of giving from an open wound.
Some people understood.
Some did not.
Some stayed close.
Others moved in different directions.
And some became lifelong friends.
I learned to let people be who they are—
without making their choices a measure of my worth.
Not every connection is meant to last forever.
Some are meant to teach.
Some are meant to change us.
And some are meant to continue.
I learned that not every chapter needs a villain.
Sometimes people simply grow in different directions.
What matters is carrying the lesson forward—
without carrying unnecessary weight with it.
I learned to stop measuring every connection by how long it lasted.
Some people walk beside us for a season.
Some help us see ourselves differently.
And some remain part of the journey.
I believe in the Dogs.
I believe in their mission.
I believe I am witnessing people being shaped into successful leaders in real time, all across the world.
The story is not over.
It is still very early.
I currently own three Doginal Dogs.
A Wizard. “DJ”
A Shiny Builder. “The Bitcoin Builder”
A Beret. “Captain Miller”
And plan to invest in several more.
I’m also a proud early investor in the sub-community: Type Media.
These remain meaningful parts of the journey.
I no longer measure loyalty by how many hours I spend inside a Space.
I no longer confuse constant availability with commitment.
I have learned that balance can strengthen the mission.
It creates room to support the people,
honor the purpose,
and continue building the life that allows me to contribute with intention.
I no longer believe I must disappear inside a mission…
To prove that I believe in it.
That lesson may have been one of the most important gifts the journey gave me.
The Dogs helped me rediscover parts of myself I had forgotten.
The artist.
The teacher.
The connector.
The builder.
The student of life.
Through that community, I found my inner child again.
I stopped worrying so much about what people thought of me.
I began creating again.
Writing again.
Producing music again.
Dreaming again.
Living without waiting for everyone else to understand.
Being a Wizard never meant pretending I had all the answers.
It meant learning to master imagination.
To look at what already exists…
And see what else it could become.
That is what this entire journey had been teaching me.
The Fall.
The Black Sheep.
The fire.
The storm.
The uniform.
The cracks.
The hollow.
The weight.
The mask.
Raising her while raising myself.
None of those chapters existed separately.
They were dots.
For years, I could only see them one at a time.
A tragedy.
A failure.
A loss.
A lesson.
A beginning.
An ending.
But the dots had never been random.
I simply had to survive long enough to see what they had been forming.
For most of my life, I thought becoming meant finally having everything figured out.
I was wrong.
Becoming is not the absence of failure.
It is not perfection.
It is having the courage to keep growing anyway.
To learn one more lesson.
To become a little wiser.
A little kinder.
A little stronger than yesterday.
Excellence says:
“I can always improve.”
Perfection says:
“I am only enough if I never fail.”
Those beliefs lead to completely different lives.
I had not simply been pursuing excellence.
I had been trying to earn peace.
Those are not the same thing.
I will never be perfect.
And I do not want to be anymore.
Because the day I accepted that…
Was the day I finally started living.
Becoming iNFiN8 means realizing that you never truly arrive—not in this life.
It is not about chasing perfection or waiting for some finish line where everything finally makes sense.
It is about doing the work.
Learning.
Falling.
Standing back up.
Loving.
Losing.
Building.
You are already on the journey.
You are already becoming.
I am not finished.
I am not perfect.
I am still learning.
Still building.
Still becoming.
iNFiN8 isn’t a number.
It’s a lifestyle.
And the journey continues… ♾️
—The End—