Krazed Living - Live on Purpose

Five years ago I wrote that Krazed Living was an idea I hadn't built anything you could hold yet. That changed this week. Three shirts are live. Not mockups in a file somewhere — real shirts, printed, shipped, and worn. I ordered the samples first because I don't sell what I haven't held. They came in, I looked them over, fixed what was wrong, and then we put them up. Programmed to Lose, Recoded to Win. I was written off more than once. Most people who get written off stay there. This one is for the ones who rewrote the story instead. Live on Purpose. My friend Merri coined the phrase. It's a decision you make before the coffee's done — pay attention, be where you are, love the person in front of you. Break the Cycle. The fist through the stone ring. Some of us are the first in our family line to say it stops here. That's not a slogan. That's a job. Each shirt carries a small code on it. Scan it and it takes you to the shop. I like that. The shirt points bac...

You guys, I want to tell you about the moment that made me more of the man I am today than anything in my upbringing. My late Uncle Randy died of pancreatic cancer. If you don't know, that's regarded as one of the slowest, most agonizing ways to die. A few days before he went, he called me. Somewhere in the middle of all that pain, his mind went clear — completely clear — and he said: "The person in front of you is the person in the world who needs the most love." He said it four times. Four times, until he knew I understood him. Then the pain took him back. That phone call changed my life. It changed how I interact with people. How I regard them. How much effort I give the person standing in front of me. It changed how I read the Bible. One moment, and I was a different man. Here's what it looks like in practice, because "live on purpose" isn't a slogan on a shirt to me. It's a decision you make before the coffee's done, on a regular Tuesday...

Well. It's been five years. Five years ago I sat down and wrote the first Krazed Living post — the who, the what, the why. I told you there'd be more "in the days ahead." Then life did what life does, and the days ahead turned into years. If you're one of the few who read that post back in 2021 and stuck around: thank you, and I'm sorry, and also — you're about to see why the wait mattered. Here's the honest version: back then, Krazed Living was an idea. A good one, I thought, but still just words on a screen. " Live on Purpose ." Sounds nice on a blog header. But I hadn't built anything you could hold yet. And I don't like asking people to believe in words alone. So I went and lived it instead. The short version of the last five years: I put weight on until I hit 425 pounds — then I took it back off, down to 295, one deliberate day at a time. My wife fought her own version of the same battle beside me. We kept working, kept raising o...