Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Wilton.
Hi Bryan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Originally I hail form Broken Arrow, OK. I grew up as a regular kid in the 70’s and 80’s. My mother lived in town and my dad lived out in the country. I had a horse and three cows where I learned something of responsibility. I remember riding my horse to the store so I could buy some comic books and a pop. I also remember that horse sometimes developing a mind of his and deciding we needed a test of wills.
In our family we had a dairy farm that my great grandfather had established near Tahlequah, OK. Specifically in Park Hill. Adjacent to the Murrah Home. I had the opportunity to shovel a lot of that mean green when I would visit. But it was 300 acres with a stream called the Park Hill Branch that flowed into the Baron Fork River as it made its journey into the beautiful Tenkiller lake. For me it was a place of Cherokee legends and high adventure.
In the winter we would harvest pecans from my grandparents farm. 180 acres and on a good year we could pull 100,000 pounds of pecans. They left a lot of the old growth trees on that farm and they did their best to become stewards of the environment. For a boy whose parents had been divorced and all of the subsequent confusion that creates in a child’s life it might as well have been a piece of heaven. I could explore, hunt and fish to my hearts content. After the work was done.
I ran into trouble as a teenager with the same things most people do, but my fathers side of the family had a tendency to be outlaws of a sort. Drugs and alcohol got the better of me, I had dropped out of high school and I was really going nowhere fast. The dreams of high adventure had been replaced with a redneck version of a street hustle in Tulsa, OK.
There came a particularly bad night and I was probably dying so I called my mom for help. Now, I would not have done this if my mother had not set an example of personal growth. The woman who had been more than willing to unleash her pain upon us had spent 10 years working with a therapist to become something more than she had been. Subconsciously I recognized this and when I needed help the most, there she was. A hero. I spent 16 weeks in a treatment center and began to attend AA. Looking back I was so fortunate to find the old timers that I did. One man was real and true dyed in the wool cowboy, another was a recovering Methodist minister, yet another had been at the invasion of Sicily, still another had been awarded a Bronze star during the battle of the Bulge, One lady in particular had Pretty Boy Floyd as her brother in law. Not realizing it at the time I had been blessed to be taught life at the feet of men and women who had literally shaped history.
I went back to High School and graduated, I joined the Army Infantry and new lease on life had been secured. For the better part of a decade I celebrated the the life of high adventure, training, deployments, and the awards that come with it all. I moved up thru the ranks quickly as a sober man dedicated to handling his responsibilities.
And then my wife left me with our 3 year old son and her daughter. It was difficult to reconcile n my mind that I had done all the things it took to be a man and still failed. Out came the bottle and drugs and I took an active part in remembering and living what it meant to be a failure.
Soon enough though I met and married another woman. I sobered up one more time but this time I had an understanding of what it meant to work hard and the unstoppable attitude of a man who had served his country. I built a company that worked on and built towers. Up to 2000′ i have worked on, repaired, serviced, changed the lights and supervised the construction of the telecommunications industry in America. I started with a car that had a clogged catalytic converter and a harness. I sent out letters with published pricing and landed my first customer, a state agency that paid within two weeks, which is good because the bills were due and rent needed to be paid. Within two years I was making mid six figures and my family had everything we thought we could want.
And the very best thinking I could come up with having attained that level of success was that I wanted to enjoy some drugs I was partial too and that I probably had earned myself a drink.
Within a year I had lost it all, gone to jail, divorced my wife and was living in my truck. I sat in the pews at the back of the church and was overwhelmed. The tears flowed freely with the music and preaching and no one shook my hand. But I kept trying. I even took a job at Old Navy folding clothes to try and make a living again. It would seem that I was not fit for greatness and the joy of a life of high adventure was never to be mine.
I met another woman and we had a baby girl. And I changed the spiritual foundation of my life. As luck would have it I met a man who is still a good friend who had similar beliefs and he brought me on as helper working on power plant outages. I soon rose thru the ranks and became a supervisor and project manager. The money was once again flowing and in this newfound comfort I sought to express myself by writing. I ended up writing a book. to date I have written 60 of them and sold thousands of copies around the world. Apparently when I began to view these challenges in life as opportunities to grow instead of something for a god to take away life began to take a miraculous turn for me. Sadly for the mother of my daughter it was not anything she could grasp and the drugs took her down a different path. Now I am once gain a single parent raising a beautiful young lady.
As I began to grow and wisdom get, I discovered that there may well be someone for me after all. I decided once again to leave it all behind and seek new adventure. And I moved to Minnesota to be with her. That is how I ended up in Hibbing. I also decided that I was not going to be the boyfriend who laid around played video games while the old lady worked. I took a position as a contractor with an electronics manufacturer. One success led to another and today I am a Production supervisor for the organization.
With all of that experience I felt it would be a shame not to try and share some it if it could help someone else. But I had to ask myself, why would my answers be any different or more successful in a persons life over a very highly qualified field of people dedicated to helping others. While it may be true that I have seen and done things most people will only ever see in a movie, what common ground could I find with someone to help them live a life that does not include repeating the mistakes of the past as I had. The more I looked, the more I lived, I found that the answers were there in front of us all along. In every culture, every mythology, throughout history, it would seem that the same tales have been being told to mankind. My books had provided some insight into this. The requirement to be a leader in the corporate world demanded that I learn how to apply those lessons with a large group of distinctly different individuals. The 1st principle of military leadership is to know your self and seek self improvement. So I did just that and from such an effort the Northlight Project was born. From it and the books I have written I have discovered that there are countless men in this world who are looking for what it means to be a man. To find a new set of thought patterns that inspire them. That make them feel needed again. That gives them hope. When the Itasca county sheriff department asked for volunteers to spend time in the jail with the inmates I cobbled together a framework of ideas from AA, military leadership, business leadership, and principles I had seen repeated across time and geography in ancient mythologies.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There will always be struggles. I wonder sometimes if the things I am saying and writing about are of any help to a man who has stumbled in life. I become concerned sometimes if there is enough of me to make a difference. Fortunately I have good men around who have helped to inspire greater strides to building a community of men that have the courage to allow a woman to express the beauty of who she is. This is a terrifying thought for a man. Few things will cripple a man faster than a broken heart and they will do just about anything to not feel that pain. Except deal with it. When you come across a man who is fully engrossed in avoiding the pain of life, who has not figured out a new thought pattern to help him make healthy decisions it is very difficult to help him imagine who he will be, what he will become if let’s go of all the nonsense society has told him he needs to be. Oddly enough, once he has done so he becomes a boon to a society that desperately needs such men.
Finding the time to fit it all in is the hard part. I also volunteer for a program run by Essentia Health entitled We Honor Veterans. This is for those veterans who are on Hospice care. I visit with them and we do a presentation where we show our appreciation for their service to our country. As a father, a volunteer, an author and professional man, and the founder of the Northlight Project, finding the time to be a good dad seems to be the most valuable asset I can generate for my kids and family
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My latest book, entitled Ancient Echoes by Bryan Wilton is really the foundation of spiritual thought I used while developing the Northlight Project. There are several more I am proud of. Beneath A Sacred Tree/ Life and the Love of Life/ The Spiritual Journey of a Woman/ Truarbok (The Nautical Standard of Life as outlined in the Eddas)/ Death and a New Day/ The Courage to Love. These are but a few of the titles I have written while living in this beautiful part of Minnesota. All of them a testament to my ability to grow using these ancient beliefs. But more importantly how to be of service to a community that has so welcomed me
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
There are few things a person can do for themselves that is more important than finding a mentor and surrounding yourself with good strong supportive people. In the case with the Northlight Project I needed help. I reached out to a friend of mine who specializes in such things. An exceptional business coach who helped me to remove the ambiguity, identify the goal, and focus on the business aspects of pursuing something I happen to be very good at. His name is Justin Garcia and he can be found on most social media.
One of the most eye opening aspects of this journey has been my job at Detroit Reman/AMS Hibbing. Heretofore my occupations have been in industries dominated by men. In some cases there would no women on the jobsite at all. Upon entering this entirely new career path I found that I was consistently impressed with actions and the leadership styles which seem to have surpassed my abilities from the women of this good company. In short, they better than me. Which meant I needed to learn more. In doing so I earned my position as a Production Supervisor. Bear in mind I started this job 4 years ago on the floor for 12 dollars an hour. There was a lot to learn.
One of the most important things you can do for yourself is to find a good partner. Shawnae has been supportive and encouraging through all of this. Behind every good man there is a woman. For me that would be Shawnae. In many ways our paths are one of mutual growth and understanding. Finding someone to love and be loved by has a way of changing the world for you.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: bdwilton
- Facebook: Bryan Wilton
