Chapter One
Coming Out
New York City · 1991
I came out in the early nineties in New York City. I was nineteen years old, and back then, it was not safe to come out of the closet.
I navigated the streets of New York and the professional world while going to NYU, and even though it was a city where you would think you could be yourself, you still had to be undercover.
Deep down, I never really saw myself living past thirty. There were not a lot of role models of gay men who were vibrant, living full lives past a certain age. And the ones who were did not feel like me.
Chapter Two
The Diagnosis
November 2025
In November 2025, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Low risk. Caught early. Right now, I am okay.
But here is the thing about a diagnosis, even a good one. It does not whisper. It does not tap you on the shoulder. It walks into the room, sits down across from you, and says: We need to talk.
Before. — 2021
Chapter Three
70% Yes
The Ruthless Audit
Are you doing something that brings you great joy and fulfillment?
Are you living your highest potential and being a world class steward of your gifts?
Are you creating the value that only you can uniquely create?
Are you living fully, or are you living carefully?
I sat with those questions. The answer was yes. But a 70% yes.
The diagnosis made me realize I was done shrinking one part of myself to fit into a room. Done waiting for someone else to build the thing I kept looking for.
“Done pretending that 70% was enough.”
Re — Before New York
A Letter to My 19 Year Old Self
Dear Re:
You took the first step by coming out of the closet. That took everything. Do not minimize it.
You are going on a journey to discover who you really are and what you are capable of. You are going to fall in love and also go through heartbreak. One of those heartbreaks is going to shatter your heart into a million pieces and you are going to feel like everything is ending you. It will not.
You are going to doubt yourself constantly, but you are going to take action anyway. Because of that, you are going to create extraordinary things faster than most.
You are going to start your own branding agency. Build a team. Help thousands of entrepreneurs and founders find their voice, build their brands, and step into their identity. You are going to travel the world. Speak on stages in front of thousands of people. You are going to write a boldly titled book called Your Brand Should Be Gay (Even If You’re Not). People are going to love it the moment they hear the title.
Your spiritual mentors and teachers will crack you wide open. You are going to find communities and rooms that show you what is possible. And some of them are going to show you, by their absence, what still needs to be created.
Here is what I need you to know: being gay is not the thing that limits you. It is one of the things that makes you extraordinary. The integration of strength and softness, of ambition and love, of building and nurturing. That is not a contradiction. That is the whole point.
In November 2025, you are going to face a health scare. And in the stillness it creates, you are going to finally understand what you have been building toward your whole life.
A room. A brotherhood. For gay men like us.
Build it. Call it Higher Love.
— Re, 54
The prostate cancer was not the end of the story. It was the sentence that started a new chapter.
The room I was looking for did not exist. So I built it.
The first people through this door are not filling seats. They are making a statement. And I will remember every single one of them.
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