What Your Audience Sees
A dad from Boise who pushed a quintuple stroller to four Guinness World Records titles (marathon, half marathon, 10K, and 1K) over four years. An Ironman finisher. A guy who missed the marathon record by four minutes, came back seven days later, and set it. Someone whose stroller and sign sit behind glass in a museum in Copenhagen.
What They Don't See
A kid who got slapped across the face in a locker room, froze, and didn't tell his parents until his thirties. He walked the hallways alone, got bad grades because he hadn't decided to fix them yet, and watched friends disappear into things they couldn't climb out of. He signed up for wrestling and spent four years learning that when the whistle blows, the only thing that matters is who put in more work. He fixed his grades to stay on the team and learned the power was in his hands all along.
He and his wife lost twin boys who lived less than an hour. To get through it he ran 100 miles without stopping, 31.5 hours, from his childhood home outside Oakland down through San Jose and up to the Golden Gate Bridge. He taught math inside San Quentin State Prison for five years, unpaid. He counseled kids with social and learning disabilities. He slept in his car between two jobs so he could keep teaching at a university.
He earned an MA in Experimental Psychology and taught psychology and statistics at San Jose State University for five years. He doesn't just tell stories. He gives people vocabulary for what they've been feeling.
The Failure That Proves the Message
Three tries at the Guinness World Records marathon title, one stroller, five kids.
Feb 3, 2019
5:31:32 — missed qualifying by 46 minutes
Mar 24, 2019
4:49:29 — missed by 4 minutes
Mar 31, 2019
4:42:49 — Guinness World Records title
Every time is in a public race database. A student who Googles him after the assembly finds the same truth he told them in the gym.
Signature Talks
Anything Is Possible
A phrase most students roll their eyes at, rebuilt as a decision followed by evidence. The all-school assembly.
Grades 9–12 · 45–55 minutes
Four Guinness World Records, an MA in Experimental Psychology, five years teaching college. Also a guy who took intro stats twice to scrape out a C and nearly didn’t graduate high school. Students remember that part. They walk out able to name four ideas: the freeze response, locus of control, post-traumatic growth, and pain with a purpose, each one tied to something that happened to him.
It starts with a slap in a locker room and runs through wrestling, a grade turnaround, an Ironman entered in his father’s name, five babies born at 27 weeks, three tries at a world record, and a handmade sign that ended up in a museum in Copenhagen. The race times are in public databases and the records are on the Guinness website, so nobody gets to write it off as an athlete thing.
Best for: full-school assemblies, graduation ceremonies, kickoff events.
The Weight You're Carrying
The mental health assembly that doesn’t need “mental health” on the poster. Students get plain words for what’s going on inside them.
Grades 9–12 · 40–50 minutes
Students learn four terms they’ll use the same week: cognitive load, the freeze response, displacement, and weight that comes out sideways. Chad teaches them the way he taught psychology for five years, plainly, because you can’t put something down until you know what to call it.
It opens at a university podium, the moment his phone rang and he found out he was losing his twin sons. Then a 100-mile run past every landmark of his life. Then a friend who struggled with addiction and died by suicide at 29, and another murdered at 22, in a car Chad had been invited to ride in that night. Every story comes with a tool students can use that same night. Chad follows safe-messaging guidelines for talking about suicide and meets with your counseling team before he walks into the gym.
Best for: mental health assemblies, counselor-requested events, wellness programming.
I Walked the Hallways Alone
Nobody sat down next to him in those hallways. He teaches students to be the one who does. The belonging talk that costs a school nothing to act on.
Grades 9–12 · 40–50 minutes
No records, no stroller, no finish line. Chad had no fallback plan at lunch. Years later he counseled children with disabilities, taught math inside San Quentin, and coached Special Olympics athletes, and this talk comes out of what those rooms had in common. The research underneath it (pluralistic ignorance, self-determination theory, social baseline theory) gets explained in plain English.
It ends with one request: tomorrow, sit down next to someone who looks like they’re alone. It costs the school nothing, nobody needs permission, and some of them will actually do it the next day.
Best for: orientation week, anti-bullying programming, school culture initiatives.
What Your Audience Walks Away With
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Words for what they've been feeling. Real psychology, taught plainly.
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Evidence they can verify on their phone that the person on stage earned every word
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Proof that where they start isn't where they finish
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One thing to do tonight: a sentence to write, a decision, a person to sit with.
Ideal For
Booking
Local Introductory Rate, 2026–27: $1,000 per assembly, $2,500 for all three, no travel fee near Boise · California and the West from $1,800 · Classroom follow-up included · Travels nationwide