25 in the chaos. 25 in the back. Now, stepping forward.
Dead, then alive. Ruined, then rebuilt. The advisory work continues. Newly forward: a practice called Fine Line, and a media life called My Name Is Flea Nice.
01 · About
I've spent most of my career as the person behind other people's biggest moves. I've also spent part of it losing my own.
The professional record is straightforward: defense, energy, aviation, sports, health and wellness, enterprise and consumer tech, retail, e-commerce, and founder-led companies. Positioning, capital, hard conversations, quiet decisions. That work is still on.
The personal record is not. I was a drug addict and an alcoholic. I came within an inch of taking my own life. I had a Saul-to-Paul moment I did not choose and cannot explain in any other terms — Jesus stepped into a room I was trying to leave, and I've been sober and building from that ground ever since.
My former wife walked into the Saul-to-Paul years with me, and the family we built there is real — our children are the proof of it. That the marriage did not last is a sorrow I carry, not a plot point. What came after was its own chapter: a deeper fatherhood I do not take for granted, a Proverbs 31 woman walking beside me now, and a fresh set of gifts to steward — opportunities, businesses, creativity, and the plain daily work of being present.
Fifty years of practice. The real work starts now.
02 · A new practice
Fine Line.
The line between mission and drift.
Fine Line is where I do the ownership, governance, and structural work that keeps a founder's purpose intact after growth, capital, and success show up.
I know the line personally. I've crossed it — with a bottle, with a career, with more than one thing I loved — and I've walked back from it. That's not a bio line. It's why I care about the architecture holding when success arrives — because success is what most missions, and most people, don't survive.
Start a conversation →03 · Advisory
What I actually do in the room.
BFZ is a fractional executive office. I step in as CEO, co-CEO, COO, CTO, CIO, or CRO for founders and principals who need the seat filled by someone who's done the work — without committing to a full-time hire.
Fifty years in. Sobriety on the other side of a night that almost ended it. Loss I don't wave around and a life rebuilt anyway. When I sit in the seat, I bring all of it.
- 01Decision support.When the timeline is short and the stakes are real.
- 02Positioning and story.How the enterprise gets talked about in the rooms that matter.
- 03Partnerships and counterparties.The alignment work between teams.
- 04Board readiness and governance.The quiet mechanics behind durable companies.
The consulting arm operates as BFZ.
04 · Investment & Capital
The other side of the practice: putting capital and structure behind the companies I believe in.
I co-own Breathing Lion Investments. BLI is a principal investor and acquirer — not a broker, not an intermediary. We commit our own capital, take positions, and pair every position with the operating and structural work founders actually need to scale.
The advisory work at BFZ and the capital work at BLI are the same instinct expressed two ways: help serious builders keep the mission intact while the enterprise grows. Sometimes the right instrument is a conversation. Sometimes it's a check.
Every position I take is downstream of the same conviction: capital, like a life, is a gift that has to be stewarded. I've squandered mine before. I don't intend to squander it again.
Principal, not intermediary. Owner, not agent.
The investment platform operates as Breathing Lion Investments.
05 · Media
My name is Flea Nice.
Sports, teaching business to kids nobody's actually teaching, and whatever else the day gives me. This is the part I'm building in my own name — creativity coming back on the far side of a rebuilt life.
Watch on YouTube →@MyNameISFleaNice
01 · SportsThe game, the tape, the people playing it.Fantasy, film, and the plays nobody calls out loud.
02 · Kids & businessTeaching the money game to the kids nobody's actually teaching.Entrepreneurship for the sake of exitpreneurship — not a W-2 lesson in sight.
03 · Faith & the dayWhatever the day gives me — out loud, on the record.Story, scripture, the plain work of being present.
No polish, no persona — just the fifty-year-old man Jesus rebuilt, saying it out loud so the next kid doesn't have to learn it the hard way.
06 · Family Wins
When the family wins, everything else has room to be real.
My number-one mission is serving Jesus. A very, very, very close second is being a loving, available, reliable father to our children.
Everything on this site — the advisory work, Fine Line, Capital, Flea Nice — lives downstream of those two. That's not a marketing frame. That's the actual order.
A mentor of mine built a ministry around a phrase he uses like a compass: the family wins. Kids and parents actually being together. Marriages staying alive. Generations learning to pray. The outcome you're building for when the work is over.
I know the version where the family doesn't look the way you planned. My first marriage did not last, and that sorrow is its own — not a lesson, not a plot point, and not something I speak lightly about because it belongs to more people than me. What continues is fatherhood I do not take for granted, a Proverbs 31 woman walking beside me now, and a life that finally feels ordered right. The family wins looks different than I once pictured. It still wins.
thefamilywins.org →"I am the way, the truth, and the life." — John 14:6
07 · Contact
Reach out.
Advisory, Fine Line, speaking, Flea Nice — same inbox. I read everything.
Or direct: td@bfzrunners.com
LinkedIn