The Definition of Success: What Living Homeless Can Teach You

It's critical that Christianity discovers ways to make the Gospel practical in a culture that changes so rapidly it's impossible to keep up. This book does just that, telling a story that is both inspiring yet relatable so that anyone—regardless of belief system—can say, 'wow, I'm not sure if I believe in Jesus, but there's something to this, and we need more of it.' -Richard Rohr, O.F.M.

The Definition of Success tells the unlikely story of a recent graduate from an elite college who abandons the upper middle class aspirations of his upbringing by ditching his plans for grad school and voluntarily checking into a homeless shelter.

Funny, heartbreaking, and deeply challenging, through encounters with the homeless this story confronts the things society tells us to blindly accept. We join Derek as he asks questions about success, and we watch him grapple with his beliefs in a religiously hypocritical culture. What he learns among the homeless forces the reader to re-examine their way of living, and their definition of success.

By living homeless Derek experiences first-hand the many barriers that prevent his friends from breaking free of the homeless cycle. In response, Derek forms a socially-innovative employment agency that ultimately becomes a multi-million dollar organization. This book is for those who are looking for meaning in their life and purpose in their vocation, or who question the things their society or religious upbringing tells them must be true.

After graduating from Furman University, Derek voluntarily lived homeless for a year.

Through the experience he noticed that many of the men he lived with worked day labor, and so he decided to work day labor himself. Day labor contracts employees work out for $13-15 an hour and pays back minimum wage, $7.25 (in the state of SC). He saw that while many simply wanted to get their wages for the night, others were sincerely trying to get ahead. Soon after he started a non profit, In Every Story, and later a for profit company, IES Labor Services, LLC, achieving $3 million + in revenue, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more in wages to employees, and helping hundreds be permanently hired.

Derek has lived on a sailboat in New York City, visited more than twenty-five countries, and given a TEDx talk. He has blogged for The Huffington Post and been published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

He currently lives in a co-living space with 14 other entrepreneurs in Brooklyn, NYC. His proudest life moment to date is when he won a male beauty pageant contest in college, performing an interpretational ribbon dance to Aladdin s A Whole New World.