What if everyone actually got what they needed to SOAR?
That question sits at the heart of Heather’s work across homes, organizations, and public systems.
Most human suffering, underperformance, and wasted potential is not caused by people failing. It is caused by environments asking for outcomes they were never designed to create.
For more than three decades, I refused to accept this reality as inevitable.
Across organizations, families, and public systems, I considered one question relentlessly:
Why do some environments reliably unlock human potential, while others fall short no matter how much care, effort, or resources are applied?
The answer is not motivation.
It is not talent.
It is not effort.
It is design.
I observed this same pattern repeat:
When the blocks that limit people’s potential were removed, capability appeared, often immediately.
People didn’t become different. They become visible.
The outcomes changed because the environment became aligned to support growth.
You may recognize this pattern visible from The Blind Side.
How did Michael Oher go from a once homeless teenager to a fast-tracked NFL prospect?
He did not change. The environment changed when it enabled him to apply his innate gifts directly to the game.
His once buried potential surfaced through Leigh Anne’s intervention. The result was instant.
In less than one minute, a star was born.
Identity and leadership based-development are design layers that release potential.
What This Design Layer Determines
When foundational elements are deliberately established, development stabilizes and progress compounds rapidly.
When the essentials that support growth remain missing, even the best intentions produce fragile, inconsistent results.
These gaps are not theoretical.
They contribute to a staggering $9 trillion in lost human potential every year through disengagement, burnout, breakdown, dependency, and preventable failure across every major system we rely on.
What Design Makes Possible
High-performance environments do not rely on exceptional people alone, instead they build performance directly into the environment.
Most organizations believe they operate efficiently but few (16%) also have the data to support that narrative. Inside the high performance environments nearly every individual exceeded their performance metrics across the organization. Performance metrics and employee reviews proved to be proof positive.
These outcomes were engineered upstream, before motivation, performance management, or failure could enter the equation.
As a result, performance was not coaxed, managed, or motivated. It was intentionally designed.
These efforts were consistently proven to be highly effective!
Successful outcomes did not depend on heroics.
Conversely, I saw what happened with the 84% that failed to operationalize this design.
Their outcome pattern was also consistent. Performance and experiences, at best, were average.
Formation, Not Sentiment
I was able to train inside one of the largest faith-based organizations in the country. Belief was treated not as a sentiment, but designed structurally to transform people, the community, and global outcomes in truly remarkable ways.
Biblical models informed formation, relationships, leadership, stewardship, and responsibility. Faith functioned not just as a belief but as the governing framework that shaped disciplines, standards, and observable outcomes. Research from Barna Group shows how rare this level of integration actually is.
In 2003, my first book, Intentional Identity, was written in direct response to the sobering reality: fewer than 2 percent of faith-based organizations were effectively reaching their communities as intended. Intentional Identity has not yet been released.
Where the Cost Is Most Visible
Nowhere are the design gaps more visible or more costly than in child welfare.
Most of the current systems were never designed for identity formation, belonging, or developmental continuity. When those foundations are missing, outcomes become predictable, expensive, and deeply human.
This is not due to a lack of care, desire, or funding.
It is a design flaw.
No amount of funding can compensate for foundations that weren’t built for stability without restoring what’s broken. People try but the efforts prove to be highly ineffective.
When missed, as with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the flaw often becomes the feature.
The Work
Launchpad: Remove Blocks to Release Potential was written as the entry point to expose how gaps limit potential until the blocks are removed. They are gaps in understanding that impact families, relationships, organizations, entire systems, and our most vulnerable children the most severely.
Launchpad introduces the 20 blocks that prevent people and systems from releasing potential and provides practical applications that create durable change.
That work feeds a larger effort focused on building environments where today’s most vulnerable children can grow into tomorrow’s world changers.
Through trk, The Remarkable Kingdom, the nine missing pieces will be brought together to centralize, scale and sustain this work.
The Throughline
When people are given what they need to succeed, they do.
This applies to individuals, leaders, marriages, organizations, and systems. The question is whether you’re ready to see it.
Launchpad provides 20 block removers, 20 lessons, powerful assessments, an interactive community, a chatbot, and announcements about the other books that will be released in The Creating Remarkable Environments Series to support these efforts.