Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Thomas.
Dan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’m originally from Wichita, KS and my family moved to Oklahoma City when I was 10. I lived in Oklahoma City until I was 24, moved to Los Angeles for ten years and moved back to Oklahoma City when I was 34. More on that in a moment. As long as I can remember I’ve always been intuitively aware and passionate about self-realization. I wasn’t always able to articulate this, but retrospectively I can now see that’s who I’ve always been. I wanted to know who I was, why I was, where I was, and what I could do.
Interestingly enough, my epiphanies began in church. I was reared in a Classical Pentecostal denomination that was sententious in its codes and somewhat constraining in its expression. I loved my upbringing but constantly struggled with how much of the joy of life we were missing to just to make heaven. Why couldn’t we enjoy life here? Why did we have to wait until we died? Doesn’t God want to see us happy? In short, I couldn’t reconcile the love of God for his creation and the micromanaging pettiness and rigidity of the presentation. Consequently, I knew there had to be more than this.
That realization began a search for myself that has been lost in other’s opinions of myself. And that’s why I left Oklahoma – to be amongst “big thinking” and to find out who Dan Thomas was sans the trappings of what others thought and saw. While there I started to do big things. I worked at the famed Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center in Watts as an instructor, the mayor’s Weed & Seed program for disadvantaged youth in the summer, I became Young Adult Pastor of a historically rich church in Compton, etc., and through these experiences began to realize that my passion was not only to discover who I was but to help others do the same.
Fast forward to 2016, I’ve been back in OKC for almost four years and I’m still helping people discover who they are, but there’s no formal organization. These are just individuals I meet at work or in a store or at a basketball game, and then it hit me – Discover You Academy. I called my designer, she did a logo, I put out an ad on Facebook and immediately people started signing up and I had 16 people in my first class. It was AMAZING.
Has it been a smooth road?
Absolutely not. It took me more than 12 years to officialize the business, but the things I did along the way helped solidify what Discover You Academy would be in the future.
For instance in 2004, while serving as Young Adult Pastor at Brister Memorial Baptist Church in Compton, I began a conference called D.R.E.A.M. DREAM stood for Direction, Revelation, Expectation, Acceptance, and Manifestation. It was targeted at young adults realizing who they were. Do you see? I was doing it all along and didn’t know it.
The biggest struggle I’ve always had is not knowing where the resources would come from to fund what I saw in my mind and that would pause me from starting and I would begin to suffer from the proverbial “paralysis by analysis.” What I’ve subsequently learned is that once I start moving things start moving and from that, I’ve developed a mantra that says, “God steers moving vehicles.”
Tell us about your company. What do you do, what do you specialize in, what are you known for, etc. What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
The company is called Blueprint Services Group, but out of that we run our primary program called “Discover You Academy.” Primarily we focus on three things – helping you Discover Your Blueprint, Realize Your Potential, and Find Your Place. We confidently believe that one cannot live above the level you believe about yourself. We specialize in helping you discover the blueprint and the gifts that already exist inside you that will help you build your life according to your unique design. We are known for bringing clarity to self, realization to potential, and ending the search for what’s right in front of you. I believe what ultimately sets us apart is we focus on the why and how, not just the what.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Very interesting question. I’m not a guru or anything, but I think personal coaching is the wave of the future. I say this because I believe it is the vehicle that will lead the world back to human collaboration on a level that will be primary in helping to break the wall of prejudice across ethnic, class and nationalistic lines.
The fact is when someone needs help and you have what they need or they have what you need, no one cares about ethnicity, class, or nationality.
Pricing:
- Personal Coaching $100/hr
- Discover You Academy 8-week program $1997
- Resumes $125
Contact Info:
- Website: discoveryouacademy.com
- Phone: (405) 638-6155
- Email: blueprintservicesgroup@gmail.com
- Instagram: danathomasjr
- Facebook: Facebook.com/danthomas
- Twitter: danathomasjr
Image Credit:
Jaleccia Ates Photography
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