The Collapse
The day after Christmas in 2007, Trevor watched the repo man tow away his last vehicle while his family slept. He went from a successful career as a fire department lieutenant, thriving small business owner, and real estate investor to losing it all in a sudden, devastating collapse. Just two weeks from eviction, with no income and a negative bank account, he was starting over from nothing.
The identities that had once defined him were gone. He was no longer the dependable provider or the entrepreneur he had spent years becoming. Years later, the ongoing strain of rebuilding proved too much, and his marriage ended as well.
Six months before the collapse, Trevor had written a book called Living on a Shoestring, capturing his story without knowing what was coming. Deep down, he believed he had something valuable to share. Years of experience, hard-earned lessons, and a message that could help others. But after everything fell apart, he no longer felt qualified to be the one sharing it. He convinced himself he needed to rebuild his life before he had earned the right to publish the book.
That rebuilding took far longer than he expected. Along the way came real successes, new businesses, and meaningful accomplishments, but none of them created the freedom or the life he had imagined for his family. Always chasing the next opportunity, solving the next problem, and trying to get ahead, the manuscript stayed buried on his hard drive.
It remained there for fifteen years before he finally decided it was time to share what he had learned.
The Death
On the morning of May 2, 2017, Bridgett gave birth to her stillborn son, Merritt. In a single day, the future she had imagined disappeared. One month later, because of the depth and nature of her grief, she was forced to resign from her role as a pastor. A year later, she became the primary caregiver for her husband as he battled severe mental illness. The following year, her marriage ended too.
The identities that had once grounded her were gone. She even had to step back from practicing as a Marriage and Family Therapist for a period of time, and she could no longer see a bright or hopeful future ahead of her.
With no clear path forward, Bridgett began processing her grief the only way she knew how. She wrote. Page after page, she journaled the questions, pain, faith, and lessons that emerged as she tried to make sense of everything she had lost.
She believed that one day those words would become a book. But as she worked to rebuild her life from the ashes of everything that had fallen apart, the manuscript remained unfinished for years.
Life by Design
On a December evening aboard a yacht in San Diego, we met by complete chance at a business conference.
We found ourselves seated next to each other during dinner.
What began that night wasn't romance. It was friendship.
Over the years, that friendship became a marriage.
Together, we committed to building a life of true freedom.
And live happily ever after... or so we thought.
We were happy, but life wasn't easy.
We started our marriage with high hopes for a fresh start. Then life came at us from every direction.
Lawsuits. Dementia. Family hardship. Death threats. A torn ACL. A torn bicep tendon. A death in the family. And a difficult delivery of our newborn son that nearly cost Bridgett her life.
We were trapped in survival mode, hustling to stay afloat.
This Wasn't the Life We Wanted
Sitting in our high-priced home, exhausted by the demands of life, with a newborn son and another surgery ahead of us, we made a decision.
We weren't going to let our circumstances determine our future. We were going to pursue the life we said we wanted.
Leveraging Our Competitive Edge.
For years, we'd been writing books and learning how to package and position our value in the marketplace. We learned through trial and error until we figured it out. In the process, a few people asked us to help them do the same.
We got good at it, and we enjoyed it. So we thought, why not go all in and make this a business that could give us our life back? That's when we decided to start our company, Personal Brand Books. Now we spend our time writing, speaking, and encouraging others to seize The Outlier Advantage and create a life by design, not default.
We do that by helping them build their personal brands and grow their income through our Book-to-Business System.
Books by Trevor and Bridgett Dunbar
Today, each of our books serves a different purpose. We work together to help people publish books that build their personal brands and grow their businesses.
We Chose to Create a Life by Design
Once we acted on the decision to take back control of our lives, an opportunity opened that took us back to California. There, we purchased and later exited several businesses, giving us the freedom to make our next move.
We traded in our Broncos, bought a truck and a travel trailer, and headed across the country with our son, Maverick, and our German Shorthaired Pointer, Dolche.
We don't know where the next chapter will take us. But we've learned that when you see what's possible and choose to act despite the odds, you gain an advantage that standing still could never give you.
We call it The Outlier Advantage.
