BOOKS

Roots Before Reach

Becoming an Emotionally Mature and Biblically Wise Leader

Roots Before Reach challenges the modern definition of success by arguing that the greatest threat to high-capacity leaders isn’t failure—it’s achieving everything they set out to accomplish while quietly becoming someone they never intended to be.

Drawing from psychology, leadership, biblical wisdom, and decades of counseling executives and business owners, Paul Elmore reveals that every leader eventually reaches the limits of talent, intelligence, and ambition. What determines the quality of their leadership—and ultimately the quality of their life—is the unseen health of their character.

Rather than teaching readers how to climb higher, Roots Before Reach shows them how to grow deeper, proving that the leaders who leave the greatest legacy are those whose private lives are as healthy as their public success.

Stop Being The Bottleneck In Your Business

From Overwhelmed Owner to Empowered Leader

Jake Hollis is the young founder of a fast-growing electrical contracting company whose relentless drive has earned him the admiration of everyone around him—except the people who know him best. Confident in the field but deeply insecure beneath the surface, Jake measures his worth by productivity, profits, and the approval of others. Every setback feels like a personal failure, every criticism like proof that he isn’t enough.

When mounting pressure at work begins spilling into his marriage, friendships, and health, he reluctantly accepts mentoring from Cal Mercer, a seasoned business owner who recognizes that Jake’s greatest obstacle isn’t his business—it’s the story he’s been telling himself his entire life. As Cal patiently challenges Jake’s beliefs about success, identity, and masculinity, Jake discovers that the life he’s desperately been trying to build can never satisfy the wounds he’s trying to outrun.

Follow his transformation from a man driven by fear, performance, and validation into one who leads from security, humility, and genuine confidence, proving that the greatest victory a leader can achieve isn’t building a successful company—it’s becoming the kind of man his success can no longer define.

Stop Mico-Managing Your Team

From Perfectionist to Peaceful Leader

Olivia Dunn has built one of the most respected custom design and fabrication firms in the Northwest, but she’s exhausted by the impossible burden of believing everything depends on her. The more successful the company becomes, the tighter she grips control—rescuing struggling employees, making every important decision herself, and carrying responsibilities that were never hers to bear.

When she meets Cal Mercer, he recognizes that her greatest obstacle isn’t a lack of leadership ability, but an inability to trust others with failure, responsibility, and growth. Through difficult conversations and painful setbacks, Olivia learns that true leadership requires the courage to let go. As she releases control, sets healthy boundaries, and allows her team to become stronger through ownership, she discovers that the strongest leaders aren’t the ones who carry the most—they’re the ones who create people capable of carrying it with them.

Nothing to Lose. Nothing to Prove. Nothing to Hide

How Great Leaders Stop Leading From Fear

Cal Mercer is a successful construction company owner whose business is thriving while his inner life is quietly falling apart. Driven by an unrelenting need to control every detail, prove his worth, and hide his growing fear and exhaustion, Cal finds himself isolated from his team, disconnected from his family, and trapped by the very success he spent decades building.

An unexpected friendship with his biggest competitor, Elias Vale—a leader whose quiet confidence stands in stark contrast to Cal’s frantic striving—forces him to confront the deeper beliefs that have governed his life. Through painful honesty, difficult conversations, and a series of personal awakenings, Cal discovers that true leadership is not about control, achievement, or image, but about becoming the kind of man who has nothing to lose, nothing to prove, and nothing to hide. It’s a story about trading performance for peace, success for significance, and external achievement for internal freedom.