Frank Sinclair has scaled mountains, tumbled down into deep valleys, and climbed again. This time, he’s bringing others to the peak with him – as many as he can.
Abject poverty was the backdrop of his childhood in segregated North Carolina, where his parents worked as sharecroppers. A long history of domestic abuse continued with his father.
“That was normalized in my culture,” Sinclair explained.
“Watching all that stuff really created a space inside of me that I didn’t have a lot of confidence as a young man, or confidence in who I was or who I would become.”
Today, Sinclair is one of Colorado’s premier business consulting leaders. The Air Force veteran helps pilot what he calls “The Encouragement Revolution.”
Sinclair works to bridge the gap between discouragement and hope. His own story of success, collapse, and redemption has equipped him to do just that.
Hear how Frank Sinclair's experiences of loss and failure led him to a life of encouraging others in our full conversation:
Underneath the family struggles remained a foundation of encouragement, Sinclair says. It only grew as he began to stack academic achievement and eventually military leadership.
Frank’s dream of reaching the summit of Air Force rank quickly came into focus as he became the second-youngest person to reach his station. The branch was only 3% black at the time, but Sinclair found no barriers to achievement.
A front-page feature in Airman Magazine, more promotion, and pats on the back galore swelled his ego. Sinclair thought success made him who he was, that it made him worth something.
But as his uniform added decoration and accolade, a storm of fear howled in his mind.
“Success was my identity,” Sinclair said. “I started having these voices in my head that would go, ‘You know, Frank? You are a fraud. These people are going to find you out. You know you don’t deserve this.”
The rising military star began drinking heavily to dampen the voices in his head. But the bottle instead served as gasoline for the flames of anxiety, and Sinclair returned to it again and again as the palace of prestige burned around him.
He lost it all, finding himself homeless in Colorado Springs in his mid-20s. But Sinclair didn’t fight it. His view of himself had never been lower, and shattered dreams confirmed his worst fears about what he had built during his early triumph – that he really wasn’t worthy of any of it.
“My entire life imploded. I really thought that’s where I deserved to be,” Sinclair recalled of his time living on the street. “I embraced homelessness. It was a natural step to me.”
But as Sinclair slept under a bush in Acacia Park, God sent him a light.
A man by the name of Richard Brooks paused his daily walk through the park to inquire about Sinclair’s story. He invited the destitute 26-year-old into his home and shared with him the hope of true worthiness that could only be found by the blood of Christ.
Sinclair surrendered his life to Jesus, and a new future began.
“I didn’t know Jesus had died for me. I didn’t know there was another way of life. I’d fallen to the lowest possible place that I could fall to. Pride really had a stranglehold on me.” Sinclair said.
“But there was still someone, even in the midst of that, who could look at this dirty, unkept, unwashed man sleeping underneath a bush in the park and see some value. That was a life change for me.”
New life, more lessons
Every time the church doors were open, he was there. But as Sinclair describes, he still had one foot stuck in the mud of pride.
Success came again for Sinclair, now 27. Hardly a year later, he soared to the post of Chief of the Fuels Division for Raytheon at the Air Force Academy.
“I kind of lived a somewhat double life. Partly in, partly out, doing all the aesthetic stuff that people could see to make myself look good, because that was still very important to me,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair chose vocational ministry years later, attending seminary and becoming the head pastor of a church. But he found rock bottom again after an affair eventually led to the end of his marriage and the loss of his ministry post.
Once more, catastrophe sent Sinclair to rock bottom.
“I lost my church, nearly lost my family. That was a wake-up call,” Sinclair said. “You know, ‘Good grief, dude. Why are you doing this? Why does it matter so much how people see you?
“My identity was so attached to that being that it took a disaster.”
But at the bottom, Sinclair found redemption – a Savior.
It is these experiences of hopelessness, of the well of discouragement that Sinclair has drunk deeply of in his life, that have equipped him to help others to a path of encouragement.
“My starting point is that people are jacked up,” Sinclair said. “I have to believe that because of how jacked up I am, how jacked up I’ve been. That’s why we need a savior. I’m desperately in need of him every day of my life.
“Every human that I meet is flawed. There’s a gap. There’s a need. They’re desperate in some form or fashion in their lives, and God wants to use me to make a difference in that gap. It’s not about me.”
Blessed to be a blessing
Years later, Sinclair has found a new type of success – not in achieving, but in serving. In pulling others to the lesson of eternal life, worthiness, purpose, and joy.
Over the last decade, Sinclair has built a thriving consulting business, where he encourages other business leaders to the same end. He also hosts the podcast “Be Encouraged” with his co-host Lisa Sinnott, and recently released a book titled “The Encouragement Revolution”.
Half a million people are a part of Sinclair’s longstanding Facebook group, the Be Encouraged Community, stretching across 120 countries.
Through his consulting work and media presence, he not only aims to bring encouragement to many, but also to challenge everyone to be encouragers themselves each day.
Sinclair was initially shocked at the pronounced response to his efforts of encouragement. But as he now considers the desperation of so many today, of his own desperation then and now, it’s no surprise at all.
“That void, it’s deeply there. It’s the same in each and every one of us,” Sinclair said.
“What else is there? What else really matters at the end of the day? If [Jesus] can change me, he can change anyone. I’m not an easy case, but I’ve learned that he loves me. And if I can give just a modicum of that love to someone else, it’s going to make a difference.”
Learn more about Sinclair’s work here.