About

I constantly strive to become a better version of myself, but I realized that a lot of the self development blogs were written from a worldly perspective. It seemed like the ultimate goal was either building massive wealth or achieving a personal [almost selfish] happiness. There’s so much more to life than that.

I’m not saying you can’t build wealth. You should! I’m not saying you shouldn’t strive to be happy. You definitely should. But there’s a difference between worldly self-satisfying happiness and true joy.

I want to strive for pure joy. Join me?

I’m striving for pure joy with my beautiful wife, and five children.

So many people ask me how I balance my family life, military, writing, and full-time college, while keeping such a happy marriage, well behaved children, and a stress-free attitude.

I’ve learned a lot through trial and error. I’m finally to a place where I feel like I’ve figured out enough to help others. I’m not going to insert the “I’m not perfect, but…” speech here. You know I’m not, but we can all learn from each other, and I’ll teach what I can teach and help everyone I can. You should do the same.

If you’re not striving to live your life to the fullest, there’s so much more out there for you.

I believe you should find someone who has what you want, and then figure out how they did it. You shouldn’t take marriage advice from someone who can’t stay married, and you shouldn’t take financial advice from someone who’s broke.

There’s plenty of things I can’t do. For example, I don’t know much about mechanics, carpentry, farming, or plumbing. That’s why you won’t see an article about any of that stuff, but I have become good at the things I can do.

I focus on what I know.

What I May Write About Here

This website is for you if you fall into any of these categories:

Jesus
Children
Adoption
Marriage
Achievement
Self-Discipline
Positive Habits
World Traveling
Living Differently
Diverse Christian Music

What I’ve Learned

You don’t have to accept stereotypes.

You don’t have to be like everybody else.

My wife and I have an amazing marriage.

Our children listen, and they know they’re loved.

We are a family of seven now, and we’re traveling the world. Yes, it’s possible and it’s a blast!

I want to show you that you don’t have to accept “normal.”

You don’t have to put your dreams and goals on hold just because you have a family.

It seems like hundreds of people have told me things like:

You can’t afford to do that
You’ll never be able to afford that
You don’t have time for that right now
You can’t travel much with a newborn, five kids, etc.
You have to put things on hold since you have such a large family
There are just some things you’ll never be able to do since you have a family

Ha! My family is behind me 100%. We teach our kids to live differently, and to truly achieve a happy, God-serving life.

We are flexible, and most of all, we are loving life.

If you’ve been told you can’t do something, and believed otherwise, you’re in good company.

That’s what this is all about.

My Credentials

I’m not a fan of the word “credentials,” because it alludes to the idea that you must have a doctorate degree in a subject to know anything about it.

I have my own credentials, and the main one is my life. It’s not so much credentials; it’s more like proof. Proof that it’s possible to accomplish a lot no matter your circumstances. I’m not perfect, but I work on areas that I struggle with, and then I improve them.

My credentials for building habits and creating discipline come from the military. I’ve built many habits on my own, and all of my discipline isn’t military-driven, but if I owe gratitude to any specific person or organization for my discipline, it would be the military.
My credentials for personal finance include a degree in Finance, getting myself and others out of debt, building wealth on a comparatively small income, and living a life free of financial constraints with the ability to travel the world as we please.
My credentials for marriage come from having a wife that I love more each day, and a marriage of over 15 years that has lasted through almost everything that causes divorce. A happy marriage is my credentials.
My credentials for parenting come from having five children, three biological and two adopted, who love spending time together as a family. My children are well behaved and happy. I’m not a perfect parent, but we’ve had the time to figure some things out, and we deeply care about the upbringing of our children.
My credentials for everything else, including anything I say about theology, nutrition, prayer and even productivity come from my broad range of reading hundreds of books over the years, attending seminars, taking classes, and learning from others.

Family Timeline

2005

Eloping

When my wife (girlfriend at the time, obviously) and I decided to get married, we thought it would be fun to elope. I was 18 and she was 20.

It was a great idea, and I’m pretty sure we weren’t ever going to tell anyone that we were married.

And then we got pregnant. Ok, technically she was pregnant, but I was the one with the cravings. Yeah I know, it’s the whole “I contributed too” thing from the man. Like Jim Gaffigan says, “yeah, you contributed too, for 60 seconds, doing the one thing you think about constantly.”

So now we were young, pregnant, and married. But nobody actually knew we were married.

This didn’t fly with her mom.

2006

The Wrong Priorities

Her mom was starting to come around, but I was a terrible person. I had no idea, but I was.

We now had our first child. I was working as a manager at Domino’s Pizza, and playing drums in a band.

The problem was that I was constantly working, and when I wasn’t working I would leave my wife at home alone with our child to go hang out with my friends and play shows with my band.

Her mom wasn’t warming up to me much.

2007

Neglecting Everything

I began to realize that I sucked. I was lazy and never there for my family.

I neglected everything for the last year, except my own wants and desires.

So what exactly did I neglect? Here’s a synopsis:

I neglected my family by never being home
I neglected our finances by buying everything I wanted on credit cards
I neglected my wife’s opinion by spending way too much on a vehicle we didn’t need
I neglected my body by only eating what came out of the oven at Domino’s Pizza
I neglected our finances again by buying a house we couldn’t afford

Honestly, I neglected everything except having fun and hanging out with my friends.

2008

Starting to Wake Up

I woke up.

I realized that not only were we in serious financial debt, but there was serious emotional debt to deal with. If you know anything about The 5 Love Languages, my wife’s love tank was dry.

She was open with me, and she explained everything I was doing for the last three years that I couldn’t see.

I decided to make a change.

I started working every job I could to pay off our financial debt, and I tried to patch the holes in our marriage, but I ended up being much better at the former than the latter.

2009

Living to Work

I worked at Domino’s Pizza by night, and a local body shop by day.

I was off on Saturday and Sunday, so I filled in those spots with a construction job.

I jumped at the opportunity to add a paper route to the mix after I got off work after midnight.

On top of that, I delivered phone books (remember those?) in the summer.

I earned more money than I had ever seen, and I spent more than I had ever spent.

We didn’t get out of debt that year.

2010

Cutting Back

I realized that I wasn’t including my family in my decisions or my endeavors.

I continued to change and develop.

After some wisdom from a friend, I cut back work, and we cut back our expenses to finally try to get out of debt.

We moved into a 700 sq ft mobile home, and sold our most expensive vehicle.

2011

Reality Check

After watching Eagle Eye (random, I know), I made a small comment about always having wanted to join the United States Air Force. And my wife was instantly on board.

I didn’t even realize it was a real option.

I just thought wives didn’t let their husbands join the military. I thought my chances were shot when I married at such a young age. Communication is the key here. If I had only said something earlier…

I went to the recruiter’s office, and he informed me that we had to pay off all our consumer debt, and either sell our house, or turn it into rental property. We chose the second option.

The recruiter also told me I had to lose 50 pounds.

50 pounds and $24k in debt. No big deal, right?

2012

Debt-Free and Healthy

I turned into a finance nerd and proceeded to read over 100 books on personal finance.

We got out of $24,000 in debt and turned our house into rental property.

We were officially debt-free.

I also dove into research on fitness and nutrition.

I found time to exercise, mostly through hiking and strength training, and lost the 50 pounds over the course of a year.

And then we made the decision to adopt a sibling group.

We had always wanted to adopt, and we felt like God put a situation right in front of us with a direct opportunity.

2013

Joining the Military

I went to Basic Training for the United State Air Force.

The day I graduated, my wife and I discussed starting the actual process of fostering to adopt the two children, and she gave me some big news.

She was pregnant! Of course, we decide to adopt and she gets pregnant.

We were happier than ever.

Once we were settled in at our first duty station in Oklahoma, we had our second child and started the foster-to-adopt process.

I decided that I should help other people do some of the things I had done with finances.

I started my first blog.

I decided that I loved helping other people, and I loved writing.

2014

Adoption

The two children were placed with us.

We now had two beautiful biological children and two amazing adopted children.

In all reality, we simply had four amazing children.

My first blog began to gain traction.

I had my first viral article on a big site I was writing for, and the article received over 70 million views.

By this time, I had picked up a few other writing gigs.

2015

Replacing My Wife's Income

I was now living with a structured routine, and producing a lot of content.

My writing and blogging income reached the point of replacing my wife’s income entirely.

She became a full-time stay-at-home mom, which was one of the greatest joys of my life.

We were a family of six, on one income, and we were building wealth like crazy.

2016

Moving to Italy

We got a new assignment. We were moving to Italy.

As if joining the military, having two children, and adopting two children wasn’t enough.

God had even bigger plans for us than we realized and they continued to unfold.

This would be the biggest move of our life, but after everything we had done and been through, we knew we could take on anything.

And we knew it would be an amazing adventure.

2017

Living Differently

We are different. We don’t accept the status quo.

I accomplished a life-long goal of joining the military, but I joined late.

We are completely debt-free and building wealth, and only on one income.

We are able to comfortably support five children on one income, because of our lifestyle choices.

We have an amazing marriage and we love being around each other. Apparently, that’s unique.

I’m able to write, work full-time and have plenty of time to do amazing things with my family.

I’m also able to go to school full-time in the midst of all of this.

We continued learning Italian and interacting in the local community.

We were doing what we love. We were living like no one else.

We chose to live differently.

2018

Traveling the World

We went to more countries this year than every other year combined.

We started seeing the world and the culture.

We were able to visit almost 20 countries.

I deployed as part of a Russian deterrence mission.

I was deployed to the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania.

We fell in love with Romania.

I continued to write.

2019

Success in Writing

I built my blog into a full-time income.

We continued to travel.

I had ankle surgery and used the down time to do my first Daniel Fast.

Then I deployed to Kuwait. A memory I’ll never forget.

I started writing my first book.

At the end of 2019, I knew I would be home soon.

2020

Success Through COVID-19

I returned from my deployment.

I published my first book.

COVID-19 hit.

We spent more family time together in 2020 than any recent year.

I published my second book.

I started a YouTube channel.

Despite the coronavirus, we were still able to make it a great year.

2021

Moving to Japan

Here we go.

Beliefs and Mission Statement

Mission Statement

“To advance the Kingdom of God through helping others and serving others. To put others first, through Christ-like selflessness and humility. To never stray from the Word of God.”

Vision Statement

“To be a continually growing community of Christians and non-Christians alike, who respect each other and want to learn, grow and serve together. To bring people to salvation through loving servitude and teaching.”

5 Core Values

Rooted in God’s Word – The entirety of KalenBruce.com, both as a website and as a ministry, will be grounded in God’s Word. Every article will be in line with the Bible and what the Bible teaches.
Selflessness – Everything I write, publish and promote will be for the benefit of the reader. I will not post paid or sponsored articles, advertisements, tweets or statuses. I will only endorse content that is valuable to the reader.
Passion – All articles will be written with passion for Christ and furthering Christianity, with Jesus at the center of everything I do here. I will not stray from my passion of serving others by publishing high-quality content.
Transparency – Everything I publish will be real and transparent. No writer on this site will pretend to be something they are not. We will all be open and honest, sometimes to the point of vulnerability, but we believe readers will be respectful.
Non-Judgment – There will be no judgment of other human beings. From the articles published to the comments by the readers, I will not tolerate judgement. I will not be critical or harsh towards any people, other websites or businesses.

Statement of Faith

Since KalenBruce.com is not a church, this is a very minimal statement of faith that covers the core doctrine of this website. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list of our beliefs, but more of an overview of the key areas:

The Bible

The Bible is the inspired word of God. (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

The Trinity

God eternally exists in perfection and love as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Genesis 1:1, 26; Matthew 28:19; John 1:1-2, 4:24; Acts 5:3-4; Romans 1:20; Ephesians 4:5-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14)

Jesus Christ

Jesus is completely and fully God and completely and fully man. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary. He is the only person to live a sinless life. He was crucified and died, then rose to reconcile all people to God and defeat the devil. He will return at an unknown date to reign with his bride, the church. Everyone who rejects Jesus will suffer eternal destruction. (Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13)

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit continually draws believers closer to God, transforms them into the image of Jesus Christ, empowers them for ministry, and distributes spiritual gifts to the Church. As believers, we are to always and continually seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit. (John 16:5-15; Romans 8:16, 23, 26-27; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31)

The Fall of Humanity

All people are sinners and need to have a saving relationship with God. People are made children of God when they repent of their sin, place their trust in Jesus Christ, and commit their life to him. (Genesis 1:26-27; 3:1, 24; Romans 3:25; 5:12-18; 1 John 1:18)