Jan 29
I can tell you my five without hesitation.
My brother Anthony. My ride-or-die friend from little league, Eric. My big brother mentor, Freddy. My business partner, Jeff. And the most important one, my wife, Candis.
These aren’t networking contacts. They’re not aspirational follows on LinkedIn. They’re the people who’ve seen me at my absolute worst and refused to let me stay there. They’ve shifted my perspective when I couldn’t see past my own limitations. They’ve reimagined what was possible when I’d already written the ending.
And I’ve done the same for them.
But here’s what I’ve come to understand: I’m not the same person without them. None of us are who we are without the inner circle we choose to surround ourselves with. We like to think we’re self-made, that our success is a product of our own will and work ethic. That’s not entirely wrong. But it’s dangerously incomplete.
The truth is, you don’t become who you want to be in isolation. You become who you’re around. And if you’re intentional about who that is, you get to architect your own transformation.
Let me introduce you to my five. Not because my circle is special, but because understanding the specific roles these relationships play might help you audit your own.
The Anchor: Anthony
Anthony is my brother. But more than that, he’s my confidant.
There’s no entry point with Anthony. No small talk. That’s not his style. We don’t ease into conversations. We start at depth and go deeper. We’re raising kids together. Sharing our faith. Processing our struggles and celebrating our triumphs in real time.
He’s the Type A personality that balances out my creative dreamer tendencies. Where I see possibilities, he sees systems. Where I ideate, he executes. Where I’m abstract, he’s concrete.
Anthony is possibly the most thoughtful person I know. He has a servant’s heart that shows up in the smallest, most consistent ways. The kind of selflessness you can’t fake and can’t teach. It’s just who he is.
But here’s what makes him fascinating: he juxtaposes that gentle, servant-hearted nature with one of the most high-pressure, high-stakes professions you can imagine. He’s a Sales Engineer for Proofpoint, a cybersecurity and compliance firm. His clients? UCLA Medical. The Wynn Resort and Casino. Organizations where a security breach doesn’t just cost money. It costs lives, reputations, and futures.
Anthony is tasked with designing, implementing, and monitoring security frameworks that protect some of the most sensitive data on the West Coast and beyond. The pressure to deliver isn’t theoretical. It’s measured. It’s constant. And he carries it with a calm I’ve never seen waver.
When I’m spiraling, Anthony grounds me. When I’m scattered, he gives me structure. And when I need to hear the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable, he delivers it with a clarity that only a brother can.
I am not the same person without Anthony. His presence in my life has taught me that discipline and devotion aren’t opposites. They’re partners.
The Standard: Eric
Eric is my ride or die. We met playing little league, and 37 years later, he’s still the first person I call when life gets heavy.
Eric has always been focus-driven. Type A to his core. He knew he wanted to be a commercial broker when we were 18 years old. Not “maybe” or “someday.” He knew. And he built his entire life around that singular vision with a level of intentionality I didn’t understand at the time.
We were kind of college roommates. He lived at the house my parents let us rent during the summers. I’d wake up to discover Eric had already lived a quarter of a day. A run. Countless conversations. Breakfast. The Wall Street Journal. All before I’d even opened my eyes.
He’s an Ivy League-educated, athlete. But the most impressive thing about Eric? He doesn’t drink coffee. No caffeine equivalent. No stimulants. Just discipline, structure, and an internal motor I’ve never seen matched.
I caught habits from him, though it took me decades to implement what I witnessed in those early mornings. There were frameworks playing out in front of me that I didn’t have the capacity to understand yet. But they were being modeled. And eventually, they took root.
At my lowest, Eric never judged me. He could have. He had every reason to. But he didn’t. Instead, he stayed. And strangely enough, though our friendship didn’t make logical sense on paper, we came to an epiphany around age 23 or 24.
We realized that nothing is absolute. Within darkness, there is light. Within light, there is darkness. And that harmony, that balance, has allowed us to stay best friends and each other’s biggest cheerleaders for nearly four decades.
Eric set a standard I didn’t know I needed. He showed me what daily discipline looked like long before I had the maturity to build it myself. And because he was there, modeling it, I had a blueprint when I was finally ready.
I am not the same person without Eric. He taught me that consistency isn’t boring. It’s freedom.
The Visionary: Freddy
Freddy is my big brother, friend, and mentor rolled into one.
He’s a visionary in the truest sense. From commercial real estate to creating and managing the Jabbawockeez, one of the most iconic dance crews in the world, Freddy has built an entrepreneurial empire that defies conventional logic.
I met Freddy at the dawn of my inflection point, that moment when I transitioned from student and employee to independent creator. Though he was only a few years older, his life experience dwarfed mine. He came to the United States as a toddler, a refugee from Vietnam. Against all odds, against every statistic, he built something extraordinary.
From the moment we connected, we shared experiences. But the exchange wasn’t one-sided. Freddy taught me how to make moves in the business world. How to build what I wanted to build instead of waiting for someone to deem me worthy. How to see opportunity where others saw obstacles.
In turn, I shared what I’d learned about being still. About gratitude. About enjoying what you already have in family, faith, and friendship. About presence.
In the 15 years we’ve been friends, I’m not sure I’ve experienced more or learned more from a single person. Freddy expanded my definition of what was possible. He gave me permission to think bigger, move faster, and risk more. But he also reminded me that the only way to sustain that pace was to stay grounded in what mattered.
I am not the same person without Freddy. He showed me that vision without values is just ambition. And ambition without gratitude is just noise.
The Partner: Jeff
Jeff is my business partner in Forward Loans. But before he was that, he was my first paying customer.
After getting my degree in visual arts and design, Jeff hired me to create his brand, website, and original digital footprint as a leader in the mortgage industry. My wife, whom I’ll get to, introduced us. Personality matching is one of her many gifts. And she nailed it.
Jeff and I are opposite forces. But we’re complementary in every way that matters. He’s “Unc Status” personified. Big in stature. Big in respect. He’s lived a life. And he moves with a quiet authority that commands rooms without demanding attention.
Our bond wasn’t forged through business, though. It was forged through our kids.
Both of our kids are musicians. Very successful at a young age. We got to walk alongside them through shows that included opening for Blink-182 in Huntington Beach and playing sold-out local venues like the Marquee Theatre and the Van Buren in front of thousands of people.
You learn a lot about a person in those moments. The pressure of being a parent in that environment brings out true colors. And over those years, Jeff and I learned everything we needed to know about how the other moves under pressure, how they handle stress, how they lead when the stakes are high.
That foundation translated directly into how we run Forward Loans. We’ve built a culture and a vision together because we know how each other thinks, how we handle conflict, and how we show up when it matters most.
I am not the same person without Jeff. He taught me that partnership isn’t about agreement. It’s about alignment. And alignment only works when there’s trust forged in the fire.
The Why: Candis
Candis is my wife. And she is my why.
From the moment I met her, she’s inherently known me. Like she had access to a version of me I hadn’t even discovered yet.
She’s a journalism major. A writer. A documenter. A creative. But also, without question, a Type A. And as I look back at this exercise, I realize I’ve inadvertently surrounded myself with this specific trait. I’ve been subconsciously attracted to people who embody it. But Candis isn’t your typical Type A.
She’s a beautiful enigma. She embodies the yin and yang I mentioned earlier. She loves flowers, and they’re everywhere in our house. She craves the outdoors. But our kids constantly wake up to the sound of the Dyson vacuum and what we endearingly call “rage cleaning.”
She’s soft-hearted and strikingly beautiful, but she’ll make anyone who trains with her at the gym feel wildly inadequate. She’ll remember your birthday, your spouse’s birthday, and your kids’ birthdays. We call her “Birthday Rainman.”
She yearns for community but is a steadfast homebody. She cuts it up with our daughter and her high school friends like she’s one of them. But she’s also filled up by her Bible study, which consists primarily of women in their 50s and 60s.
She knows when to lead and when to be led. And that’s rare.
The first time I met her mom, she told me, “Oh, you’re the one.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I’ve never met a guy that could tell Candis ‘No.’ You do it in a way that she accepts. And you’re going to marry her.”
She was right.
I could go on about Candis for days. But in short, all romantic details aside, I chose the right person. And since choosing each other 20 years ago, our lives have exploded in the best way possible.
We’ve created, experienced, committed to, and accomplished things I’m not sure we ever could have done without each other. We’ve each been each other’s tractor and trailer at different times. Pushed and pulled each other toward the destination. The goal. The constantly moving target that God and life rolls out in front of you.
I am not the same person without Candis. She taught me that love isn’t a feeling. It’s a decision you make every single day. And the quality of your life is determined by the quality of that decision.
These five people are not accidents. They’re choices. Choices I made. Choices I continue to make.
And without them, I’m not Michael Creel, brand architect and storyteller. I’m just a guy with ideas and no accountability. Ambition and no anchor. Vision and no vehicle.
Jim Rohn said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
He was right.
But here’s what most people miss: you get to choose your five. And that choice is the most important decision you’ll ever make.
