From Bedridden to the Boardroom

David Good had migraines and excruciating neck pain every day of the month for months on end, and was bedridden most days of the week. He was certain his life was over multiple times. Eight years later he was standing in a boardroom telling the people who built one of the world's largest community platforms what he had created with it.

This is the true story of how a man who lost his career, his health, and very nearly his will to keep going built a global community from his room and a boba tea shop in West Michigan. From Bedridden to the Boardroom traces David's path from chronic pain and isolation to founding International Friend Connection, a peer-led volunteer network that reached more than fifty chapters both virtually and in-person in over twenty countries.

David is autistic, and for most of his life loneliness was simply the water he swam in. Bullied as a kid, sidelined by illness as an adult, he had every reason to give up. Instead he made a quiet decision: as long as he was not flat on his back, he would show up and hold open a door for the next lonely person who walked through it.

Along the way he found tools that gave him his life back, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, mentorship, and the simple, radical practice of gratitude. He learned that managing his own brain was as hard as running an organization, and that what looks like being broken is often just being left out of the design.

Honest, warm, and unflinching, this is a book for anyone who has been counted out, for the people who love them, and for everyone working on a better future. The power you need is already in you.

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