Tyson Pete shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Tyson, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
If I’m keeping it a hundred…
It’s the house I built inside myself when nobody was clapping.
The discipline, the forgiveness, the backbone.
The way I taught my own heart how to stand up straight after years of bending.
People see the books, the brand, the movement.
They don’t see the nights I stitched my dignity back together,
or the mornings I chose purpose over pain—again.
That inner architecture?
The quiet scaffolding that holds all my public work?
That’s the masterpiece no audience will ever fully witness.
And honestly… that’s the one I’m proudest of.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Tyson Pete — Award-winning author (recipient of the 2025 Prestigious Regal Summit Book Award for Best Parenting Book “Courageous Love: a Self Help Guide for Gay Fathers,” life coach, celebrity chef (Cory Booker, BET, City of Newark, Miss Lauryn Hill, and more) and the proud founder of P.R.O.U.D. Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to empowering fathers and families who’ve spent too long unseen. My work sits at the intersection of healing, fatherhood, and LGBTQ+ visibility. I turned my own journey — the silence, the rebuilding, the courage — into a blueprint that helps others rise into their truth.
My flagship book, Courageous Love: A Self-Help Guide for Gay Fathers, opened the door, and now I’m expanding that world with a full series, a magazine, and P.R.O.U.D. Academy, a private K–12 homeschool that blends academics with emotional intelligence and legacy-building. Everything I create is rooted in one mission: to show families like mine that their stories matter, their love is valid, and their healing is a power source.
Right now, I’m dropping a new Courageous Love book every month and building out a suite of resources, workshops, and community programs designed to help fathers lead with heart, honesty, and purpose.
My work is personal. My work is legacy. And above all, my work is love. Courageous, loud, and unapologetic.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What relationship most shaped how you see yourself?
The relationship that reshaped the way I see myself — for better and for harder — was my marriage.
It held up a mirror I didn’t always want to look into.
That bond showed me where I loved bravely and where I hid.
Where I overextended, and where I dimmed my own light just to keep the room calm.
Where I confused endurance with devotion.
That season taught me my capacity — the depth of my loyalty, the way I show up, the way I carry family on my back even when I’m running on fumes.
But it also taught me the cost of disappearing inside a partnership.
How easy it is to make someone else’s comfort the compass for your entire life.
Stepping out of that marriage didn’t break me.
It clarified me.
It forced me to rebuild a version of myself that wasn’t defined by being needed, but by being known.
So when I talk about love now — courageous, honest, accountable love — it’s because I lived the other side.
I learned who I am when the house goes quiet, when the vows unravel, when the truth finally has space to speak.
That relationship shaped me by showing me exactly who I refuse to stop being.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
That shift didn’t happen in one clean moment — it was more like a slow, stubborn sunrise.
I stopped hiding my pain the day I realized silence wasn’t protecting me… it was burying me.
I was giving the world the polished version, the “I’m fine” version, while dragging a whole storm behind my ribs. And honestly, the performance got heavy. Even my own spirit was tired of watching me pretend.
The turning point came when I finally named what hurt — out loud, to myself first.
Once you call a thing by its real name, it loses some of its power to haunt you.
That’s when the shift happened:
the pain stopped being a chain and started being a charge.
A current I could harness.
Fuel instead of fog.
And that’s how Courageous Love was born.
How P.R.O.U.D. became more than an idea.
How my voice stopped whispering and started leading.
The moment I stopped hiding wasn’t glamorous.
It was quiet, raw, and real.
But that’s when everything finally aligned —
my purpose, my story, my calling —
all powered by the very thing I once thought I had to run from.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
I’m locked in on one mission that I’ll carry as long as I’ve got breath in me:
building a world where fathers like me — gay, imperfect, healing, trying, are seen without apology.
That’s the long-game.
The project beneath every project.
Courageous Love.
P.R.O.U.D. Inc.
P.R.O.U.D. Academy.
The books, the workshops, the magazine — they’re all branches of one root:
creating legacy-level change for families who were never centered in the story.
I’m committed to that work even if it takes decades.
Even if I never see the full harvest.
Because the belief behind it is simple and stubborn:
when you change the way a father loves, you change the way a child grows,
and when you change that, you rewrite a whole lineage.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
I hope the story they tell isn’t about the awards or the books or the titles, those are just deliverables. Nice to have, not the heart of the legacy.
What I really want whispered in rooms I’ll never enter again is something simpler, sturdier:
“He left things better than he found them.”
That I made fatherhood feel possible for men who thought they were alone.
That I carved out space where queer families didn’t have to explain themselves to breathe.
That I turned my bruises into blueprints and handed them out freely.
That I didn’t just talk about love — I operationalized it.
Made it a framework.
A system.
A culture shift.
If the story is that I helped people heal loudly, lead with honesty, and raise their children with courage instead of fear… then that’s the win.
And if they add, with a little smirk,
“He told the truth, even when it cost him,”
I’ll take that too.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.TysonPete.com
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/theetysonpete
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyson-pete?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Facebook: https://Facebook.com/forevertyson
- Youtube: @TheeTysonPete
- Other: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/tyson-pete/1670615505
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