The Story Behind the Unity Framework for Conflict Resolution
The Story
Brandon didn’t set out to become a conflict resolution expert. He became one the hard way: through 33 years of marriage, six kids, six grandkids, decades of executive consulting, and a long stretch of doing exactly what he now teaches others not to do.
“Most disputes and conflicts are not actually strategy problems,” he explains. “They’re relational in nature.” That realization, built slowly over years of watching tension quietly hollow out teams and families alike, is what eventually became his conflict resolution book, Unity and Beyond: Five Simple Steps to Stop Letting Conflict Win.
Across executive boardrooms, organizational consulting, and his faith community, Brandon kept seeing the same thing: people rushing to fix the surface of a conflict without looking underneath it. The instinct to jump in and solve it, or push it under the rug was often the thing making it worse.
“I had to work on my issues first,” he says. “And if that’s the way it was for me… I had to think at least a large percentage of the population experiences the same thing.”
The Curiosity
The UNITY framework started as a series of presentations.
Brandon had been developing the framework informally for years, introducing it to individuals, departments, and organizations he worked with. The results built one after another. People who applied the steps were resolving conflicts they’d been stuck in for months, sometimes years. Executives were calling him back to say their teams were transformed. Then the requests started changing: Where can I find out more? Can you write this down? Can we share this with our whole company?
“It was kind of an organic build,” he says. “Over time, I said to myself, why are we waiting? It’s not going to get any easier tomorrow. Let’s start today.”
However, something larger was pulling at him, something that went beyond the everyday conflicts. “I wanted to put something out into the world that, in 2026, which you could argue has never seen more conflict in human history, could actually break down walls. Politically, economically, and socially. Unity does that in ways I simply didn’t think were possible when I first set out.“
Brandon felt called to help. Seeing how often people felt trapped in the same painful patterns, he knew his experience could make a difference. That determination transformed an idea into reality and, eventually, into a book.
The Effort
For a man who had spent years telling others not to wait, Brandon had been waiting.
Brandon knew better than most that “waiting for the right time” is a sentence that could be repeated forever. He’d spent years telling clients, friends, and anyone who would listen: if you’re waiting for life to slow down, you’ll be waiting forever. With six kids, six grandkids, an active church calling, and a full schedule, life was never going to hand him a quiet stretch.
So somewhere between the chaos and the calendar, he made a decision: if not now, when? He started writing at the beginning of 2025 and finished by the end of the year. Twelve months, one focused passion project, and a lot of uncomfortable honesty.
“Writing a book is no joke in terms of how you doubt yourself,” he admits. “You bury your soul. You put yourself out there. I have many stories of my own personal failures in this book. That was the biggest surprise, that I could power through that, and that once I did, it was cathartic.”
The Solution
When it came time to publish, Brandon was cautious. For someone whose entire framework is built on trust-building and human connection, finding a hybrid publishing company that operated the same way was extremely important to Brandon. He started asking around, and one name kept surfacing: Streamline Books through ShareYourStory.com.
One of Brandon’s trusted collaborators had worked with the team previously and spoken highly of them. So he did some research on his own and found that what he’d been told was true.
Brandon praised the team from top to bottom, singling out Alex, CEO of ShareYourStory.com, by name. “From Alex all the way down the organization, it’s a very classy group of people,” he says. “Storytelling is not the only game they’re into. They really love to see the growth in their clients. The confidence it builds. I couldn’t have been happier with the publishing experience.”
The Journey
The framework had been in Brandon’s head for years, but getting it onto the page with the depth and vulnerability took help.
He made a choice early on: this would not be a guarded book. It would not be a polished list of professional tips wrapped in safe corporate language. If the UNITY framework was going to be real, it had to include the moments when Brandon himself had gotten it wrong: the years of jumping to solutions, the times he’d been the problem and didn’t know it, the slow work of becoming someone who could actually sit with discomfort before reacting.
“If I had been cagey with this process and not revealed the parts of myself that led to UNITY being created, I would have been far less proud of this effort,” he says.
The ROI
“In 2026, it shouldn’t blow our minds how quickly information gets out to people,” Brandon says. “But the feedback from people I don’t even know has been very rewarding.“
The book had been out for only a few days, and the messages were already coming in. People who found the ebook, read it overnight, and tracked him down to say something: a grandfather and an adult grandchild, back in contact. A team that had been gridlocked for months. A marriage that had been running on resentment. People telling him the framework helped them see eye to eye with a son they hadn’t really talked to in years, or work through something at home they’d quietly given up on.
For someone who genuinely didn’t write this book for the sales, that was the kind of return that meant something. It affirmed what the framework had been doing quietly in his consulting work for years and what it could now do in the hands of anyone willing to do the internal work first.
What People Are Saying
- “The author takes us on a journey of self-discovery clothed in conflict resolution.”
- “By understanding where we’re coming from, and our willingness to understand where they are coming from, we can begin to build trust in each other in a new, powerful way.”
- “Highly recommended for anyone in a management position, or anyone looking to evolve in the way they deal with a perceived adversary.”
Where Is Brandon Now?
Brandon isn’t slowing down. The book is building into more opportunities, like consulting work with organizations, speaking engagements, and the ongoing rhythms of family, faith, and the kind of day-to-day relationship work the UNITY framework was made for.
He’s focused on continuing to reach people who are genuinely stuck navigating conflict in the places it hurts most. Marriages. Estranged families. Communities that have stopped listening to each other. Political conversations that have long since crossed into trench warfare.
“Unity breaks down walls that I simply didn’t think were possible,” he says. “And even when it’s not a hundred percent successful, the way you approach conflict in the future will never be the same after going through it even once.”
For anyone who has left an argument sensing that something meaningful had been fractured and never quite healed, Brandon’s conflict resolution book offers a new way through.
Unity and Beyond: Five Simple Steps to Stop Letting Conflict Win is available now on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, and kindle. You can listen to Brandon’s full story on the podcast here.
