ABOUT JARVIS
Welcome.
I am a founder and leadership coach who helps restless and aspiring leaders unlearn limiting perspectives, free their authentic selves, and lead from their true potential.
For over 30 years, Jarvis has worked at the intersection of inner purpose and outer impact—from Fortune 500 strategy rooms at BMW and Michelin to pulpits and prison ministries—leading teams, coaching executives, and guiding individual transformation that reshapes entire cultures. In every context, he’s discovered the same truth: great leadership isn't about what you do. It's about uncovering who you really are.
Most leadership development work gives you more layers—more tools, more frameworks, more principles to master. Jarvis helps you work with both: adding what fits you and removing what doesn’t. The borrowed definitions of success. The outdated ideas. The labels—"grave clothing"—that keep your authentic self buried.
His book, The Leader Within: Freeing Your Authentic Self, is about unraveling those unnecessary layers. It's for the leader who's climbed the ladder of success only to realize it's leaning against someone else's wall. The executive who's done everything "right" but still feels like something is missing. The parent, teacher, organizer, or coach who’s discovered that checkboxes and benchmarks are only part of what matters—wanting to help others become more, not just achieve more.
Becoming isn't easy work. But it's the only work that lasts.
With degrees and training from the University of Tennessee and Harvard Divinity School, Jarvis brings both corporate strategy and spiritual depth to his work. But what makes him different isn't his credentials—it's his philosophy. He believes great leadership is within all of us, waiting to be freed. All you need to do is see it, unlearn what's blocking it, and become who you truly are.
"Turning it in empty" is his life’s goal—giving away everything he's learned to help others step into everything they came here to be.
My Story
1955 Me with my maternal grandparents.
1963 My mother, father, sisters, and a younger brother to come much later.
1968 The Mason Temple in Memphis, TN, where I saw Martin Luther King Jr.'s final speech. My parents and I are somewhere in the upper balcony. I still had my school clothes on.
1973 Thinking I am all that and then some.
1973 Memphis, Tennessee. Just living the dream.
1976 Mother comes to visit me in North Carolina at my first job after finishing college.
1979 My wedding with Joyce. We were married for 41 years until she passed in 2020 from brain cancer.
1988 Mom and Dad have always been my rock.
1990 After 12 years of marriage and no kids, our son Jamal arrives and it is now time to grow up.
1991 My mom finally gets her grandson through me.
1991 From the dog to a child and having to now take life seriously.
1996 After 41 years of marriage, my parents passed away 10 weeks apart between November 1996 and January 1997.
1997 We all had a fish tale to tell.
1998 Started Envision Organizational Consulting (this was the first photo used for our brochures).
2000 I became the founding pastor for Faith Ministries in Columbus, Indiana.
2011 Joyce, Jamal, and myself on one of the many cruises we took together.
2014 Jamal graduates. We did it! From the cradle to the stage.
2017 Visiting lighthouses (an important symbol to me) in Portland, Maine.
2022 Married to Zelma, a blessed new beginning.
2022 Zelma and I in the southern Caribbean, enjoying the beginning of our new life together.
2025 Facilitating at Cummins Engine Company for the toastmasters’ group.
2025 Don’t just think it, Ink it (an early draft of "The Leader Within")!
2025 "The Leader Within" book planning its great escape.
2025 The family grows through marriage.
2026 God’s gift to one another.
2026 Facilitating a team building workshop with Mayor of Gravette Arkansas, Kurt Maddox, and his team.
2026 Continuing to climb the ladder of authentic awareness.
Get in touch
I deliver keynotes, workshops, executive coaching, and organizational consulting that help leaders unlearn limiting perspectives and tap into their true potential—inner work that creates lasting outer impact. Contact me for more information.