Life & Work with Devon Teeple

Today we’d like to introduce you to Devon Teeple.

Devon, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My story has never followed a straight line, but every part of it has contributed to where I am today.

Baseball was my first great passion. I played, coached and eventually began writing about the game, creating The GM’s Perspective as a way to highlight independent baseball and the people whose stories often went unnoticed. That work gave me opportunities to interview players, coaches and executives, while teaching me how powerful storytelling can be—especially when it recognizes value that others may overlook.

Professionally, I built my career in financial services and leadership. Working closely with individuals, families and teams gave me a deeper understanding of human potential, pressure, decision-making and the importance of seeing the whole person—not simply their results or circumstances. Those experiences became the foundation for my ongoing work, my creation; Existential Leadership Engineering, or ELE, a human-systems philosophy focused on identity, continuity, hidden value and how people continue moving forward through change.

My journey has also included personal battles with anxiety, depression and OCD. Rather than hiding those experiences, I began speaking openly about them through my weekly Wellness Wednesday writing. What started as an attempt to better understand my own mind grew into a way of connecting with others who were experiencing challenges they could not always explain. It reinforced my belief that some of our most difficult experiences can eventually become meaningful—not because they were easy, but because of what we choose to create from them.

Writing books became the place where all of these parts of my life could finally meet.

My first published novel, The Breach Index, explores fear, power, human behaviour and the systems we trust to protect us. It represents more than the publication of a thriller; it’s proof that an idea carried quietly for years can eventually become something real. Now, I’m continuing that journey through several books in development, including Beyond the Threshold, a story about consciousness, memory, family and what remains when reality begins to collapse, alongside future books exploring leadership, hidden human value and the larger ELE philosophy.

Today, I am an author, leadership professional, researcher and lifelong student of human potential. Whether I’m writing fiction, examining leadership systems, advocating for mental health or sharing overlooked stories, the connecting thread remains the same: I am fascinated by what exists beneath the surface—and by the people, possibilities and ideas the world does not always recognize immediately.

My books, current projects and the larger story behind my work can be found at devonteeple.com.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. Much of my journey has involved learning how to keep moving forward when the destination was unclear—or when I was unsure whether the work I was creating would ever find its place.

One of my greatest struggles has been living with anxiety, depression and OCD. There have been periods when my mind made ordinary life feel far more difficult than it appeared from the outside. For a long time, I believed strength meant keeping those experiences hidden. Eventually, I realized that speaking honestly about them could help others feel less alone. That realization led to Wellness Wednesday, which has allowed me to turn some of my most difficult moments into connection and purpose.

My professional journey also required considerable reinvention. I have moved between baseball, writing, financial services and leadership—fields that may appear unrelated but have taught me different ways of understanding people. There were times when my path did not make sense to others, and sometimes not even to me. I often felt that the full value of my experiences was difficult to explain because it did not fit neatly into one conventional title or category.

Becoming an author brought another set of challenges. Writing a book is deeply personal, but finishing it is only the beginning. Publishing independently means learning editing, design, distribution, marketing and promotion—often while working full-time and caring for a family. There’s no guarantee that anyone will discover the book, regardless of how much time, belief or emotion went into creating it. Releasing The Breach Index required me to stop waiting for permission or perfect circumstances and finally trust the work enough to place it in the world.

There have been rejections, financial pressures, periods of self-doubt and ideas that took years to develop without recognition. I have known what it feels like to believe deeply in something while having very little external evidence that it will succeed.

However, those struggles are also responsible for much of what I am building today. They taught me to recognize hidden value, to question traditional measurements of success and to understand that progress is not always visible while it’s happening.

The road has not been smooth, but it has been meaningful. Every setback, transition and uncertain period has contributed to my writing, my leadership philosophy and my belief that the parts of our story that once felt disconnected may eventually become the foundation of what we were meant to create.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work sits at the intersection of storytelling, leadership, mental health and human potential.

As an author, I write stories that begin with an unsettling question and then explore what that question reveals about us. My first published novel, The Breach Index, is a geopolitical thriller examining power, fear, manipulation and the vulnerability of the systems society depends upon. My next novel, Beyond the Threshold, moves into speculative and existential territory, exploring what might happen if humanity created more consciousness, connection and preserved memory than reality could sustain.

Although the books are different in scope, they share a common purpose: I want to take complex ideas and make people feel them through human stories. I am especially interested in what happens when familiar systems begin to fail—and what remains of identity, loyalty, family and meaning when they do.

Outside of fiction, I have spent years developing Existential Leadership Engineering, or ELE. It is a human-systems philosophy built around a central belief: people possess forms of value, capacity and potential that conventional measurements frequently fail to recognize. Through my concepts such as the Employee Value Score (EVS), ELE examines the whole human system—identity, experience, environment, pressure, timing, consistency and continuity—rather than evaluating someone through performance numbers alone.

That perspective also shapes my professional leadership work. I specialize in seeing connections across people, ideas and systems that may initially appear unrelated. I’m known for recognizing overlooked potential, asking deeper questions and helping people understand that their past experiences—even the difficult or disconnected ones—may contain value that has not yet been properly identified.

I’m also known for speaking openly about mental health through Wellness Wednesday. Sharing my experiences with anxiety, depression and OCD has allowed me to connect with people in a way that titles, credentials and professional accomplishments cannot. It has reminded me that meaningful work is not only about what we build; it is also about whether that work helps another person feel seen.

What sets me apart is that I do not approach these areas as separate identities. Baseball taught me to recognize overlooked talent. Financial services taught me how decisions affect real people and families. Leadership taught me that performance is inseparable from environment and trust. Mental-health advocacy taught me the value of vulnerability. Writing gave me a place to bring all of those lessons together.

I am most proud that I continued creating before there was any guarantee the work would be recognized. Publishing The Breach Index was an important milestone, but I am equally proud of the larger body of work now taking shape around it. These books and ideas were built across years of uncertainty, responsibility, rejection and self-doubt.

Ultimately, I want my work to be known for finding what exists beneath the surface—whether that is the hidden truth inside a thriller, the unseen potential within a person or the larger question humanity has not yet thought to ask.

What are your plans for the future?
My future plans are really about bringing the different parts of my life’s work into one connected home. The launch of devonteeple.com is Step One. It begins as my author website, but the larger vision is for it to become the central place where readers, organizations, researchers and potential collaborators can discover my books, ideas and evolving work.

Publishing is the first major part of that future. My current publishing roadmap includes six distinct projects:

• The Breach Index — my published thriller about what happens when systems flinch.
• Beyond The Threshold — a completed manuscript exploring the unseen limits of human consciousness. As memory, identity and reality begin to collapse, a father fights to preserve his family’s connection to one another.
• The ELE Book — a completed manuscript presenting the full framework of Existential Leadership Engineering, including its principles, original components and potential applications across human systems.
• Leadership in Motion — a completed practical guide to leadership rooted in ELE. It examines how leadership is revealed through everyday moments, decisions, pressure, reflection and action—not simply through a person’s title.
• The Braves Protocol — the first book in a planned trilogy blending leadership, loyalty, identity and survival within a high-stakes environment. The manuscript is currently in development.
• Trigger of Focus — a developing follow-up concept connected to The Breach Index, exploring how extreme pressure can fracture attention in one person while triggering extraordinary focus in another.

Although these books cross fiction, leadership, psychology and philosophy, they are connected by the same underlying interest: what happens to human beings when the systems around them can no longer fully understand, protect, or measure them.

The next stage is to build ELE Human Systems, my consultancy powered by Existential Leadership Engineering. ELE brings together work I’ve been developing since 2007 through writing, leadership, professional practice, mental-health advocacy, running, personal data, observation and original framework development.

The consultancy will focus on identifying the human value and capacity that conventional systems frequently miss. That includes leadership and organizational diagnostics, individual coaching, team development and the continued development of the Employee Value Score, or EVS. EVS is intended to help reveal contribution, potential and contextual value that traditional scorecards may overlook. It remains a developing framework and would require responsible pilots, ethical safeguards and independent validation before being used in formal decision-making.

The largest and most unconventional part of my future involves the academic direction of the work. In many ways, I have spent years independently constructing what I believe has become a PhD-level body of inquiry. I don’t claim to possess a doctorate or an institutionally awarded credential. What I have created is the research foundation I’d want to bring into that process.

That foundation includes completed manuscripts, original frameworks, evidence portfolios, leadership applications, the Thought-to-Image concept, Miles 2 Meaning, Wellness Wednesday, long-term trackers and years of documented observations about identity, consciousness, pressure, continuity and hidden human value.

My goal is to find a credible path for this work to be examined, challenged and validated. That could involve a flexible or practice-based doctoral program, an academic partnership, independent researchers or a university willing to evaluate a substantial body of work that began outside a traditional institution.
Because I’m also a husband and father with significant family responsibilities, any formal doctoral pathway would need to allow me to remain at home and present for my family. I believe there may be others facing the same challenge—people capable of meaningful research who cannot simply leave their families, careers and responsibilities behind to follow the conventional academic route. If someone reading this understands that world or sees a possible pathway, I would genuinely welcome the conversation.

I am not asking people to accept my ideas without evidence. I am asking for the opportunity to place the work in front of the right people so it can be tested, questioned, strengthened and, if warranted, validated.

What excites me most is that these are no longer isolated projects. The books, ELE, the consultancy, mental-health advocacy and independent research are becoming one connected body of work.

Devonteeple.com is the first public doorway into everything I am building next.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Devonteeple.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devonteeple
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@devonteeplethegmsperspective?si=v7Vq2UhvPQxI15TD