Skip Sams Coaching

10/26/2026

What does it take to live with integrity in every area of your life?

For five days, I’m bringing together five voices on that question.

From November 2-6, I’m hosting the Gay Men of Integrity Masterclass Series, a free, virtual, five-day event built around one idea: being the same man in every room.

Five presentations. Five perspectives on integrity, authenticity, self-leadership, and living with consistency.

Register free:

A free five-day virtual masterclass series for gay men who want their lives to reflect their values not other people's expectations.

09/21/2026

What is happening in Turkey, arresting LGBTQ people and supporters to "protect family values," could very well happen here in the USA. Many people in our government would love to see the LGBTQ community back in the closet and their rights diminished.

Religion is not the problem here. It is the people that use religion to justify their own hate and prejudice that is the problem. Have you read Project 2025 written by the Heritage Foundation? Do you see how much of their agenda is being put into action?

Project 2025 is real — an 887-page policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation in 2023, laying out plans for a conservative administration. Its proposals affect the entire LGBTQ community: eliminating sexual orientation and gender identity protections in employment and education, restricting federal marriage-education grants to groups that define marriage as only between a man and a woman, letting adoption and foster agencies turn away same-sex couples by redefining "family" as strictly biological parents, along with restricting Title IX for trans and gay students, removing gender markers, and rolling back military protections for trans troops.

It is verifiable that roughly half the overall Project 2025 agenda had been enacted by the Trump administration as of late 2025. On the LGBTQ-specific items, that overlap is substantial and verifiable — actions taken include purging LGBTQ references from federal health agency sites, NIH canceling ~$800M in LGBTQ-health research grants, the Pentagon moving to discharge trans service members.

Turkey's justification is framed as protecting "children, the family and public order," tied to Erdoğan's "Decade of Family and Population" initiative and 2025 "Year of the Family," which specifically discourages use of the terms "gender," "sexual orientation," and "gender identity" in official life. Officials present LGBTQ rights as "incompatible with the traditional family," linked to demographic/birth-rate anxiety.

Project 2025's language calls for eliminating "SOGI" (sexual orientation and gender identity) terminology from all federal rules and regulations, defines family as strictly the biological "mother and father" model, and restricts federal marriage/family programs to groups that reaffirm that framework.

This isn't a debate about religious beliefs. These are factual parallels, and they should alarm everyone in the LGBTQ community and our allies.

Courts in Ankara and Mersin jailed 32 more people pending trial on Tuesday in cases conducted under Turkey’s “My Family Is Safe” operation, raising the confirmed nationwide total to at least 53 as 15 other people in Ankara awaited court decisions. Five trans women were jailed in Ankara after p...

09/03/2026

One of the questions at the heart of Gay Men of Integrity is this: Who do we choose to be when other people meet us with hatred, contempt, or rejection? It is relatively easy to talk about integrity when we are surrounded by people who affirm us. The harder test comes when someone is trying to provoke us into becoming someone we do not want to be. That is why I am sharing this song today.

“I Will Choose to Love” by Ray Boltz has been one of those songs that has stayed with me for years. Ray is a multi-platinum Christian artist and Dove Award winner who later came out as gay, and his album True is one I have probably listened to more than 100 times. Today, this particular song feels especially relevant to what we talk about here in Gay Men of Integrity.

Recently, I boosted a post from my Gay Pride Music page to share the Gay Men of Integrity Leadership Summit. Instead of simply reaching people who might be interested in the summit, the post was apparently placed in front of hundreds of people who responded with hostility, cruelty, and hate toward gay people.

There are now nearly 500 hate "comments" on that post. I have intentionally left them up because I think it is important for us to see that this kind of hatred still exists. We sometimes hear that things are better now, that LGBTQ+ people have achieved equality, or that this kind of hostility belongs to another time. Clearly, it does not.

There is a frustrating Meta story attached to all of this. Meta is trying to charge me $250 for the “engagement” those comments generated. I have only been able to communicate with its AI system, which itself acknowledged that the seriousness of the situation warranted human review, yet I cannot reach a human because my advertising account is blocked until I pay the charge.

I also discovered that I can apparently pay $149 a month for a Meta business subscription that would give me access to a person. There is som**hing deeply troubling about a system that can amplify hate, count that hate as paid engagement, and then make human support another product to purchase.

But that is not really why I am sharing this here. What interests me more is the question of who we choose to be when we encounter hatred, rejection, or contempt. Integrity is not only about being authentic when we are surrounded by people who understand us. It is also about remaining connected to who we are when someone else is trying to provoke us into becoming som**hing else.

To the people who left those nearly 500 hateful messages, I will say this: I will choose to love. Not because what you said was acceptable, not because I am pretending it did not hurt, and not because choosing love means remaining silent or refusing to confront hatred. I choose love because I refuse to allow your hatred to decide who I become.

That, for me, is part of what it means to be the same man in every room. I can speak clearly about what is wrong, defend myself and my community, hold people accountable, and still decide what kind of man I want to be.

Today, Ray Boltz says it better than I can. I will choose to love.
The addition of “That, for me, is part of what it means to be the same man in every room” makes this distinctly a Gay Men of Integrity post rather than simply reposting what you put on Gay Pride Music.

Ray's new video

08/21/2026

Sometimes the audience tells you som**hing you weren't expecting.

That's what happened after the Gay Men of Integrity Leadership Summit. The volume and depth of the response — from attendees, from people forwarding it to friends and colleagues — made one thing clear: this wasn't just an event, it struck a nerve.

So we're bringing it back for an Encore Presentation, Aug 21–23. Nine fireside conversations on leadership, identity, and what it actually takes to lead with integrity — unfiltered, and honestly rare to hear people talk this openly about it.

If the first run passed you by, this is the moment to see what everyone's been talking about.

A free five-day virtual summit for gay men who want their lives to reflect their values not other people's expectations.

08/13/2026

This is one of my busiest weeks of this past year as I am producing a summit this week. Yet, I had to take the day yesterday to go help free the last of the 155 beagles from Ridglan Farms. It has been quite the journey the last few months, first working with activists at www.savethedogs.io to bring this to the worlds attention. Then starting in May, volunteering for Big Dog Ranch Rescue to start to bring these dogs out of the cruel environment they were born into with inhumane conditions, waiting to be next to be used for animal testing. When you have been able to hold literally hundreds of these beautiful animals, you wonder, how could anyone do such horrible things, like surgery without anesthetics on these dogs. I'm glad to say the last of the 2200 beagles have been freed and Ridglan Farms is closed for good.

08/12/2026

Si many beagle puppies! They found freedom today.

08/11/2026

Yesterday was about leading out loud. Today is about leading ourselves by going deeper within. Today's conversations:

Rick Clemons — Gay Midlife: The BS Stops Here

Christian de la Huerta — Proudly Authentic: Living Heroically Beyond Pride Month

Up for 24 hours only — watch today.

Check your email, if it isn't in your inbox, check spam and promotional folders. The subject line is GMI Summit Day 2 and is coming from skip+[email protected]

08/10/2026

Register for free:
www.GayMenOfIntegrity.com

01/05/2026

It’s the New Year. You have so many wonderful ideas — changes to make, projects to complete, goals to achieve.

And somehow, instead of clarity, it becomes overwhelming.
Not because you’re unmotivated.

But because everything feels possible — and choosing one direction feels risky.

When everything feels possible, clarity doesn’t come from thinking harder — it comes from choosing.

That’s why I’m hosting a live, 3-hour Zoom workshop this Saturday:
Choose a Clear Direction for 2026
Align your goals with who you’re becoming — without overthinking or regret.

This isn’t about setting more goals or pushing yourself harder.
It’s about making a clear choice about who you’re becoming — and letting that choice guide the creative decisions you make in your life, your work, and your art.

📅 Saturday, January 10, 2026
🕛 12:00 PM Central | 18:00 London

If you’re ready to stop circling and start moving with clarity, you’re invited.

👉

A 3-hour Vision & Planning session to help you start moving and building momentum

12/23/2025

Too many ideas… and still no motion?
One of the most common places I see creative people get stuck (myself included) isn’t a lack of ideas.
It’s having too many.

So many possibilities. So many directions. So many things you could do—each one carrying the hope that this might finally be the one that changes everything.

And that’s usually where the freeze begins.
Instead of starting, we try to decide.
Instead of moving, we look for clarity.
Instead of action, we wait for certainty.

But often, that decision-making process quietly becomes the distraction.

Underneath it isn’t strategy—it’s fear.
Fear of choosing the wrong thing.
Fear that if this doesn’t work… maybe nothing will.

So the thought creeps in:
This has to be the one that changes everything.
And then—nothing starts.

And if nothing starts, nothing gets finished.

Here’s the reframe that keeps saving me:
When you allow yourself to do som**hing simply for the sake of doing it—even imperfectly—you create learning, growth, and momentum. Not because you got it right… but because you stayed in motion.

Motion builds momentum.

The question then becomes:
How can I afford not to do the thing at all?
Because progress doesn’t come from picking the perfect idea.
It comes from choosing one—and letting the process teach you what’s next.

If this resonates, you might want to save Saturday, January 3.
I’ll be hosting a workshop to help get clear on what actually deserves your focus in 2026—details coming soon.

Courageously Creative,
Skip