When Chris Thedford graduates from 4:13 Strong on August 20, he’ll receive the jacket he has been picturing for months.
For Chris, that jacket represents much more than completing a program. It represents finishing something he once might have walked away from.
“I pictured that the whole time,” Chris said. “That’s what I was striving to get. I want that jacket.”
Today, Chris has been working at Western Express for four months, building his skills as a mechanic and earning the trust of his employer. He talks enthusiastically about oil changes, tires, inspections, productivity standards and efficiency ratings. He has learned how to complete jobs faster and move directly to the next assignment, and recently saw his name highlighted among employees who had shown improvement.
“That was my biggest goal, was to get on that paper,” he said.
It’s a significant change for a man who entered 4:13 Strong with a very different approach to work.
Before the program, Chris said he struggled to stay at jobs for long. Being late didn’t seem like a major problem because he figured he could always find another job or another way to make money.
“I didn’t stay on one job,” Chris said. “It’d be like, okay, well, I only had that job for a month or two.”
Today, he sees work differently.
“Being at work on time each day and everything really helps you improve,” he said. “The things that we slacked on earlier, before the program, like time management, learning how to just show up and show everything that you have, the attitude and that effort.”
Those two words, attitude and effort, were introduced to Chris during Mental Toughness Week.
At first, he wasn’t convinced.
“It was just like, okay, I gotta make it seem like I want to be here,” he remembered. “Kind of faking it to make it.”
But something began to change.
Chris started seeing 4:13 Strong’s core values, Trust the Process, Break the Mold, Be Brave and Never Give Up, not simply as words he was expected to remember, but as principles that applied directly to his life.
Trust the Process became especially important.
Chris was accustomed to knowing where he was going and what the outcome would be. At 4:13 Strong, he had to move forward without knowing exactly what was ahead.
“Walking into a playing field that I didn’t know, none of the plays,” he said. “I didn’t know what was actually going to be the outcome if I do finish this.”
That uncertainty also deepened his faith.
“It really just pushed me closer to my relationship with God,” Chris said. “Really just learning that, you know, trusting in Him and believing in Him, that a better outcome will come about.”
Chris had spent years relying primarily on himself. Looking back, he recognized a pattern.
“Every time I trusted myself, I always ended up back in the same position I was always in and never really grown from what I went through.”
This wasn’t the first time Chris had been presented with an opportunity to change direction.
After leaving prison in 2021, he had been accepted into another residential program. When he learned about its rules, restrictions and curfew, he decided it wasn’t for him.
Years later, when 4:13 Strong became an option, the circumstances were different. Chris knew what returning to jail meant, and he knew he didn’t want to go back.
So this time, he decided to try.
And then he decided to stay.
During Mental Toughness Week, receiving his certificate gave Chris his first tangible sense that he could finish something difficult. Later, he watched other 4:13 Strong men graduate and receive their jackets.
He began picturing himself standing in their place.
The words of “See It Through,” the poem every participant memorizes during Mental Toughness Week, took on new meaning. Chris had a finish line.
“My finish line was running towards that jacket,” he said. “Grabbing that jacket and being able to say that I accomplished something by pushing myself.”
The accomplishment means even more because Chris knows what it feels like to drift.
“I drifted the whole time while I was in high school,” he said.
This time, he didn’t drift.
He kept going.
“Giving up is not in my vocabulary at all,” Chris said. “Going through the struggle, enduring the struggle by itself, those things made me realize that I had the strength to continue to keep pushing forward.”
That perseverance is now showing up at Western Express.
Chris is not only meeting the demands of his job; he’s thinking about what comes next. He wants to continue developing his mechanical skills, eventually do mobile mechanic work on the side, and pursue his CDL so he can both work on trucks and drive them.
Graduation, then, isn’t Chris’s finish line.
It’s another starting point.
“The goal is to continue working, continue building myself up as a man and being better,” he said.
And part of that future involves coming back.
Chris wants to invest in men coming through future 4:13 Strong cohorts, particularly those who are struggling, thinking about giving up or simply drifting through the program.
“I’m not just saying, ‘Oh, hey, I got my jacket. I’m done with the program,’” he said. “More of giving back to the program because they gave so much to me.”
He also wants to become a mentor to younger men in his life. He has already begun thinking about spending intentional time with his nephew and his friends’ sons, taking them places, talking with them, expanding their view of what life can be.
Chris knows firsthand what is at stake.
There was a time when his mother lived with the uncertainty of not knowing where he was or what he was doing.
“My mom used to just sit up, pray and just be by the phone because she didn’t know where I was at,” he said.
Chris understood what that could eventually mean.
“I don’t want my mom to answer that phone and have them come identify the body,” he said. “That was my biggest fear.”
Now, instead of waiting by the phone, Chris’s mother is preparing to watch her son graduate.
She’ll be joined by family, friends and others who have watched his journey. Chris hopes representatives from Western Express will be there too.
And when Chris puts on the jacket he has been working toward for months, it will represent something much larger than graduation.
It will represent a man who learned to show up.
A man who learned to trust the process.
A man who discovered he could endure hard things without giving up.
And a man who now wants to help those coming behind him do the same.
“It’s the biggest blessing I’ve ever had,” Chris said. “It just shows that I had the willpower to finish something instead of just giving up.”
August 18, 2026