Begin at Provident Hospital in Baltimore. Avery is born prematurely to teenage parents and spends more than a month there before coming home. Around him is a family learning responsibility early. Long before leadership has a name in his life, other people are carrying the weight of keeping him here.
Chapter 1 · Provident Beginnings
01 — Baltimore
The people who kept showing up
Beyond that first room are Providence Baptist Church, days working alongside his father, and a classroom he will have to repeat. The pull of the streets is real. So are the people placing faith, work, and attention between a boy and the paths opening around him. Something is taking root.
Who was making room for you before you knew it?
02 — The Navy
The decision before the confidence
Before the uniform
A friend says he is joining the Navy. Avery says he is going too. There is one problem: he cannot swim. Before departure, a local pool becomes his first place of preparation. He keeps returning to the water, facing a weakness that determination alone cannot explain away or overcome.
Chapter 2 · Jump Anyway
02 — The Navy
A different kind of classroom
He learns before shipping out. Then come Great Lakes, inspections, commands, and the daily work of meeting a standard. Naval communications training puts him in another classroom with another chance to learn. The school record he carries from Baltimore is still part of his story. How much of the next chapter must it decide?
What would you begin before you felt ready?
03 — Hawaii & home
When duty came home
Farther from everything familiar
The orders say Hawaii. Avery had asked for Norfolk, closer to Baltimore, but the Navy sends him thousands of miles farther from home. Communications work gives him room to grow. Marriage brings another responsibility into that distant assignment: building a life with Allyson, far from the family support they have known.
Chapters 3–4 · Different Soil / Leading Through the Fog
03 — Hawaii & home
A different measure of duty
When fatherhood arrives, the next assignment becomes a question about care, distance, and the people depending on him. A promising career cannot answer it alone. Returning home will mean leaving the Navy without a complete plan. The choice reaches beyond where he will work; it changes what he must learn to carry.
What must the next opportunity make room for?
04 — Industry & the Pentagon
The mission could not wait
The work between assignments
Public service continues through a contractor’s badge. One assignment takes Avery from Maryland to Norfolk at 3:30 on Monday mornings, then home again on Fridays. Strong work does not make a contract permanent. Around each change are a family, a team, and people whose next step depends on decisions made elsewhere.
Chapters 5–6 · When the Contract Changed the Room / The Room Where the Mission Could Not Stop
04 — Industry & the Pentagon
Inside the mission
Those lessons travel with him to the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. On arrival, a major support contract is changing hands and experienced staff are leaving. The mission still needs its information, communications, and people connected. There is little room for a gradual beginning. What does a new leader owe a room already under pressure?
How do you earn trust while the work continues?
05 — DISA & Europe
A seat is only the beginning
Begin again at the table
At DISA headquarters, Avery arrives with experience the new organization has not lived alongside him. An organizational chart offers several possible paths. A vacant governance role catches his attention. Around that table, a decision can travel far beyond the people making it—to the teams expected to operate, sustain, and trust what comes next.
Chapters 7–8 · The Room I Had to Earn / Trusted at the Edge
05 — DISA & Europe
Where the plan meets the field
Then the setting changes to Stuttgart, Germany. Headquarters plans now meet commanders, allied partners, and teams working under real operational pressure. Turnover is high; continuity is thin. A framework that makes sense in a briefing must earn confidence where people depend on it. How does someone help capable leaders move together without taking away their ownership?
What changes when people must live with your decisions?
06 — The gym
A different kind of leadership
Familiar ground in a new country
After the workday in Germany, another room matters. Avery and his son Ashton return to the gym for ball handling, footwork, and shooting practice. In a new country, this is work they recognize together. Across the court, another father is training his sons. A conversation begins around what the boys could become.
Chapter 9 · The Gym Became Our Safe Haven
06 — The gym
More than a game
The Stuttgart Eagles’ youth team has dissolved. The boys still have ability and a desire to play, but a program needs more than players. Expectations, fundamentals, and trust must be built before they enter unfamiliar gyms together. Avery is coaching young men while still learning about fatherhood. The scoreboard will not tell the whole story.
Where are you being formed while helping someone else grow?
07 — Public responsibility
What the title cannot carry
A mission with people inside it
Avery’s first day at the U.S. Marshals Service coincides with a funeral for a deputy killed in the line of duty. The mission has a family behind it. Later, at the Capitol Police, urgent priorities compete for the attention of an exhausted organization. More work alone cannot answer what these rooms require.
Chapters 10–13
07 — Public responsibility
Every minute belongs to someone
At HHS, the executive title brings a wider table. Thirty-seven senior executives gather, each responsible for part of an employee’s experience. A new colleague can be ready to serve while still waiting for tools, access, or support. Those delays reach the mission. Avery must look beyond his own office to understand what the whole room is carrying.
Whose ability to serve depends on the choices you make?
08 — Beyond the title
When the office door closes
The last day in the office
An opportunity for early retirement turns a long-held idea into a real choice. On his last day at HHS, Avery sits down to write to his team. Much of the office is already packed. This departure leads beyond government service, toward a room without the familiar institution and responsibilities arranged around him.
Final Chapter · Service Beyond the Title
08 — Beyond the title
A room he has to build
The Muse Group begins with experience, relationships, and work still to be done. There is no guaranteed paycheck on the other side of the door. Every opportunity now asks him to judge what his name and service should stand for. The story turns toward a question larger than the next title: who can move forward because of what he carries?
What would you carry into a room you had to build?
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Photographs from the memoir & Avery’s collection
The people. The private moments. The life behind the title.
Life in photographs.
Explore the people, places, and moments behind the story.
Avery Q. Muse, Sr. is an author, entrepreneur, U.S. Navy veteran, former Senior Executive Service leader, and Founder and CEO of The Muse Group.
His career spans national defense, federal law enforcement, the legislative branch, public health, and enterprise technology leadership, including service with the Joint Staff, DISA, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Capitol Police, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
He is also the founder of Muse Leadership Press. Beyond his professional roles, Muse is a husband, father, grandfather, mentor, coach, and man of faith. He and his wife, Allyson, live in Maryland.
“Public service does not end when you leave government.”
