James Hanyu Smith
Founder & CEO, LeoScorpioLeo
“Look Good. Feel Good. Do Good.”
Roots Before Branches • Reclaim, Don’t Replace • Grow Toward the Light • Bind to Your Network • Bloom Is Not Optional
A Letter From the Founder
If you own a LeoScorpioLeo shirt, are thinking about buying one, or just found us scrolling — thank you for being here. I want to tell you the truth about where I’m actually writing this from, because Radical Honesty is one of our core values, and it wouldn’t feel right to sell you an idea I’m not living myself.
I did not start this brand from a home office. Here’s where I actually started it.
The week before Thanksgiving, in the middle of a management shake-up at the company where I worked as a maintenance technician, I was let go. Not exactly the holiday news I was hoping for. I spent the months after that looking for the next opportunity — applying, interviewing, waiting.
Then, four days before Valentine’s Day, our water heater burst and flooded our basement. Insurance moved my family into a hotel down the street from our house while contractors rebuild — a nice one, as hotels go, a Home2 by Hilton near the Colorado Springs airport. I started calling it “the HOmeTEL,” because five months later, it’s still where we live, and we’re projected to be here until sometime in the middle of August.
In the middle of all of that, on February 27, I decided to go back to school for a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. I’m also studying for my real estate license. I’m doing both full-time, while job-hunting, while living on unemployment, and while building LeoScorpioLeo out of a hotel room.
None of that is even the hardest part. The hardest part is who I’m doing it for. My wife and I share our home — our hotel room, for now — with our two teenage kids and my wife’s parents. My wife has her own health to manage this year, and I try to show up for that however she needs. Her parents need a good amount of day-to-day help, and I try to show up for that too. And our two kids, both teenagers I’ve had the privilege of adopting, carry more history than any teenager should have to carry, and deserve a father who’s fully present for it — which is its own full-time job. I’m not going to share more than that about the people I love. Their stories are theirs to tell, not mine to publish. But I wanted you to know the actual shape of what I’m carrying, because LeoScorpioLeo isn’t a side project being built in spare time. It’s being built inside the busiest, hardest season of my life, on purpose, because I believe in it.
This page is my accountability check-in: what LeoScorpioLeo believes, where I actually am today, and where I’m headed. No spin, no smoke. Just the truth, the way I’d want it told to me.
— James Hanyu Smith, Founder & CEO
Who I Am
“LeoScorpioLeo exists to empower individuals to look good, feel good, and do good — by providing apparel, media, wellness products, and community rooted in the Overgrowth philosophy: one force behind every kind of growth, wearing a different name every time. LSL is the brand for people who are actively becoming the best version of themselves.”
I’m building a Colorado-based apparel brand around a simple idea: what you wear, what you watch, who you spend time with, and how you take care of your body and mind are not separate decisions. They’re one system for building a life you’re proud of. Every shirt I make is designed to help you look good — because looking good helps you feel good, and feeling good makes it easier to go out and do good. I built LeoScorpioLeo because the world has no shortage of reasons to feel hopeless right now, and not nearly enough reminders that hope is still a choice worth making.
The Overgrowth Philosophy
Vines don’t fight the wall. They grow through it, and eventually the wall doesn’t matter anymore. There’s one force behind every kind of growth — traditional medicine calls it Qi, physics calls it quantum resonance, astrology (the same lens that named this brand) calls it your chart, vines just call it growing toward the light. I call it Life, and it’s the same thing every time, wearing a different name. Everything I make is filtered through five tenets, developed over more than twelve years of my own life and study:
| Tenet | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Roots Before Branches | Build the foundation before you chase what shows. |
| Reclaim, Don’t Replace | What broke you is material, not waste — growth works with it, not around it. |
| Grow Toward the Light | Direction matters more than speed. |
| Bind to Your Network | Nothing strong grows alone — roots share strength underground before anything blooms above it. |
| Bloom Is Not Optional | Growth that never flowers isn’t finished growing. |
This isn’t a slogan. It’s a system, and it’s the same system behind every design in my catalog.
My Story
Before LeoScorpioLeo, I worked nearly every kind of job there is — counselor, salesman, delivery driver, museum clerk, bus driver, resort housekeeping, camp counselor, call center, projectionist, CNA, plant operator, plumber’s apprentice. By 2018, on paper, I was “unhireable.” Not for lack of ability — because a resume built on survival instead of stability doesn’t get callbacks.
So I became a long-haul truck driver. Five years, half a million miles. I called the cab “the convent” — small, isolated, and the place where I was quietly remade, one podcast at a time. Somewhere around the thousandth hour of listening to people describe how they rebuilt their lives, I stopped hearing different stories. I started hearing the same one thing, over and over, in different clothes — something growing toward the light no matter what stood in the way. That pattern became the Overgrowth philosophy.
“You were never the concrete. The concrete is just what got poured over you — by hard years, by people who misjudged you, by your own fear. Somewhere underneath all of it, something is still growing toward the light. Overgrowth is not a program for becoming someone new. It is what happens when you stop fighting the crack and let something grow through it.”
— from Overgrowth (in progress)
That belief — that people are always more important than things, and that those who keep moving forward with faith and a happy spirit find that things work out — is the whole reason this brand exists.
Where I Stand Today
Here’s the honest state of LeoScorpioLeo, as of July 2026:
The store is live. LeoScorpioLeo.com is open and taking orders today.
My catalog is real and growing fast. I’ve built a design system of nearly 1,200 planned designs, organized into collections including Live a Little More, Astrology, Chakra, Emotional Support, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and more — each one built to help you look good, feel good, and do good.
I’m pushing toward 100 shirts live by August 12, 2026 — a goal I set for my own birthday, with the designs already finished and waiting to go up.
I’m self-funded. Every design, every listing, every dollar of growth so far has come from my own sweat equity, not outside money.
I’ll keep updating this page as those numbers change. That’s the point of calling it an accountability report — it only means something if it stays current.
What’s Coming Next
LeoScorpioLeo isn’t just a t-shirt store. It’s the first phase of a bigger vision, built in phases so I never bite off more than I can build well:
Right now: Growing the catalog, expanding into hoodies, hats, and accessories, and building the community around the brand.
Down the road: A book, Overgrowth, sharing the full philosophy behind the brand; Overgrowth Radio, a media platform built on the same values; and a wellness product line rooted in whole-body care.
The long-term dream: Owning my own apparel manufacturing, so every shirt is made by LSL’s own hands, start to finish — not just printed through a third party.
None of this happens overnight, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. Growth is intentional — following my own Focus pillar: one course, followed until successful.
My Commitment to You
I’ll tell you the truth. About where I am, what’s working, and what isn’t.
I’ll never chase a trend over the mission. If a product doesn’t help you look good, feel good, and do good, it doesn’t get made.
I’ll keep this page current. As LeoScorpioLeo grows, this page grows with it — not a one-time press release.
How You Can Be Part of It
The simplest way to support LeoScorpioLeo is the most obvious one: wear it. Every shirt you buy funds the next design, the next collection, and the next step toward the bigger vision above.
If you ever want to support LeoScorpioLeo beyond a purchase — because you believe in the mission and want to help it grow faster — there’s a completely optional Donate option on my website. No pressure, no expectation. I built it because I believe in trying, not because I expect it, and I’ll always be grateful either way.
Thank you for reading this far, and for being part of the story. Look good. Feel good. Do good.
James Hanyu Smith
Founder & CEO, LeoScorpioLeo, Ltd.
Colorado Springs, Colorado — July 2026