Joel Ojeda

Motivational Speaker · Author · Evangelist · Preacher · Founder of Hope After Loss Project · Professional MMA Referee

As a speaker, Joel draws from his personal experiences of faith, grief, perseverance, and healing to connect with audiences facing some of life's most difficult moments. His message centers on discovering hope after loss, trusting God through life's challenges, and finding purpose while carrying the love and memories of those who are no longer physically with us.

Through speaking engagements, ministry, writing, and community outreach, Joel has shared a message that has become deeply personal to him: our hardest chapters do not have to be our final chapters.

Joel is also the author of MIA: Miracle In Action — A Story of God's Grace, a deeply personal book that tells the story of his daughter Mia's life and her courageous battle with cancer. In the book, Joel takes readers inside his family's journey, sharing in detail the moments that shaped their lives — the diagnosis, the difficult days, the extraordinary moments of faith, and the experiences surrounding Mia's life and passing.

More than simply a story about loss, the book was written to honor Mia's life, share the impact she had on those around her, and tell the story of God's grace and faithfulness through some of the most difficult moments a family can face. Mia's story continues to be at the heart of Joel's message and the work he does today.

In addition to his work as an author, speaker, and advocate, Joel has spent more than a decade in the world of professional mixed martial arts.

Since 2013, he has served as a professional MMA referee, earning the nickname "The Bearded Ref" within the MMA community. His career has taken him to events around the world and to some of the highest levels of the sport, where he has been entrusted with making split-second decisions while maintaining professionalism, fairness, composure, and a commitment to athlete safety.

It was also through his MMA career that three simple words became part of Joel's identity:

"Let's do this."

What began as a phrase associated with stepping into the cage eventually came to represent something much deeper.

For Joel, "Let's do this" is a decision.

A decision to take another step when life feels impossibly heavy. A decision to keep going when you don't have all the answers. A decision to believe that grief and hope can occupy the same heart.

That philosophy is now woven into the heart of Hope After Loss Project.

Hope After Loss Project wasn't born from a business plan.

It was born from a father's grief.

After losing his two-year-old daughter, Mia, to cancer in 2018, Joel found himself learning how to live in a world that continued moving even though his own world had changed forever. There were days filled with questions, anger, heartbreak, faith, and the simple struggle of figuring out how to take the next step.

Over time, Joel began to understand that healing wasn't about "getting over" Mia or leaving her behind. It wasn't about reaching a point where grief disappeared.

It was about learning how to carry his love for Mia while allowing hope, purpose, faith, and even joy to have a place in his life again.

Through his own grief journey, his faith, his work with families affected by childhood cancer, his writing, and the countless conversations he had with people carrying losses of their own, Joel began to recognize something:

Grieving people need more than someone telling them to move on. They need people willing to walk beside them.

That realization became the foundation for Hope After Loss Project.

Joel created HALP to offer the kind of space he believes grieving people deserve — a place where their story matters, where grief isn't rushed or judged, where difficult emotions can be acknowledged, and where people can discover that moving forward does not mean leaving behind the person they love.

Hope After Loss Project grew from Joel's belief that grief and hope can exist in the same heart.

Today, that belief is at the center of the eleven-week journey: helping people understand their grief, honor their story, carry their love forward, rediscover hope, and begin taking courageous steps toward the life still ahead of them.

Today, Joel continues his work through speaking, ministry, writing, community outreach, and Hope After Loss Project — walking beside others as they navigate loss and encouraging them to honor their story, carry their love forward, rediscover hope, and take their next courageous step.

Joel doesn't stand at the finish line telling others how to get there.

He walks beside them.

One courageous step at a time.

Let's do this.