My father is a pastor. Growing up, he taught me one thing above all: lead with service. Be with the people. Find your joy there. He has always said, “It’s about a personal relationship,” both vertically, with God, and horizontally, with each other.
As a child, I spent nights hidden under bedsheets trying to decipher texts I sensed held something essential — the Bible, illuminated manuscripts, Homer. I knew there was gold there. It took decades to understand what I was looking for.
I studied Sociocultural Anthropology at UC San Diego, graduating cum laude with the Mel Spiro Award. Anthropology taught me that most of what we think is “just how things are” is actually learned behavior — borrowed scripts we mistake for reality.
That insight sent me into the traditions. I lived for six months in Thai Buddhist monasteries learning breath-based meditation. I spent time with Sufi communities in Andalusia and the Middle East. I examined ancient manuscripts at St. Catherine’s on Mt. Sinai, and dove on a single breath to the depths of the Red Sea’s Blue Hole. Each tradition offered a different angle on the same question.
I became a freediving instructor because intellectual insight without embodiment is noise. The ocean became one of my most important teachers — it demands complete presence and doesn’t negotiate with your story.
I’ve spent years building alongside people — projects across industries, teams around the world. I learned that the problems we face aren’t usually operational. They’re formational. People don’t need better strategies. They need to remember what they actually believe — and build from that.
Like Socrates, I felt called to leave the monastery and academy for the marketplace. To practice philosophy as lived wisdom. To help people remember what’s theirs — and build it with joy.
