In college, I went from being in a fraternity to being the president of that fraternity, to saying the heck with that and becoming a nightclub DJ. Up until graduating and even for a few years after, I organized countless events, met tons of people, and hired DJs from all across the world. That experience is what got me interested in marketing, and so once I graduated, I went on to get a “real job” in digital marketing and worked in that industry for about a decade. Through all of that, I found and lost love, changed careers to become a software engineer, moved to Seattle and then back to Florida, got engaged to the most wonderful woman, quit the security of a “real job,” and decided I wanted to work for myself. And that brings me here with you, today.

During that time, I had my fair share of challenges. It was really hard growing up not knowing my biological father. And with a mother who struggled with mental health, who married and remarried no less than four times, whose boyfriends seemed to be the most important thing in her life; I always felt like an outsider, like an “other” who didn’t deserve a seat at the table.

I really struggled with feeling good enough. I really struggled with just loving and accepting myself and feeling like I was enough and that had seeped its way in to everything in my life. You see, you can't show up authentically if you're constantly battling with yourself and thats what I had been doing my whole life, just a battle between accepting myself and needing that extenal validation. I always felt the need to justify my existence.

I really struggled with my mental health for as long as I can remember. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety around the age of 16. I remember having the most intense feelings and some days feeling like I didn’t want to be alive anymore. Life was HARD. It was a burden. The more I thought about the world, the more I seemed to suffer, and the more I hated everyone and everything.

But still, somehow, I carried on. I don’t know if it was the fear of dying or the thought of how it would devastate my grandparents—probably a bit of both—but I never did anything drastic to try to end my existence. I had glimpses of happiness and experiences here and there that motivated me to keep trying. I wanted to “become someone.” I wanted to make my grandparents proud.

Living is not easy, and none of us asked to be born. None of us can control the family or circumstances into which we’re born. Not all of us have the luxury of working on our mental health, and yes, it is a luxury. That takes time, money, and support, and I oftentimes found myself angry at the world for giving me what I considered unfair circumstances. If I could just fix myself and be like the other "happy" people, everything would be okay, right? I was constantly trying to fix myself, and sometimes not in the healthiest of ways.

Through all of that struggle, grief, highs, and lows, I gained invaluable and irreplicable insight into the world and the human condition. Knowledge that can be attained only through perseverance in the face of losing everything. I've had to face the world and, even more challenging, face myself. I've had to overcome so many fears and anxieties, and I put up a great front through it all; never wanting to show the outside world how much I was really suffering, never wanting to appear weak. I'm grateful to say that I now have a much healthier understanding of what it means to be strong.

Years have gone by, and I’ve grown so much as a person. These past few years have been transformational for me. I’ve learned to love myself, and I feel so much more at peace with the world, the people in it, and the things that go on around us each day.

I’ve been able to use my empathy, passion for psychology, physics, and, statistics to develop a framework that I'm calling Energy Theory. Through the lens of this framework, things don’t seem so chaotic and as unfair as they used to. The world seems to be just the way it should be. It doesn’t seem like life could have unfolded in any other way. Could things be better? Absolutely. Do I feel bitter and upset with the state of the world? Sometimes. But in my moments of clarity and gratitude, the awe and greatness of humanity and how far we’ve come truly moves me.

I see so much potential for the world and the human beings in it now. But we’ve still got a lot of work to do. I recognize the suffering that we all endure as humans; I can see it in myself. I see the clouded vision and the ever-constant struggle to keep up in the race; I’ve run that race myself. I see the hurt, the pain, and the suffering that so many of us endure and how it makes us choose fear over love; I’ve suffered and chosen to let fear win, too.

With this heightened understanding and perspective of life comes responsibility. I want to share my understanding of the world and my gift for understanding people and their feelings to help lift the weight that drags so many of us down. I want to end unnecessary suffering and help others see what I see. I want to demystify this thing called life so that we can focus on what’s important and start to love ourselves and our neighbors. Collective actualization is attainable, and I believe it’s right within our reach.

Thank you for taking the time to learn a little more about me. I look forward to working together to make ourselves and the whole world a better place.