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My story begins on a small family farm started by my grandparents. While childhood had its joys, it also came with some tough experiences. My mother battled severe mental illness stemming from her own childhood trauma. Her struggle meant frequent, extended stays in psychiatric hospitals, making it difficult for her to maintain her health and care for me and my brothers. When I was just ten, she passed away suddenly due to her mental health issues.
The pain of this loss was too immense for my young mind to process. I tucked away the trauma and found refuge in achievement. Being the best student or athlete became my escape—my drug of choice. This coping mechanism served me well through a lot of my life. I excelled in school and sports, earned admission to a top college, and ultimately found my way to Silicon Valley.
For nearly two decades, I thrived professionally in the tech world—working with early-stage startups, advising entrepreneurs, and investing in promising companies. My career culminated in becoming the President of a billion-dollar financial technology company and founding partner of the consumer investing arm of an early-stage venture capital firm. Altogether, I had been a part of 10 billion dollar startups as an employee, advisor, or investor. It was one hell of a ride!
But beneath the surface of professional success, I was a bunch of bandaids. Anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and various addictions plagued me on and off throughout these years. I had "pushed the beach ball down" on my childhood pain while desperately trying to maintain my achievement drive.
Even with intermittent therapy, I reached a breaking point. Despite financial and professional success, I was spiritually and psychologically bankrupt. I couldn't stay on the path I was on anymore.
In 2020, I made the difficult decision to renounce everything I had worked for. I stepped away from my career at its peak and within months, entered what Spanish mystic and Catholic poet St. John of the Cross termed 'The Dark Night of the Soul.' All the psychological pain I had suppressed came rushing to the surface. I slipped into one of the darkest periods of my life.
During one particularly dark moment, something extraordinary happened—a spontaneous spiritual awakening. I had an encounter with a divine presence that broke me open emotionally, helping me release years of accumulated pain. It asked for my surrender to divine will. On my knees, sobbing, I surrendered to whatever had reached through the ether to connect with me, let me know I wasn't alone, and set me on a new path.
Within a month of my spontaneous spiritual encounter, I made my way to a 45-day stay at a residential addiction recovery center, where I began working the 12-steps of addiction recovery. This was just the beginning of what became a global exploration for insights into my mystical experience and what complete psychological and spiritual healing might look like.
I tried everything: acupuncture, EMDR, high-dose guided psilocybin ceremonies, Ayahuasca in the jungles of Peru, meditation, individual therapy, group therapy, men's groups, and various lifestyle interventions with diet and nutritional supplements.
Through these experiences, I deepened my connection to the source of creation, which I believe is what reached out to me during my Dark Night of the Soul. This connection facilitated profound emotional releases that felt like an "emptying out" of old pain and my former self. It created space for an ineffable source to enter my life, guiding me toward healthier living, personal liberation, and service to others.
Today, my life is dedicated to helping others navigate their own transformative journeys. I serve on the board of Heroic Hearts Project, a non-profit providing psychedelic-assisted healing for veterans with PTSD. I work as a coach and guide with Downshift, a professional coaching company focused on helping burned-out high-achievers redefine their relationship with work, find balance, and discover deeper meaning.
I also share my experiences navigating psychological and spiritual transformation through my newsletter and provide one-on-one coaching for ambitious professionals undergoing their own midlife transformations.
My journey from achievement to awakening has taught me that true success isn't measured by professional accomplishments or financial gains, but by our willingness to gracefully mature, embody our true identity, and bring our gifts to the world from a place of wholeness and authenticity.
Through my own winding path of recovery and awakening, I've come to a fundamental understanding: there is no single method, teacher, path, or medicine that represents absolute truth when it comes to helping people heal, awaken, and transform.
I liken life to an easter egg hunt. When given the chance, we must answer the call to begin that hunt, and along the way discover whatever easter eggs we may find. In this metaphor, the easter eggs are different cultural, social, and medicinal technologies that enable us to heal and transform.
For some, healing may come through meditation, Ayurvedic medicine, or trauma-informed therapy. Others might find liberation through psychedelics, Christian mysticism, or a ketogenic diet. It doesn't matter what exact tool, method, or form these "easter eggs" take. What matters is the will and determination to change oneself, and the relentless desire to continue searching until finding one's answer, medicine, and freedom.
My purpose is to assist people on their search, providing guidance wherever I can based on my own experience and ongoing studies. I believe that each person's journey is uniquely their own, but no one should have to walk it alone.
