My Story

Confucius said that we all have two lives, and that our second begins when we realize we only have one life to live. At 47, I’m in the prime of my second life.  I’ve never been more capable, more ambitious, or more grateful.  I am called to the urgent pursuit of excellence. This is my story.

I grew up on the red earth of Northern California.  I ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches with bananas, rode BMX bikes off makeshift ramps, and dreamed of being Ponch from Chips. My youth was sun baked afternoons at the river, deep friendships immersed in loud laughter and music, and a girl whose smile still enamors me like the first time.

My family life was turbulent.  My parents were conduits for generational pain. I was torn, hardened, and sharpened. Rifts of alienation separate my siblings and me, iced over by shared suffering.  I hold that suffering dear, grateful for its role in shaping who I am today – audacious, discerning, resourceful, and tenacious.

I finished high school when I was 16.  Over the ensuing five years I’d move across the country, earn my Journeyman Electrician license, build an event management business, and grow in confidence and savings as a used-car salesman. Then I traded it all in for a backpack and plane ticket to Venezuela – the most impactful decision I’ve ever made.

Over a year between 1999 and 2000, winding through South America, I squeezed in more fun, adventure, and lessons than I could have ever envisioned possible. I learned new languages, survived brushes with death, fell in love, and cultivated an affinity for the obscure.  I awakened a hunger for authenticity that I’ve not yet sated.

Although I’ve been back to my country, I’ve never truly returned to the life I lived before the fateful day I boarded that plane.  I have now spent more than half of my life abroad – from San Salvador to Chisinau, and Chengdu to Jakarta.  I have worked on four continents, graduated from an Australian university in Vietnam, stood at the feet of Venkateswara, taught children from nearly 20 different countries, and have made friends from every corner of the Earth.

I’ve worked as a consultant, teacher, ghost writer, and rock-climbing gym assistant. I played key roles in biodiesel, event management, and cryptocurrency startups; built a thriving e-commerce business in the Philippines, and launched a not-so-thriving one in Indonesia. I’ve won sustainability startup pitch competitions with ideas pinned to my bucket list.  I’ve made good money, lost it all, lived large on little, and come out richer for the experience.

In 2019 I reached a major turning point, punctuated by professional hardship that moved me in, elbow-to-elbow, with fearsome personal demons, just in time for Covid to lock us in.  Behind closed doors I broke from a decades-long love affair with the grain, grew intimate with my thoughts and pain, and crossed the chasm of the estrangement from a life that was no more. I emerged with a new vision of a life that could be, and habits to realize that vision.

Despite my eclectic occupational past, I never developed an enduring career.  I had been a rolling stone that gathered no moss.  I was financially bereft and in great need of upskilling.  So, I moved into a humble neighborhood on the foothills of Mount Merapi and taught myself to code.  I was invigorated in my learning, even as I watched my hopes for a tech career fall away with the waves of post-pandemic layoffs.

By this time I already had extensive experience in education, so after two years of study I pivoted and started an online coding school for children, teaching Python and Scratch.  I cut my teeth teaching children for free, from Poland to Ethiopia to China.  In sixteen months I’ve developed hundreds of hours of curricula, and have experimented and realigned my business model. I now teach AP Computer Science, and am developing turnkey curricular services for international schools. There is so much potential in this space, and so much to learn.

While immersed in this new enterprise, I began laying the groundwork for continued higher education.  I eventually discovered MIT’s MicroMasters courses, and was immediately drawn to its DEDP program.  Long ago, Economics was the major I had wanted to pursue before I left the US.  The prospect of learning with MIT, under such leaders as Banerjee and Duflo, in a field as intriguing as Development Economics, is an exhilarating one, and a solid counterbalance to the uncertainty of entrepreneurialism. 

And then it all came into focus… 

Here I am: I’m a middle-aged American in Central Java, reborn and writing my story.

I set myself two goals: 

1) Build a successful eLearning business.

2) Earn a Master’s Degree in Economics via the MIT MicroMasters pathway.

My commitment to these goals has awakened a leviathan of aspiration, clarifying who I am and what I want to do: 

I am a passionate connoisseur of experience and a devotee to a nameless magic that underlies existence.  I want to live boldly, mindfully, and gratefully.  I want to learn voraciously, reach for what is beyond my grasp, and be excellent in what I do. 

This site is my proclamation, my testament, and my account of these undertakings.  I invite you to join me in a shared journey for excellence.