Some people have a hard time understanding who I am because I seem to be a mixture of contradictory traits. I’m philosophical yet pragmatic; compassionate yet disciplined; creative yet analytical; driven yet laid back; happy but calm. These complexities come through in the content I share, so if it throws you off, you wouldn’t be the first to wonder what’s going on.
I’m out to help people thrive by using their creativity and energy in ways that help themselves, those around them, and the world at large. While that seems fairly ambitious, the way we do this is by continually making small steps in the right direction – at a certain point, we look up and the thousand miles are behind us. We build a better future step by step and day by day, and it turns out that it’s possible to enjoy the building of that future in the present.
Who we are today is largely influenced by where we’ve come from, so you might be curious to know a little bit more about where I’m coming from.
Before I got into writing, thinking, coaching, and teaching about meaningful action, I was teaching philosophy at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln while I was completing my Ph.D. (in Philosophy) while simultaneously managing a career as a logistics officer in the Army National Guard. I’m happily married to a loving, beautiful, and brilliant woman – Angela, in case you see me refer to her in posts – so I was doing the best I could to be the husband, friend, and lover that she deserved. And then there was our house that we were remodeling…
On top of all that, I’m an incorrigible polymath – I’m constantly learning new things, which means I’ve constantly got a lot of stuff to do. My complicated, layered life was just an extension of my quest to learn and experience a bunch of new things.
Given that I learn by researching, experimenting, writing, teaching, and sharing, I decided to start helping other people become better at managing a whole bunch of stuff at once. While in the short term, I made my situation worse – after all, starting a blog/business on top of everything was just making another thing to do – in the long term, I figured out how to make my life easier and much more meaningful. It turns out that many of those same techniques and orientations will help you, too.
Today, my life is much less complicated, but by no means simpler. I spend each day doing what I love – helping people change the world by sharing ideas through this blog, designing products and programs that help people do meaningful stuff in the world, and helping individuals put some flexible structure into their lives through coaching.
That’s who I am and what I do. To learn more, well, you’ll just have to hang out for a while. I hope you do.
