Do you have a story behind your why?
I have a story of what led me here
that feels like it's the illustration
of my life's journey to this why.
I have been an actor since I was seven years old
and theater and speaking are incredibly similar.
My acting journey and this journey to what I now do
began when my mom found me in the backyard
talking to myself.
I had been playing with friends, making up a story.
We were making up our very own episode of the Brady Bunch
and kids being kids, they got bored
and went off to go to the pool
and I said, okay, I'll meet you there later.
I'm gonna finish the story.
My mom walks into our garage in the backyard
and instead of saying, what are you doing?
Stop that.
She said, what are you doing?
And I said, I'm finishing the Brady Bunch episode.
And she immediately took me to an acting class
and theater like speaking, like many things in the world
has a light side to it and a dark side to it.
The darker side often feels like the movie Mean Girls.
There are older movies out there.
I think one of them is called The Understudy
where it's a very backstabbing, competitive,
scarcity driven environment and that is true.
There's a light side also.
There's a dark side and there's a light side.
In the lighter side, which I've surrounded myself with
and created myself now as an adult,
it's a community of people that are holding a mirror
up to humanity, that are incredibly creative
and that are able to be present with each other
and connected deeply in a way that most of the world isn't
and definitely was not as I was younger and growing up.
And fast forward 20 years, I was acting at night.
I was doing theater during the day
and working way too much overall.
I was an executive assistant in the Silicon Valley
here in California.
And I started feeling this call to go live
a more aligned life, but I was resisting it.
And there were real voices in the world saying,
theater, how are you gonna make money doing that?
I am making money using my theater degree.
Just in case there's anybody out there
who has people in your family.
I had no idea where it would lead at that point.
And I had a very powerful experience
in my favorite acting class ever,
where everyone was focused on me,
whereas normally you would do your acting work
with one to three other people.
Everyone was focused on me
and I kept kind of pulling myself together
and kind of putting an energetic armor in front of my heart
and that I'm fine emotional mask
on between these little sections.
And my acting instructor, Richard, stopped the exercise
and said, whatever that is that you're doing
in between the vignettes, stop doing that.
And I said, I'm not that comfortable
having everyone's eyes on me.
And he said, then you've picked a strange set
of careers for yourself.
You're an actor, a leader, a speaker.
Part of you knows you're meant to be here.
And it was like, it cut through all that static,
my inner critic, my inner protectors
to the soul part of me that knew he was right.
That I'd known since I was like five years old
that I was here to do something,
to bring a vision to reality.
And I trusted him and this intimate lab studio space
that he created.
So I jumped back in and I was actively releasing
the jaw tension, the emotional I'm fine mask.
And it felt like I was on fire and I was ice
somehow at the same time.
And I believe layers and decades of protection
was melting away.
And by the time the exercise was over,
I was in tune with everyone in the room.
After the acting had stopped,
I could see and feel what kind of emotional state
they were all in, what kind of day they were having.
And I now say it was my first moment of oneness
that lasted beyond the acting and that didn't happen
in the playing of a sport.
When I was in high school, I played basketball,
volleyball, softball, soccer.
You can have moments of oneness
when you're really connected to the team
and you're focused on the goal together.
This was a moment of oneness.
And I realized that in order to see others,
we have to actually allow ourselves to be seen.
We have to choose to be seen.
And some people think that charisma, AKA presence
is something that you can't put your finger on.
It starts there.
It starts by actually letting down anything
that we're consciously or unconsciously hiding behind
or protecting ourselves with.
And then from there, we can allow our energy to expand
and for people to see us and understand us and feel us.
And that's the kernel of what I want
for the people that I work with.
And it's a kernel underneath all of the work
that I do to this day.