Here’s the thing, life can be fun when you understand of the rules of engagement.
Like you, I am more than the sum of my attributes. I have interests and curiosities, fears and aversions, preferences and dreams. And I have only so much time to experience this planet and its many wonders.
I self-diagnosed as on the spectrum at age 42. it opened a new lens through which to understand myself. That was May 2022. Things have slowly fallen into place since then.
A few years earlier, in 2018, I opened my own business with one of my best friends making coffee in our neighborhood. Before that I spent two years writing business plans for a firm here in Portland, Oregon where I worked on more than 500 projects. I worked with fun, creative people and got to exercise my writing muscles as a cheerleader for some folks trying to get a loan or a lease. Before that I worked in a more traditional office setting in sales operations for a medical device manufacturer.
I’ve worked for start-ups and failures. I’ve worked with and for some truly amazing humans and some downright jerks. I helped write a book, revolutionized processes at every job I’ve worked, got my real estate license, moved across the country in an RV, and successfully lost over 150-pounds wholistically with no surgical intervention. I was once in the room when the locks were changed during a hostile takeover. In other words: I have seen it all. And I can help you climb whatever mountain you have before you.
I am an avid autodidact. I love reading and listening to audio books and podcasts. I have a Bachelors Degree in Political Science from the State University of New York at Albany and love photography. A few of my other favorite things include: cooking, exercising (running and riding bicycles and lifting weights), hanging out with my wife and dog, writing, drawing, and listening to music.
For a long time I didn’t feel entitled to enjoy life. There were things I knew I should enjoy. Other people enjoyed life, but I was clamping down on myself so hard to perform that all the joy was bled dry from the things I had passion about completing. I was masking. Hard. I was so worried about trying to control other people’s perceptions of me that there was no room for life to flow. Everything is an exchange of energy, and you can’t channel good energy if there is no flow.
I have applied the voracious appetite of my brain to learning about autism and the spectrum of neurodiversity and felt the world shift around me as I recognize more and more of us out there. Wow. We are beautiful.
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