And among other things (adventurer, philosopher, wilderness guide; lover of mountains and metaphors and chocolate with fruit inside)...

I'm a professional storytelling and leadership coach who partners with founders, execs & creatives to 

excavate the true stories (and build the narrative skills) that move decision makers to say YES.

As an adjunct story-and-career coach at U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business (and a few other universities in North America & abroad), I also advise the business leaders of tomorrow on how to leverage the power of story within their unique career contexts.

And while I could tell you so many stories about who I am, how I got here, and where I'm going next... we'll have time for that later (I hope).

For now, though, I want to tell you the #1 thing I've come to believe in over 10+ years of helping people make "magic" with their stories, which is:

Most people will never see or understand their story for the powerful ASSET that it is. 

Think about this for a second. 

If you truly saw your story as an asset... you would never let it waste away on a high, forgotten shelf.

You wouldn't take it out and dust it off on the rare occasion when someone asks to ogle it.

As any savvy professional knows, assets are not meant to sit in a corner, gathering dust.

Assets are meant to be leveraged.

As in, put into active service of generating more and more value. 

And yet, most of us grudgingly pull out our stories only when someone asks for a 3rd person bio, or to "tell me about yourself."

About this tendency, I have two words for you:

Wasted opportunity.

Another thing I've come to believe about stories-as-assets is that the kinds of returns (/ "magical" results) one's stories can generate when leveraged effectively often exceed our ability to imagine or anticipate them in advance. 

If you ask me, this is likely due to the fact that most of us are wildly out of practice when it comes to using our imaginations.

Over time (and often by virtue of our fancy educations and pedigrees) we become much more adept at following the rules and doing things the right way, so that we have the best chance of getting whatever rewards other people imagine and offer to us. 

About this tendency, I have four words for you: 

Finite game, finite results.

If you're wondering what the "magic" thing is about, I call what I help people do "making magic" because the human brain is designed for narrative -- and this is what lends story its unique ability to change consciousness at will (a random definition of "magic" I found once on the internet).

The way I see it, if magic is the art of changing consciousness at will, then story is the most effective form of magic anyone can practice.

And yet, from my privileged position as a trusted advisor and coach, I see the same things come up over and over again to keep smart and talented people unconsciously playing a small, finite game that will only ever get them small, finite results. 

After a while, you start to get tired of repeating yourself, and you start to think "maybe it's time to put all of this into one streamlined place, where people can access it for way less than what it costs to work with me."

That's why I created the Own Your Story accelerator.

V.1 was released in 2018, and participants told me it represented "an incredible gift" and impacted their careers "immensely."

Now, I've poured my lifeblood into creating a completely expanded and updated V.2 in 2021...

With a special focus on chopping up this complex topic (/infinite playground) into tiny, bite-sized lessons and exercises that layer exquisitely on top of each other to create a satisfying whole -- like baklava, or puff pastry.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

To help jog your imagination, perhaps it might help to see a few examples of what other people have achieved through leveraging their stories: