If you’d like a “professional,” 3rd-person bio, please click here. Otherwise, here are some fun highlights of my life so far:
I was born in Orange County, California on May 22nd, 1974.
(Yes, I’m a Gemini.)
(Me as a baby. :) )
I’m the youngest of five kids (3 sisters and a brother!). (sweet 80’s family portrait! :) )
I was a happy little dood. Very happy.
My dad worked in a produce dept. for a grocery store (Lucky Stores!) for 39 years and retired with Union benefits.
My mom ran a day care center while I was growing up.
My knees were wider than my thighs when I was a kid. (Seriously. Not kidding.) :)
I wore sweet socks as a child. (And apparently blinked in that photo :) )
I turned a triple play in tee-ball. (Playing first base. Man on first and second. Soft line drive to me. I catch it. Step on first. Two outs. Run to tag the dood stuck between 2nd and 3rd. Three outs! Hehe. :) )
I went to Catholic school for 12 years.
I was THE smallest kid in my high school (4’11 tall, 85 lbs :) ).
I stacked fruit in geometric regulation for 5 years through high school and college.
I was a Journeyman in the United Food & Commercial Workers Union by the time I was 18.
Had something like a 4.4 in high school. (me at 17 :) )
Went to UCLA where I studied Psychology & Business. (me at 18 :) )
Graduated Phi Beta Kappa with High Honors. (1996)
First job outside of the grocery store (and TA at UCLA): Accountant at Arthur Andersen.
Nauseous the first two weeks imagining a life as an accountant. Threw up (side of the 405) driving home the first week. (Job wasn’t quite for me. :) )
I worked in 4 divisions @ Andersen in < a year (audit, tax, financial planning, biz consulting).
None inspired me so I left to go to Law School.
Would have been class of 2000 at Boalt Hall (University of California at Berkeley).
… but I dropped out before a semester was over. (Law wasn’t for me either. :) )
I burned my resume and moved back in w/my mom at 23.
She wasn’t very excited about that. (Thanks again, mom! :) )
Only thing I knew I wanted to do was to coach a Little League Baseball team.
So, I read a lot and coached a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds.
We were the Bad News Bears.
Had an idea for my first business, a big ol’ site for youth sports: eteamz.com.
Started eteamz with $5,000 and my friend and his $5,000.
Wanted to empower 1 million teams within 5 years. People thought I was crazy.
We worked (hard) in PJs for 8 months.
I read a lot of articles on Harvard Business Review’s site.
And a lot of guerrilla mktg stuff + Guy Kawasaki (mktg GOD).
Won UCLA’s Anderson School’s Biz Plan competition in 1999. (thx for your help, Gary!)
I didn’t know what a “VC” (Venture Capitalist) was when I got one of the judge’s biz cards.
Learned fast.
Raised $5m and hired 45 peeps as a 24-year old CEO during dot com boom.
Hired the eventual winner of Apprentice II (Kelly Perdew).
Hired the CEO of Adidas to replace me as CEO and become my mentor as I became President of the biz. (WSJ article on it.)
Market crashed and we hired an investment bank to sell rather than raise the next $20m then go public.
Laid off 75% of our team. Sucked. (WSJ article on it.)
Sold the biz to The Active Network in the Fall of 2000.
Moved to La Jolla to transition. Set strategy/integrated in weeks.
Left after 6 months with enough cash to spend a year or two figuring out how I was going to give myself to the world.
(eteamz now profitably serves 3 million teams and Little League uses our technology. It took me longer than I thought to figure out my next step. :) )
Became a “Philosopher” (lover of wisdom).
Traveled to the Middle East/Eastern Europe. Studied Socrates in Greece, Jesus in Jerusalem, Rumi in Konya, Turkey, and Marcus Aurelius in the Danube of Hungary.
Hung out with my g/f, Sophia, in Ephesus Turkey.
Was excited to see how Socrates, Aurelius, Nietzsche, Rand, Buddha, Lao-tzu, Rumi, Buscaglia, Seligman, Robbins, Wilber, Coelho, Millman and *everyone* seemed to be saying, in essence, the same thing.
Launched thinkArete.com where I began distilling and sharing these universal truths.
10,000 peeps signed up for my daily newsletter in the first year or so.
Spent money I had saved. Still wasn’t clear on how I was gonna make money/what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Borrowed $75,000 to finance continued discovery.
Decided I didn’t want to be a self-help guru but didn’t know what I did want.
Yikes. Debt without a clear vision can suck!
Created Zaadz to integrate my Philosopher with my CEO. (Apr 2004)
Think: MySpace/Facebook for people who want to change the world. (1st Ad/Mission)
Raised $500,000 from friends and family. (thx again: David, Jon, DK, mom, Rick/Kris & Co. :) )
Worked for a year, spent the cash. Then threw it ALL away b/c our tech sucked.
Ouch. Grimace. Pain. Eek.
Raised another $2.5m to finance the re-launch of the biz.
Investors included a billionaire and his awesome family (thx, Sam, Christiana, Cheryl and David!) and the CEO of Whole Foods (thx, John! :) ) and other amazing souls (shout out to Mr. Pearson!).
Technology worked. (Ahhhh…) (me at this stage :) )
Loved my job. Met *amazing* people and our team rocked.
Amazing peeps joined our community.
Got clear my dharma wasn’t to continue running that show. (blog from that era)
Sold biz to Gaiam (NASDAQ: GAIA) in summer of 2007 to take it to the next level.
Moved to Boulder (from LA).
Left after a couple months of transition.
(Video of me at an Aspen-Institute event called “Selling without Selling Out”—I snuck in as the Internet guy w/the CEOs of Ben & Jerry’s, Odwalla, Dagoba Chocolate, Stonyfield Farms, etc. to discuss lessons learned in selling my conscious biz to a multi-national.)
(Zaadz (now called “Gaia”) grew to 250,000+ members in Winter of 2008.)
Pulled 500 “Big Ideas” from my prior decade’s journals then threw all of my journals all away. (pic)
Did 10-day silent Vipassana meditation with Goenka.
Traveled to India/Thailand/Cambodia/Japan.
Decided to give myself a Ph.D. in Optimal Living with a specialization in Greatness and Enthusiasm.
Figured I’d get my Master’s when I’d distilled 100 of my favorite books into cool summaries.
Had “Aha!” on flight from Tokyo to LAX seeing Sky Mall ad for a biz that did summaries of biz books—“Concentrated knowledge for the busy executive.”
“Hallelujah!!” moment.
Decided I should do “Concentrated wisdom for the busy self-actualizer.”
Enter PhilosophersNotes.
Moved back to LA (cabin in Topanga: Santa Monica mountains).
Wrote PhilosophersNotes 1-40.
Moved to Bali for a little (2-4-6 month) sabbatical.
Little sabbatical turned into longish (12-18 month) sabbatical. (photos of sabbatical)
Currently living in Ubud, Bali. (me at this stage)
Writing Notes 51-100.
Giving away 1 million freebies.
Getting the biz profitable.
Leading PhilosophersNotes LIVE! discussions at local yoga studio.
Beating the sun up, meditating for an hour then yoga then journaling *every* AM.
Re-wiring my consciousness.
Love my life. Hart my job. Living my dharma. Excited to create and to serve.
Fun.
...
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
~ Apple Computers
