Founder Bio

Relating to others is not only a powerful crucible for personal growth but our most important and omnipresent activity in life. Relationships virtually define human life, as our interrelatedness is what makes life both possible and worth living. The quality and conduct of our relationships fill the entire range from loving and nourishing to damaging and even dangerous. Connecting with others is what we both covet and fear most. Quite a vessel for growth, indeed.

So naturally the relationships in my life have offered countless opportunities for deep learning. I will relate some of these experiences in On Just Being when a story is particularly meaningful to my pursuit. I will also respect the privacy of others, and my own as well, and be judicious about what I pass along. Some basics:

I am the second of six siblings, three brothers and three sisters, all from the same parents who remained married till death did they part, Dad in 1999, Mom in 2006. My birth family has always been a source of strength and comfort, notwithstanding inevitable family misfortunes, difficulties and disagreements. We siblings remain close to this day. I am extremely fortunate in this arena of life. 

I am married and have one adult daughter from a former marriage, the person on this earth I am most deeply bonded to. I also have two adult stepchildren with whom I am very close. All three of our children are happily married to spouses I admire and cherish. Each couple has two kids – six grandchildren! Aged two to twelve years old as I write in late 2021, they are a source of joy and amazement too profound to adequately express in a few words. My cup truly runneth over in my family life, and I count my blessings for that every day.

I had a son from my first marriage who died in an accident in 2002 at the age of 34. I also lost a step-daughter in an accident in 1992 at the age of 19. The losses of these two truly exceptional young adult children were, needless to say, devastating, and they remain deeply painful. And while both of these deaths were occasions, in fact demands, for accelerated personal growth, I would obviously give them back in a heartbeat. There are many ways to grow that do not involve such profound suffering. But when such tragedy does strike, you either open up or you close down. That’s the choice. Maintaining status quo is off the table.

Key engagements from my professional career include:

• Commercial products marketing manager for an aerospace company in Los Angeles, my first job after graduating from UCLA in 1968.
• Wall Street-trained, NYSE-licensed stockbroker in downtown Los Angeles in my early 20s.
• Account manager for a well-known medium-size advertising agency, then co-founder of a boutique ad agency, in my mid-20s, both in LA.
• Manager of a regional ballet company in Santa Barbara for eight months in my early 30s, guiding the dance troupe and school out of a pending bankruptcy and mounting a successful California performance tour.
• Helped start a community radio station in the Sierra Nevada foothills in my late 30s, where I also hosted several radio shows including a weekly one-hour live interview program called “World Views” that ran for three years.
• Co-founded and directed a rural hospice in northern California redwood country in my late-40s/early-50s.
• Wrote and produced fundraising proposals for a number of nonprofits, including an NGO serving rural farmers and women-owned village banks in Central America.
• Marketing director for a producer and mail-order catalog of children’s music in northern California.
• Marketing executive roles in several entrepreneurial technology ventures, including an upstart automobile company, a developer of a new technology for oil well logging, and a wireless telecommunications equipment maker.
• Closed out my career with 10 years in marketing management in the solar energy industry, mostly in the Bay Area, including owning and managing an ad agency dedicated to renewable energy clients.

A plethora of other stops populate the pathways of my career as well. I feel fortunate to have played key roles in a wide variety of ventures and to have worked with talented, dedicated people from many backgrounds and cultures.

My business career contributed to my quest for self-knowledge in important ways. First, this is true of any and all life events, as each and every experience can be a learning vehicle and testing ground for growth if one is so directed. In particular, reporting to a supervisor, managing people, and working with teams provided ongoing opportunities to develop invaluable skills in listening, communicating effectively, and cooperating.

In the expandable section below, I offer some additional insights about how my primary professional skill, copywriting, has contributed to my personal writing effort. And I briefly expound on how journaling and writing has infused my process of seeking self-knowledge.

My professional work recurrently involved writing – everything from ads, brochures, press releases and websites to research reports, articles, proposals and business plans.

Business writing is often regarded as rather pedestrian in comparison to ‘real writing’ like novels, poetry or journalism. And perhaps it is. But it is nonetheless exacting and demanding, with the dual curse/blessing of clients to please, deadlines to meet, and results to be measured by. 

I was often tasked with writing about products, services, technologies and industries that were initially unfamiliar to me, and frequently highly technical or otherwise complex. Gaining expertise in understanding, synthesizing and then effectively communicating difficult concepts and subjects proved to be of great benefit to both conducting and writing about my personal quest.

My pursuit of self-knowledge and writing about the journey have always been deeply intertwined. Innumerable times I would sit for hours at a keyboard or with a notepad, typically late at night, digesting and contemplating my experiences and explorations, thoughts and questions, discoveries and insights, and document the process in voluminous notes and writing fragments. When so moved I would strive to connect and weave these snippets of thought and language into wider perspectives and cohesive narratives, seeking interlinking patterns and a deeper understanding. 

My impulse has always been to integrate what I was learning, to continually distill material – subjects and perspectives that may have initially seemed complex, contradictory or murky – into an increasingly ‘simple knowing.’ The holy grail of simplicity has always been the lodestar of my quest. 

This contemplative writing process has been the crucible of my quest for self-knowledge for five decades. I estimate that over that span I have devoted twenty to thirty thousand hours to this activity.