About

I was born to a convicted felon who sold his motorcycle and bought a lawnmower when he found out I would exist in a few months, and an immigrant disabled woman who would starve him to death, 19 years later.

To say the least, I had no idea what it was like to have support – this thing called “family” wasn’t ever terribly strong, as you might imagine. And I learned nothing useful there toward any deeper relationship with anyone else – which is to say, my friendships and relationships were even shallower.

I identified with hardship. As in, if it isn’t hard then I don’t get a reward. So I have to do everything hard. It can’t be that simple.

I -had- to be an entrepreneur at 7, selling candy bars in school to scare up grocery money. I -had- to help in the family businesses, because wtf else am I gonna do down 449 and Powerline (back then, middle of nowhere Fort Lauderdale)?

By the way, the reason you feel cringey when someone at work says “we’re a family here” – is valid. Run.

Business is my first second language, alongside Caribbean Spanglish for growing up in Florida, and British English because my mother was obsessed with … all of that. Don’t try me in Spanglish these days though – 20 years in New England didn’t leave many chances to meet Caribbeans, and my mother is Hawaiian anyway.

My first conscious foray into business was a web dev agency – but similarly, I’m not as strong on code as I used to be, mostly just CSS and bug-reading these days. I named that company after my favorite character in a book. I was 12.

It’s 1990-something and cyber-cafes are still a thing. I’m an under-the-table barista who the geeks regularly employ to distract the customers. The hot common need at the time? Getting online. At all. Like, just being able to fkn log on and browse the internet so they can even figure out how to do this “website” thing all their customers are talking about.

So I partnered with an established web dev company to handle final discussion (confirming what I said) with payments and contracts. They get 20% for answering “my” phone. And I sold the cafe customers on a package deal to support them at the cafe and walk them through building a basic site.

I dreamed of being a lead diner server, and a member of the press. I achieved both despite those beginnings out of left field. Achieved both before I knew what support could look like. What friendship, could look like – and should.

Along the way between digital media development and member of the press, I met a professional who was so refreshingly real – so HUMAN – that it completely changed my perspective on what a leadership role ought to do in all contexts. I call him “my favoritest boss ever” to this day, because, well – I eventually worked for him, and loved it!

In short – he’s never not your friend, first.

So began this notion of what really is, first? What is really required at the spark in order to make a lasting reaction?

This favoritest boss was “so real” that I was just that magnetized. And it wasn’t the first time, but I was working in the financial industry before that and the real bridge between that boss and my best work in finance marketing wasn’t terribly obvious. Mind you, at the time all the marketing rage was “personalization” and I’m super annoyed at the time with it because that missed the mark too.

It’s not even rooted in “authenticity.” We can really believe our own BS sometimes, and if we’ve convinced ourselves that we are not who we actually are – you’ll come off as “authentic” but it’ll bite ya later. Like, you’ll probably get new information a few months later and change the way you think about it, or you do the things and you find out you hate it.

I was able to help a dozen mortgage brokers in New England stay strong through 2008 and on until they chose to retire many years later – not through “authentic” social media, but through values-based networking.

Turns out the very same process I’ve used since 2001 to prioritize my time, works really well for a lot of marketing applications. This is what I call the “Values Compass.”

Be Awesome First. The rest will, and does, follow.