Why My Purpose is Helping Others Live Theirs
I’ve been a dreamer and a seeker my entire life.
I grew up with a big imagination and loved to daydream often. I had an interesting childhood, in that I do have two half-siblings through my mom’s first marriage, but they moved away to Florida when I was very young, which inevitably left me alone to explore the world.
Since I was, for all intents and purposes, an “only child” and was gifted with a huge imagination, I had to keep myself occupied, especially mentally.
When I think back, I remember so many weekend afternoons slaying dragons in my basement with a broadsword - or what others might call a “gift wrap tube”. I remember writing and acting out my own Shakespearean stories with my action figures that had a mix of fight sequences, double-crosses, and my favorite, romance. I remember playing air drums to “Every Breath You Take” by The Police while listening on my dad’s stereo in our living room. Did I mention that Stewart Copeland is one of my favorite drummers? Copeland and John Bonham, from Led Zeppelin, are two of many. My interest in music and drums continued to grow and I started playing drums when I was around 10 years old. Interestingly, my imagination and interest in music and art took me on many adventures in my career. I ended up becoming an award-winning designer and filmmaker, a music producer with write-ups in SPIN magazine, a DJ that’s played all over the world at outdoor festivals and some of the best clubs in the US, a music promoter and co-founder of two production companies, a music buyer at several iconic record stores, and co-founded two national touring bands, an indie-electronic project called Drop the Fear, and a shoegazer band, called A Shoreline Dream.
All of these things came to fruition because as I grew up I began studying the arts and have continued to play in this magnificent playground ever since.
When I went off to college, after a bit of trial and error, I ended up right back where I started, in the art program. I ended up choosing to study photography and media arts to be specific. Although, the one thing I learned more than anything while I was in college was that it wasn’t for me. I am that different breed of student that does not like the confines of a classroom and is far more interested in tactile learning through action and doing, rather than flashcards and study groups. I also struggled in school because I was more concerned with my why. Why am I here? What am I meant to do? I spent a lot of time journaling and philosophizing with friends and classmates about these big, philosophical questions. One of the unexpectedly impactful things that I did while attending college was I started to DJ a specialty show on Saturday nights at our college station, which I did for four years, and inevitably paved the way for becoming not only a DJ and music producer but also a music buyer for several high-profile record stores. I had hoped my time in the record store industry would enable me to open my own record store one day. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out so well for the record industry in the early 2000s and a lot of distributors and record stores closed their doors. That seemed like a bit of a red flag to me. On a brighter note (pun intended), vinyl has continued to be appreciated by more and more people over the years and is still alive and well today.
After realizing that this dream of owning my own shop began to diminish, I redirected my attention back toward the visual arts in several different roles from graphic and web design to photography and video production, including roles such as director, producer, videographer, photographer, editor, graphic designer, web designer, and everything in between — even craft services on a film project.
Now, this was also around the time that I met my amazing wife, Tiffany, and started to get more focused on my career to begin getting myself out of debt since I was a DIY musician and vinyl pusher. For over ten years, I worked in the non-profit sector, as well as corporate, tech companies, and start-ups, which was my favorite type of company at the time because they were scrappy, more nimble in their approach, and had a kinetic energy that pulsated throughout the company. Regardless of working in various sectors, one thing stayed the same, I chose companies that I believed in. For instance, I helped to design the online community platform for Adobe. I launched a rebrand and designed websites for one of the premier theatre companies in the US. I was a senior designer, photographer, and video producer for the largest natural/organic expo in North America. I helped to produce 150 feature-length educational shows in less than four years with partners like Nikon, Lowes, King Arthur Flour, and Sur La Table.
Until 2016, when I set off on my own to see what story I would write for myself. I left the life of a corporate creative and began walking my own path. A path I’ve realized is hard at times but so much more fulfilling.
I’ve been into self-help, personal development, and productivity since I was in college, but it was around this time that I decided to start getting more serious about doing the deep, inner work. I took some time to do a bit of soul-searching which may have included an ancient Tibetan "death" meditation and pretty much all the feels as I dug deeper and deeper. All of this hard work took me further than I'd ever gone on my path of self-discovery answering that big unsolved question of my life that I started asking back in college — What was my purpose? What was I put here to do? That question started me on a journey of entrepreneurship, as a leader, and mentor, along with a newfound goal to serve others with the wisdom and experience I had developed over the years as well as the gifts of imagination and curiosity I've been blessed with. This also led me to a realization that I have my own unique voice, my own unique abilities, and my own unique power. And so do you!
In the third year of my business, as we were hitting six figures and it was becoming successful, my wife shared something with me at dinner one night. She went on to tell me that she was burned out in her career, after eleven years at a Fortune 50 company. She needed a break and asked to take a sabbatical. We both love to travel and explore the world so we decided we would take this opportunity to travel all over the world from Asia to Europe and from Central America to New Zealand for an extended period of time — like 15 to 18 months!
Over the years, my business has been blessed with supporting national retail brands, music education startups, tech companies, nonprofits, and outdoor adventure companies, but when my partner asked me to honor her needs there was no hesitation. She honored my needs when I asked to start my business so I honored hers when she asked. We planned and prepped for an entire year, sold most of our possessions, put the rest in a small storage unit, rented our house, and figured out kitty care. I even worked with a business coach to figure out how to pivot my business to make money while we traveled. We dropped off the kitties, said goodbye to friends and family, and flew to Asia to begin our adventure together after months of upheaval and stress, finally able to breathe and enjoy our hard work. We got two months into our yearlong trip and the pandemic hit. Six months later my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and I flew back to my childhood home to be his caregiver with my mom during the worst part of the pandemic. He passed away after three months of aggressive treatments and two dozen pills a day. I helped my mom with his transition and urgent affairs then returned home to my wife and two furry kids, Midi and Mojo. I was sad, depressed, and forever changed after such a maturing experience. Seeing the hindsight of my dad’s life in his final days changed me. It made me get clear on what’s important in my life and slowly I started to see the answer to that nagging question I had been asking myself for so long. Like the summit that always has another waiting beyond it, life is a continuing journey for us to navigate and explore daily. You may have been on the trail that you thought you were meant to travel, and then something happens and you find yourself on a detour that takes you on an even more beautiful path.
Ärtful originally started as a creative agency and has evolved to become something else. It is a space for the dreamers, and the visionaries, a place to thrive and achieve success as we grow and learn together. We all face challenges throughout life and in our careers and have secret desires we truly want in life. We overcome those challenges and achieve those desires with the help and support of people that ask the tough questions that others won’t.
I invite you to join me in this experiment to change the face of business, to change the world, and to change ourselves, as we strive for extraordinary goals and live our dream lives. I’ve spent my entire life trying different things, going on adventures, embracing opportunities, learning, growing, and exploring to better understand the world and my place in it. After processing the experience of being a caregiver for my dying father, away from my family for months, during a global pandemic and one of the most divisive times in our history, I realized what was truly important to me in my life. It was then that I started the journey of helping people find their ikigai so they can create their ärtful life, the life they really, really want, the life that they draw for themselves, filled with joy, fulfillment, and freedom; not the life they think they’re supposed to live that’s been traced from the lives of others. Life is short but it’s long enough to clearly envision, passionately create, and joyfully live a life of purpose. This leads me to my question for you…
What do you really want? If you’re interested in exploring that question together, I’d love to connect with you to see if we might be a good fit.
