This isn’t your typical polished ‘About’ page, designed to get you to agree with me about how awesome I am. It’s a raw, rough-around-the-edges look at all the things I might not want you to know about me. I could hide these facts to avoid turning away those who might think less of me because of them, but that would only encourage me to keep the myth of my normalcy alive and hide even more from you to maintain it. But I didn’t come here to hide… I came here to shine!

The following was written in a single sitting, as an email to a friend. It is being presented to you unedited, in its original stream-of-consciousness form.

My main hang up is that I don’t have a resume that looks good on paper. I never graduated high school, and don’t even have a GED. I’m in mid-to-high five figure debt. I haven’t filed taxes for the last three years. I’m behind on my child support by over a year now. I’ve only seen my now six year old son once in his entire life. I haven’t had a job since 2004. I’m underqualified for all the jobs I’d be good at and overqualified for all the jobs I can get; I even tried to enter the military a few years ago and was denied during my first recruitment call because I didn’t have a diploma. Inter-personally I spent most of my adult life alone, at times spending 90%+ of my waking time in solitary thought. I went the first 26 years of my life without a girlfriend and when I did find a girlfriend, she was married, and our relationship has since led to her getting divorced. So how can I be a life coach if, on paper, my life is so laughable?

Well, as it turns out, all these glaring red flags that seem to point to me being an utter failure are actually signs of incredible promise.

I didn’t graduate high school because I didn’t find the work enjoyable, and no one could convince as to why it was necessary or scare me into compliance with stories of how hard life was going to be without a diploma. I finished 2.5 credits short of graduating and, even though I didn’t have a plan and everyone in my life was trying to convince me to go back to school, I simply replied to their admonitions with, “I’ll think of something, have a little faith.” Then, at age 19 I discovered poker online and by age 20 I quit my full time job because I was already earning several thousand a month at the poker tables part time.

Why am I in so much debt? Because my primary motivation in life used to be money, but after making $90,000 in a three month period I realized how empty my dreams of financial success were. I quit poker for a year to eventually pursue personal development, and only went back to it because it was the easiest way I knew how to make money. I spent the money I’d made rather foolishly, not making any plans for long term saving or budgeting and lending money to friends who ultimately didn’t have the means to pay me back.

When I went back to poker, it was always a struggle to stay motivated. I played just enough to pay the bills (averaging less than 9/hrs a week throughout my career) and would sometimes go months without playing a single hand. I got into debt because, when faced with a choice between doing something I don’t want to do (playing more poker) and not paying taxes, I chose to not pay taxes. But the big financial crunch came in 2008 when, despite averaging over $100/hr playing poker over the past year, I quit to either find success doing something I love or hit rock bottom. I figured I’d be better off hitting rock bottom and facing what I was afraid of, then being stuck harvesting a cash crop as I saw my real potential sit idly by.

I quit paying child support when I quit paying poker because I no longer had any income and figured 17% of $0 equaled $0 a month; but apparently the state of Wisconsin felt otherwise. They made me sign up for this Children First program and start looking for a job. I showcased my skills to the best of my ability and went out to find something I’d be good at, but was told by hiring personnel that they’re looking for people who’ve gone to college to learn the trade, not self-starters with a flair for innovation and the vision to transform a company from the bottom up. So, I made some phone calls, secured some investors, and re-launched my poker career. This was essentially a 50% pay cut from what I was making before because now half of my profits would go to investors, but compared to the stress of actively trying to hit rock bottom, it was a welcome reprieve.

However, it wasn’t until eight months ago, after quitting poker once again (this time perhaps never to return), that I finally found the bottom I was looking for and the financial freedom that comes with it. After walking to the bank to deposit change so I could avoid getting an overdraft fee for the second time in as many weeks (there’s actually a pretty funny side story here. My account was about to overdraft for $2.76, so I transferred the $2.00 I had left in my savings account and gave the teller four quarters in change. As she went to draw up the deposit slip she asked me, “You want to deposit the whole dollar, right?”). So anyway, after avoiding another overdraft charge an unexpected bill hit my account for like $100. I could have borrowed the money from someone to avoid the $30 overdraft fee and $6 a day thereafter, but instead of doing that I just decided to let it linger, and watch my bank account drip into deeper and deeper debt each day so that I could make peace with loss. Being in debt was one thing, but watching those fees pile up and knowing I didn’t have the means to pay them down was another. But after a few weeks, I started to get used to it. Loss wasn’t that bad after all. And the fact that I could be penniless, surviving on rice and $0.35 a box mac and cheese, and still be happy, made me even happier.

What kind of asshole gives life to a kid and then has nothing to do with him? This asshole. It’s actually an interesting story. My son was born from a one night stand that occurred as the night cap to my 20th birthday party. I wore a condom so I wasn’t expecting any surprises down the road, but I ended up finding out he was mine the old fashioned way: receiving a child support summons in the mail three months after he was born.

I assumed it was my duty to brush my dreams aside and accept the role of parenthood, and tried to motivate myself in several ways to comply with this duty. I started referring to him as my little bundle of motivation, and even tried to create a stronger link between us by getting his last name changed to mine (since I didn’t get any say in his other names, I didn’t think asking for 1 out of 3 was that bad); but the best the courts could offer (since his mother was none too fond of the idea) was to hyphenate our two last names together, and even I’m not cruel enough to stick a kid with that burden the rest of his life. In the end, it didn’t feel right to do what I thought I “should” do, so I stuck with doing what I felt like doing. I caught a lot of flak and criticism for this decision, most of which was me imagining the reaction of others and decided that if my decision made me a bad person, then so be it. Better to be perceived as a bad person, than to live an unhappy life.

Though some make think my decision reflects negatively on my character, navigating myself through this period in my life actually built a lot of character. I remember writing a poem as I was wrestling with this decision.

Now a myriad of mirrors reflect a myriad of fears
As a myriad of peers judge for a period of years
For in days I speak for decades; no more charades
My mouth evades and my act persuades
But the slightest slip degrades all accolades
And, while the criticism fades, the stigma stays

It’s easy to do what’s expected of you, conform, and live the normal life. Others will support you, and understand you, and you’re actions will be justified by the fact that you did what you were supposed to do. But it’s infinitely more freeing to challenge these notions and do what others might criticize as selfish, for no other reason than that it feels right to you.

Why did I spend so much of my adult life alone? Because, after years of being raised at home and at school to care about what other people think, I found it hard to be truly authentic in the presence of others. I wanted the freedom to discover who I really was, without all the social and cultural influences driving my identity. I wanted to love and be loved unconditionally, but how could I expect anyone else to love unconditionally unless I first learned to love that way myself? But the reality of my decision was much more simple. It felt better to be myself and be alone then it felt to repress parts of myself so that I could fit in with others. Of course, no one was forcing me to repress myself; but I had trained myself into habits of repression, and in order to unlearn those habits, I had to learn who I was without them.

Later in life I would test just how free I could be through my Live Free or Kill Myself experiment. I was tired of living life alone but stifled by my inability to completely be myself around others, so I devised this simple experiment to give myself permission to release the fears that were holding me back. It was quite simple, for 30 days I would have to face my fears of rejection and looking bad each day and then blog about it each night. Every time I had a scary thought (a thought that I judged myself for as too scary to share with others) I would send it out on twitter, facebook and linked in. And in order to ensure that I’d follow through with this bold and sometimes frightening promise, I had to pick the only consequence that I couldn’t live without: my life.

A lot of people distanced themselves from me or left my life entirely because of this experiment; but at the end of my life I was a changed man. Within a few months of ending the experiment I started having relations with my now girlfriend, with whom I took the freedom that I learned to live on my own and learned to share it and be my true self around her. Taking me one step closer to the ultimate goal of being able to be myself, and love myself, no matter who I’m around, or what they might think of me.

Why do I ruin marriages in my spare time? Well, I don’t set out to ruin marriages, I just don’t let such man-made constrictions stand in the way of my happiness. Everything just sort of fell into my lap. She thought she was happily married and that the only thing she was looking for was a happier sex life. I thought like that sounded like a great commitment-free opportunity to get plenty of sex with someone I could connect with on a deep level and stay up all night talking about the law of attraction. It turned out that spending time with me exposed her to desires that she’d learned to live without and forgot that she ever had, and our relationship grew to be much more than just sex and personal development talk rather quickly.

Though much of the world might condemn me for helping break up a marriage, I’m secretly extra proud of myself. I know how much growth and joy has sprung forth from this relationship (not just growth for her and I, but her husband and daughter, too), and the fact that so many people would have past up on this opportunity, and missed out on this growth, because of a silly technicality like the “sanctity” of marriage, makes the joy that is ours all the more rare.

…

Anyway, I didn’t plan on writing any of this, it just sort of came out. And as I found myself writing, I couldn’t help but think, “this is the sort of thing that should be on my about page.” Why am I hiding the best parts of myself because some people might judge me for them? I should flaunt these facts about my life and let those who would see them as a sign to stay away, stay away; and those who respect the courage it takes to be so authentic, flock evermore closer.

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I’ve lived in fear of being judged for these things for about as long as they’ve been a part of my life. I can’t overcome that fear without hearing from those who might have judgment. Whether praise or condemnation, I want to hear from you. I want to be touched by both friend and stranger alike, and grow closer to the world I’ve distanced myself from.

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