setting the stage
I officially entered the world of energy back in the summer of 1999 when I was 33. It was a life-long road that I didn’t realize was unfolding until I had arrived. The process began intensively in December 1998, but there were several key events throughout my life that were like trail markers along the way.
Let me start by saying I am not a mystical kind of person. I love science and think it is one of the greatest contributors to the exploration and discovery of truth in the world. But I also recognize that there are truths that cannot be proven by science yet, and one of the most mysterious aspects of science to this day – which any great scientist will admit – is how the idea for an hypothesis first “arrives” or is generated.
To establish some credibility, let me share my educational and professional background. I do not do this to toot my own horn; I do it because the sad reality is that talk of the “subjective truths” that were known by ancient geniuses with no access to technology or university educations are still sometimes considered by “rationalists” as grounds for being shipped off to the funny farm. I’ve spent years neutralizing the entitlement attitude and arrogance that I mastered through my privileged education and highly successful career, but I can confidently and safely share this background without ego or appearing as an arrogant snob in the spirit of hopefully establishing credibility among skeptics, whom I personally love because it is a sign of rigorous and non-credulous thinking – necessary qualities on the conscious evolution path.
So some of my “official” background. If you are already resonating with the world of energy and energy arts, skip all this boring stuff to the interesting stuff further on.
education + early career
I received my Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude from Brown University in International Relations with minors in Political Science and Art History. I received my Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy – a joint degree from Harvard University and Tufts University – where I studied International Comparative and Developmental Politics, Oil and Natural Resources, International Environmental Policy Analysis, Diplomatic History of Southwest Asia and Diplomatic History of Russia and Central Europe. I wrote my thesis on the dynamics of frontier politics of Iran and the Soviet Union with a case study of Azerbaijan. I received the prestigious Sasakawa Young Leaders Full Scholarship while at Fletcher and qualified as a Doctoral candidate at Fletcher. I took a large number of my courses at Harvard Law School and received an A from Dr. Abram Chayes, law professor at Harvard and one of the recognized foremost leaders in international environmental law. I’m grateful for my education and share it only to demonstrate that I have a strong mind and am not a credulous push-over. I have always, however, had an open mind and believed that there is more to life than meets the eye and more to life than what science has proven so far.
As a professional, I enjoyed a lot of success and fame in my early career working with Fortune 500 companies, executives and doctors as a futurist and then as an Internet consultant to the healthcare industry back in the early- to late-1990s when Web 1.0 first hit the streets. I was in the right place at the right time and was extended an invaluable opportunity by several colleages at First Consulting Group that helped launch my Internet consulting career. Shortly after I started this work, I was in high demand as a media expert on the impact of the Web on healthcare for such media outlets as Wall Street Journal, Money magazine, CBS News This Morning and Lifetime Television. I got the opportunity to write three books while serving as the Vice President of Online Research + Development with COR Healthcare Resources and served as the Executive Editor of Medicine on the Net magazine.
In the midst of all this great work and achievement, I always felt there was something more I was supposed to be doing, something bigger I was supposed to be contributing. As they say, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears.” A series of events played out in my life that forced me to find new perspectives and solutions for understanding, relating, working, decision-making and problem-solving. But as we set out together on this trail towards “taking the Blue Pill” [for all you Matrix fans out there], I hope knowing a little of my history and my successes assures that I’m no push-over and that I bring a pretty high-caliber and discerning mind to the experiences that have occurred on this conscious evolution adventure.
Next installment: The Atmosphere of My Early Life…