10,000 clinical hours. That is the bar I set for myself when I launched Lifestyle Integrity. I decided that I would work my ass off as a coach before I tried to raise my voice in the public sphere.

Let me explain.

I have spent the past 20+ years studying growth and transformation. My life has been the testing ground for the work I now do with others.

Not long ago I was depressed. I was angry and felt powerless to create anything resembling a life I could love. I felt let down by my schooling and frustrated with my career options.  After contemplating suicide daily for three years I dropped out of college without hope. For 13 years I worked in the security industry. At first I worked with my hands. Later I was a consultant for organizations such as the New York Federal Reserve and Fortune 100 companies.

I was good at what I did but I was bored, unmotivated, and dreaded waking up many weekdays. I knew life could be more than a grind, but I was terrified of walking away from the success I had and reluctant to start at the bottom in a new career. In every spare moment I worked to transform myself through daily experimentation with my diet, exercise, meditation, breath work, psychedelics, psychological, philosophical and spiritual study, and every other experimental method I could find. I learned to control my mind, ignore it, generate positive emotions, including happiness in isolation, overcome depression, and cultivate states of creativity through writing and music. I learned to become self fulfilled, but my career misalignment persisted. I knew my work had to be something I believed in fully. 

In 2009 I went to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become a health coach. As graduates, we all struggled figuring out how to market ourselves and get clients. Some of the most ambitious people wrote books and launched online video courses. I both admired them and questioned their judgement. I admired the courage they showed to put themselves out into the world as an “expert” but I also doubted the expertise they claimed to have. Some coaches already have a rich history to pull from; but far too many are just starting to help others when they come out with their patented method and course. The experts I admire pull from rich hands on experience, not just theoretical frameworks. I could not, in good conscience, claim to have best practices to share. I decided two things:

1 - I had to be as brave as them.

2 - I had to pay my dues first.

In 2011, I was coaching part time, but I couldn’t see how I would let go of my 6 figure salary and transition to full time. I realized my consciousness had to shift before I could know what comes next. I found the woman of my dreams, but then she dumped me. I admitted I was living out of integrity doing work I did not, in my heart of hearts believe in. I wasn’t impressed with my lifestyle either. I decided to walk away. I left NYC to spend a year alone in a log cabin on top of a mountain. No cell phone, no internet, no television. I allowed myself a lifestyle that felt 100% in integrity. I broke all my patterns and looked at what remained. I engaged transformative work full time. To be honest, I had been having a bit of a crisis for months. My body and mind were doing weird things. A decade of breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, study, and psychedelics had recently lead me to Brazil. I did my first few ayahuasca ceremonies. Upon my return to NYC something deep down inside of me broke open.

For days I barely slept or ate. My entire body radiated an intense heat. The woman I was sharing a bed with at the time couldn’t sleep too close to me. She could feel the heat from a few feet away. One might have guessed that I had an extremely high fever, except that I felt better than I have ever felt in my life. It felt like my body was disintegrating into a billion blissful particles. I was alert, joyful, creative, and full of curiosity. My mind felt like a laser beam; still, present, and aligned. The initial experience lasted a few days, but elements of it came and went for many months before I finally quit my job and left for the cabin. The inexplicable psychic event, involving my ex-girlfriend’s unborn child that occurred during my last ayahuasca ceremony seemed to have cracked something open inside of me. The doors of perception were blown open. Despite being a devout skeptic and atheist for my entire life I was now having what I could only call psychic premonitions. It was a real mindfuck. I spent the year attempting to understand, cultivate, and integrate these experiences.

I came across the words Kundalini Rising. This seemed to be a better framework than anything the medical literature had to offer. The word INTUITION became a major theme of my research and practice that year. It remains a big part of my life and work today. By the time the year was over I had received what I can only call a major download. Whether I imagined it, created it, or received this information from outside of myself seems irrelevant. A vision of my life and career emerged and I have spent the past decade living it.

What I have discovered is that sometimes I and sometimes my circumstances need to change. It is only when both move in concert that true, sustainable transformation is possible. When I left school I took control of the information that enters my mind and the values that I assign it. My path has led me from a place of darkness, depression and years of suicidal thinking to one of much joy and light with a deep spirituality. I am comfortable in both places and see the gifts in each.

Getting in touch with my sense of purpose in the world, owning my intuition, and learning to take small, then ever bigger leaps into the unknown has transformed my life.  I no longer act from fear. I act from wonder. I truly believe that we are all capable of this. Hopefully with my help others can get there much faster. Because of this I have a deep desire to be with and help others on the paths of self actualization and transformation.

Growth and transformation are inevitable. Life is change. The degree of conscious choice vs. patterned response in this process is up to us. Seeing beyond and moving past perceived limitations is a crucial step. This drive to shift often comes up during a trying period (sickness, heartbreak, stress, loss) but can equally be chosen out of abundance. Both processes are beautiful. People may seek me out when they have something that they struggle sharing with others or when they are looking to be shown a hard truth that their own perspective has left in shadow. Sometimes we just need someone on our side who can see our gifts better than we can. Sometimes we need a swift kick in the ass.

One of the core commitments I made to myself on the mountain, when I came back to NYC to build my coaching business, was to put my head down, work my ass off, and develop 10,000 clinical hours of coaching practice before I raised my voice too loud in the world. I had already spent more than a decade obsessing over my own mental, emotional, and spiritual development, but it felt out of integrity to me to claim any real level of mastery or wisdom without attempting to help other people first. I am now 20+ years into my own journey and over a decade into helping others professionally.

My 10,000 hours are complete. I have worked with many hundreds of clients. I have written millions of words of notes to them on our sessions. I have read well over 500 books in this time and listened to countless hours of podcasts. I have been obsessed with becoming the best coach I can possibly become. I want to understand how the body and mind make sense of the world and what stands between each of us and our best possible life. Every year I catalogue concepts, practices, insights, and challenges that emerge with my clients, many of them world class performers themselves. Every session leads me down a new rabbit hole of learning and every insight I glean in podcasts, classes, conversations, and books gets tested in the real world with my clients. I rarely watch Netflix. I go to bed with a book and wake up early so I can read for an hour or two before the family emerges. I am no master, but I live on purpose. I now march towards 50,000 hours.

I will see your potential and hold you to it. Tough love with an integral perspective is my default mode. Lifestyle Integrity is about healing the boundaries that we have drawn within our own lives, between our hearts and our minds, work and play, self and spirit. It is about waking up and transforming your life by aligning your actions with your values. This is my passion. My personal goal is to have my higher self show up fully at work and at play, with friends, family and strangers. Finding and working with others on a similar path is my reason for getting out of bed in the morning.

Mostly I am an autodidact. My curiosity knows no bounds. What I learn I hope to share with you. I am a Certified Holistic Health Counselor having studied health and nutrition at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. I am a Certified Integral Relationships Professional. I am a student of Integral Philosophy based on the work of Ken Wilber. Along with graduate level study of the theory I have led Integral Life Practice groups, deeply engaged my own practice and led the Integral Salon in NYC for 3 years. I have been meditating since I was a teen utilizing mostly Zen and TM (Trancendental Meditation). I do extensive breath and body work inspired by the Art of Living Foundation and different yogas. I trained with the Art of Living to teach breathing exercises & meditation. I am certified in the Leadership Circle 360 assessment. I am set up as a sleep coach through Oura. I love functional strength, especially if it includes body weight exercises and movement outdoors. I moved just north of NYC to a place where I can hike a mountain daily, kayak, and stand up paddle board on the Hudson River. I am Reiki level II trained. I believe in the power of being radically honest and vulnerable with others. I know Conscious Capitalism can exist in businesses big and small and I think exploratory conversations are great, but even better when they are grounded in action in our lives.

If you are reading this chances are you already live a privileged life. You have a roof over your head, clothes on your back and know where your next meal will come from. Perhaps you also know the deep torment of waking up bored, lonely, or living a life devoid of purpose and meaning. Happiness is relative. As long as you are alive there will be things that scare and excite you. This is where your growth lies.

If you are excited by solving big problems let’s talk.