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Born
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First day at new school in new town in new state.
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Day 2 of my first sleep-away camp.
I'm freaking out, trying to get my Mom to pick me up early. -
Outward Bound Colorado - That time when a kid in my group has altitude sickness, and I carry his pack over Elk's Head Pass in Colorado.
When I get to the top, I I'm talking gibberish from dehydration and hypothermia. -
By myself in Gangtok, Sikkim, North India, trying to gain access to an ancient monastery that no westerner has ever visited.
I’m sitting in a jungle of gently fluttering, tattered white prayer flags, on an ordinary green park bench. My companion is Yeshe Tsogyal, a 47-year-old monk, the equivalent of a PhD in Tibetan Buddhism. He describes a monastery 30-something miles away, shrouded by 18,000-foot peaks and housing centuries of artifacts from Sikkim. To achieve the goal of my 50-page independent study project that’s due in a week, I have to be the first westerner to ever get there. -
Alone, out of bounds in chest deep snow at Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with the sun setting.
Death has never felt this close - before or since. -
First day of teaching East African refugee high schoolers about financial literacy.
I’m standing in front of 30 Somali refugee high school students, about 17 of whom are not doing what I’ve just asked them to do – to sit in their seats. In fact, they’ve just run out the door with any blunt instrument they could lay their hands on. A fight with African American kids has just broken out in the concrete courtyard at their high school in inner city San Diego, California. -
Trying to write my first feature story for BusinessWeek magazine, with no formal journalism training.
I have to ask someone what a feature story is. -
Competing for a full scholarship to business school.
The night before a million interviews for the Park Fellowship, they announce a full-day business simulation for the following day. With no sleep, I whine to my wife from a hotel room in Ithaca, New York about how I want to quit and come home early. -
In an MBA finance class, surrounded by future investment bankers.
Not sure I've ever felt more out of place... -
Creative Design for Affordability is oversubscribed, but still not an official course.
A colleague and I have spent an entire year planning a new graduate-level design course. We've written the curriculum, found a faculty sponsor, brought in 15 guest lecturers and design firm Continuum. Still, two weeks before the final quarter of our final year, we're powerless awaiting administration "yes" or "no". -
Contract gig with Patch.com that allowed me to move to Vermont unexpectedly ends.
Despite over-delivering on sales goals, internal changes at Aol have forced my program to be discontinued. Being in New York, everyone else on my team is able to shift to other internal roles. I choose to stay in Vermont and hustle. -
The realest moment of my life.
I’m holding a blue, seconds-old human baby to my bare chest… -
Working for a BPO, not knowing a thing about the industry. What's a BPO? Exactly.
On top of that, 3 of the 5 people on my immediate team are suddenly laid off. It's up to a small but mighty team to lead global marketing efforts for a then-16,000-person company. -
10 days after second child is born.
Mother-in-law help leaves town. Oh shit! -
Building an entire school in one day.
I’m in a Guatemalan garbage dump with 2000 call center workers wearing bright orange, red, and green t-shirts, all strangers chatting to each other in Spanish. It’s 9 a.m., 92 degrees, and we’re supposed to construct, paint, and landscape an entire school in one day.
