About Me: 101
In The Beginning...
The Bronx
In the beginning, there was a skinny boy with hazel eyes that grew up in The Bronx, New York – the Castle Hill section to be exact. Some called it a ghetto, but to those of us that lived there, it was home.
Life wasn’t opulent, but it was fun. There were playgrounds with monkey bars, swings, seesaws, and of course, the black top for those classic inner-city pick-up basketball games. Sometimes we spent our summers at the public pool, and other times, we just opened the fire hydrants!
The Bronx is the birthplace of hip-hop, and I fondly cherish those early days. And guess what? I received that good ole fashioned public school education – an experience I would not trade for anything in the world.
It wasn’t all fun and games. I saw and witnessed things that a young kid shouldn’t. I learned very early, that actors in Hollywood die in one movie and return in another – not so on the block.
I was always a smart kid (skipped 2x's – how ya like them apples!) and knew that I needed to get my life together so I went to college and when I was done…
I moved to Harlem and became a man!
You’ll just have to wait for the Harlem story!
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The Corporate Years
If you read the brief intro on the home page (you did read it, right?) you learned that I’ve spent the majority of my adult life in the financial services industry. How did the skinny brown-skin boy wind up there?
Because of mom. My mother was a community banker in The Bronx and she was a pretty big deal at a time when women weren’t supposed to be big deals in corporate.
During my summer vacation from college, I needed a gig – mom was not about to let me lay around the house and eat up all the food for free. So she set me up with my first job in the banking industry as a clerk in the back office receiving and then inserting checks into bank statements (there was a time when people wrote checks and got their cashed checks back in the mail).
That one job was the start of a long and successful career in the industry. I went from back office to bank teller, to new accounts, to an entire portfolio of resume stuff. I’ve even managed lots of moolah – excuse me, I mean, millions of dollars in assets under management!
Over time my passion for instruction rose to the surface and I pursued my “calling” in the learning and development realm (my Masters is in Adult Education & Training). Being able to teach, support, and mentor others is my happy place. And then…
The layoffs, downsizing, unemployment phase of my life happened – and I hated it! How could such a talented individual like myself be kicked to the curb – especially when less talented people remained employed?
You'll have to wait for this story too!
Author. Poet. Host.
The outcome of all those years in corporate?
I acquired the skills needed to be my own boss! And now, I've reinvented myself as an artist.
I've slowly emerged as a creative and use my talents to create the future I desire - and I'm having a blast doing so. By the way...
I wrote that book!
Look at Me Now!
