I’ve spent my life solving challenging academic, technical, and business problems, but for most of that time it didn’t feel like enough. From childhood, people told me I was smart -- and that’s how I identified myself. My brains and resume-building got me into Stanford and then into MIT. It took me until I graduated with a PhD to recognize that I didn’t like what I was doing, so I left science and jumped into Silicon Valley tech. I got married in my early 30’s and had two amazing kids. Externally, I looked successful. I didn’t feel successful.

By my mid-40’s, I was climbing my way up the corporate ladder at great companies. I couldn’t find a job that felt right for more than a year or two and my marriage was on the rocks. A few months before my 50th birthday, I had a spectacular job failure. By then I could see a pattern of disappointment with my choices, and I wanted to change - but I realized I couldn’t do it on my own. I found help in therapy and coaching.

It took me another 3 years to tell my wife I wanted a divorce. That was like crawling out from under a rock and into the sunlight. I began to make other choices that integrated my thinking with my emotions, a hard shift after half a century of living in a logic-only world. I trained as a coach and found that the combination of my life experiences, my coaching skills, and my work background enabled me to help other people feel more successful both at work and in their personal lives.

I still hold a full-time corporate job. I coach on the side because it gives me nourishment and allows me to give back to the world. I do sometimes feel deep, deep sadness and compassion for the version of me who was locked in his head for most of my life. At the same time, I can appreciate that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and it only took me 50 years to get here.