At six years old, I woke up to complete silence. The night before, I could hear. Then nothing. I'd been born with CMV, a virus that had quietly been taking my hearing — and one morning it was simply gone. Months of uncertainty followed before my family found the cochlear implant. Six months later, I heard my own footsteps for the first time.

A few years later, preparing for a second implant, doctors discovered I had almost no vestibular fluid, the fluid your brain uses for balance. The surgery, they warned, might cost me the ability to walk. I made the call to go forward anyway. I walked out of the hospital the next day. What should have been medically impossible became a research study. My case helped doctors understand something they hadn't seen before.

What those early years taught me, before I ever managed a team or built a workflow — was how to make clear-eyed decisions under uncertainty, how to keep moving when the outcome isn't guaranteed, and how to adapt when the environment changes overnight.

There was another part of my story unfolding in parallel. Growing up in a deeply religious environment, I knew from a young age that I was gay and spent years keeping that truth buried. I built a life that looked right from the outside. In 2021, I finally came out. It was the hardest and most clarifying thing I've ever done.

Living authentically changed how I lead. It deepened my belief that the best teams are built on psychological safety, not performance. That inclusive design isn't a feature, it's a foundation. And that the most powerful thing a leader can model is the courage to be honest.

Today I'm a dad, an advocate, and a creative executive who believes that what makes us different is almost always what makes us effective.