When I was 15, a mentor sat down with me and did something nobody had ever done before. He walked me through my strengths. Not my grades. Not my test scores. My strengths. Who I actually was.

I needed that more than he probably knew.

All my friends were AP honors students. I was the social, curious, energetic kid who didn't fit that mold and felt it every single day. While they were collecting college credits I was dropping the one AP course I attempted — a week in. I scored a 21 on my ACT and started at community college. On paper I wasn't keeping up. But something that mentor said at 15 stayed with me. That the things that made me different weren't liabilities. They were assets I hadn't learned to use yet.

Senior year I got invited to honors night. I showed up confused. I hadn't taken a single honors course. I didn't belong there — at least that's what I thought. I walked out that night with two plaques. One for best character out of 1200 students. One for fitness student of the year. Not academic awards. Human ones. The room full of AP students didn't see it coming. Honestly neither did I.

But looking back, those plaques were just confirming what that mentor had already seen in me at 15. I was wired for people, for energy, for showing up fully. I just didn't have the language for it yet.

At 24 a leadership coach helped me find that language. And when I did, everything changed. That kid — the one who felt like the odd one out for most of his life — went on to coach emerging leaders at top academic institutions, Fortune 500 companies, and innovative startups across the country. I've had the privilege of working with graduates from Harvard, Columbia, Notre Dame, and Duke — many of whom now lead at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Even the most accomplished people in the world struggle to see their own strengths clearly. When they finally do, the results are transformational.

That's what I do for people now.

As a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach with more than a decade of experience, I help individuals and teams understand how they're wired, why they lead the way they do, and what becomes possible when they stop working against themselves and start leading from who they actually are.

Most people aren't held back by a lack of talent. They're held back by a lack of perspective. That's the gap I exist to close.