My Journey
I am a Gen X kid. I came up in a time when the world felt much bigger, and kids had far more freedom. Growing up in Venice, California, the streets, the beach, and the neighborhoods influenced me as much as the classroom. Parents were less involved, kids solved their own problems, and most of us spent more time outside than in. Looking back, many of the students around me seemed more socially mature than academically focused. We knew how to navigate the world, but not always how to navigate school.
Looking back at my school career, even as early as elementary school, I felt like a foreigner. I attended two elementary schools, each an opposite demographic of the other. I played with kids but always felt I was on the outside looking in. Academically, I did OK. I remember making a book for a class project, in which I imagined traveling through the solar system. I gave facts and details about each planet, which I had learned from my dad, which made the teachers very curious. They could tell I was not just restating facts. I gave an explanation that showed real understanding. As an educator now, I recognize how unusual that kind of analysis is from a student that age. The second half of elementary school, I had transferred to a school in Venice California. At that time, I represented the minority demographic in the student body. I remember to this day the first time I compared the students in Venice to my former classmates less than five miles away in West LA. The Venice kids seemed much older. Their conversations and interests were much more mature. and the interactions much harsher. My only ace card as an incoming student, to my surprise, was physical. I was good at sports. The kids were impressed, which gave me some moderate protection for the next few years. I mention this to highlight this particular socio-cultural force that ended up exacerbating the lack of a basic structure for academic learning. By the end of elementary school, I had already detached academically. The school curriculum did not challenge me enough on its own. But, navigating the cultural hurdles was. At home television sank its teeth into my time and attention, filling the gaps outside of school. Now I know that all of us kids were experiencing similar issues. I still remember when tribute week for Bruce Lee aired on Channel 13. For months afterward, nine-year-old boys flooded the streets of Venice pretending to be martial artists. The world outside felt alive, exciting, and immediate in ways the classroom never did.
Looking back, I can see the indications of what today would result I am referral for and assessment to identify potential learning challenges, like ADHD. I realize many of us probably had early forms of attention disorders and neurodivergence before anyone was even noticing or talking about these barriers to traditional learning methods. At the time, support systems barely existed. You were either considered smart or lazy, motivated, or not. Mark Twain was not far off when he said that ‘most of us learn in spite of formal education, not because of it.’ My academic performance was average at best. I earned mostly minimum passing grades, drifted off task constantly, and struggled to finish homework or projects. I could stare at assignments for hours without starting them, overwhelmed before I even began. Eventually I would give up and avoid them entirely.
The psychology of childhood is unavoidable. Kids almost always assume” they are the problem.” Since no one around me seemed to understand why school felt so difficult, I came to believe something must simply be wrong with me. Back then, I did not know how to explain what I was experiencing, so I acted it out instead. I slept in, ditched school, and behaved like I did not care about academics. But underneath the attitude was frustration and shame. Escaping felt easier than failing. Over time, that became part of my identity. I stopped seeing myself as someone who could succeed academically and started looking elsewhere for things that made me feel capable.
I discovered music. Music was the first thing that fully captured my attention and made me feel connected to something larger than myself. It gave me an identity, belonging, and a purpose in a way school never did. I fell for Music, focused all my energy on it, and it was one of the main reasons I stayed connected to education at all. Today we know that people with neurodivergence often have a special talent for hyper focusing on things we enjoy. Looking back, I can see that accessing that hidden super-power was possible for me because of my love for Music.
Equally important was finding my community, a group of people who shared my personal desires and pursuit of excellence. As I trained my body and mind in the discipline of drumming, my natural physical coordination, stamina, and dexterity appeared again. Music did not just spark a mental or emotional flame that carried me. It provided a whole-body experience, integrating all my inborn faculties into a format where I could be successful. I not only had my own progress to point to, but the structured instruction, measurable achievements, and collaboration with other musicians was visible to others. It let me contribute to my community, and gave me something to be proud of, to work at.
In Music, as in any human endeavor, there is always more to learn, a deeper level of understanding, a higher bar of performance. My natural strength and athleticism carried me through hours of tedious practice. My mental and emotional devotion kept my concentration absolute. My fellow musicians and our collective ambition gave me that communal anchor and identity that the one-size-for-all academic paradigm would never offer a person like me. I never lost interest in practicing my drums. To this day I participate in music making from composing films, playing with friends, or just bringing my knowledge and expertise to the activity of listening to others who have mastered the drums. I was fortunate. The special input I needed to develop my love of learning found me. One of the things I look for when I work with learners of any age is signs of what they love, what draws their attention, what makes them talk faster or interrupt me to add a point or ask a question. Those are the clues I use to encourage them to learn and master their own executive functions. The rest of my story explains that connection.
At the end of high school, I had already decided to try out for the Santa Clara Vanguard, a special drum core that performs in professional level competitions across the country. It’s a full year program of intense rehearsal, endless drilling, the prospect of having to “make the cut” to get into the actual competitions, and a sure way to test the limits of any musician, or performer, determined the earn their place through a grueling immersion experience designed to build discipline that pushes you through anything. My final grades on graduating high school averaged a C. My dad freaked out when I told him that I would not be attending college immediately. He came from a highly educated family in Egypt with deep respect for formal schooling. His dad was the minister of English in Egypt. For my father, the idea that his son would delay, or possibly forego, college was incredibly difficult to process. Only my stepfather had the insight, in that moment, to understand my perspective and accept my choice. He knew I was not ready for college. Nor could anyone have stopped me in any case.
That independence was the one trait I had that always set me apart from most kids my age. From 1st grade to senior in high school; I was stubbornly independent. I would hear adults and take in their points of view, but I always followed my own intuition, even when it cost me. In this regard, my mother and stepfather recognized the person I had always been. My Dad, while worried about my choice, also knew his son. When it mattered, he supported me.
As I pursued a spot with Santa Clara Vanguard, my understanding of myself began to change. Drum corps demanded structure, discipline, repetition, and accountability. We practiced endlessly, pushed through exhaustion, and learned to work together under pressure. For the first time in my life, I realized I could do hard things, even when I did not initially “feel like it.” In the summer of 1989, my dad attended one of my early shows with the Vanguard performing. The moment he saw the precision and discipline needed to perform at that level he recognized immediately that Vanguard was teaching me vital information and skills for the future. He never mentioned college again, until I did.
What I learned there went far beyond music. I learned the importance of order, communication, collaboration, and leaving ego behind for the sake of a larger goal. More importantly, I learned that systems and discipline could succeed where motivation alone could not. Drum corps taught me how to tolerate discomfort and keep moving forward, even when something felt impossible. I was operating within a community that was affected by my actions. I was held responsible by my peers. My presence and contribution were important, noticed, and needed. And I had to contribute the absolute best of myself to earn the right to call myself a member of such an elite corps of dedicated performers. It was the perfect environment I needed at that time to grow.
After marching from 1989 to 1991 and winning rookie of the year, I earned a spot as a teacher in the organization for several years. I simultaneously pursued college course work seriously. By the time I was through my preliminary classes at a community college, I had settled on studying physics for my Baccalaureate degree. The transition was rough at first. I quickly realized that intelligence alone was not enough. But what I had learned in Vanguard changed everything. The same principles I learned in drum corps— structure, routine, repetition, and accountability—also applied to any long‑term self‑development, including academics. I learned how to organize my environment, build routines, and approach learning as a process rather than an outcome that judged my worth as a person. I came to appreciate, and correlate, the discipline and ability to push through discomfort to achievement was a basic life skill. And over the course of my life this has come home to me repeatedly.
Every stage of my professional and personal life deepened those lessons. Martial arts taught me self-awareness and emotional control. Corporate work taught me systems and communication. Filmmaking strengthened my creativity and collaboration. It also revived the power of storytelling in education. Teaching showed me how deeply people want to succeed when they feel understood. And reminded me how poor instructional delivery and messaging can stain the inborn impulse to always be learning with aversion and fear. Academic support work revealed how many students struggle silently the same way I once did. Entrepreneurship taught me adaptability and long-term vision.
These same skills were necessary in personal relationships. Admittedly, the contexts of friendships and intimate relationships are several orders of magnitude more intricate and involved than the more obvious markers of success available in the work world. Still, communication, consistency, being able to tolerate discomfort, and knowing that leveling up is a longer journey, are key in having stable social connections that last and deepen.
One of the greatest lessons I have learned is simple: you cannot know what you do not know. Today we understand far more about learning differences, executive functions, and emotional regulation than we did when I was growing up. As I gained experience helping students and families, I realized I was becoming the kind of guide I once needed myself. That realization inspired me to write Executive Functions: Blueprints for Learner Success.
I realized that these structures were missing with students regardless of economic status. Without realizing it, I began to build these elements into my sessions. My work is rooted in the belief that most learners do not fail because they lack intelligence or awareness. Most simply have never been taught the systems and tools needed to manage learning effectively. Behavior is still communication. When learners I am working turn off the camera, look at their phones, or try to get our discussion off to a topic they would rather entertain than the task at hand, I know what is happening. I understand what they are telling me. And I respond to THAT message, not the words coming out of their mouths, or my own momentary irritation that they are bored or losing interest. I redirect them. I reward them for following my lead with social praise. And most importantly, I point out what just happened. When I know they can take it in, I teach them to recognize their own patterns. I am modeling for them an advanced cognitive ability: metacognition. This is the mental capacity to think about how we think, to watch our own minds at work, and manage that process more consciously.
Modern educational theory trains teachers and curriculum developers to include metacognitive practice in learning delivery across the board. This makes higher order thinking like analysis and synthesis much easier to access. But without supportive environments that encourage structure, routine, space, and social reward, the independent use of complex thinking will not develop fully. That is the reason for my book and my work. Each time I help a learner reach a new level of independence; when they ask an insightful question, point out a discrepancy, catch an error they, or someone else, has made, or pose a well-reasoned argument, I know that they are acting on what we’ve been practicing. When a learner takes something, they have been given and does something with it that I did not see coming, I know they are making it their own. I do not have to wonder if I succeeded. I can see it in real time.
That brings me to a pillar of academic support that I see a great need to refine, both in school settings and for parents and caregivers to understand. What we measure, and what we think those measurements mean, are the difference between instilling a love of learning that lasts a lifetime, and leads to wisdom over that lifetime, and an aversion to learning that leaves people stranded in industries that have died around them, unable to adapt to a world that changes so much faster than it used to. We are learning creatures. Our brains and bodies are hard wired and chemically primed to take in new stimuli from the environment and respond to it in diverse ways so we can find the most effective and direct actions to take to meet our needs. When we get what we need, our brains release chemicals that make us feel good. When we do not, our brains release chemicals that make us uncomfortable, so we will either keep trying, or go somewhere else to try something else.
When it comes to performance in the modern world, everything from educational tasks, to work, to interacting with our families and friends, is running under this same program. The difference is that in our human-created world, we can be more intentional and create positive experiences, correlated to the way we WANT to behave, that makes us feel better more of the time. Sidenote: we will learn in any case. We may even learn faster and more permanently from negative experiences. But if we use that route, we create an aversion. We have all had the experience of making an error on a test and remembering that correction for the rest of our lives. But we also hate tests because of that experience.
We avoid pain and pursue pleasure. So, by measuring the patterns, routines, habits, and consistency that LEAD results, rather than just the results alone, we encourage learners who are not afraid of being punished for results. They are willing to take risks as being integral to learning itself. Creativity, innovation, and everything we value in our societies has only ever come from people willing to take a risk, fail, and try again. AKA Learning. And everyone we have ever met who resists change, locks up at the prospect of adding a skill to their repertoire, or is the relentless complainer in any group trying to get something worthwhile accomplished, is at heart someone who is afraid to fail. But no one wakes up knowing. Teaching young people to tolerate short-term discomfort as something they themselves can manage and work with is the most empowering gift we can give them. Structural discipline is a bedrock for strong executive functions. Knowing how to build that structure and then add the behavioral and cognitive discipline to choose to engage long, difficult projects to develop ourselves, is the gift I want to put into the hands of every parent, teacher, and young person out there. I want everyone to be able to captain their own ship, navigate life with confidence that whatever is out there, they can work with it.
Today my vision is larger than academics alone. I want to help create a more person-centered society, one where systems exist to support people rather than force people to conform to systems. I am in the process of building an LMS curriculum that would cover the executive functions stages of development for students. This LMS also includes the caregivers within the executive function equation. Most students find executive functions complicated or difficult to grasp. The devil is in the details. My experience, from parents of 3yr olds to 40yr olds, children must resolve the inabilities of their parents. Students will share the same behavior traits as mom and dad. Changing behaviors is difficult for everyone beyond the student. Science taught me to appreciate the structure of the world around me, while the arts taught me to appreciate human experience within it. As I grow older, I feel a strong responsibility to pass along what I have learned so others can better understand themselves, their potential, and the value of their own life experiences.
For a more detailed list of my experience, please visit my LinkedIn profile page.
