Leadership Lessons I Gleaned From a Cult Leader

This is me in a Thai prison, I spent 2 days here as an extra for a movie I was in


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This was a picture of my high school wrestling team when I was a senior, I'm the tall guy in the middle.

Late Bloomer

I was a very late bloomer, when I was in 2nd grade I distinctly remember a parent teacher meeting when my teacher expressed her concern for me. She told my parents that I would routinely be facing the back of the classroom when she was talking. Nobody could figure out what was going on with me, I was almost put on medication but thankfully my parents decided against this at the last minute. The truth is that I had no interest in what they were teaching me in school.

In high school, I got made fun of a lot for being so different. Now I realize how fortunate I am to be different. If I wasn't different, I would be working 40+ hours a week at a high paying job I don't like, paying a mortgage (mortgage means death grip in Latin) and fulfilling the societal norm. I'm soo happy to be different!

I went to a very privileged high school where most of the kids drove expensive cars paid for by their parents. I played football and was the hardest hitter on the team, I remember once during a tackling drill I put our biggest and strongest first string linebacker on our team on his back but I got almost no playing time. I was the guy who was put in for the last 2 minutes of the game if we were 20 points ahead or behind. In hindsight, I wish the coach would have cut me from the team so that I could have directed my energy somewhere where it would have been put to good use, not just to hype up their program. This left big scars on me and I still harbor an incredible amount of resentment towards the head coach and the football program to this day.

I wrestled and was in the 215 weight class. My sophomore year, I was put on varsity because the team was sparse and I was bumped up to heavyweights. There were 2 of us 215’s, me and my friend Justin. I beat Justin every time and the coaches decided to bump me up a weightclass (275)

I played football all 4 years and I remember having to be at school at 6am every morning to lift weights, to this day I continue to have nightmares about weight rooms because I associate them with this terrible experience I had. During summer, we had practice 2 times per day and I remember one day when we had to do 100 up downs after a full practice and I thought I was going to have to be taken to the hospital.

The combination of my challenges from football and wrestling made me incredibly tough mentally as well as physically. My senior year as a wrestler was great. I went up against a few of the top heavyweights in California and did pretty well, I beat some of them. I distinctly remember the finals for our league, I went up against the 2nd in the state guy and everybody thought I was going to get embarrassed. I was so much faster and more flexible than him and he wasn't used to used to going up against competitors such as myself. This guy looked like a Sumo on steroids, I went all 3 rounds with him and he beat me 12-6, they had to put him on oxygen after the match because he was so tired. Even though I lost, this was a big moral victory for me. Another match that stood out was one where we went up against a really high ranking school. Every single person on our team lost and as the heavyweight, I was last to go up. Our team was embarrassed, I went out there against this monster and put up a heck of a fight. I almost pinned him but he beat me. Everyone was really proud of me for going out there with my head up fearlessly and giving it everything I had, even tough I lost.

Wrestling was beyond important for me, it taught me self reliance. And that if I lose, it’s because of myself.

Fast forward a few years in college. I went to the local university and my mother suggested I join a fraternity, I didn’t know she meant an academic one. I joined the biggest party fraternity at my college. One of the guys in the fraternaty told me he didn’t think I was smart enough to become an engineer, this gave me all the motivation I needed to get through engineering school and move to the top of my field. After my first year of college, I realized I needed to choose between the fraternity or engineering. I looked at a lot of the older guys who had been in the fraternity for a few years and realized I didn’t want to be like them so I got deactivated after my first semester as a brother. I had to move into the house if I wanted to stay active and I realized this wasn’t going to help me pass heady, technically difficult classes.

Mentally, engineering school was the most difficult challenge for me that’s time constrained (entrepreneurship is the most difficult challenge that’s not time constrained). I felt totally suicidal my senior year when I was taking 23 units, had to quit my job and move back in with my parents and my girlfriend would bring me dinner late night in the engineering hall. There were 3 social occasions I had that entire semester, I was suffering more than I had ever suffered. My professors told me they didn’t think I’d be able to get a job because I got C's and D's and there were a lot of really smart people I went to school with who showed contempt towards me. It’s funny to me because now I employ some of the most talented engineers (mechanical and software).

Engineering school made me incredibly tough and taught me perseverance.

I took this picture while I was on the island of Koh Chang in Thailand (Elephant Island)

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I felt my first engineering job was a joke at the time, I worked for a company that made these huge complex machines out of hundereds if not a thousand or more parts that folded boxes, put product inside and sealed them. I felt the application was incredibly stupid, I never had any appreciation for something I perceived as lame as packaging but I needed a job. I felt humiliated when I was given a wrench and told to work on the shop floor and the guys out there treated me badly because I was “different" (an engineer). I was the butt of every joke. I'm certain they didn't like that I was doing the same work as them and paid a lot differently, who would?

I had to ask several times if I could be transferred to engineering. Finally, the owner agreed and I felt bad about it. He made me feel as if I was inconveniencing him. When I finally got into engineering, I was basically thrown behind a computer in a cubical and told to get to work. I got no explanation or mentoring except for the guy next to me who was in the field for almost 10 years and seemed to know everything but was very busy. He helped me as much as he could. The “system” wasn’t explained to me and I was given a big job blindly and I began modifying an existing set of Solidworks files on the server. When my boss found out I was modifying an existing set of files, he almost had a heart attack and belittled me in front of everybody in the office. I felt so bad. This was humiliating and incredibly intimidating. He basically taught me everything not to do and what a blessing that was.

There was a Monday after payday when everyone (30+ people) were called onto the shop floor and the owner said the paychecks all bounced because he didn’t have enough money to pay us but was promised a big payment that didn’t come through. This was scary.

A few weeks later, I was supposed to move into a new house and I needed the down payment. I was going to move in Friday of payday but the owner called everyone onto the shop floor once again and said he couldn’t pay us. I was forced to move back in with my parents as the co-resident I was living with asked me to move out.

I felt incredibly uninspired and unmotivated, my family was taking a trip to San Diego a few weeks after this. I was afraid to ask him anything because things were so tense. I mustered up the courage to ask him if I could take the rest of the day off Thursday and Friday at lunch time and he looked at me and with a raised voice asked “how do you figure? ” and an exasperated expression on his face. I immediately said “never mind”. And he said, “go, we need to have a talk with Marty on Monday when he gets back”. I felt awful after this, looking back I can’t even believe I was in this situation but again I learned exactly not to treat people. He was upset because I was behind on my first big project. The thing was that whenever I reached out for help, I was told by everyone that they were too busy. Then they would come to me a day later with a condescending attitude except for the engineer next to me who had very limited time to help me.

I went on the trip with my family to San Diego and told my parents how I felt. My dad said I should quit if I’m being treated so poorly and my mom said I should tough it out. I know my mother means well but I have never felt emotionally connected with her.

I went into the office on Monday with a 6 pack of beers at lunch time and said to Jack “thanks for the opportunity” and he lightened up and talked to me as if I were a human.

This is a spiritual event I was fortunate enough to get to participate in while living in Thailand, my partner here was Thai and I only saw 2 other foreigners this day. There were thousands of people in this pilgrimage.

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From here, I met a guy who taught me how to sell on eBay and we partnered and became eBay powersellers grossing $10,000+ per month until we got shut down. This went on for 2 years. This was my first business and I learned exactly how to not run a business from first hand expreience. I thank him, we had a falling out a few years ago but he's the person responsible for kickstarting my journey as an undercover x-men in the space of technology

After we got kicked off eBay, I knew I needed to get a job and I was hired at one of the premier engineering firms as the engineering manager. This gave me a huge boost to my confidence, managing people 25 years older than me and given some real clought for the first time in my life. I got onto a part of the server that I wasn’t supposed to see and saw the most recent board meeting notes. The stated goal was to make a 1% profit margin or $100,000 profit. (it was a $10,000,000 year company that built machines that turned garbage into biomass fuel)

This is me jumping off a bridge in Northern California, near Crescent City A few years ago

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I have developed the ability and intuition to look at any organization or community and see exactly where the bottleneck or hangup is within a matter of days, precisely. I talked with everyone, built relationships with every person there including all the guys on the shop floor, the accountant, the marketer, the installer and the purchasing manager. I was able to piece together some obvious things. The idea of engineering is to not only design things well but in a way that somebody who has no idea what they’re doing can see a piece of paper that clearly and visually articulates step-by-step how to assembly a dynamic assembly.

The shop guys were also incredibly unmotivated, so I made special effort to build a relationship with them and promised change. I redesigend a few of the machines with a new expensive software I convinced the owner to purchase for my drafter and myself, Solidworks an was able to make highly readable and easy to follow drawings of the machines and redesign them in a way that saved labor and was not as cryptic. Everyone was excited about this. I even designed a completely new piece of machinery for a very specific need all in Solidworks intended to be a flagship project. It flew together and through the shop in a highly distributed way as I intended. Distributed means that many people can work on it in paralell and all the parts can come together at the end to be easily assembled. I was very proud and everyone including the guys putting it together were impressed.

At the end of this quarter, I was called into the board room with the general manager and president and told the profits were at 8%, the highest in company history. They were both glowing, but they made a fatal mistake. I knew that the problem wouldn’t be becoming profitable, it would be the decision they made after of what to do with the new profits. I already had a plan of what needed to happen after, the business model wasn’t sustainable. They were attempting to get as much out of engineering as possible and put all of their resources into sales; not a scalable strategy. I told them we need to put more resources into the top of the the infrasctructure upstream, engineering. They decided to put more people into sales and further stress engineering. Me and my drafter were overtaxed and working 10 hours per day. To make it worse, the owners best friend was the installation guy who had a vendetta against me and my drafter started to turn against me, she was very stubborn and I think she didn't respect me. It was very uncomfortable for me, sharing an office with her and being in the position I was in. I make up the story that this guy, the owners best friend was frustrated by the influence I had, I could feel this and I’ve experienced this many times in my career. It’s a classical theme played out over and over again.

I was completely uninspired and burnt out. I started working on building my online business while at work, I knew I didn't want to continue working here. This was right after I separated from my 5 year partner, I got fired a month later. This was when I went to go work at Kirkwood, my mentor I hired for my online business was Garland. I paid him to start it for me and get it off the ground then I took the captains seat. This is what I’m doing for a few friends right now but in different capacities, I’m hiring the best of the best for them and telling them to get behind the wheel and drive and let me know if they have any specific questions. I'm finding myself very busy today mentoring my friends who share a common vision of the world I have in hopes that they will all invest some of their profits into helping me start an intentional permaculture community.

I got another enginering job, the owner of this firm’s name was Lawrence. He came from a wealthy family that made a lot of money with GMO farming. He said all the right things when we interviewed him and I thought I could learn a lot from him. He made me feel as if I’d have the freedom I needed to architect this into a next level company. I told him I would be hiring my own help out of my own pocket and he said he was okay with it. The work I provided was excellent, he was impressed. He never asked me to sign a non disclosure agreement. He became incredibly paranoid when I showed him the work from one of my contractors and berated me telling me I can’t trust people from other countries and I witnessed all his insecurities come up. I knew this wouldn’t last long.

I evolved from here and begin hiring some really talented engineers, the best I’ve ever worked with in my life. My best mechanical engineer worked for $5/hr

This is work done by the top mechanical engineer I ever had the opportunity to work with, I'm one of the most fortunate humans on Earth

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Community Leadership.

I learned so much about leadership from all of the terrible examples in my life and by the few such as Garland. Hawaii is where I really learned about leadership from Robert Golden and a woman named Jeanne Angelheart. Robert became my mentor, he's a 70 year old man with a partner named Konrad. Robert took me under his wing and taught me about the importance of having a solid mission, I'm still refining mine but I know what it is.

Jeanne is the best leader I've ever met before in my life, this 62 year old woman who was the founder of the most amazing inentional/permaculture community I discovered in Maui.

In the money world, I learned how to recruit and employ the cream of the crop in the highest echelons of technical mavericks and get them to do things others don't beleive are possible. Using money to help motivating people after learning about community leadership almost feels like a sleazy way of cheating. I no longer feel proud of using money to motivate people even though it's sometimes required.

This is our team for Puna Community Currency I helped build while on the Big Island and I also backed the project technically. I find I'm usually only able to show off about 10% of my capabilities on projects that look complex and difficult to others. My mentor Robert Golden is the elder guy in this picture, he is in charge of keeping everyone focused. The scruffy guy is Daniel Levy. He is the visionary of this project, he has been to many rainbow gatherings and is a programmer as well as someone who understands what it's like to live in community without money. All I did was helped build the local team, got everyone excited and recruited the Django developer and put Daniel in the captains chair. Anyways, they're happy so I'm happy as well!

This is a big tree I climbed right before going to Hawaii

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My Lessons in Leadership From Engineering Management, Entrepreneurship and Being an Intentional Community Leader/Facilitator

• Go out of my way to establish a deep connection with all of my collegues
• Be everyones assistant and willing to support them in whatever challenges they face
• Doing dishes is usually the most respected job
• Make everybody feel safe and secure
• Praise in public
• Address concerns in private
• Be willing to take huge risks when required
• Move swiftly and boldly into action to inspire others support
• Be kind under all situations and circumstances
• Use comedy as a means for transformation, comedy is the highest order tool and requires the most intelligence to employ in various and challenging situations.
• Expect huge dedication from all of my collegues
• Spend most of my time listening and little much talking
• Holding space is a service in community, everybody wants to be heard. Listening to others frustrations is an act of service and will yield positive future credits for the space holder..
• Do everything possible to remain even-keel. When people are triggered, they aren't in their power. I learned this from Jeanne. I saw her in so many situations that would trigger the daylights out of anybody else but she was incredibly emotionally consistent, that's why she's such a good leader. I saw her get really angry one time, when someone stole from her. Decisions made from this space tend to not be the highest..
• Take time for self care whenever I feel off

I'm Ready For My Next Big Challenge!!

​I walk a unique path, I'm a technological maverick and can mobilize some of the most talented people around and direct them with scalpel-like precision. I've directed the development of incredibly unorthodox and wildly innovative IOS apps, custom plugins, complex mechanical machines and all sorts of products and projects for myself and collegues. I have the ability to execute these projects for a fraction of what even the powers that behave the means to do this, so I'm at an incredible advantage. The challenge is that people are constantly approaching me to work on projects I'm half excited about or concerned with their strategy. I have a difficult time with boundaries sometimes. Sometimes I not only get roped into working for free but also into being an investor which stretches my energetic and financial means.

Currently, I'm focusing on projects that produce financial abundance for myself. I realize this is essential for me to start THE PROJECT I'm really the most excited about. To buy land and start my own community that has a an entire technological team inside just as the community I lived in had a sewing business at the core..

I hope this has inspired you, thanks for reading

Thanks for reading!