Well, it all started on a balmy July day in Long Island, NY. The year was 1970. Ok seriously! My belief in regards to Life Coaching is that you are your best advertisement. I am a personal trainer and if I was 30 pounds overweight and unhealthy, my client list would not be very long. I would probably be selling insurance or something else. If I was a financial advisor and wore a $50 suit and drove a 1982 Chevy Nova , my clients would not have too much confidence in my abilities. With Life Coaching, the evidence of my knowledge and skill of my craft is not as apparent as the other examples. I have always believed in putting myself out there and being an open book. People want to be helped by someone who has been in there shoes on some level at least. How will they know where I have been unless I am honest and I tell them. Every counselor in rehab is a former addict of some kind…they can relate and have credibility!
Seeing that my target client, at least initially, are young children and their parents, I will open a small but revealing window into my own childhood that just may have led me the conclusion that this is the direction that I would like my career to take.
I was born with a very severe speech impediment, stuttering. My childhood, especially in school, was a miserable experience. We all know that school and friends are all that matters in those years. It doesn’t really matter what the ‘handicap’ is, for lack of a better word. Anything that alters your personality in a way that leaves you unable to be who you know you are and express yourself freely is detrimental and possibly dangerous to your childhood existence. Children can be sweet and innocent but they can also be cruel and ruthless and prey on the deficiencies of other kids. Like I said I was a sever stutterer growing up and could never express myself in the way that other people could. I could never raise my hand to answer a question that I knew the answer to, I would go hide in the bathroom when it was my turn to read aloud in class or fake a sickness. When you don’t express yourself you are thought of as unintelligent, when you try to express yourself and the words don’t come out or even worse they come out broken and chopped up, you are then considered a freak. That is when the kids are through laughing at you. Suicide was real thought and possible solution to my problem on a weekly basis. I probably would have done it if I would have had the guts. This is not something that you want to tell your friends or parents. Your friends wouldn’t understand and would disassociate themselves from you. Your parents have enough problems trying to get food on the table and deal with their own marital issues. Not to mention telling your macho dad about your tremendous insecurities doesn’t sound that appealing. I can imagine what a child has to go through when they finally realize that he or she is gay and has to tell their parents, actually it is even hard to imagine. 
Tears stream down my face as I write these words. Partly because of remembering the accounts of my childhood but mostly for the mere fact that there are children suffering right this second with either this issue or a million other issues that might not even seem like anything to other people but for them, it is their whole world. I can help these kids and parents, I am positive of this!
I did always have a few close friends and for some strange reason always managed to have a girlfriend, god only knows why. I developed a pretty decent sense of humor to deflect and combat the insults and ridicule and laughter that I would face on a daily basis. Maybe some of it was in my head but it doesn’t really matter because it felt real to me. So I got pretty good at using the Don Rickles approach to humor, but only directed at the people who would mess with me. To be honest I lost way more battles than I won but at least I was in the game sometimes. The disability that I had and still have has definitely altered my entire life from relationships, education and career choice. It has been the biggest hinderence in my life.
There are positives however. I have developed a good sense of humor which actually helps me in many situations from making others feel comfortable in difficult situations, making friends became easier, People want to be around other people who make them laugh and more importantly with woman. Sense of humor is usually right up there on the list of what women look for in a guy. I also developed a good sense of empathy, sympathy and sensitivity towards other kids who were quietly suffering. My first lesson I remember teaching my kids is to never laugh at or bully another kid and always be the first one to help a kid up when he has fallen, literally and figuratively. As I got older I have learned to control my stutter and focus more on the positive things that make me an amazing person and not the negative. It still alters some of the decisions I make but I don’t let it beat me like it used to and I know I am a better person because of it. My past was something I had to go through to get to my present and build towards my future. It is a major reason why I am the parent that I am today. It has also led me to being excellent at recognizing when a child is suffering in silence and being able to connect and relate to that child so that I can make a breakthrough and improve their life…through coaching!