Growing up, I spent most of my childhood living in my own imagination. Teachers would constantly mark me down on my report card for staring out the window and daydreaming. Creating my own reality was the only way I could cope with all of the bullying, name-calling, and alienation that I went through from elementary school to high school. 

I felt the same way in college and for many years in the workplace, constantly battling between “the immigrant way” of doing things and the current American way of showing up at work and in life.

My immigrant family instilled in me the discipline and focus necessary to be successful but did not provide me the tools, strategies, and communication skills to confidently convey my innate abilities and manifest my full potential. I was taught to get a steady corporate job with benefits, similar to those afforded to them by the government in the Soviet Union. For most of my childhood and early adulthood, I always thought that I was a victim of circumstances. I struggled to assimilate, big time. The struggle is the fuel to everything I do today.

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