I know what it feels like to lose your direction.
When I was young, I had enormous goals. I believed I was going to play Major League Baseball.
I earned a baseball scholarship and eventually played one year of minor league baseball. But when that chapter ended, I felt like a fish out of water. Baseball had given me more than a goal. It had given me an identity and a clear picture of my future. Suddenly, both were gone.
From the age of 21 into my early 30s, I struggled to determine what I was supposed to do with my life. I never stopped being ambitious. In my twenties, I helped start an email marketing company that raised $750,000. We believed we had an opportunity to build something enormous. Instead, a combination of bad timing and difficult circumstances brought the business down, and the money was lost.
During those years, I began reading extensively about the human mind, happiness, behavior, and what allows people to change. That interest became a lifelong passion. When I later joined Nielsen, I was immersed in research, data, and the study of human behavior. I saw how people make decisions, what influences their actions, and how frequently our choices are driven by forces we do not fully recognize.
My path eventually led from selling advertising for a technology publication to building a successful career at Nielsen. I became a business leader, helped transform a company, and eventually built and sold a business of my own.
Since then, I have continued starting and building new ventures across advisory services, artificial intelligence, and game development while also serving in a global leadership role in ecommerce technology. I am still learning, creating, and taking risks because I do not believe ambition has an expiration date.
Today, at 50, I see many people my age beginning to think about slowing down or retiring. I feel like I am just getting started. I know what it is like to feel lost, fail, rebuild, and wonder whether you are capable of more. Your past does not have to define your future, and your age does not determine what you can still become.