I grew up in New York in a family that was, depending on the day, hilarious and chaotic and a lot to handle. I learned early how to read a room. How to make people laugh when things got tense. How to hold it together when holding it together was the only option anyone was offering.

I was also, from the very beginning, a theater kid. The kind who went to performing arts summer camp, directed my high school's spring musical when I was a junior, and genuinely believed that storytelling was the most important thing a person could do. I still believe that. It took me a few decades to stop being embarrassed about it.

I started my career at Manhattan Theatre Club. Then MTV Networks in the nineties, which was exactly as chaotic and generative as it sounds. Then advertising, where I’ve spent more than twenty years as a copywriter and creative director — working across entertainment, healthcare, experiential, and everything in between. I've written global launch campaigns, song lyrics, executive presentations, and a Modern Love essay in the New York Times that became the seed of a memoir.

None of it was planned. All of it makes sense in retrospect, which is the only way life does make sense.

Here's what I know now that I wished I'd known sooner: the thing you've been trying to outgrow is probably the thing. The weird, specific, embarrassing passion you've been downplaying in professional settings because it doesn't seem serious enough — that's the whole point.

I think the best creative work tells the truth and makes you feel less alone. I think a meeting can feel like a performance worth attending, if you care enough to make it one.