office in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinets. The process of obtaining my money from this box was always wrought with arguments, so my timing for withdrawals needed to be perfectly planned to ensure the "branch manager" wasn't present at my bank. My mother was my dad’s 3rd marriage, and it, too, eventually ended in a nasty divorce my sophomore year of high school. The infidelity and poor treatment of my mother and us finally proved to be too much for her. Prior to this I’d had the good fortune of being introduced to a guidance counselor, Jeff, that followed me from middle school through graduation. This man was instrumental in my life, and got me out of that house, placing me with friend’s families, sometimes for weeks at a time when things got too bad. When my parents divorced in 1994, I moved out with my mother, and life got better. Fortunately, with Jeff's guidance and some self-discipline, I was able to stay on track, despite my home life. I never turned to drugs or made other poor choices, rather, I channeled all that frustration and internal conflict into trying to make positive changes, and improve myself however I could. I began lifting weights almost obsessively, one of the few things I felt I could control at age 14, and this subsequently became a passion that has remained to this day. I also began playing football, which I did through college, as I pursued the only career I could ever have envisioned myself in at the time, a school guidance counselor. During this time I also developed a fascination with the ocean, bodyboarding and surfing, specifically big waves and their immense power, which influenced the next stage of my life. I finished my undergrad at Ursinus and went on to do a Masters in Education and Clinical Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Unable to find a school counselor position, I took a job at Joseph J. Peters Institute in Philadelphia as a psychotherapist with families, sexually abused kids, and the offenders. As one might imagine, this kind of work has a high burnout rate, and one evening after conducting therapy with a
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