More than five decades of business experience. More than 30 businesses. A lifetime of studying why people make the decisions they make.
I did not begin my career as a coach.
I began as a businessman and entrepreneur. Over more than five decades, I have been involved in more than 30 businesses—more often as an owner and entrepreneur than as an employee—in fields including technology consulting, construction, real estate, advertising, publishing, retail and wholesale businesses, restaurants, art, jewelry and other ventures.
Along the way I experienced successes, failures, opportunities seized and opportunities missed. I learned that knowing what to do and actually doing it are very different things. Intelligence and experience help, but neither prevents people from making decisions that work against their own interests.
My formal education includes a B.A., cum laude, from Princeton University (1975) and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (1977). I have additional education through The American College, including a Family Business Specialist certificate. I have also written books and articles, taught, mentored, developed educational programs, and served in leadership roles in philanthropic and nonprofit organizations.
My books include:
These credentials matter. But Synergix was built at least as much from what I learned outside the classroom—from building businesses, working with people, raising a family, mentoring others and examining my own decisions.
Long before we are old enough to examine our beliefs, we begin accumulating them. Family, teachers, experiences, successes, failures, fears and expectations all contribute. Over time, they become assumptions about who we are, what we are capable of, what is safe, what is risky, how other people see us and how the world works.
I call that collection of assumptions the “Operating Manual for Your Brain©.”
The problem is that nobody handed us the manual and asked us to approve it. Parts of it may be extremely useful. Other parts may be outdated, inaccurate or simply wrong. Yet we can continue following those instructions without realizing they are influencing the decisions we make.
Synergix is about learning to recognize those instructions, deciding which ones still serve you, and developing more useful ways to respond.
We are interested in causes, but we do not spend our time assigning blame. Understanding where a pattern came from can be useful. The purpose is to decide what to do with it now.
The work is forward-looking and practical: identify what is happening, define what you want instead, develop tools for responding differently, and put those tools to work in real situations.
Synergix