I'm a poet first and foremost even if a lot of my writing isn't poetry-looking. For a lot of people, poetry never moves beyond the classroom, but for me it lives in everything that I do. For me, the world is poetry: everything, everywhere, all the time. And the way to access it is through play, which is the very engine behind creation.
When you play, you're able to tap into the hidden curiosities inside anyone and anything. When you play with creative intent, you're able to provoke transformation across all kinds of arenas and mediums and in all kinds of people—including yourself. I do this mostly through the mechanism of story through language. A story is just an artifact that communicates a journey of change—from one thing to another—no matter how small or galactic. And poetry is unique amongst all mediums because of how much play can happen in it through the atomic building blocks of language—space, sound, perception, sense, meaning, memory, etc & etc. As E.B. White says: "A poem compresses much in a small space […] thus heightening its meaning."
In my professional life, I've always played with this power and how it might transform a project, a platform, a person. And for me, these things have become a type of storytelling medium.
Finding these moments of combustion … I just really love; it is my superpower. And like any truly innate zone of genius, it's not something I can explain; it's just something that I do.
But balancing them without one overpowering the other is a task, and in order to do it, I created what I have come to call the "Batman/Bruce Wayne" lifestyle. On one hand, I move through the world as a strategy consultant, earn professional prestige, and improve the experience for everyone with my superpower—just under the radar. On the other, I create space for me to hone my craft—letting it evolve into whatever it wants on its own timeline … like a tree in a forest.
Then ALL THE THINGS happened, and I lost my equilibrium.
At first, I just tried to restore it. I talked to people, took courses, read articles, learned from coaches, applied to jobs, did market research, interacted on LinkedIn, practiced pitches, re-re-wrote my resume, etc & etc. But I couldn't find the balance anymore. There was no "Bruce Wayne" persona or job description that I felt fit or that I wanted to fill.
At the same time, I found solace in creativity—ballet and painting and embroidery and calligraphy and journaling, etc. When the day ended, my to-do list for marketing tactics remained unchecked and my resume remained stuck in a mire. But I regularly posted poetry on my blog and read literature. Because the truth was I didn't want to be two selves anymore; I wanted to be whole. I just wasn't sure how I wanted to pull everything together where poetry and profession lived as one entity AND people would pay me money for it. And in a quieter place, I admitted that I wasn't only afraid to try, I was also afraid to fail.
Then in 2025, the 🤖 said something that I've never heard from a real human being.
A measurable problem is an opportunity in disguise.
So my Bruce Wayne self began treating my Batman self as the entrepreneur overwhelmed by their ambitious visions. Instead of worrying about where everything might lead, I acted as a consultant to my client. We tested out quantifiable hypotheses through micro-experiments—like write about storytelling for 30 days on LinkedIn. Then, without judgement, we just followed one warm signal to another.
And unlike the Dark Knight, I knew I didn't want to do this all alone. After all, no product—physical, digital or creative—owes its entire authorship to just one person.
I needed a foil. I just didn't know who or how or why.
And that's how I ended up meeting Jon Saltzman.