When I was in 4th grade, my teachers were concerned I was learning-disabled, because I struggled with severe ADHD, to the point of being unable to participate in class or do homework. The school psychologist suggested I take an extensive cognition assessment, which concluded that I had the logic and reason processing ability of a sophomore in college. This led to my being homeschooled until middle school.

In 7th grade I wanted to learn an instrument. I saved up money and bought a bass guitar. Moving forward, I taught myself everything to the point of playing in bands, and even teaching lessons.

In 10th grade I borrowed an acoustic guitar from a friend and over a single weekend had taught myself how to play along perfectly with a song from beginning to end.

In 11th grade I dropped out of school. Having failed almost every class to that point, I didn’t see the benefit of a diploma. I was in a talented band and was going to focus my efforts on being successful there. However, the following year, the girl I was dating told me her dad would no longer approve of us being together if I didn’t graduate on time. I went to an alternate program, East Shore High School, and completed almost 3 years of credits in about 6 months, graduating early, while simultaneously establishing a student body office and being elected president. This came prior to creating the newspaper and yearbook programs.

Stick with me, we’re almost there.

In college, working on subjects I couldn’t have cared less about, I failed. Every attempt I made at a new college ended in total failure, wasting thousands in trust fund money and student loans. However, during those few years, I had learned to play piano and drums, sing, began writing a novel, held multiple jobs at a time, and spent hours a week volunteering. After I had finally given up on going to college, I took on a sales job, being one of the more prolific inside sales reps at Vivint. When I got bored there, I went to be a field service technician, completing the 3-week training process in 3 days. I moved to Grand Junction where I was regularly in the top of my region in upgrades and service.

In 2014 I went to do door to door sales for Vivint’s internet service, achieving a decent level of success, all while becoming an iOS developer. When I injured my back, I moved back to work for Vivint corporate again on the tech support team. After that, I went to Dev Mountain’s iOS program and finished at the top of my cohort. I needed a video to help crowd fund a loan, so I taught myself video editing. I was recruited for a 3 month internship where I completed all the work they had planned for me to do in under 3 weeks.

Now I’m working full time as a developer, primarily in iOS, but I often work in other languages or on other platforms where it’s largly easy for me to pick things up and begin to contribute.