I was around six when this article appeared in the local paper. My teacher, Mrs. Harris, had brought it to my parents’ attention, as my family spoke little English at the time. She had carefully cut it out, mounted it on blue construction paper and laminated it for us (is that even a thing anymore?).

I was shy then and spent many a day lost in a world of my own making. In writing class, I was often caught transforming my letters and numbers into animals and creatures of all sorts. Having noticed my distracting doodles creative tendencies, my teachers “commissioned” me during the summer to illustrate our classroom walls for the coming semester with murals inspired by childhood stories and mythical characters. You could say that was my first gig. For a quiet kid increasingly consumed by needs to prove himself, those were transformative moments with valuable lessons that I would unpack much later.

The decades to follow morphed into my own sort of rebellious era of exploration complete with a relentless questioning of… everything. I ventured far from home, dabbled in tech/ marketing/ advertising/ media, made my way to NYC, did the start-up thing, chased crazy dreams, bounced all over the planet… And I pretty much strayed away from much of what I loved in search of all kinds of answers, often to the wrong questions.

Now I’ve made my way back home. Home to reconnect, rediscover, relearn… to create again, but in a whole new way. grftlRBL marks the first chapter of a new story in the making — a journey of innovating in new ways rooted in real old life lessons.

In an era obsessed with owning our attention, grtflRBL encourages us to focus on what truly matters: cherishing those who enrich our lives and the beauty of all that we are, rather than empty distractions and the noise of what we are not.

I hope you join the journey.

One Work at a time.