From Detroit to death's door
to a better life
I was born in Detroit, Michigan. After living in and travelling all 50 states and more than 40 countries, I landed in Santa Barbara, California in 2000 and have been here ever since.
As an entrepreneur with a love for basketball, I spent the last 20 years building and selling companies while playing local pickup games in between. In 2008, my life changed forever with the birth of my daughter Isabella. As an entrepreneur I was often labelled "the visionary." But I didn't have the vision that after Izzie's birth I'd end up with 5 children within 6 years of age.
My second child showed up 11 months after Izzie (I didn't know that was possible). His name is Rocco. He started missing milestones — the doctors called them delays. When our 5th child, Blu, started missing milestones too, we received a diagnosis for both: autism and intellectual disability. The inspiration for this work is because of Rocco and Blu. That's where RoccoBlu came from.
This journey has been filled with isolation, depression, a nasty divorce and addiction — and has had me raising all 5 kids on my own since 2017. As the saying goes: until the pain of the same is worse than the pain of change, nothing happens. I knew there had to be a better way to live and a better life for my kids.
The content and courses offered by RoccoBlu are a culmination of what I discovered on the journey that took me from death's door to a life better than I'd ever have imagined. Today, the tragedy has become the gift. Anyone else who dives into this work can have the same experience.