Business Strategist - Techpreneur - Adjunct Professor - Coach - Harvard MBA - Yogi - Guitarist - Improviser - Surfer - Dad of Four
I was not supposed to end up here.
For 30 years I was pure left brain. Then a wrist injury doing P90X with Tony Horton on a DVD changed everything.
Harvard MBA. Aerospace engineer. Strategy consultant across 25+ countries. Yoga teacher. TEDx speaker. Guitarist. Surfer. Dad of four.
That is not a list of accomplishments. It is a map of a life that refuses to be one thing.
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THE STORY
I was not supposed to end up here.
For 30 years I was a world-class business mind. Analytical. Precise. Linear. Aerospace engineer at Northrop Grumman - graduated first in my class. Early executive at Monitor Company. Harvard MBA. Strategy consultant across more than 25 countries, including years living in Europe. Adjunct Professor of Business and Leadership. Techpreneur who built ventures in digital media, technology, and human performance. I thought I had the whole thing mapped out.
Then I threw out my wrist doing P90X with Tony Horton on a DVD.
No ashram. No retreat. No dramatic awakening on a mountaintop. Just a wrist injury, some forced stillness, and a door that quietly opened. In that stillness I started noticing things I had been moving too fast to see. Connections. Synchronicities. Moments that felt too perfectly timed to be random.
I started studying. Yoga. Meditation. Quantum physics. Ancient wisdom traditions. Neuroscience. The science of consciousness. And I discovered that these two worlds I had assumed were opposites - the rigorous analytical and the deeply spiritual - are actually pointing at the same truth from different directions.
I also discovered something nobody tells you on the way up: success and fulfillment are not the same thing. I had built a lot of one and not enough of the other. I know what that gap feels like from the inside. I also know what it feels like when they finally align. That is the whole reason I do this work.
I am also a guitarist. Electric guitar - heavy metal and rock, not dinner party acoustic. I surf. I improvise. I have done improv comedy and theatre. I am a Techpreneur. I am a dad of four. I have been married 37 years to Dr. Eliza Mountcastle Shah - Harvard-trained neuroscientist, co-founder of Lifter Leadership, and the most brilliant human I know.
None of this is on the standard Harvard MBA resume. All of it is why I am better at this work than I would be without it.
WATCH THE TEDX TALK
"Are YOU a Lifter Leader?"
The talk that started the movement. What it means to show up fully, lead from service, listen at the deepest level, and act with uncommon courage.
This is where the Lifter Leader framework began. And it is still where most people say it all clicked.
THE FRAMEWORK
The 4 Mindshifts of a Lifter Leader
"Lifters lift Lifters."
SHOW UP
As your whole self, with your YES ANDs. Not a curated version. The whole thing.
SERVE UP
With purpose, in genuine service of others. Not performing service. Actually serving.
LISTEN UP
To your inner voice, your intuition, and to others. The STFU Listening Academy is a whole course on this.
ACT UP
Take action. Make things happen. The vision means nothing without the move.
PARESH IN THE WORLD
In the room. On the stage. In the practice.
(Three photos below — left: on stage or keynoting a conference; center: in a workshop, training, or with a client or team; right: a personal moment — surfing, guitar, improv, or something that shows who you are when you're not working. Each 800x600px landscape.)
CREDENTIALS - THE ONES THAT MATTER
The full picture.
Harvard MBA - early executive at Monitor Company
Aerospace engineer, Northrop Grumman - graduated first in class
30+ years business strategy consulting - 25+ countries, lived in Europe
Adjunct Professor of Business and Leadership - Top 5% American College of Financial Services
Techpreneur - built and launched multiple digital and technology ventures
13+ years of yoga, meditation, and spiritual practice
Certified Professional Business Coach (CPBC)
Lead Trainer, Professional Business Coaching Alliance (PBCA)
Creator of ZoGGSter - global movement for noticing meaningful synchronicities
TEDx - SXSW - Wisdom 2.0 - GAMA - CES - International Advertising Expo - Disrupt HR
2017: Invited by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to global symposium on consciousness
Featured: Forbes - Inc. - Entrepreneur - Harvard Business Review - Harvard Business School Press
Guitarist - Improviser - Performer - Occasional Actor - Surfer - Dad of four
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