What kind of guy am I? In many ways, I’m still figuring that out — so, I’m a work-in-progress and don’t have all the answers. However, I do enjoy finding answers and solutions, so I’m more of a problem-solver than a complainer. I’m generally upbeat, not uptight. Because I’m a work-in-progress, I’m not afraid to risk failure, make mistakes, learn from them, and sometimes even do 180s on things I thought I knew. I’m okay with that because I feel like I’m still moving forward, even when I contradict myself. And it helps me to accept other people’s inconsistencies. In fact, idiosyncrasies make us interesting. I like a little weirdness in my friends!

I feel like I’m doing a poor job of selling myself here, but I’ve never been comfortable with self-promotion — unless you count taunting my opponents on the volleyball court about how I’m going to beat them. Though I can be competitive, I enjoy being collaborative more, whether that’s helping a buddy tear apart and rebuild his lumpy prison mattress, coauthoring a poetry collection, or improvising a meal out of random ingredients we happened to have on hand. I suppose that’s a fancy way of saying I play well with others. I’m a firm believer that companionship can be crucial to accomplishment, especially for a guy like me. I just can’t do everything alone. Nor do I want to.