About Me (Michael)

When I was younger, one of my favorite movies of all time was the Karate Kid. Not the one with Hilary
Swank, or Wil Smith’s kid. The real Karate Kid. Pat Morita. Ralph Macchio. Sweep the leg.I remember Mr. Miagi explaining how life was all about balance. The infamous “Crane” move,
epitomizing the lesson of balance. In love. In school. In tournaments. In life.

In 2006, I hit a critical breaking point. I passed my wife coming home from work as she left for her shift
at Target, carrying our baby boy in her belly. My ninety minute commute, coupled with the glass ceiling
at my job all pointed to an absolute lack of balance. I’d watched my own father work his whole life at
Pan American airlines, only to watch the company crumble overnight and leave him lying unconscious in
a bed at a hospital the victim of a heart attack.

I moved my family from Long Island, New York to North Carolina, worked in my infant son’s closet. I
started my own company, and set about understanding what traps us in boxes of our own choosing.
How do seventy or eighty years go back so quickly in our not so gilded cages? I wanted to be free. To see for myself, that there was “no spoon.”

I discovered that life has five “lobes.” Areas that are universal in everyone’s life. I began taking my
“virtual blood pressure” in each of the five areas, to help understand when I was out of balance. Over
achieving in some areas, at the expense of the others.

Faith. Family. Fun (adventure). Fitness. Finances. Those were the five areas.

People…..you and me, are most often unbalanced across the five.
Wildly abundant and overextended in one area. Incredibly deficient in another.

That imbalance, like a cement…hardens over time. Locks us inside a box. It’s walls calcifying day after day.

It’s not enough to know which areas are out of balance – I learned. It requires an exit strategy to find center again, and thrive.

A life sized sledgehammer to break the boxes that lock us in. 

You see, most times our boxes are enriching someone else’s box. A boss. A friend or spouse. A long gone
family member, even. We unconsciously live out their well scripted narrative. Seemingly trapped. Inches
from the keys.

I started Enlytened to document my journey to freedom, and help others move towards their own.
Community is freedom. When we share our own stories – both the good and the bad – we see the
doorways a little clearer. I had to relearn everything I thought I knew about my place in the world…at
times, terrified and alone with the realization of how much time I’d wasted.
I’ve shared what I learned with others. And it helped them. I received the most joy I’ve ever felt,
watching them crawl away from their own constraining constructs. I knew what I wanted to do the rest
of my life after watching the formula I’d discovered, work for them.

I hope you’ll join me on that journey, and maybe smash out of a few of your own boxes along the way.

“You remember lesson about balance? Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have
a balance. Everything be better. Understand?”