Living Quantum Vision

Trusting my emerging story...

About 15 years ago I inherited a motorcycle. It was my former stepfather’s motorcycle. I was honored to be passed down something he cherished so dearly.

This was a busy time in my life. I was working full time. Going to school in the evenings. It felt like I was studying endlessly… During this time, I also began building a relationship with the woman who would eventually become my wife. I was burning the candle at both ends…

I remember riding my motorcycle up and down Lakeshore Drive late in the evening on Sunday nights. There was almost never any traffic at that time. I would enjoy the sunset and the breeze coming off Lake Michigan. It was pure freedom. No worries. No thinking. Just riding. Feeling. Being.

Unfortunately, that motorcycle was stolen. This was very difficult for me… My favorite way to remember my late stepfather was unfairly taken away!

Life went on, as it does…

Fast forward more than a decade, and I was living in California. It was the middle of COVID. Like most people during this time, I was stressed out. Scared and feeling couped up. Desperate for fresh air. To explore again!

Around this time, I got involved in two new things, both proving to be the breath of fresh air I needed. The first was as an investor in the startup competition at the local Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in San Luis Obispo. The AngelCon program allowed me to learn about Venture Capital; a segment of the investment world I had no experience in. It also helped me get out of the house and meet new people. Good people. Inspiring people.

The second new thing I started at that time was a personal vision workshop. My realtor – a nice southern guy named Stan – had invited me to participate in a small group he was forming. He wanted to explore how to clarify people’s visions for their life. It was a lot different than AngelCon – less analytical & familiar – but I felt drawn to it in a way I couldn’t explain.

During this time, I had a strange experience happen to me… I had a vision of my own. Not one that was forced. Just one that felt like it emerged. It didn’t make much sense. But it felt real. It was vivid and felt alive!

It was that I had a motorcycle again and I was riding it work. Now, this wasn’t the strange or confusing part. At the time, I had been working at a financial planning firm for several years. It was stable and rewarding. But… I wasn’t riding the motorcycle to that job! I was riding it to the HotHouse – the location of the SBDC, and the AngelCon program.

It didn’t make logical sense. And yet it carried a charge. A kind of magnetism that didn’t fade when I stopped thinking about it.

Time passed. Life continued. The vision receded into the background, though it never fully disappeared. When I returned to it, the energy was still there—quiet, patient.

I continued connecting with Stan. The relationship had evolved some. I was helping him explore where his idea could go. He was helping me open up. He certainly had a grand vision! For some reason, he valued our ongoing dialogue. Our minds worked differently.

At one point, he surprised me by asking if I would become his business partner. I didn’t expect it. And if I’m honest, it didn’t feel immediately good.

I had always valued stability. I had built my identity inside structured systems, clear expectations, and measured risk. The partnership represented something else entirely: uncertainty, exploration, and a kind of responsibility I had never taken on before.

Around that time, I bought a scooter. Not a motorcycle—but close enough. Riding it brought back the same feeling I remembered from Chicago. The wind. The relief. The brief release from pressure and constant thought.

I would ride it to work at the financial planning firm. Not the location from the original vision. But each ride stirred it up again, like a signal briefly breaking through static.

I eventually said yes to the partnership, cautiously at first. Nights and weekends. Continuing my full‑time work while exploring something new on the side. It felt enlivening in a way I hadn’t experienced in years.

---

Later, circumstances shifted abruptly. Structures I had relied on began to dissolve. Certainty gave way to ambiguity.

And strangely, as external stability fell away, something internal grew clearer.

Around that time, Stan wrote something he called Quantum Vision. I didn’t fully understand it. But it resonated. It felt less like a concept and more like a description of something already unfolding in my own life.

Then in early 2025 it was announced that the financial planning firm was merging with a much larger company. As an investment specialist, I was exposed. I was an overhead expense that would almost certainly be redundant at the much larger firm.

I sat with that uncertainty. Not knowing what would happen.

Around this same time, a new person took over as director of the SBDC. Someone I knew. She and I were co-investors in AngelCon, together. She was also the attorney that helped do the legal paperwork for me to become Stan’s partner in Synergistic Intelligence, LLC.

The signal was getting clearer. Coming in stronger. LOUDER now! Possibility started to seep into my wandering thoughts about the future.

The new director and I had a couple Zoom calls to reconnect and share about the updates in our lives. On one of those calls, she mentioned something that connected deeply within me. It was about her vision for the SBDC. Some new ideas and programs. She also talked about how difficult it felt, because the world seemed so uncertain and fast-changing.

President Trump had just taken office and one of the first things his administration did was shut off funding for the Small Business Administration (SBA), which was the parent of the national SBDC network. Nearly 1,000 SBDC centers were thrown into the unknown. These centers provide invaluable guidance and resources to the economic engine of our country: small businesses.

Her world was even more uncertain than mine it seemed! The funding was frozen. The team was changing. This was all new to her.

The conversation stuck with me…

On April 1, 2025 the financial planning firm merger was struck, and my time there came to an end. It was the changing of the guard for me. From stability to complete uncertainty!

One morning, I woke up with an unfamiliar surge of energy. I sat down and wrote—without a plan, without precedent. A story. An allegory. Six chapters poured out in one sitting. It was about Quantum Vision.

I had never done anything like that before. It felt less like creating and more like tuning in.

The signal was a lot stronger now. I felt its pull, even while not knowing where it was taking me.

I decided I was going to take a chance and send my friend, the director at the SBDC, the allegory and some other information about Quantum Vision. It felt like it may offer her clarity amidst her new role, despite all the chaos happening in the world.

Months passed. I didn’t know if she had read it. I considered that maybe it wasn’t as relevant to her as I felt it may be… but I was ok with that because I wasn’t living by expectations anymore.

The, I received an email from here. It reminded me of what I had sent her before. Of my vision. She was intrigued. I don’t think she fully understood why. How could she? I still didn’t really understand it all myself!

We had another Zoom call to discuss Quantum Vision in more depth. She and her colleague asked how I saw it fitting within the SBDC. “Honestly, I don’t know…” I told them. From my limited vantage point and experience, it felt relevant. Like it had potential to help bring clarity. To relieve stress. Small businesses, and especially startups, deal with oodles of uncertainty. Risk. The unknowns are countless!

Through the open dialogue, we started to circle around the incubator program. It was a two-year program for local early-stage, startups with high-growth potential. We all felt a workshop with the incubator participants seemed like the best possible fit for Quantum Vision.

The vision rushed back in… Full on, this time! The signal was clear and the loudest it’s ever been. And still, I didn’t know what I would present to the incubator program founders, when the time came.

So, I just sat with the uncertainty and trusted that life would guide me. Like it had been doing.

---

I realize now that I am living Quantum Vision. I always had been! And for this unforeseen opportunity to have the full potential of its impact, I need to surrender myself to it… So, I hold space open for what is meant to be.

As I reflect on my journey – from the vision of riding a motorcycle to work, to my journey of becoming Stan’s business partner, to AngelCon and my interactions with the now SBDC program director – I never would have chosen this route. And yet, in some strange way, it feels like the path I was always meant to travel.

Turning the page in my unfolding story… Today is the day I present Quantum Vision to San Luis Obispo SBDC incubator companies. A new chapter of my personal Quantum Vision is beginning. I couldn’t be more excited for the unknown!