Hi, I’m Liam.

How I got here

I grew up in Asheville, NC. At my strict religious high school, the yearbook voted me most likely to become a comedian. I loved making music and building websites for friends. I started a consulting business fixing computers for families at school. Then I studied business and computer science at Virginia Tech, and after graduation I lost touch with anything creative. I directed all my efforts at being successful in tech.

I spent the first few years after college in the DC area working in software. I did sales engineering, and my creative outlets were mostly trying to come up with the Next Big Thing to put on the app store and become an overnight success.

The work took me to San Francisco in 2014 as a co-founder of a data visualization startup, where I was the lead frontend engineer. I was burnt out because I made work my whole life. I barely exercised and rarely meditated. I had very few social connections outside work. And the concept of play didn’t even exist in my vocabulary. Luckily, I took my first improv class, which led to more social connection and inspired me to start individual therapy.

From there, healthy practices like breathwork and plant medicine ceremonies helped me blossom. Every year I embarked on different journeys that helped me uncover my true self and shed the unhealthy programming. I took my first holotropic breathwork retreat in 2018. Then in 2019 I got more intentional about improv as a creative pursuit and have been performing regularly since 2020. All while still climbing the ranks and working hard in the tech world.

Around 2023 I was laid off from a startup that had over-hired during the pandemic, and I knew something needed to shift. I began laying the foundation for a coaching career, all while ironically working at an AI coding startup. I was building my replacement, fully aware that the career that had gotten me here was rapidly mutating into something else. Now I coach full-time, trained at New Ventures West. I teach improv at Leela in SF, and perform regularly with Dream Collective, a troupe I helped create. It’s the dream of a lifetime, getting to collaborate with brilliant folks in the Bay Area. And now I get to help others do the same.