Today is my b-day,
And I want to take a moment to celebrate the people who have shaped me as a human being at 29. (Damn 30 is just around the corner)
This page is my living credits
A space to honor the people and ideas that have shaped me, and continue to shape me
Every word I write,
every framework I share,
every piece of content I make
owes something to these names.
Some are authors
Some are friends and family
Others are creators I’ve followed for years,
Or mentors who saw something in me I couldn’t see myself.
I even have some fictional characters who helped me understand my own psychology and place in the world.
I would not be who I am without these influences.
This page is my way of saying thank you.
Decolonial Thinkers & Political Educators
Paulo Freire – I found Paulo Freire when I was grappling with the question: how do I communicate what I’m learning about decolonization and capitalist imperialism, the genocides of my people? How do I educate people in a transformational, sustainable, accessible way without becoming just an angry person where no one listens? How do you transform sacred rage (as Fanon calls it) into transformation for others? His books “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” and “Pedagogy of Hope” gave me tools, frameworks, and encouragement for navigating that terrain. He helped me understand that education is either a practice of freedom or oppression, and his work guides how I approach sharing my learnings without reproducing the same monster (as best as I can). He also reminded me of the ontological need for hope. This work is not easy – it hurts and is painful, and as you go deeper into these hard truths, hope becomes not just helpful but an absolute necessity for survival.
Noam Chomsky – Master of media literacy and propaganda analysis. Helped me get understand how consent is manufactured and how to think critically about how social media influences you and your decisions from the lens of politics, oppression, authoritarianism, and more.
Vincent Bevins – The Jakarta Method revealed the hidden history of US mass killing programs that shaped the modern world. Essential reading for understanding contemporary authoritarianism.
Maria Ressa – Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist who took down Duterte over his extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Her book “How to Stand Up to a Dictator” blew my mind. So did her Democracy Now! interviews and the documentary “A Thousand Cuts.” She reveals how the Philippines was the lab rat nation for testing propaganda tactics that get authoritarian leaders into power. These psychological warfare campaigns create fake social media accounts to influence people into voting against their own interests. The same tactics used on my people in the Philippines are now being used in America as it slides into fascist rule. Her work explains why 72% of the world is under authoritarian rule today.. and is living proof that courage under authoritarianism is possible.
Malcolm X – Demonstrated the power of intellectual transformation and the courage to evolve publicly. His journey from Nation of Islam to universal human rights consciousness is a model for authentic growth.
Thomas Sankara & Ibrahim Traore – Thomas Sankara and Ibrahim Traore are modern-day examples in my lifetime of leaders who have been and are in the process of decolonization and removing economic neo-colonial dependency on the West. They represent African leadership that prioritizes sovereignty, development, and cultural integrity over Western approval. Their approaches to governance and economic independence provide concrete models for what post-colonial leadership can look like when it’s truly committed to serving the people rather than external powers.
Jason Hickel – Economics from a decolonial lens. His work on degrowth and post-development thinking challenges the assumptions of endless extraction.
Mark Fisher & Fredric Jameson – Mark Fisher’s book “Capitalist Realism” helped me wake up to the psychological and mental health effects of capitalism and postmodernity, and how that removes the sacred from anything in life. It’s given me language for a phenomenon that’s foundational now to my understanding of the world. It’s given me language and tools to understand the origins of my negative self-talk, being an entrepreneur for the past five years as I write this. How I equate my worth to only how much money I make or how productive I am, and if I’m not productive, then I say “I’m just a piece of shit.” Fredric Jameson’s work on postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capitalism provides the theoretical foundation for understanding how capitalism creates a mass mental health crisis. Understanding capitalist realism and its harmful mental health effects has helped me understand the root of my harmful thought patterns and ideas of self-worth. Since I can name it now I have the tools to think beyond it.
E.J.R. David – Filipino-American psychologist whose book “Brown Skin, White Minds” was the first book I read on decolonizing the Filipino psyche and led me down a whole path of decolonization. His work on colonial mentality helped me understand my own internalized oppression and healing journey. As I write this, I’m planning to reconnect with land, culture, and people. His research provided the foundational framework for understanding how colonization operates psychologically and what the healing process looks like for Filipino diaspora communities.
Dr. Stacey Litam – I met her in Vegas at her book signing for Patterns that Remain: A Guide to Healing for Asian Children of Immigrants. Her work is incredibly powerful and practical for decolonization work as a Filipino American and anyone in the Filipino diaspora. She provides frameworks for understanding and healing from intergenerational trauma and colonial mentality that are both academically rigorous and deeply personal.
Dr. Alok Kanojia – (HealthyGamerGG) A psychiatrist who creates some of the most valuable mental health content in an age of information overload. He has a unique background as a former gamer and combines Eastern psychology with Western psychology for a holistic approach to navigating mental health in the digital age. His YouTube channel provides practical tools for understanding your mind and building better relationships with technology and yourself.
Partha Chatterjee – His work “The Nation and Its Fragments” completely changed how I understand sovereignty and resistance. He showed me how anticolonial movements created their own domain of sovereignty by splitting the world into two parts: the material domain (where they had to acknowledge Western superiority in technology and governance to survive) and the spiritual domain (where they preserved their cultural identity and spiritual autonomy). This framework helped me understand how modernization claims to be universal while erasing local, spiritual, and indigenous ways of knowing.. His work give me academic language on why reviving spirituality (not religion) is so essential today.
Deepa Kumar & Edward Said – Their work on Islamophobia and Orientalism helped me understand and face my own programming from news, media, video games, and TV throughout my life. Kumar’s “Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire” and Said’s “Orientalism” showed me how these weren’t natural prejudices but constructed ideologies that I had unconsciously absorbed. Their work gave me the tools to access deeper empathy, understanding, and nuance that I can authentically hold within me as I use my voice and share my ideas as a creator during this time.
Psychology, Economics, Philosophy
Nassim Taleb – Taught me to think in terms of antifragility, skin in the game, and the dangers of academic theorizing without real-world consequences. His work on uncertainty and decision-making under complexity is foundational.
Shane Parrish – Mental models and first principles thinking. His approach to learning and decision-making helps me synthesize insights across disciplines systematically.
Daniel Kahneman – Nobel Prize-winning psychologist whose work “Thinking, Fast and Slow” is built on decades of psychological research into cognitive biases and heuristics – mental shortcuts that create flaws in our decision-making. When we talk about critical thinking and studying decision-making, his work is seminal. Kahneman has created mental models that genuinely help you become a better thinker by understanding how our minds actually work versus how we think they work. Essential for anyone building frameworks for better thinking and making more rational decisions, especially in the digital age with AI, misinformation, and pscyhological warfare.
Robert Cialdini – The problem with anyone who uses their voice online is that they don’t understand these principles of human behavior – this is why they don’t grow, why their movements don’t gain traction, why people don’t listen to them. There are thousands of books on influence and persuasion, but Cialdini’s work is the only one you need to understand human behavior on a fundamental level based on first principles. He distills 100 years of behavioral research into seven laws of persuasion that help you become a better communicator and defend yourself against manipulation. Anyone doing transformation work should know these principles because: 1) It protects you from being manipulated, and 2) It empowers you to aim communication skills toward movements and mindsets you believe could genuinely change the world. His books “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” and “Pre-Suasion” are fundamentals for understanding both how manipulation works and how to communicate authentically and effectively.
Charlie Munger – Warren Buffett’s partner at Berkshire Hathaway who introduced the concept of the “latticework of mental models”. He taught me thinking in first principles and building knowledge using mental models from different disciplines. His approach involves developing models from psychology, economics, biology, physics, mathematics – because “all the wisdom in the world is not to be found in one little academic department”. As he put it: “You have to learn the big ideas in all the other disciplines in such a way that they’re in a mental latticework in your head and you automatically use them for the rest of your life”. He gave me the framework and language to understand why interdisciplinary thinking is so powerful for making better decisions.
Richard Wolff & Karl Marx – Economic literacy and understanding capitalism as a system, not a natural law. Essential for anyone thinking about post-capitalist futures.
René Girard – His work on mimetic desire has been crucial for understanding social media disinformation and how platforms amplify fascistic behaviors in our hyper-polarized climate. His insight that war and conflict happen not because people are different, but because people want the same things, crystallized how I see social dynamics within others, but also within myself. Girard’s work explains patterns of human behavior and social violence that appear across cultures and time periods – patterns playing out today in our current political moment in 2025.
Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari – These guys gave me language to articulate what I was seeing when learning about fascism. And how behaviorally, it can show up in any person regardless of political affiliation. As I was looking inwards and dismantling the fascist / authoritarian tendencies within myself and how it shows up while looking at he worlds hard truths.. Using their concept of micro-fascism gave language to name it. Along with Wilhelm Reich and Umberto Eco, they helped me find scholarly language that fascism isn’t just a political system of governance “over there”. When we understand micro-fascism, we can look inward and recognize my own authoritarian impulses in our own psyche.
Adam Smith – The original Adam Smith (not the libertarian caricature). His work on moral sentiments and the role of empathy in human society.
Spiritual Scientists & Researchers
Rudolf Steiner – Anthroposophy and the integration of spiritual science with practical applications. His work on education, agriculture, and consciousness development offers a framework for sacred technology.
Manly P. Hall – I visited his Philosophical Research Society in Los Angeles and got completely absorbed in his essays and works during my early twenties. “The Secret Teachings of All Ages” was instrumental as a synthesis of different spiritual knowledge traditions and epistemic foundations. What really got me was his surgical precision in showing how all religions and belief systems are different exoterically (on the surface) but esoterically (in essence) they’re the same. His work on comparative religion and disseminating esoteric traditions gave me foundational understanding before I found thinkers like Robert Gilbert or Rudolf Steiner directly. Hall’s approach to understanding the origins of knowledge and the perennial philosophy underlying different mystical systems was really powerful for building my framework of how spiritual wisdom works across cultures and time periods.
Dr. Robert Gilbert – Sadly, he passed away during my lifetime, but he did tremendous work in synthesizing ancient spiritual traditions in a way that’s accessible to anyone on a modern independent path of spiritual development. He was the first non-Egyptian to be authorized to teach BioGeometry by Dr. Ibrahim Karim and had over 25 years of study in the original European Rosicrucian and Holy Grail traditions. He synthesized wisdom and practices from different traditions – including Himalayan, Japanese, Indian, Gnostic Christian, and Rosicrucian traditions – into accessible means of spiritual development. His work bridged ancient wisdom with modern energy medicine and consciousness research, and his 18-episode series “Sacred Geometry & Spiritual Science” on Gaia TV became one of their most popular releases. His work comes from scientific, historical reverence and background. His lectures are a treat – the way he shares information just makes it easy to understand complex spiritual science concepts.
Chaumery & de Bélizal – French radiesthesia researchers whose work on subtle energies and vibrational detection laid groundwork for modern biogeometry. Their scientific approach to measuring and working with invisible forces bridges the gap between mysticism and practical application.
Don Beck & Chris Cowan (Spiral Dynamics) – Don Beck & Chris Cowan (Spiral Dynamics) – Building on Clare Graves’ work, they developed a framework for understanding how human consciousness evolves through different value systems and worldviews. What I’m most grateful for is that their work has been tested across the Global South, Second World, and First World countries, showing its universal applicability. It particularly stands out in its sensitivity to racism – providing a solution to see beyond the colors of race and instead into the consciousness of a spectrum. Spiral Dynamics allows one to see beyond binaries in these hyper-polarized times and stretch my mind to perceive more nuance in the spiritual equations at play rather than just class or race dynamics.
Dinesh Kumar & Mark Rasmus – These teachers showed me how to apply Hermetic principles through martial arts and practical energy work. Their approach bridges ancient wisdom with physical practice, demonstrating that spiritual development isn’t just intellectual but requires embodied training and discipline.
Dr. Ibrahim Karim – His synthesis of French radiesthesia techniques and vibrational spectrum research from the 1940s has revealed a new spectrum through which humanity can perceive reality. This knowledge was largely lost during World War II. While modern science understands reality through the physical plane (periodic table of elements) and the electromagnetic spectrum (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth), Dr. Karim has revived vibrational energy spectrum – the subtle energy; (chi, ki, prana) that many ancient traditions speak of. He’s developed practical and precise systems of measurement for subtle energy qualities for practical use in agriculture, architecture, EMF, healing, and design. His Biogeometry is essentially a design language, the science of creating sacred power spots. Not many people know of his work, but it represents a missing piece of how we can create technology and environments that work with natural energy patterns rather than against them.
Alan Watts – During middle school when I was dealing with serious health issues and mental health struggles, I spent most of my time sick and isolated. I was introverted, didn’t know how to socialize much, kind of a loner during that period. Alan Watts became my companion through it all. I would play his lectures constantly – falling asleep to them in my headphones, listening while walking the school halls. He helped me think when I didn’t want to think, or rather, I would let him do the thinking for me. His lectures on Zen, Taoism, and the illusion of the separate self were formative for my consciousness today. He was a bridge between Eastern philosophy and Western psychology that I desperately needed during those years.
Ken Wilber – I’m still going through his works as I write this on July 2nd, 2025. All my life, I’ve functioned from an integral consciousness having ADHD, what I call “Attention Directed To Higher Dimensions”. I’ve always combined different domains of knowledge and integrated the things I’ve learned over the years, building on top of knowledge. Ken Wilber has given me the academic, philosophical, and historical language to crystallize my own ideas and my own way of being. When I read his work on integral theory and developmental psychology, it wasn’t really new to me – it was more familiar. I felt deep gratitude that he walked down the rigorous intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical path to articulate a framework for understanding consciousness that I’ve always intuitively known.
Conscious Entrepreneurs & Strategic Thinkers
Naval Ravikant – Entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of AngelList who has early stakes in companies like Twitter, Uber, and Yammer. Naval fundamentally changed my mindsets about business in a more holistic and ethical way. He combines Eastern philosophy with entrepreneurship, encouraging people not just to build businesses, but to build themselves. His wisdom on self-alignment, creating genuine value, and understanding human psychology applies regardless of economic system. His approach to first principles thinking – economics, human behavior, psychology, persuasion – gives you tools for sustainable entrepreneurship that serves people rather than exploits them. The principles are universal and can guide conscious value creation in any economic framework.
Seth Godin – Marketing as service and the importance of building things worth building. His work on permission marketing and tribal leadership guides ethical business practices.
Lee Kuan Yew – Singapore’s former Prime Minister who brought his country from third-world to first-world status as a post-colonial nation. I have deep respect and admiration for this man’s technocratic ability. I see him as an integrationist technocrat because unlike Western technocrats – who are billionaires with no connection to spirit or people or understanding of what their decisions do across the Global South – Lee Kuan Yew had technocratic skill and expertise in nation-building but never forgot the soul of his people. His lectures and speeches to the Filipino people have inspired me to explore civilization design and speculative futures.
Tim Ferriss – His book “The 4-Hour Work Week” was one of the first books I ever read on entrepreneurship and working for yourself. I’m really grateful for Tim and his podcasts – his interviews with thinkers like Gabor Maté and others have been incredible. His approach to optimization, experimentation, and lifestyle design gave me tools for efficient skill acquisition and life design. He showed me that you could design your life around what actually matters to you rather than just grinding in the 9-5 consciousness. His methods for learning anything quickly and his focus on testing everything became foundational to how I approach both business and personal development.
Derek Sivers – Derek Sivers is just a joy to read. I love his essays, articles, and his strange blog. He’s such a character, and his books really resonate with me, especially his storytelling – he’s one of my favorite writers. His approach to independent thinking and unconventional business wisdom has been really influential. He has this way of taking complex ideas and making them simple through perfect little stories. His perspective on building businesses that serve your life rather than consuming it has shaped how I think about conscious entrepreneurship.
Michael Gerber – His book “The E-Myth” taught me the crucial difference between being a technician, manager, and entrepreneur. The Technician is the doer who lives in the present and loves hands-on work, the Manager is the pragmatic organizer who lives in the past and brings order, and the Entrepreneur is the visionary who lives in the future and sees opportunities. Most businesses fail because they’re started by technicians who suffer from an “entrepreneurial seizure” – thinking that knowing how to do the work means you understand how to run a business that does that work. Gerber tells this story through a pie shop example, showing how most people work IN their business instead of ON their business. He taught me the importance of delegation – that you can’t do everything alone if you want to focus on what matters most. His work challenged the myth I had about entrepreneurship and helped me understand that building systems and working strategically is more important than just being good at the technical work. This completely changed how I approach my creative work and business.
Dan Koe – One of the people who got me into writing online. He has a platform called Digital Economics, and I had the pleasure of being part of different layers of his program and speaking with him directly. Guy’s a legend for paving a path to digital sovereignty and solopreneurship through sharing your knowledge. His approach to building an audience around your authentic interests rather than chasing trends resonates deeply with my approach to conscious entrepreneurship. He showed me how to turn intellectual curiosity and personal development into sustainable income while staying true to your values.
Justin Welsh – One of the people who got me into writing online and a massive inspiration for my solopreneurship journey. This guy built a $7M+ one-person business from corporate burnout, generating millions annually with just two courses and his newsletter The Saturday Solopreneur. What I love most about Justin is his minimal approach – he went from VP of Sales managing 150 people to controlling his own time without managing big teams. His systematic approach to content creation and audience building is incredible – he’s literally turned content into a science with his Content OS and LinkedIn OS courses. He showed me that you can build serious wealth through knowledge sharing while maintaining complete autonomy over your time and energy. His philosophy of designing your business around your perfect day rather than chasing maximum revenue really resonates with my approach to conscious entrepreneurship.
Vanessa Lau – One of the most important creators in my entire life because I witnessed her go from having a multi-million dollar online education business to completely burning out and feeling trapped in the brand she had created. She shared her vulnerable journey of overcoming that burnout and created a new set of holistic values that’s breathing life into a whole new realm of content creation. I went through the same thing – I started posting content primarily about business and felt trapped in that niche. My authentic relationships were falling apart and I lost passion for content creation, something that used to be a way for me to express myself. Her approach to more holistic, authentic content creation – treating yourself as a whole person rather than just a niche – has been incredibly healing for me as a creator. She helped me pick up the camera again with a completely new awareness of what it means to create from authenticity rather than algorithm optimization.
Eugene Schwartz – Foundational for understanding human behavior and psychology. He had an 85% “hit ratio” – one of the highest in copywriting history and his masterpiece Breakthrough Advertising is about understanding the only permanent force behind marketing: human desire. Here’s what I love about studying him: you can learn the same tools that are used to manipulate people in our post-modern media landscape, but then use this field of over a hundred years of research in human behavior and psychology to become a more conscious marketer and intentional creator. Schwartz understood that his job wasn’t to create mass desire, but to channel and direct the mass desire that already exists. Every serious student of conscious communication should look into his work.
Jon Benson – Known as the “Billion-Dollar Copywriter” and creator of the VSL (Video Sales Letter). His books and trainings on copywriting and VSL creation are incredible, and he’s an amazing teacher of human behavior and the ethics at which we can aim these skills. What I appreciate about Jon is that he doesn’t just teach the mechanics of persuasion – he emphasizes the responsibility that comes with understanding how to influence people. His approach to ethical persuasion and conscious application of copywriting principles aligns perfectly with using these powerful tools for genuine service rather than manipulation.
Todd Brown
Alex Hormozi & Leila Hormozi – These guys are legends who’ve shaped an entire new generation of entrepreneurs. I’ve followed them for two years, and while I’m now operating from a post-capitalist consciousness, their unapologetically authentic approach to content creation has been deeply influential. They have free content on YouTube that’s easily worth a hundred million dollars – courses and trainings that completely changed my life and my understanding of what it means to run a truly transformational business. They show how to create offers that genuinely serve people rather than scam them, and their approach to ethical entrepreneurship provides a bridge for people transitioning to more conscious ways of creating value.
David Suh
Paul Chek His book “How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy” has been instrumental in my journey of understanding gut health. When both my parents had heart attacks in 2019, I went to Los Angeles to learn about food, nutrition, and gut health. I haven’t met him personally, but I’ve met his advocates Troy Casey and Ra of Earth. Paul Chek’s work on metabolic typing and providing practical exercises and diet awareness that’s personalized to the individual rather than generalized diets has been crucial to my deeper understanding of health. His approach taught me that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to wellness – you have to understand your own metabolic type and work with your body’s unique needs.
Cole Gordon – Cole Gordon – My sales coach who I invested with through his Sales Team Accelerator and Seven Figure Sales Team programs. This guy built Closers.io from $0 to $30M/year in just 3 years and has placed sales reps with companies like Tony Robbins, Frank Kern, and Dean Graziosi. What I love about Cole is that he taught me principles of sales based on ethics and Socratic selling that completely changed how I communicate with people about transformation and change. His approach focuses on “leadership-driven sales”. He gave me a more holistic understanding of what it means to sell something – it’s not about manipulation, but about genuinely understanding people’s problems and demonstrating how you can solve them. His training helped me see sales as a service rather than a hustle, which has been crucial for my approach to conscious entrepreneurship.
Ben McLellan & Jay Gonçalves – Their book “Customer Success Manifesto” completely changed my life and how I create better customer experiences and customer journeys within any transformational business. Their methodologies deeply resonated with me as somebody who used to be highly against any kind of sales or making money. Their philosophies have been healing and highly resonate with my own approach now to post-capitalist decolonial entrepreneurship. They showed me how to build businesses that genuinely serve people’s transformation rather than just extracting value from them. Their framework helped me bridge the gap between my anti-capitalist values and the reality of creating sustainable income while doing meaningful work.
José Rizal – Philippine national hero whose novels used storytelling to inspire consciousness and resistance. Model for using creativity to advance liberation.
Hayao Miyazaki – Created films that were extremely formative during my childhood years. Movies like Spirited Away, Nausicaä: Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Grave of the Fireflies shaped my consciousness, my values, and most importantly, my empathy. His work integrates environmental consciousness, spirituality, and hope in ways that demonstrate how to address darkness without losing faith in human potential. The characters, archetypes, and stories he created taught me how to see the world with both wonder and responsibility – understanding that even in the face of destruction and conflict, there’s always room for compassion, growth, and healing.
Octavia Butler – Science fiction that centers Black women’s experiences and explores themes of power, adaptation, and survival. Her work offers visions of alternative futures and the costs of change.
George Orwell – 1984 and Animal Farm – Essential warnings about authoritarianism and the manipulation of language and reality. His work on propaganda and political language remains crucial.
Margaret Atwood – The Handmaid’s Tale and other speculative fiction that illuminates present dangers through future scenarios. Her work on environmental collapse and patriarchal authoritarianism is prophetic.
Kidlat Tahimik – Filipino filmmaker and cultural worker whose experimental films challenge Western narrative structures and celebrate indigenous ways of knowing.
Ryan Coogler – In 2025, I’m an extremely big fan of his work in Black Panther, Wakanda Forever, his movie Sinners, and his contributions to film, television, and cinema. In my opinion, he breathes decolonial consciousness and awareness into hard topics like racism and colonialism, making them accessible through mainstream media. His Afrofuturist ideas have inspired me to explore a pan-Austronesian or pan-Filipino consciousness – like a Filipino futurism to imagine what life would be like if the Philippines were to fully decolonize and reclaim its sovereignty, land, indigenous wisdom, and knowledge while integrating it with sacred technology. He demonstrated how mainstream media can carry decolonial messages and Afrofuturist visions to global audiences. His work as an artist and director is just amazing.
Fictional Characters & Archetypes
Prince Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke) – This character demonstrated what I’m experiencing now in 2025 – the tension and friction between nature and industrial civilization. He had a quote in the movie where he says “I want to see with eyes unclouded by hate.” That’s one of the hardest but most worthwhile things I’m trying to cultivate as I navigate the US’s 2025 decline into fascist dictatorship, my decolonization journey, and the forgotten genocides that were done against my people. The frequency this character operates from and the values and principles demonstrated in the movie are very similar to the natural impulses I have during this time. Guy’s a G.
Nausicaä (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) – As I’ve learned more about decolonization, colonialism, capitalist imperialism, and concepts of degrowth through thinkers like Jason Hickel and David Graeber, I appreciate this movie and character even more. Nausicaä takes place in a post-apocalyptic civilization where humanity has destroyed itself in nuclear war, poisoned the planet, and made the soil toxic. From those ashes grows this toxic jungle that’s dangerous to human life in these post-apocalyptic societies. The movie has a lot of deep philosophical concepts. Nausicaä is the bridge between nature and the world going through a natural healing process after what humanity did to it. She maintains strong principles and values as humanity repeats the same mistakes of war, killing, and destruction of land for imperialism. She’s brave, kind, wise, empathetic, and strong – an incredible well-written female protagonist who models environmental consciousness and the courage to build bridges between opposing forces. She shows hope and action in the face of ecological collapse.
Uncle Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender) – Wisdom, humor, and redemption. Shows how to hold both strength and gentleness, and how to support others’ growth without controlling their path.
Aang (Avatar: The Last Airbender) – Integration of spiritual practice with political responsibility. Demonstrates how to maintain principles while navigating complex power dynamics.
Ayanokoji (Classroom of the Elite) – Strategic thinking and the ability to work behind the scenes. Represents the power of understanding systems without being consumed by them.
Ginko (Mushishi) – Curious wanderer who helps people understand the hidden forces affecting their lives. Embodies the researcher-healer archetype.
Nico Robin (One Piece) – The scholar-survivor who preserves forbidden knowledge. Represents the importance of historical memory and intellectual courage.
Master Oogway (Kung Fu Panda) – Wisdom, presence, and the understanding that everything happens in its own time. Embodies patient guidance and trust in natural development.
My Mom
My Dad
My Brother
Mr. Wilkinson – My freshman English teacher who saw something in me when I couldn’t see it myself. First person to tell me I could be a writer.
Dancers, Freerunners, Actors, Creators
Law, Ejoe, Kevin Paradox, Outrage, Jesse Sykes, Jojo Diggs, Haeni Kim, Caetlyn Watson, Selene Haro, Ido Portal, Samuel Caleb, Shaun Evaristo, Anthony Boun, Joey Jam, Tal Iozef, Ricky Barazza, Kevin Brewer, Taryn Cheng, Larkin Poynton, Pasha, Valteri, Zen Shimada, Jillian Meyers, Linus Vonstumberg, Galen Hooks, Paris Goebel, Slim Boogie, Kiana Tangonan, Buddha Stretch, Hiyori Lock, Logan LogistiX, Kidd The Monster, Midas, Isidro Rehi, Scoo B Doo, Suga Pop, Don Cambell Lock, Mr. Wigglez, ShadeZlat, Aaron Aguirri, Clocks_Tickin, Joey Adrian, Elis Torhall, Lilou Ruel, Jason Paul, Valtteri Luoma-aho, Simon Pronk, Tim.zz, Jacob Collier, Bani Lograno, Mitch Villareal, Marcus Pe Benito, Andrea Bou Othmane, Tony Ray, Reggie Wattz, Kid David, Alex Waves, Hurrikane Alain, Kelan (Motus Projects), David Belle, Sebastien Foucan
Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, Jet Li – Grew up watching their kung-fu movies. They brought seeds of Eastern philosophy and martial arts to my younger self. Embodying cultural pride and wisdom without compromising authenticity. And they’re badass. Legends.
Michelle Yeoh, Anya Taylor-Joy – Actors who embody strength, intelligence, and cultural complexity. Examples of how to represent marginalized communities with dignity and power.
Robin Williams – Demonstrated how humor can be both healing and subversive. His ability to find lightness in darkness while addressing serious themes remains inspirational.
Notable Mentions:
Frantz Fanon – Taught me that decolonization is fundamentally a psychological process, not just political. His framework for healthy rage and resistance consciousness is foundational to everything I do.
Gary Halbert – Masters of direct response copywriting. Their understanding of human psychology and persuasive communication is essential for anyone trying to change minds.
Kyle Milligan
Charles Bukowski
Andrew Kirby
This list grows and evolves as I do. Each name represents not just influence, but invitation—an invitation to think more deeply, create more authentically, and serve more completely.
If you’ve made it this far, you probably recognize some of these names and have felt their influence too. Who would be on your list? What ideas and people have shaped how you see the world?