Middle child of five. Thumb sucker. Shy. And skinny. Really skinny!

What else?

Oh, I stuttered. In elementary school every Tuesday and Thursday I was loudly called out of class by a withered educational speech therapist, Mrs. Vanderkamp, "Paul Joiner! Speech therapy!"

Ugh!

That's about enough insight into my painful childhood to report.

Well, I was always the smallest kid in class and looked four years younger than the rest of the kids my age.

Oh, yea, my little sister threw a football much better than I could.

And, because of my religious affiliation I wasn't allowed to dance so I had to sit on a metal stool and run the record player throughout elementary and junior high school while the other kids squared-danced gleefully to Jimmy Crack Corn.

I could go on about allergy shots, piano lessons from a teacher who was near death and smelled like mothballs, a receding hairline at age ten, and never getting picked for speaking parts in elementary school plays!  But I won't.

So, is it any wonder that I have spent my entire life trying to figure out what makes me tick and  decode the ticking sounds other people are making?

All kidding aside, my life has been a blast, and anything and everything I have gone through, embarrassing or absolutely exciting as it was, has been an amazing journey.

I was raised a preacher's kid in Tucson, Arizona. As a teenager something snapped and I realized I was missing out on life. So, I quit sucking my thumb, went to the gym, threw on some fashionable bell bottoms, streaked my hair, started auditioning for shows, and became a bit more comfortable in my adolescent appearing skin. I have since spent most of my adult life living in Los Angeles, and for the past couple decades, in San Diego, California.

Outside of quarterbacking for a NFL football franchise (they called my sister instead), you name it and I've done it. I never quite understood the purpose of the diverse passions and professions in my life until it all culminated into the perfect heaven-sent job that utilizes my years working in  youth work, music, counseling, retail, marketing, teaching, and stage and television acting, writing, and production: A Creative & Marketing Director and Executive Television Producer leading an amazing group of talented people changing lives through life-transforming, life-giving, life-sustaining content. (Hopelessly Explorer!)

And in this topsy-turvy process, the passion for what makes me and other people "tick" has grown stronger.

A good friend of mine once told me,  "In your 20's you dream about what you want to do. In your 30's you practice doing what you want to do. In your 40's you actually get to do what you dreamed you'd do. In your 50's you teach others to do what you do. And in your 60's you start dreaming about what you want to do all over again."

So, if this professional life plan is accurate, I guess I am right on schedule. I am loving teaching others what I've discovered about The Adventure Styles, how it is best expressed with an organizational process, and how to effectively understand, motivate, and lead those who are along with you on the adventure!

(Thumb sucking, sneezing, stutters . . . there is hope for you!)

Paul