Dude, what’s up? My name is Johnny Nato. Welcome to Embrace your Storm. What is Embrace your Storm? Well, first off, I guess it’s a podcast. And it’s a podcast that leans towards creativity and creative outlets, which leans towards a little more towards music, leaning a little more towards the heavy metal genre, but I do love many types of genres of music, which that’ll be a whole other podcast episode. But welcome, thank you for joining me, and we’ll get to what Embrace your Storm also means in this podcast too.
But let me just give you some quick background about me. This episode shouldn’t be too long, but, uh, so I am currently blind. I’m completely blind, but I was not born blind. I got in a car accident at the age of 14 and I lost my sight in that car accident. So I’ve been blind for about 32 years now you guys can do that math. And so, uh, at the age of 15, my father passed away. At the age of 18, my mother passed away. So in four years I, you know, was, uh, went through, went through a little bit. Now I say that because everyone or I would imagine most people have some uh level of storms and things that they have to go through in life such as I did. So I think what separates a lot of people is like how do we respond to these things that come into our lives to challenge us, right? So the podcast will talk a little bit about that too. But so, yeah, so the quickly those things happen.
So I learned how to play guitar after I lost my sight in the car accident and actually, kind of a funny story, the the day I got in the car accident was going to be my first guitar lesson. So that’s kind of interesting. And so I was always a heavy metal fan, even as a kid growing up. I grew up in the, you know, in the 80s, 90s, kind of cusp or whatever, but I grew up listening to thrash metal. You know Metallica was my gateway band. Again, we’ll get a lot more into this stuff later, but I just wanted to kind of give you some background about the music that I was listening to before I got in the car accident. So I also, for a uh small, uh stint before I got in the car accident, listened to a little gangster rap music too.
Um, so I uh, after I got in the car accident, I kind of uh, you know, lived a normal life or whatever, I ended up going back to college when I was 30 years old. I got two degrees. I got a degree in computer science and a degree in bachelor’s in business administration, and so I was a or still am a huge open source software advocate. I’m quite a nerd. Uh, the technology is very huge in my life. Uh, like I said, I’ve got a computer science degree. I know how to build websites. I’ve done crowdfunding marketing for hundreds of campaigns. Um, I I’ve done all kinds of stuff. I’ve held open source conferences held at Harvard University. I’ve helped direct and co-direct film festivals.
I was in a band growing up and I played quite a few shows and stuff. I recorded an EP in a recording studio. So I’ve done some creative stuff throughout my life, which brings me to Embrace your Storm, because later in life I looked back at me playing guitar and I realized that having that outlet was quite an amazing thing. As a kid, you know, going through the things that I went through. So music was my outlet.
But a topic that I’d like to discuss and cover at some point too is like oh, there’s many, many types, types of creativity, like I was just telling you. You know, I put on conferences. That’s a form of creativity. I was in a band. That’s a form of creativity. You know, I did like marketing for, you know, crowdfunding campaigns that’s a form of creativity. I’ve done podcasting since 2009, like that. You know, uh, I did like technology podcasts, android podcasts, all kinds of podcasts since 2009, so that’s another form of creativity. So it’s like I want to cover those things. But there will be a very large leaning towards uh talking about music, music news, guitars, music theory, stuff, like that, because that’s my creative outlet.
But so, embrace your storm. It’s kind of like taking that inner, inner turmoil that that is within you, that you’re, you’re shaped and formed by the things that you go through. But you take all that stuff that’s with inside of you and you release it through your creative outlet and that’s how we embrace our storm and that’s why we’re here and that’s why I’m here to encourage you to create. I want, but I’m going to encourage you to create. You know, again, I have I I’m a music fan. I want more guitar players, bass players, drummers like, keyboard players, whatever singers like. Let’s do this right.
So, um, looking forward to more episodes, I hope you enjoy, uh, these episodes. Thank you for joining me on, uh, yet another new journey that I embark upon, and if you want to reach me, you can email me at hello, at embraceyourstormcom and there’s dashes between the words, that’s hello and embraceyourstormcom. Also, visit the website, because there’s a community aspect of the website where you know it might look similar to like a uh, a social network that you’re used to, but everything stays within the embrace, your storm website. So go ahead, create a profile. Let’s start interacting with one another. Talk about your favorite bands or whatever you know your favorite creative stuff is, and, uh, maybe we can help one another out with uh, creating uh new things and getting them out into the world. So, again, thanks for listening and don’t forget to embrace your storm, see ya.