Why I do what I do.
When I was twenty-one, I became the president of a 500-member club at my university. It was a serious operation, and I threw myself into it with conviction. I believed that if I did everything I could to make it better, people would naturally get on board. They did not.
While I succeeded in making many of the changes I set out to, I faced resistance at every turn. People challenged me. Some felt threatened by the changes I was making. Some tried to take me down. There was a culture of politics, backstabbing, and hostility. I remember being stunned by this. Here I was, trying to do what was best for the club, why was everyone so upset?
Why had making things better created so much conflict?
Until then, I understood leadership as having a defined vision and knowing how to execute it.
What I failed to understand was the human element involved. As it turns out, leadership is not just about knowing where to go and how to get there. It’s about mobilizing people toward a mission. And if you don’t understand what people are motivated by, what they fear, what they feel attached to, what gives them status, then it does not matter what you do. You will miss the most important thing happening in the room.
The experience left me with so many questions.
What moves human beings into action? How do power, fear, status, and identity shape behavior? Why do groups resist change, even when that change appears rational or beneficial on the surface?
I began studying psychology and philosophy and eventually started teaching at a university while coaching leaders on the side. Over time I found myself drawn to startups, where leadership felt immediate and consequential.
At a startup, you’re not just managing people. You are asking others to see a vision that does not yet fully exist. You are asking them to believe, to build, to risk, to follow. The human element becomes impossible to ignore. I realized I wanted to work with people shaping the future through technology. So I left Miami, where I had been teaching, and moved to San Francisco.
I didn’t know anyone, nor did I have a plan. I only knew that this was the direction I was supposed to go.
I often call it “the voice.” It’s that inner knowing that says, this is what is going to happen.
Rationally, there were plenty of reasons to question the decision. I was leaving stability, entering a new world, and moving to one of the most expensive cities in the country without any guarantee that things would work out. But some decisions are not made in the mind first. They arrive somewhere deeper than that. Once they do, the only question left is whether you trust them.
I did.
I started building my work from there, first through conversations, introductions, and referrals, and then through years of deep work with founders and leaders.
Over time, my understanding of leadership has evolved, becoming more sophisticated and humane.
I realized the true challenge for leaders is the stories they tell to themselves to define their experiences. People are easily influenced by fear. While the underlying heartbreak is real, it's the story layered onto that heartbreak that often renders it unbearable.
This insight is at the center of the work I do now.
I help leaders see the stories they are telling themselves, the blind spots they cannot yet see, and the patterns shaping how they lead. It means helping them abandon the generic version of a great founder and instead unlocking their own particular strengths, perspectives, and intelligence that are already theirs.
That, to me, is the real work.
My coaching, writing, interest in philosophy, and community all come from the same belief.
If we want a better future, we cannot think only about systems, products, and outcomes. We have to think about the humans creating them. Does the future they are building preserve dignity or slowly erode it?
My work now helps leaders understand their own inner story and the stories of others so they can lead with greater intention and humanity.