About
30 Years of Experience.
A Lifetime of Unlearning.
Leadership practitioner, facilitator, course creator, and the human behind Human Work.
Where This Story Actually Starts
I am a leadership practitioner with 30 years of experience — but that is not really where this story starts.
It starts with a gay boy growing up Baptist in Texas, learning early that parts of him did not fit the world he was handed. It starts with running through the dark with his mother. With watching the people he loved struggle. With building a version of himself that was acceptable to everyone around him — and calling that survival.
What I did not understand then is what I understand now: I was not broken. I was adapting. And that adaptation shaped everything about how I lead, how I work, and how I show up in the world.
"For decades, many of us have been handed blueprints for what success looks like, what leadership looks like, what a good life means — built by systems that were not designed with all of us in mind."
— Jessie HeathThe Most Important Reframe
Most people experience broken systems as fixed reality — that is just how it is, that is how it has always been done. That feeling of permanence is what keeps people from even trying to change things.
Human Work starts with a different belief: these systems were built by people. Which means they can be changed by people. A system that feels like gravity becomes furniture the moment you realize a human designed it — with specific beliefs, specific biases, and specific blind spots. Furniture you can rearrange. Furniture you can replace.
The Career Behind the Curtain
I was the first in my immediate family to graduate college, the first to reach a level of stability I once could not have imagined. I have built a career, a family — a husband, two kids, a dog, a cat, and the full beautiful chaos that comes with all of it.
And I have done much of it carrying things I kept off the shelf: PTSD, chronic depression, social anxiety, imposter syndrome. I have managed them, grown through them, and they have made me who I am. Human Work is where I stop keeping those things on the shelf.
How I Work
A few honest notes: I am a talker more than a writer, so I use dictation and AI tools to help me put words on the page without losing the voice behind them. There is also a book, keynote work, and development offerings in progress, because my brain does not really have an off switch.
I spent a long time waiting until things were perfect before sharing them. I have decided that is over. This is the work. Welcome to it.