All Posts

In my last article, I wrote about AI as a consensus machine. About how the race to adopt, integrate, and optimize for AI might be producing the opposite of what we're hoping for — smoothing away the rough edges of original thinking, replacing instinct with output, and delivering the most agreeable answer when what we actually need is the most honest one. The response surprised me. Not because people disagreed. But because of how many people wrote back and said some version of

I have written critically about AI before. And since then, it feels like the criticism has been growing. Today I have more thoughts I felt I needed to share. Some of them may be unpopular. But they could mean the difference between actually moving forward as humans, leaders or businesses — or falling steadily behind. So here it is: The AI-enabled world we are all rushing toward may actually be producing the opposite of what we're hoping for. Not because AI isn't powerful. It

I once worked with a senior leader who told me he did his best thinking in the car. Not in strategy sessions. Not in offsites. Not in the back-to-back leadership meetings that filled his calendar from 8am to 6pm. In the car. Alone. On the drive home. That thirty-minute window — no agenda, no notifications, no one needing anything from him — was where things clicked. Where the tangled problem from Tuesday's meeting suddenly had an answer. Where he'd realize what he actua

A reader wrote to me after the last edition of this newsletter. She said she'd tried it. The Courage Challenge — one hour of complete presence with someone she loved. No phone. No half-attention. Just her, fully there. And she said it was harder than she expected. Not because she was distracted. But because when the distractions fell away, something else surfaced. A restlessness she couldn't quite name. An urge to fill the silence. A strange discomfort with just... being ther

I lost someone recently. It was sudden. There was no warning. No time to prepare. No final conversation I knew would be final. One day they were here. The next — without explanation, without transition, without any of the things we tell ourselves we'll say when the time is right — they were gone. And that's the thing about sudden loss that nobody warns you about. It doesn't just take the person. It takes every future moment you had assumed was still available to you. The coff

A few months ago, I sat across from a client of mine who had spent seventeen years building an impressive career at a global firm. She was smart. Accomplished. The kind of person whose LinkedIn profile makes you feel slightly behind on your own life. She had recently left her role — by choice — to explore consulting. AND she was stuck. Not on the logistics. Not on the pricing or the outreach or the contracts. She was stuck on a question she hadn't expected to find so hard: Wh

“It’s lonely at the top.” I was reminded of just how true—and how heavy—that can feel in a conversation last week with a senior leader I’ve been coaching. Our work often centers around solving real, tangible challenges—decisions, team dynamics, competing priorities. But just as importantly, I serve as something else: a sounding board, a mirror, a thinking partner. A space where he doesn’t have to perform leadership—he can simply be . This time, he paused mid-conversation and

I recently attended several panels about the job market. Different industries, different speakers, different perspectives. And yet the message was surprisingly consistent. The market is tough. AI is accelerating change. And many of the rules we used to rely on are dissolving. Again and again, the discussion turned toward the same question: What actually makes someone stand out now? Not surprisingly, the answer wasn’t just technical expertise. The people who will thrive in th

I almost didn’t go. It had been one of those days – back-to-back calls, brain slightly fried. Low energy. The couch was calling. It had just started raining outside. And the event felt optional…at best. I stood in front of my closet longer than necessary. Changed once. Changed again. Checked the time. Considered texting an excuse. You can skip it, I told myself. You’ve already been productive today. No one will notice. And deep inside of me, a familiar debate was playing

Uncertainty has a way of changing any room. A difficult email lands in your inbox. A decision shifts above you. A market changes. A plan falls through. A client pulls back. A conversation doesn’t go the way you expected it would. In those moments, it can feel like something is happening to you. Pressure rises. Your chest tightens. Your thoughts speed up. You move quickly—because you feel the urge to defend, explain, fix, withdraw. And it all feels automatic. But in the midd

You’re asked a simple question. “What do you do?” “What have you been working on?” “What are you proud of lately?” And suddenly… your brain short-circuits. You know you have words. You use them all the time. But in this moment? Gone. You start talking, then stop. You hear yourself saying “um” more than usual. You’re halfway through a sentence and already wondering how to soften the ending. Your mind is racing: Don’t sound braggy. Don’t make it weird. Don’t take up too mu

YOUR ORG CHART IS LYING TO YOU. AND IT’S COSTING YOU PERFORMANCE. I’ll never be able to forget the amount of different org charts I have seen during my time as an executive recruiter and consultant. They all “flowed” differently, but every role was labeled, every role had a neat box and every reporting line was defined. The chart promised clarity and control, but more often, it boxed people in, constrained collaboration and slowed down decision-making. Meanwhile, the real w

A client recently said to me, “I don’t hate my job… I just don’t recognize myself in it anymore.” She paused after saying it, as if waiting to see whether that was a reasonable thing to feel. From the outside, her career looked solid. A respected role. A steady income. A trajectory that made sense to everyone around her. The kind of job people point to and say, “You’re doing well.” And that’s part of what made it so confusing. Internally, she felt disconnected — like she was

At the beginning of a new year, excitement is supposed to be the default emotion. Fresh calendars. Clean slates. Big intentions. But for many people, the feeling is quieter than that—almost muted. Not because nothing is happening, but because they’ve just lived through a year filled with noise. Constant advice. Endless opinions. Metrics telling you what matters. Expectations you didn’t choose. Other people speaking with certainty about paths you’re the one expected to walk.

As this year comes to a close, it’s impossible to ignore how heavy it has been for so many. We’ve seen continued reductions in force. Shifting priorities. Persistent uncertainty. Even the most seasoned leaders have felt it — that quiet pause, that recalibration, that question beneath the question: How do I keep leading when the ground keeps moving? And if we’re honest, all signs suggest this environment isn’t resolving anytime soon and a similar climate will follow us into 2

There’s a particular kind of restlessness that shows up for most of us, at one point in life. Not the dramatic, storm-the-castle kind of urge for reinvention— but a quieter, nagging pressure under the ribs. I know this feeling intimately. Many years ago, when I was still an executive recruiter—seemingly at the height of my career—I started to sense a subtle shift inside me. To the observer on the outside, I had a dream career. But on the inside, something started feeling, we

We’re often told that confidence is the key to career success. “Believe in yourself,” they say. “Fake it ’til you make it.” Confidence is celebrated in interviews, in performance reviews, in leadership programs. We admire people who speak effortlessly, present confidently, take up space, and appear self-assured. But here’s the inconvenient truth: Confidence alone rarely changes careers. Confidence is a feeling—fleeting, inconsistent, and heavily influenced by circumstances

As a society, we’ve decided to follow AI wherever it leads—even if that means walking ourselves over the edge. I know this opinion might not be popular. In fact, it might even sound a little naïve, cynical, or “anti-progress.” That’s fine. Because someone needs to say it — out loud, without the spin and without the hype. We’re all being swept up in a wave of AI "enthusiasm" that feels unstoppable. The momentum is intoxicating. Everyone’s talking about transformation, disrupti

This weekend, I found myself watching back some of the recorded sessions from the UN General Assembly in New York. And one thought kept coming up again and again: Courage is missing at the top. And I don’t just mean politics. I mean CEOs, business leaders, and anyone who holds influence and power. We live in a world where power is concentrated in the hands of a relatively small group of people—people with visibility, access, and a platform. And yet, too often, we see that pow

Part 8 of my "Behind the Glamour" Series - Confessions of a Fashion Headhunter Let’s have an honest conversation. Fashion has never looked more diverse on the surface. Runways, ad campaigns, and glossy brand reports showcase a beautiful spectrum of faces, identities, and cultures. And yet — behind the curtain, not much has changed. If you’ve worked in this industry long enough, you’ve seen it firsthand: People of color, women, LGBTQ+ professionals are welcomed in the door… bu