Most people aren’t irrational—they’re responding to meanings no one has named yet. If you can’t see what something means to people, you can’t understand their behavior—and you definitely can’t lead it.
As an expert in symbolic intelligence—the study of how people interpret the world before they ever respond to it—my work sits at the intersection of environmental symbology, design strategy, and human behavior, and focuses on the invisible structures that shape decisions, culture, and outcomes.
Symbolic Intelligence is the difference between reacting to people, processes, and problems and actually understanding what drives them. It’s what allows leaders to spot the patterns others miss, navigate uncertainty without spinning, and build alignment that lasts.
I’ve spent my career studying why people do what they do—why teams align or fracture, why communities move forward or resist, and why some ideas take hold while others quietly fail. I teach, write, and work with organizations and leaders who need to make sense of complexity and move through it with clarity.
Also: I run a family nursery and garden center, which turns out to be one of the best real-world labs for understanding people, seasons, and systems.