The People Side of Things

Welcome to The People Side of Things

Strike your best power pose, and let’s get into it.

Start here

Why a power pose? It’s a reminder to take up the space you already deserve to occupy. I love to start everything this way because life and work have a funny habit of shrinking us, and this space is created to do the opposite. So, hi. I’m really glad you’re here.

How this came to be

I’ve been sitting on this idea, and these thoughts for a long time. But writing them down always felt like something I’d do later, when I was more confident, more knowledgeable, or when I finally could overpower that voice of shame that tells you not to do something. Then I was reminded how there are so many people that probably feel this exact same way – the ones that are sitting in a meeting and know the answer but don’t want to raise their hand because their afraid or if they give the wrong answer, they might be judged.

At an unreasonably young age, someone told me I had a “bleeding heart”. I didn’t quite know what they were saying, but I knew it wasn’t a compliment. Looking back now, I realize I didn’t have the language for the strength I had; I just knew I noticed people – how they showed up, what changed when they felt a certain way, how quickly they shut down. I have always tried to read rooms, to sense what wasn’t being said, and I’ve carried more than my share of emotional weight.

Over time, that turned into familiar labels: too empathetic, too emotional, too soft for business. So, I tried to take up less space, to care less, to stuff my feelings and my passion down. Spoiler Alert: that didn’t stick.

What did stick was the realization that those feelings are not a liability. And once I started working inside organizations; recruiting, HR, organizational development, and change – I started to see it everywhere. The things that people don’t say out loud are usually the things driving everything.

Where my perspective comes from

People have always been the most interesting part of any system to me. Not in a “I’m such a people person” way but in a specific, observational one. I’m fascinated by what helps people to trust, what makes them resist, what makes them stay quiet in meetings even when they have the answer (calling myself out here). And most importantly, what changes when someone finally feels seen.

Recruiting has a way of putting you at the center of everything. You sit at this intersection of candidates, leaders, and organizations, and you see the gap between what’s said and what’s meant. You hear the hopes people carry into new roles, you watch leaders wrestle with trade-offs, priorities, and pressure. It helps you learn quickly that outcomes are shaped less by process and more by people navigating this unknown space.

My curiosity didn’t stop there. It’s widened into teams, stakeholders, leaders, systems, and change. Organizational development has given language to what I had already known; behavior follows systems, resistance is often grief, fear, or uncertainty in disguise, and people are almost always responding to something, even when they are saying nothing.

Why I’m finally pressing publish

I heard a quote recently about investing in yourself, and it stuck with me more than I expected. I spend so much of my time encouraging other people to take risks, pursue growth, and trust in themselves and yet, I’ve been sitting on this idea… telling myself to wait.

I don’t need to wait until I have a fancier title, I don’t need to wait until I’m more experienced, I don’t need to wait until my degree confers, I don’t need to wait. Period.

If I believe in helping people take up space, then I have to practice that too. Even if it only ends up being read by a very small corner of the internet. Even if I’m yapping to absolutely no one.

At least I’ve taken a chance on myself.

What you’ll find here

Most workplace challenges aren’t about performance or process. They’re about trust, or clarity, or safety, or power. Expectations that maybe have never truly been aligned. When change feels hard, it’s usually because something human hasn’t been accounted for. When stakeholders push back, it’s rarely because they’re difficult.

This is a space to talk honestly about the people side of things. How leaders build (or erode) trust, how systems quietly shape behavior, the science of change, why communication fails even when intentions are good, and what change actually feels like on the receiving end.

Sometimes that will look like organizational development. Sometimes it will sound like recruiting stories, observations, or lessons learned the hard way. And if I know myself, sometimes it will wander into life, motherhood, or what it means to care so deeply in systems that don’t always make room for that. Regardless the topic, it will always be grounded in real experience and real people.

If you work with people – leading them, hiring them, influencing them, supporting them, then this is for you. If you care about outcomes and how we get there, you’re in the right place.

This is just the beginning; a place to explore the innerworkings of my brain and a passion I have for leaving people better than I found them.

So, here we go… thanks for being here.