The Dilettante Diaries

Original Words

Writing about the ephemera that beckons me: tech, identity, power, literature, fashion, parenting, philosophy, and more.

founder coach head of people dilettante

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The Things We Carry & Keep

We all carry things with us—physical objects, generational moods like millennial melancholy, even feedback from a colleague. It’s part of what makes us who we are. And who we are is everything in how we approach and experience the world. Dig into this essay for the things we carry, the things we keep, the things we take care of and what they reveal about our emotional world.

9 hours ago5 min read

Conquering the Corporate Ritual of the 1:1

The manager 1:1 is a time-honored corporate tradition that when done well shapes your career for the better. When ignored or avoided, it’s a missed opportunity. Somewhere along the way this ritual became synonymous with rut. It devolves into idle chatter as two people each hold a hidden agenda they never discuss, leaving everything unsaid. It’s in desperate need of a revamp, rebrand, re-creation. Lest, it become the gravestone of management

Sep 1611 min read

The Identity Cafe: Find Yourself On The Menu

Welcome to the Identity Cafe, where the special isn't a meal—it's a version of yourself. Most of us make career decisions long before we understand who we are and end up building based on hand-me-down definitions of success. An essay on identity repertoires, not optimizing who you are, and being okay with saying when.

Jul 85 min read

The Death of Honesty: Any Feedback For Me?

Most of us gather feedback the same way. We sit across from our manager, colleague, or friend and say with no additional context…Do you have any feedback for me? Often, folks don’t take the opening because they’re disarmed, unprepared, or questioning the sincerity. But there’s a better way for eliciting earnest feedback.

Oct 8, 20258 min read

a few good sentences

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There’s a cleverness in letting yourself be misunderstood in favor of palatable attributes. You get away with things.

I'm Not a Wounded Bird: Navigating Infantilization at Work

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coming soon

a weekly "manager maintenance" email that breaks down all the bits & bobs of being a beloved manager into small repairs that add up over the year.

A NOTE ON HOW THIS SPACE IS MADE

Everything you read and feel on this website is crafted by my own hands and brain.

My articles come from real-world experience, deep research, and curiosity. While I believe AI has its place, that place isn’t in my thinking. I don’t use it for outlines, writing, or the like.

Even many of the visual details come from photos of my home, art, collages, and the icons are custom stamps that my daughter made. I wanted this website to be a digital reflection of the care I put into everything. I’m unapologetically thoughtful. Anyone who works with me will feel that.

Because I put my soul into this work, and because content theft is a real and long-time issue, I do not allow my writing to be scraped or used to train AI models. And, if you’re a human please don’t copy it.