Life Beyond the Roadmap

A Deep Appreciation for Other Cultures

I studied History at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, graduating Cum Laude — and living in Hawaii shaped me as much as the degree did. It gave me a front-row seat to how culture actually operates: how it informs what people trust, what they celebrate, and how they make decisions. Hawaii is not a monolith. It is a layered, complex place where Native Hawaiian, Asian, Pacific Islander, and mainland American cultures coexist with real friction and real beauty.

That immersion gave me something I have carried into every market launch since. When I landed in Singapore, or mapped the seller experience for Belgium, or coordinated Arabic language support for Egypt, I wasn't approaching those places as feature requirements. I was approaching them as cultures — each with their own logic, their own expectations, and their own definition of a good experience. The history degree taught me to ask why. Hawaii taught me to actually listen for the answer.

The Italian Kitchen — Culinary Arts as Practice

Food has always been one of the ways I move through the world. In 2022 and again in 2024, I attended Italian cooking school in Italy and it changed how I think about craft entirely. Italian cooking is not a collection of recipes. It is a philosophy: fewer things, done better, in service of the ingredient itself.

There is a discipline in it that I find deeply satisfying. No shortcuts, no unnecessary complexity — just technique, patience, and respect for the process. A great plate of pasta takes twenty minutes and four ingredients. Getting it right takes years of attention. I think about that often when I am writing a strategy document or designing a process framework. The best version is almost always simpler than the first draft.

Cooking is also one of the most direct ways I experience other cultures. Learning to cook Italian food in Italy — following how a nonna actually uses her hands, not just a recipe card — is a different kind of cultural education than reading about it. It's one I keep coming back to.

Yoga — Teaching as a Form of Communication

In 2021, I completed a 200-hour Hatha Yoga Teacher Training at Be Yoga Burien. It was one of the most demanding and clarifying things I've ever done. Yoga demands that you get very honest, very fast — about what you can hold, what you're avoiding, and where you're actually at versus where you think you are.

Teaching yoga reinforced something I already believed: communication is not about transmitting information. It's about meeting someone where they actually are — not where you wish they were — and creating an environment where they feel safe enough to try. I bring that into every cross-functional room I walk into. And into every wellness space I hold.

The physical practice has also been the foundation for everything else in my wellness life. Yoga taught me that the body knows things before the mind catches up — and that slowing down is often the fastest path through.

Holistic Wellness — Microdosing & Trip Sitting

In 2023, I completed my Holonic Practitioner training in mycology and psychology — a formal certification in the therapeutic and supportive applications of psilocybin and microdosing. This was not a casual interest. It was a deepening of something I had been moving toward through yoga, breathwork, and a genuine curiosity about how human beings actually heal.

Microdosing — the practice of taking sub-perceptual amounts of psilocybin on a consistent protocol — has an expanding body of research behind it for nervous system regulation, creativity, and emotional processing. I use it as part of my own wellness practice and support others in doing the same thoughtfully and safely.

Trip sitting is the practice of being a calm, informed, present guide for someone moving through a deeper psychedelic experience. It asks for exactly the skills I've cultivated everywhere else: deep listening, psychological safety, staying grounded when someone else is uncertain, and knowing when to speak and when to simply be there. Combined with yoga and breathwork, this work has become a meaningful part of how I understand wellness — not as the absence of difficulty, but as the capacity to move through it with presence and support.

Strong Life Training Facility — Learning From the Ground Up

After a decade building global programs at Amazon, I stepped back intentionally to work in a high-performance fitness environment. I wanted to understand how people actually behave — not as user personas or data points, but as human beings trying to show up for themselves under pressure.

What I observed: motivation is fragile, consistency is a system, and the best coaches don't push harder — they remove friction. When the path is clear, people move. That observation reinforced something I believe across every domain. Whether the goal is a product launch, a wellness protocol, or a fitness habit — the design of the experience is the intervention.

Raising Others Up

Whether I'm guiding an engineer through a career transition, holding space for someone in a therapeutic context, or teaching a yoga class, the underlying work is the same: helping someone see what they are already capable of.

Year over year at Amazon, I mentored 2–3 QA engineers through the transition into TPM roles — not by giving them a playbook, but by working alongside them, giving real feedback, and creating opportunities for them to own things before they felt ready. Every single one of them either got promoted, shifted into a new job family, or expanded their scope in a meaningful way.

That metric matters to me more than most. Leadership shows up most clearly in what happens to the people around you over time.

The Through Line

History. Italian cooking. Yoga. Mycology. Fitness. Program management. These might look like a scattered life. To me, they are a single thread: a deep curiosity about how human beings work — what they need to feel safe, what helps them move, and what happens when someone finally creates the right conditions for them to thrive.

The culinary arts taught me that simplicity done well is a form of mastery. Yoga and holistic wellness taught me that presence is the most powerful thing you can offer another person. My history degree and years living in Hawaii taught me that every culture has its own logic — and that understanding it is the prerequisite for everything else.

“When something is easy to understand, people move faster and make better decisions.”

Something I've come to believe across every domain I've worked in

That's the work. Clear thinking, clear communication, clear path forward.