I took this photo on a trail in my new home town of Steamboat Springs, CO. I was surrounded by aspens in their golden peak, radiant and fleeting, right before they let go. In the years since graduating from MAPP.7 I’ve learned that thriving isn’t about constant flourishing. It’s about cultivating the conditions where growth can return, again and again. I used to think impact meant doing more, proving more. But I’ve come to see that it’s about creating space for reflection, for connection, for others to rise into their own strength.
This journey has softened and stretched me. It’s taught me to lead with curiosity instead of certainty and to hold hope as a daily practice. Hope is not a mood; it’s a muscle. I’m learning to measure my work not by visibility, but by ripple: the conversations that shift something unseen, the leaders who begin to lead differently, the systems that slowly start to heal.
The most important lesson that MAPP taught me is that meaning, once planted, endures. Even when the leaves are about to let go, I trust the seeds are taking root in the people I teach, the teams I support, and the way I choose to move through the world. And that those seeds always find a way to bloom, even in the hardest seasons. Especially then.
