Why I write

“Mommy, I See You as an Inventor.”

I write for the joy of following an idea, learning something new, and discovering connections I might otherwise have missed.

When my daughter said to me, “Mommy, I see you as an inventor,” my immediate reaction was that I am not an inventor, at least not in the traditional sense. I don't spend my days in a laboratory creating something entirely new. But her words made me curious about what she was seeing. Perhaps invention can also begin with noticing a connection that wasn't obvious before, bringing ideas from different worlds together, playing with them for a while, and seeing what possibilities begin to emerge.

That kind of exploration has always been fun for me. I can disappear into a technical problem, become fascinated by something I knew almost nothing about the day before, or pull on a thread simply because I want to know where it leads.

My life and work have given me very different lenses through which to do that. I began as an engineer, fascinated by complex systems, patterns, evidence and how things connect. Leadership drew me toward people, culture and behavior. My experiences with healthcare made many of those questions deeply personal, while my work across infrastructure, cybersecurity, AI and emerging technology continues to give me entirely new things to explore.

I believe that curiosity established an early foundation for me. I grew up in a house of big yeses, with parents who encouraged us to learn, explore and pursue bold dreams. My father's extraordinary love of books and my mother's instinct for solving problems shaped how I approach the world in different ways, with curiosity about what I don't yet understand and confidence that difficult problems are worth exploring.

I have tremendous gratitude and respect for my coach, Ron Kertzner, who has stood by me through life's challenging and wonderful moments. His belief in me has helped me find clarity and courage, look toward the future, and continue growing as a person and leader while staying true to my north star.

Curiosity is part of our family life too. My husband and I often find ourselves in wonderfully intellectual conversations, challenging an idea and learning from each other. We want our children to grow up seeing learning in much the same way: something that continues throughout life.

That same curiosity has shaped how I work. Many of the largest and messiest transformations I have been part of began with a difficult problem and people willing to think about it together. I have been fortunate to work with amazing experts who would brainstorm with me, challenge an assumption, sketch an idea, find the flaw in it and help shape what came next. Some ideas worked beautifully, others didn't, and occasionally the problem changed while we were still trying to solve it. Those experiences taught me as much as the outcomes did.

There was usually passion for the work, a shared sense of purpose and the belief that something better was possible even when we couldn't quite see the path yet. Add smart people who genuinely enjoy solving problems together, a little courage to try something that might not work, and enough curiosity to learn when it doesn't, and some very difficult problems begin to open up.

I approach learning in much the same way. I might read something about the brain and start connecting it to leadership, or look at the architecture of a technology system and recognize a pattern that feels surprisingly similar to something in biology. I love data because it can challenge an assumption or reveal something we couldn't see before, and I love stories because they help us understand the human experience behind the numbers.

That is where Layers & Levers began. Writing gives me a place to research an idea, question it, connect it to something unexpected and learn from people who understand parts of it far better than I do. Sometimes what I learn reinforces what I thought. Other times I discover that I had been looking at something from too narrow an angle. Both are part of the fun.

Some of the subjects I explore here are serious, particularly healthcare, security and the consequences of emerging technology, and I still want creativity and play to have a place in how I approach them. I want to understand the evidence and architecture underneath a problem while leaving enough room to imagine possibilities that may not yet be obvious.

I don't expect to have all the answers, and I hope Layers & Levers never reads as though I do. I want to learn from people whose expertise and experiences are different from mine, test ideas against evidence and remain open to changing my mind. Over time, I hope other voices become part of that exploration too.

And when an idea has potential beyond the page, I want to explore what we can actually do with it: where there may be a lever worth trying, what choices are available and what we can learn from what follows.

Perhaps my daughter was onto something after all. Maybe invention sometimes begins long before there is anything we would call an invention, with curiosity, imagination, people willing to think together and enough playfulness to explore an idea before knowing exactly where it will lead.

What could be possible?