Work

Gandhi once wrote, “Every man has an obligation to labor with his body for his food.”

He wasn’t romanticizing hardship — he was naming something human and enduring: that work, in its simplest form, ties us to life, to responsibility, and to each other.

I’ve come to believe something similar.

Work is not just the thing we do to earn a living; it is the way we participate in the world — through contribution, attention, and care. Meaningful work, whether paid or volunteered, whether building, cleaning, writing, teaching, or parenting, keeps us connected to what is real and reminds us that we each have a role in sustaining the communities we belong to.

In practice, my work takes several forms — all expressions of the same vocation, shaped by context rather than by category:

• Strategic advising and accompaniment
  Helping individuals, leaders, and organizations navigate complexity with clarity and humanity, especially when familiar approaches no longer suffice.

• Thought partnership and values-aligned collaboration
  Supporting work that is relational, intentional, and grounded rather than purely transactional or extractive.

• Civic stewardship
  Serving on the Duvall City Council, where work becomes a shared responsibility to listen, discern, and act for the common good.

• Quiet inquiry, practice, and writing
  The slower work of paying attention, practicing stewardship, and exploring what it means to live well in unsettled times.

Some of this work happens through Our Olive Branch, my advisory practice — an attempt to offer my work to the world in a way that is aligned, humane, and genuinely useful in contexts where decisions have to be made.

Some of it happens through public service.

All of it is part of the same orientation: aligning the work of my hands and mind with the deeper work of becoming useful, present, and connected.