Speaking
I speak to experienced founders and entrepreneurial leaders about the hidden costs that waste their companies resources.
My work focuses on the intersection of identity and structure — how personal meaning, worth, and legitimacy shape business decisions, and how that dynamic creates invisible cost inside otherwise functional organizations.
These talks are crafted to deliver value to for rooms of serious operators.
They are clear, grounded in business reality, and designed to leave audiences thinking differently about their company and themselves.
The Satisfaction Delta
Why success stops feeling as good — and how founders unknowingly make it worse
Many founders who produce real traction in their organization discover something they didn’t expect: the payoff actually doesn’t feel as good than they thought it would.
Their revenue reports show stable growth and success metrics likely point to a positive future. But processes have become complicated and burdensome - and they don’t actually need to be.
This talk introduces the Satisfaction Delta. It’s the difference between the fulfillment a founder expected and the lackluster actual result of their lived experience.
In this session, I explain how founders often try to close that gap by reaching for things that optimize their ventures, but kick the can down the road of their own personal satisfaction.
Attendees will learn:
Why growth does not produce real satisfaction
How anxiety can actually increase with better company performance
The structural signals that show a founder is entangled in their company in a way that undermines what they want
How separating identity from structure restores clarity and strategic patience
This session resonates with experienced entrepreneurs who want cleaner processes, more satisfaction in their lives, and a healthier relationship to their company.
The Identity Cost
How identity-driven decisions erode margin, clarity, and options
Founders keep track of capital, time, headcount, and opportunity cost. But fewer track the hidden costs that accumulate when their personal needs and their business decisions mix.
This can show up as unnecessary complexity, layers of approval, reporting rituals, borrowed “real company” behaviors, and symbolic moves that look legitimate but end up burning real resources without real outcomes.
This talk provides a practical lens for identifying these identity-driven distortion and understanding how small misalignments cascade into smaller margins and strategic fragility.
Attendees will leave with:
A framework for spotting invisible overhead
A way to distinguish real work from symbolic work
Clarity on how distortion compounds across time and structure
A path toward restoring surplus: time, money, and options
This is talk for founders who care about durability and disciplined process and organizational design.
Legitimacy Theater
Performing “properly” can cost more than getting it wrong.
From the outset founders can feel pressure to “look like a real company.” It shows up everywhere from the types of roles that need filled to the kind of metrics that get tracked.
A lot of it is necessary, but some of it is theater.
This session explores how borrowed scripts and signaling legitimacy to others can become a structural burden, and how these patterns can compound to present an existential threat.
Attendees will gain:
A filter for distinguishing legitimacy signaling from actually creating value.
Tools for designing from first principles instead of imitation and borrowed solutions.
Greater authority and clarity in decision making
The outcome is if higher precision, faster feedback and more direct effect on business outcomes.
Audience Fit
These talks are best suited for:
Founder conferences
Entrepreneur peer groups
Private founder communities
Podcast audiences of experienced operators
They are designed for leaders who have built something real and are ready to examine what is actually running their company.
Booking
If you are curating a room of thoughtful founders and want a session that combines business clarity with psychological depth, I would be glad to discuss your audience and goals.