Introduction

For years in the L&D world, people called me “Iron Man,” a “guru,” a “unicorn”—someone who could do it all and solve anything thrown my way. I understood where the labels came from, but the truth is: none of those identities ever felt like me.

I leaned into them because they were expected, because they made other people feel confident in my work, and because it was easier to accept the narrative than push back against it. But behind the scenes, those labels always made me cringe. They felt performative and disconnected from the human-centered designer I actually was.

So when I sat down to rebuild my website this year, it became clear that the work was about far more than color palettes, navigation bars, or templates—it was about rewriting the story of who I am and how I want to show up in my work moving forward.

The Challenge

What I didn’t realize at the start of this redesign was that I’d have to confront a deeper tension—the gap between the identity others projected onto me and the identity I actually resonated with.

Professionally, I’ve always taken pride in being capable, adaptable, dependable, and able to handle complexity. But the “superhuman” persona that others assigned to me—however well-intentioned—was exhausting, unsustainable, and ultimately misaligned with how I view my work. And after some difficult work experiences, burnout, and a period of confronting my own mental health, I was forced to slow down. That pause surfaced a hard truth:

The identity others celebrated wasn’t one I ever wanted to inhabit in the first place.

Rebuilding my website became a way to intentionally step out of that old narrative and into something more grounded, more honest, and more aligned with my core values.

The Solution

As I worked through design decisions, content, structure, and messaging, a single theme kept coming into focus:

I’m at my best when I’m human-centered, not superhuman.

My strongest work has always come from:

• empathy

• clarity

• reducing friction

• helping people make sense of complexity

• connecting learning to real performance

• partnering—not posturing

So rather than positioning myself as the all-knowing expert who “swoops in to save the day,” the new site reflects the designer and advisor I actually am grounded, thoughtful, collaborative, and focused on helping organizations help their people.

This shift meant letting go of the years of fluff and performative branding that never fit—and returning to the heart of why I got into this field in the first place: to create experiences that make work better for humans.