About

Why “BurgundyTable”

The name comes from a simple conviction: the most important conversations happen around a table. Not on a stage or in a webinar, but somewhere small enough to be candid and close enough that people can actually see each other. I wanted a place that worked that way, where the honest and sometimes uncomfortable work of figuring out who you are and where you belong could happen.

Burgundy felt right for it. Warm, grounded, serious without being stiff, more or less the tone I want in everything I do here.

What I believe

Finding your element, the place where your natural aptitude meets something you actually care about, is one of the most important things a person can work out. “Just follow your passion” was never that honest, though. Real life has financial pressure, limited openings, timing that won’t cooperate, and I can’t solve any of that for you.

What I can help with is the part that usually gets skipped: actually understanding what you’re working with before you make decisions on top of it. What comes naturally to you, what you’re drawn to, what the people around you already see in you that you haven’t named yet. The way I think about it, being in your element comes down to four honest questions: whether you get it, whether you love it, whether you want it enough to keep at it, and whether the opportunity is actually there. Most advice stops at the second question. The last two are where the realism lives.

This work is never really finished, either. People change, what matters shifts, and someone who finds their element at twenty may find it has moved by the time they’re raising a family. That isn’t failure, it’s just life being what it is. So what matters more than landing on one right answer is keeping the ability to ask the question again when something changes, and to adjust without losing your sense of yourself.

I call the disposition behind all of this eunoia. It’s an old idea about thinking well and meaning well: trying to do what good you can, and trying not to make things harder for the people around you. It’s quiet, and it doesn’t show up on any application. I think it’s the thing most worth cultivating anyway.

How I work

I work at small scale on purpose, one-on-one and in small groups. With college admissions, I cap it at five students a year. That isn’t a marketing line, it’s the number I can take on while staying fully responsible for every part of the process, which is the whole reason to work with one person instead of a firm. I came out of one of the larger admissions firms, and I saw how pressure on revenue and headcount works its way into the quality of what families actually receive. Keeping this small, and keeping it mine, is how I avoid that.

I work as a coach. The work stays yours. I’m not here to hand you a finished plan or to write your story for you. What I bring is a way of seeing a person clearly and helping them act on it. My background is in psychology, and the tools I lean on, like CliftonStrengths, are there to give language to things you half-know already, not to sort you into a type.

Who I work with

I work at the inflection points, the moments when a clear read on yourself shapes a lot of what comes after.

High schoolers, at the college transition. A college decision made with a real understanding of the student goes somewhere different than one made by reflex, or by reaching for the most prestigious name in range. I work with the student directly, and with the parents alongside, because the decision belongs to the whole family. We start by understanding the student, and let the application follow from there. I care more about fit than about prestige, and I’ll say so plainly even when it isn’t what a family came hoping to hear.

Young professionals, at the career and identity transition. The years after a first job are easy to spend collecting credentials, when the more useful work, figuring out what you’re actually built for, keeps getting put off. I run small cohorts and standalone workshops on strengths, fit, and direction. This side runs by waitlist for now.

Small business owners, at the AI transition. AI has changed what a small operation can carry, and most of the advice about it is written for companies with an IT department. I work one-on-one with owners at their actual workflow, finding what the technology can honestly take off their plate and building it at the scale they run. About AI Coaching →

What this is not

There’s no upsell here, no certification, no outcome I can manufacture for you. I keep the numbers small deliberately, which means I’m not the right fit for everyone, and I’d genuinely rather you shopped around and chose well than committed to me by default. What holds it together is one belief: people deserve better tools for understanding themselves, and the best version of that work happens around a table.