work journal
Here, I explore the intersection of food systems, climate, finance, governance, conservation and equity, some of the biggest levers for protecting our planet and fellow citizens. You’ll find stories, new and old, about leaders who are making an impact, as well as how I synthesize what I’m learning on my ever-evolving career adventure.
Alpine starts for Clean in Montana
Clean Language is a powerful way to facilitate insight and lasting change in individuals and groups. In April, I'm bringing Clean Language expert Caitlin Walker to Bozeman for a three-day, in-person training.
Read more >Join us at Clean Montana!
Join us at Clean in Montana! This three-day training, led by Clean Language expert Caitlin Walker (PhD), will help you build stronger teams by creating safety, belonging and freedom.
Read more >"There really are no mistakes."
When I drew this person walking, I was initially bummed that I accidentally crossed their arms. That was a couple weeks ago. When I looked at it on my office wall again today, I saw something else.
Read more >What I learned in Zion Canyon
It's time to forge on with the best of our skill, trust and love.
Read more >“Make them think differently.”
"What is your role in stewarding the Earth for the next seven generations?” Last fall in Vienna, I asked this of investor Felix Porsche. Descendant of the car inventor, this wonderful young leader is now helping drive sustainability in transportation.
Read more >A conversation with Mariah Gladstone
“When you start to recognize the gifts from the landscape, you then begin to feel an inherent obligation to help share gifts back to the landscape," said Indigenous food sovereignty leader Mariah Gladstone, when we spoke as part of the Montana Free Press Fest.
Read more >On mentorship
Watching Nancy in action during the Master Gardeners Workshop at Christiansen's Nursery was a masterclass in facilitation and light-handed leadership for me.
Read more >Lessons in reciprocity
I'm pulled off on the side of the road near the end of a road trip with my daughter to see friends in Blackfeet Country. Here's what I've been learning: Reciprocity is like a flow of giving, rather than a transaction.
Read more >Reflections after a workshop marathon
After leading many workshops this past month, I'm reflecting on what I saw and learned before I launch into the next thing.
Read more >Making online connections in person
Traveling Dallas and Austin, I met up with colleagues, new and old. Some I'd met before, but most were online-only until this trip. It's always worth it.
Read more >A letter to Sophie (and maybe to you, too)
You told me about the trails you’ve run down in your business. The rocky hillsides, the summit views, and the steep, dark, slippery descents that had you wondering if you’d make it back.
Read more >The time I won $100 climbing a rock and promptly gave it away
Lessons learned: Commit to what matters most to you, learn learn learn, make money, give a bunch away, invest in others, and play hard.
Read more >Moments of realization in my search for a creative space
As I search for an amazing creative space to hold group workshops, I find myself inspired most by windowed hallways. These are the austere, wending, in-between spaces that seem to hold so much and yet nothing all at once.
Read more >Presenting Light & Seed
The first issue of Light & Seed, a reimagined, next-generation print magazine is a capstone to my publishing career, and the result of months of intentional strategy design and implementation.
Read more >Use Clean Questions to keep your assumptions from making a mess
Learning more about how others move through the world, increasing understanding, and reducing miscommunication.
Read more >The Bear and the Devil
Bears Lodge. Devils Tower. Names and words matter. The history of American Colonialism continues to unfold at a national monument in northeastern Wyoming. Reported for Mountain Outlaw in 2017, and still relevant today.
Read more >What climbing taught me about leadership and teamwork
A friend sent me these old photos out of the blue, and they have me thinking about a few of the things I learned from climbing.
Read more >Why? Or: the sticky note that stuck
Conflict and chaos can lead to renewed hope, belief and commitment.
Read more >Our fall garden chores through the lens of Jason Thompson
Photographer Jason Thompson's perspective on our fall garden and yard chores, shot on spec for Patagonia.
Read more >Moderating a panel discussion for Farm to Crag
After 23 years of asking questions for a living, I did it live for the first time in a panel highlighting three leaders in the Montana food system.
Read more >Strategy workshop: American Bank Leadership Retreat, Round 3
By now, this team knows when I show up, it’s time to dig in, think fast and get creative. And they always have a good time while they’re at it.
Read more >What it takes to collaborate across differing perspectives
We need to see each other as humans first.
Read more >"Even though so much has changed, the plan is still helpful."
In 2020, I helped Blue Bean Coffee develop a strategy for growth—their way. Three years later, after the Yellowstone River flood lapped their doorstep, the family-owned roaster has used our plan to source the "most eco-friendly packaging on the planet."
Read more >Book recommendation: A Fine Line by Graham Zimmerman
Follow Graham Zimmerman’s journey from early luck and scary accidents to cutting-edge alpine climbs, from dating foibles to marriage, and from surveying for mining interests to leading climate activism through Protect Our Winters and the American Alpine Club.
Read more >Nate Powell-Palm organizes USDA Organic Field Day in Gallatin Valley
Nate Powell-Palm has been working to advance organic ag for most of his life, starting with raising his first 4-H steer at age 9. This fall, he brought the US Undersecretary of Ag to Gallatin Valley for a field day.
Read more >Strategy workshop: Montana Food Matters
We set a goal for the morning and assessed what's moving this team forward and what's holding them back. Then the reframe. Always the reframe. This is where they figured out if the place they think they’re going is *actually* where they’re going.
Read more >Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard is in Business to Save the Earth—Not Wall Street
"At Patagonia, we make our important decisions based on wanting to be here 100 years from now." Looking back on a story I wrote for Esquire about Chouinard in 2019.
Read more >From compost to climate, Amy Fonte is working for sustainability in Big Sky
“Corporations have so much power and influence," said Amy Fonte, Big Sky Resort's sustainability specialist. "How do you use that to make a positive impact?
Read more >Pulling the threads of my career journey
In the rearview, I see threads: Building things—or rebuilding them. Learning how the world works and what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes. Finding hidden connections everywhere. Seeking the essence of people.
Read more >How to work through hard topics together
“The workshops allowed me to hear everyone’s view and take it in. Very rarely are you in a place where you have all the different opinions, and you all get to share them."
Read more >Learning and using visual facilitation
"People always tell me they don't know how to draw," said Charles-Louis de Maere, as he opened our course on visual facilitation. "I have stopped believing them."
Read more >Learning strategy on El Cap
The first time I climbed El Capitan, a 3,000-foot rock wall in Yosemite, my partner and I spent 5.5 days on the wall. Our bags were so heavy, we nearly crushed ourselves hauling them up. Near the top, we ran out of food.
Read more >Podcast interview: Northstar Unplugged
I was already considering stepping away from deadline-driven writing and reporting. Talking to Kristen Rainey nudged me in that direction, helping me realize that to be the person I want to be, I need to sleep. A podcast interview on Northstar Unplugged.
Read more >Leading a strategy workshop? Make sure you "take the dog out."
Your group needs a moment to breathe. This lets them process the massive amount of ground covered in a workshop, and then find the hidden connections that bring it all together. To get there, as I learned from my puppy, Lulu, “take the dog out.”
Read more >Book recommendation: More by Majka Burhardt
In turns raw, bold, insightful, funny and fiercely loving, More is an important work that I hope will move the conversation forward about parenting, career, our individual and collective wellbeing, and the hidden ties between them all.
Read more >Learning—and teaching—disruption with the masters at Level C
Working with Level C has been a game-changer for me. Last week I got to sit in the captain's chair and guide some of the great future thinkers of business and brand.
Read more >Designing a theory of change: Iqra Fund founder Genevieve Walsh
Iqra Fund builds sustainable school systems in northern Tribal Pakistan. A decade in, the nonprofit's founder and CEO needed a clear, simple and compelling visual to communicate both the org's model and her vision for long-term impact.
Read more >Kris Tompkins on rewilding Chile and Argentina
Lessons in vision and leadership from Kris Tompkins, who's protected 13 million acres (and counting). A profile I wrote for Mountain Outlaw in 2019, plus previously unpublished insights on the imperative of changing our agricultural system.
Read more >Common Ground series
How organic and regenerative agriculture are revitalizing rural Montana economies. A three-part, award-winning series I wrote for Montana Free Press in 2021 and 2022.
Read more >Strategy workshop: Hannah Featherman and the National Forest Foundation
The process of bringing a purpose, vision, mission and set of values to life can be both messy and magical. If you get the chance, do this work in person.
Read more >Climbing, food and community
Finding connections between food systems, wild adventure and community on a trip from Yosemite to Chattanooga and back home to Montana.
Read more >Latrice Tatsey studies "our relationship to the world.”
As part of my ongoing study of regenerative food systems, I spent a day with my 6-year-old, Eloise, shadowing soil scientists Latrice Tatsey and Tony Hartshorn at Blackfeet Community College and on a nearby ranch.
Read more >MJ Matute leads with empathy.
People come from all over the country and the world to work at Big Sky Resort's restaurants, each in search of something a little different. And they wind up contributing far more than just their labor: new and diverse ideas, energy, and perspectives.
Read more >Ode to a colleague and friend, Dylan Hale Thornton
Dylan is one to watch. Better yet, partner with him and change the world.
Read more >Podcast interview: Reframing Rural
“Every one of these farms is a business and a family and a community and an ecosystem. And it's so complex to look at all of those pieces, and it's so necessary. We're not just one giant industrial machine that produces food for the world.”
Read more >Help me design a strategy workshop?
I helped Iqra Fund founder and CEO create a strategic planning workshop to lead her with her team in Pakistan. The outcome: The team created an entirely new program that has the potential to leverage Iqra's mission many times over.
Read more >When different perspectives = different realities
"My mom is 8 feet tall and weighs 90 pounds." A hilarious and insightful lesson from my daughter in the form of the classic kindergarten Mad Libs. Plus an exercise to use with your team.
Read more >Stuart Fuke has the ingredients for teamwork in the kitchen.
Fuke mixes the Hawaiian culture of his youth and his military training to create family in the banquet kitchen. His is a story of incredible sacrifice, and of finding friendship and home in unlikely places.
Read more >Book recommendation: Range by David Epstein
If you’re a curious person with wide-ranging interests and a “jungle gym” of a career, Epstein’s phenomenal book Range is one you don’t want to miss.
Read more >The stories you tell matter. Here's why.
Focus on how people are responding to problems, and not the problems themselves.
Read more >Trabian Shorters’ “Asset-Framing”
“Asset-Framing” is a simple, clear and imperative tool for empathetic communication in the 21st century. It is a practical strategy for productive conversation in any part of life.
Read more >Blair Hensen is changing the way we talk about love and adventure.
I've been helping this wilderness guide-turned-therapist build the foundation of a business that melds her two passions.
Read more >Strategy design: the National Forest Foundation's magazine
By listening deeply and weaving in ideas from a broad team, we created group alignment behind what will ultimately become an entirely new publication.
Read more >Donkey packing 101 / Outdoor parenting 102
Time off is precious. What we decide to do with it can be meaningful. This vignette offers a window into what I do with mine. Next time maybe my time off will include a hammock.
Read more >Fuel, Oxygen and Heat
While reporting this story in 2018, I learned a basic premise that I operate under now: By focusing on inclusion, you broaden the diversity of perspectives and knowledge among teams and leaders, which is key to our future on this planet.
Read more >Homegrown series
How small food processors are building a more resilient Montana Food System. A two-part series I reported for Montana Free Press.
Read more >Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard predicts food could save the planet
Interviewing Chouinard, combined with the love of gardening and food I inherited from my parents, launched my exploration food and agricultural systems in Montana.
Read more >Cirque of the Unclimbables film
In the summer of 2010, two friends and I spent a month camping in a boulder field the base of Mount Proboscis, a 2,000 foot granite wall in the Northwest Territories, Canada. A retrospective look at our climb and film.
Read more > inquire > reframe > transform >
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Wolfe Consulting
Emily Stifler Wolfe
Bozeman, Montana
Bozeman, Montana
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