Better Than What I Planned
How leaving Adobe taught me to lead by unlearning, creating without a plan, and letting ideas take their natural shape.
I Spent 23 Years at One Company Before I Learned How to Lead Differently
I spent 23 years at one company—Adobe—before I ever tested what I could build on my own. Both chapters shaped what I now believe about creativity and leadership, and it all started somewhere nobody would call strategic: a career break with no plan attached to it.
During my years at Adobe, I became very good at figuring out what actually mattered to customers, executive leadership, and everyone with a stake in a decision—and at selling a vision. But I also developed habits I didn't recognize until I ventured out on my own: waiting for consensus, needing a plan before acting, and seeking permission.
Retire the Belief
Leaving the first—and only—company I'd worked for since college, I knew I needed time to reset. For me, that meant turning to art and creativity.
I picked up a linocut carving tool with no idea what I was doing. I enrolled in a figure-drawing class, surrounded by strangers who could actually draw. And I started taking a weekly hip-hop class.
The dance class was the biggest leap, and it's the one I've kept. I'd never taken a dance class in my life and had avoided the dance floor for good reason. But I had committed to doing one thing every week that pushed me completely outside my comfort zone.
I'm still the least experienced person in the room every time. Some weeks, I can't get out of my head during class, thinking about the steps instead of letting my body simply move.
None of it was about becoming good. I had spent a career alongside designers, briefing the work rather than creating it myself, so I believed creativity was something other people possessed.
It was about proving to myself that "I'm not creative" and "I can't dance" were beliefs—not facts. And beliefs can be retired.
Letting go of limiting beliefs is a critical aspect of leadership. I couldn't pursue the client everyone said was out of reach or leave the role I was known for to discover what else I might become until I retired those old beliefs.
I couldn't encourage my team to outgrow their job descriptions until I had outgrown my own.
None of that came from feeling ready.
Ready is a decision.
Make Before You Have a Strategy
In linocut, once you carve a line, it's gone from the block forever.
The design I started with was a single stem of lavender—minimalist and elegant. But the finished carving and resulting print looked like a goddess.
It turned out even better than I had planned.
That lesson applied well beyond the carving block.
A few months in, the creative work sparked new ideas about what to pursue next. I felt real momentum building, and everything pointed toward starting my own company.
The old version of me would have spent months researching the market and writing a business plan before doing anything anyone could see.
Instead, I made things.
A logo.
A name.
Actual work for actual people—before I had a strategy to justify any of it.
I kept reminding myself that momentum creates clarity, so I just kept making.
The strategy caught up later, shaped by what I learned through action rather than what I predicted on paper.
The same is true for anyone leading within an organization. Waiting for certainty before moving feels responsible.
It's also how good ideas quietly die in planning documents instead of being tested in the real world.
Let the Shape Emerge
I also said yes to an idea that had been quietly brewing for years.
Bainbridge Island, where I live, is full of small boutique farm stands selling bread, vegetables, and flowers. I wanted one of my own—a lumpia stand, open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekends.
I had learned my mother-in-law's 50-year-old recipe for lumpia—the Filipino egg roll—and I wanted to build something around it with my two daughters.
We could have simply set up a table and served food on paper plates.
Instead, I gave the stand a real brand: Cuppa Lumpia.
It had a logo, a website, custom packaging, stickers—everything.
It was the same work clients pay me to do, except this time I did it for my family and for the joy of creating something together.
The name Make It Land came from that same instinct.
As I started taking on side projects, I found myself telling my daughters the same thing every time:
"They're hiring me to make it land."
Their idea.
Their product.
Their name.
Teams work the same way.
The clearest understanding of who you are—whether as a company or as a person—is usually discovered rather than designed.
The best teams I ever led weren't the ones I carefully mapped out on a slide. They took shape because I paid attention to what people naturally excelled at and where their energy gravitated, then built the work around those strengths.
It has been six months since I left Adobe and one month since I officially launched Make It Land.
Plenty remains uncertain.
How many clients I'll have.
How much revenue I'll generate.
How much I'll miss working with a team.
What is certain is how I lead now: by retiring old beliefs, making the first move without a guarantee, and allowing the true shape of something to emerge instead of forcing it.
I intend to keep practicing all three—as a leader and now as a founder.
Also at the carving bench.
In dance class.
And at the lumpia stand.
