Being performative takes more energy than being present.

Being present takes more courage than being performative.

The cost of performance, named

We have never been asked to be more performative, in more places, more of the time, than right now. The meeting that is somehow also an audition. The pitch that is somehow also a screen test. The Zoom that is somehow also a stage. Almost everything around us, consciously and unconsciously, asks us to perform a version of ourselves, and most of it is unconscious. Most people are good at what they do and quietly exhausted by the version of themselves they have to run while doing it. The cost is trust. Trust does not arrive from polish. It arrives from presence.

The cost compounds underneath the surface. Performance trains the nervous system that risk is dangerous. The cost of a perceived misstep has never been higher. One video, one post, one slip, and the consequences can be permanent and public. The body learns to stay small. And if we cannot take interpersonal risk, our lives cannot move forward, because the quality of our lives is the quality of our relationships, and the quality of our relationships is the quality of the risk we can survive with another human being.

Drop the Act™, in different spaces

Drop the Act is the body of work I have been building to address that cost. One methodology, lived in different spaces.

The methodology is the practice of being intentional about how we show up, with a particular focus on the deliberate move into the window of what is unknown to both ourselves and others. That is where the most generative human change happens. The other ways of showing up are not bad. The mistake is running them on autopilot. Drop the Act is choosing them on purpose.

Public Speaking / Keynote

Drop the Act: The Power of Presence in a Performative World is the main-stage presentation for the methodology. Built for industry conferences, leadership offsites, and executive education programs. Most recently delivered at the UNH Digital Marketing Conference.

The Communication Dynamics Lab™

The CDL is the group rehearsal space for the methodology. Half-day, full-day, and ongoing workshops for teams who want their people to become more confident, clear, and compelling communicators in front of clients, on stage, in the meeting, and on Zoom. Grounded in the art and science of human interaction. Twelve or fifteen people in a psychologically safe room practicing the live form of the work.

SoHo Creative Studio

SoHo Creative Studio is the video marketing arm. A trust-building video system for professional service firms (law firms, financial advisors, therapy practices, consultancies) whose websites are the first room their next client walks into. We handle the recording, the production, and the publishing schedule. The professionals show up, share their knowledge, and we take care of the rest.

The Fourth Space

The deepest version of the work lives in a fourth room, by referral only, where the act can come down completely because the room is sealed. The structural distinction is confidentiality. That room is the reason the methodology exists at all. The other three rooms feed back into it.

I am a Relational Behaviorist

Which means I believe human relationships are the most effective instruments of change, and the actions we take because of them are the proof. That orientation is the through line on the stage, in the workshop, behind a camera, and in the chair. The relationship makes new action possible. The action proves the relationship worked.

Who I do my best work with

Three audiences keep finding me.

The first is the team or organization where the cost of internal performance has become measurable. Meetings produce decisions that do not survive the elevator. Stakeholder communication looks polished and lands flat. Trust is leaking and no one can pin where. The Communication Dynamics Lab™ was built for that room.

The second is the conference programmer, leadership development director, or executive education director who needs a keynote that meets the moment. Audiences in 2026 are too sophisticated for motivational filler and too exhausted to sit through another framework. Drop the Act: The Power of Presence in a Performative World is the keynote built for that room.

The third is the professional service firm whose website is the first room their next client walks into. The bar for trust on the page has moved. Static bios and stock testimonials no longer carry. SoHo Creative Studio builds the video library that does.

How I got here

Former United States Navy Rescue Swimmer. Conservatory-trained actor, MFA in acting from William Esper at Rutgers University. Portrait photographer with work in The New York Times and on Comedy Central. A decade producing the CIO Strategy Exchange, the off-the-record community of Fortune 70 Chief Information Officers, embedded at the C-suite level. Founder of SoHo Creative Studio. Adjunct Communications Professor at the University of New Hampshire Paul College of Business and Economics. Currently completing a second Master's degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Northwestern University. Three decades being present with people under pressure.

Where to start

If you are programming a keynote for a conference, a leadership offsite, or an executive education cohort, contact us HERE

If you lead a team that needs to communicate with more confidence, clarity, and presence, the workshops page is the place to HERE.

If your professional service firm wants to build trust on camera at scale, SoHo Creative Studio is the place to begin.