Belief and Story

What I believe

I believe value comes from human connection under the guidance of the divine.

So systems should serve, never lead. We keep them quietly in the background, never ahead of real connection, so owners can focus on the people they are called to serve.

Hire a conductor. One person who keeps all your tools in their place, in one system, run with your small team as a monthly seat.

Why Rattle and Hum

When I was young, U2 was my favorite band. Three albums shaped me more than any others: The Joshua Tree, Rattle and Hum, and Achtung Baby. One song from that time has stayed with me ever since, "Bullet the Blue Sky." In it are these lines:

To me, those four lines tell a whole story. The locust wind is a place of difficulty, even desolation. It is the dry season, when nothing seems to grow. Then comes a rattle and hum. That is the moment the divine enters and shakes things up.

What follows is a struggle. Jacob wrestles the angel through the night, and the struggle hurts. But out of that pain comes a new identity. Jacob is given a new name, Israel. In Hebrew, Yisrael means one who wrestles with God. Some also read it as one who sees God. I love that both can be true. The wrestling and the seeing belong together.

That is why I named my agency Rattle and Hum.

I have had my own locust wind. After more than a decade with the same company, I saw my locust wind. I found myself at a crossroads. I could chase another executive title, or I could build something of my own. Underneath the choice was fear. I was afraid I had waited too long, and that the years ahead would not count for what I hoped, in meaning or in money.

Looking back, I had been doing this work for years. Early on, a new international nonprofit handed me a new outreach vehicle. I became its founder, and because I was using social media professionally before almost anyone else was, it grew rapidly and found its footing in an extremely short amount of time. Later, a US public company doing work internationally came to me asking for a website. As I asked questions, I learned the real fear underneath. They were not sure they could stay viable. So I built systems around that website that helped them raise over a quarter billion in equity and keep their focus on their vision.

Then came my own rattle and hum. Three years ago, I took on a fractional role as executive director of a nonprofit. With the right systems in place, I could run the whole organization in minutes a day. In that time, the organization went through a complete overhaul and a full rebrand, with exponential growth in the areas they cared about most. The vision they had struggled for a decade to make real is now real, and they are building on it. That is when I saw something I could not unsee. The digital work that used to take a whole team could now be run by one seasoned person, quickly and well. I also saw the danger. The same tools that could free people could just as easily bury them and pull them away from each other. So I let go of the safer path and chose to build Rattle and Hum, where the tools make people more human, not less.

I came out of that wrestling with one simple belief. Value comes from human connection under the guidance of the divine. Systems should serve, never lead.

Rattle and Hum is for people who are wrestling too. You have a big vision to help other people, or to do something no one else is doing. You are trying to make your dream work, and the tools, the apps, and the busywork keep getting in the way. You know money matters, but you see it as the result of the work, not the point of it.

Those are the people I want to work with. If your work touches Israel, whether it's a company, a nonprofit, or advocacy, my answer is already yes.

What I offer is simple. You hire a conductor. One person who keeps all your tools in their place, in one system, run with your small team as a monthly seat. The systems stay quietly in the background, so you are free to focus on the people you are called to serve.

If you are in your own locust wind, this is your rattle and hum. Less noise from your tools. More room for your people. And a real person beside you the whole way.

You bring the vision. I'll keep the systems quiet. Together we make it rattle and hum.