I haven’t written in a while and I owe you that. I wasn’t stuck. I wasn’t out of things to say. Every spare hour went to my family, because that’s exactly where it needed to go. I’d take those last few weeks back over any post I could have written instead. We were living out the final chapter of a life we spent almost three decades building, and I wasn’t going to miss a page of it for a deadline.

Here’s what I’ve been sitting with since.

My title is mom. That title isn’t going anywhere. Twenty eight years in, it’s still the best title I’ve ever held and the one I’m proudest of. But the job underneath that title just changed completely, and nobody warned me how strange that would feel.

This was the summer of all three at once. We dropped our youngest at college. Our middle daughter went back for her junior year. Our oldest is out there doing a job she loves. Three different kinds of goodbye in the same season, and every one of them hit different.

No one tells you that you’ll miss the mess. The shoes by the door, the dishes that were never quite done, the sass that used to make me want to scream. I would trade a week of peace and quiet for one more loud, messy, chaotic Tuesday with all three of them under one roof. I didn’t know how much I’d want the noise back until the house went quiet.

Here’s the part that got me. The whole job, every packed lunch, every carpool, every late night helping prepare for the next day was building toward one afternoon. You spend eighteen years getting them ready for a life without you in it, and then you drive them there yourself, hug them in a dorm room, and get back in the car alone. That’s the job. I knew that going in. I just never spent one minute preparing myself for how much it would hurt to do it right.

There’s a flip side to this, and it matters just as much. For years, my husband got what was left of me after the girls got the best of me. That wasn’t fair to him and I know it. Our relationship took a back seat because it could. It was strong enough to wait. Now it doesn’t have to. This is our shot to put us first for once, and we’re taking it.

That doesn’t erase the part of my heart that’s still sore. Both things are true at once. I’m leaning into this free bird season and I’m still not over the quiet. There’s less laundry. There’s less mess. There’s more time to do exactly what we want, when we want it, for the first time in almost thirty years. I’d trade every bit of that freedom to have the chaos back for one more year. And I’m genuinely excited for what’s next, for them and for us.

The car is empty now. The house is quieter than it’s been since before they were born. The title I’ve worn for twenty eight years hasn’t moved an inch. Mom is still the title. It’s just a different job now, and I’m still learning how to do it.

If you’re in this season too, packing a car, dropping a kid off, walking back into a house that feels too big and too quiet, I see you. I feel you. You’re not the only one standing in the driveway wondering what just happened to your whole life.

.

It all started in 2020. The whole world was worried about how life was about to change. I was worried about how my own life was changing, and I had been for months. I felt it. I knew something wasn’t right. And like I always do, I ignored it and pretended it didn’t exist. I was a healthy 40 something woman with a career and a family and a full calendar. I did not have time for health issues. That was the story I told myself, right up until I couldn’t tell it anymore.

January 2, 2020. I was wheeled into a dark, cold, sterile OR for four procedures, not one. At the time I was still wearing a mask, both kinds. The literal one they’d put on my face to knock me out before surgery, and the figurative one I’d been wearing for years. This was supposed to be easy. Go in, get fixed, come out a better version of myself. That was the plan.

What I did not expect was how a hysterectomy would actually make me feel. It was one of the four procedures, and honestly the one I thought I’d be happiest about. I did not want more kids. I did not want to be on birth control anymore. It wasn’t a radical hysterectomy, so I was told I would not be pushed into menopause. I remember feeling relieved about that part. I thought I was in the clear.

I was not in the clear.

In the days, weeks and months after, everything shifted. I left my job at Ceridian and started my own consulting practice. I spent more time with my family than I had in years. All of that while the outside world was falling apart too, lockdowns, social distancing, people fighting over toilet paper. It felt like everyone was changing at once, and I told myself mine was a choice. A good one.

But as the years went on, I kept changing in ways I did not choose. The mask I wore before surgery had come off. A new one went on in its place. I could feel pieces of myself slipping away and getting replaced by someone else. My family noticed before I did. My patience, which was never long to begin with, was gone most days. I was getting harder. I was locking in on things that did not matter and treating them like they were the only things that did.

Here’s what nobody tells you. Nobody talks about what a woman goes through in the third act of her life. I sure as hell didn’t. My husband told me more than once that he thought I might be going through menopause. You already know how that went over. I got defensive. I got dismissive. Some days I got angry. After everything I had built and everything I had accomplished, how dare something inside my own body change who I was.

But it did. The brain fog was real, the kind where you walk into a room and forget why you’re standing there. The short fuse was real. Sleep stopped being something I could count on. I would feel fine one minute and completely unrecognizable to myself the next, and I had no name for any of it because I refused to say the word out loud.

That’s the part that makes me the most angry now. Women go through this and mostly go through it alone. We whisper about it to each other in bathrooms and on group texts, but we do not say it in the rooms that matter. We have not made it okay to talk about at work. Right now, roughly 20 percent of the workforce is made up of women in the age range where menopause symptoms show up, and most workplaces have no idea how to talk about it, plan for it, or support the people living through it. We built policies for parental leave, compassion care. We built policies for almost everything else life throws at people. This one we left women to figure out on their own, in silence, while still showing up and performing at full capacity.

It wasn’t until very recently that I actually admitted what I had been dealing with. Underneath that admission was something harder to say out loud. I did not feel whole. Having that surgery back in 2020 took an option away from me. I did not want more children. I want to be clear about that. But I did not understand how much having that choice removed completely, whether I wanted it or not, would sit with me for years.

So if you are out there feeling like a lesser version of yourself, a cloudier version, an angrier version, I see you. I feel you. You are not alone in this, even though it feels like the loneliest thing in the world some days.

Take off the mask. Show your face. Be proud you made it to your third act, because a lot of people don’t get one. This is not an ending. It is a beginning. I am just really pissed it took me this long to see that.

If you’re reading this and you’re not a woman, or you’re not anywhere near this stage of life yet, stay with me for one more minute. This is not just a women’s issue. It is a leadership issue, a family issue, a workplace issue. Someone you love or someone you manage is probably living through some version of what I just described right now, and staying quiet about it is not doing them any favors.

So here’s what I’m asking you to sit with.

What mask are you still wearing that you told yourself you took off a long time ago?

Who in your life might be going through something like this right now, quietly, while still showing up for everyone else?

What would it look like if we actually made room for this conversation, at home and at work, before someone has to hit rock bottom to say it out loud?

I wore a mask into that OR in 2020 thinking it would protect me. Turns out it just delayed the harder work of taking one off. I’m done delaying. This is me, unmasked, on the other side of it, still figuring it out in real time. If you’ve been hiding behind one too, whatever kind it is, let this be the thing that finally gives you permission to stop.

Until next time…..

“Lisa talks too much.”

Not “Lisa is curious.” Not “Lisa connects with everyone in the room.” Not “Lisa has energy we haven’t figured out how to channel yet.”

Just: too much.

And the prescription? “She needs to remain quiet when she’s done with her work.” As if the best version of me was the muted one.

I wasn’t the valedictorian. I wasn’t the disciplined girl with perfect penmanship and straight As. But talk? Oh, I could talk. I could start a conversation with just about anyone, teachers, classmates, strangers. Curiosity was my native language. Connection was my superpower. And in a system designed for compliance and conformity, that wasn’t a gift. It was a problem to be managed.

So I did what girls are trained to do. I managed it. I dimmed it. I learned to read the room and make myself more palatable, less disruptive, easier to be around. I got very good at performing the version of Lisa that the world seemed to want and very good at hiding the one they didn’t.

By the time I got to high school, I had confused shrinking with surviving. I didn’t know they weren’t the same thing.

Everyone around me had a plan. Grades. Discipline. A road map to somewhere. And there I was still figuring out who I even was, let alone who I wanted to become. No college-educated parents to model the path. No framed diplomas on the walls. No one in my corner asking: what do you want?

So I drifted. And I played the role people assigned me: the life of the party. The loud one with the quick wit and the big laugh. People liked having me around. But deep down, I felt like everyone was just waiting for me to confirm what they already believed, that I wasn’t built for more than this.

And for a while, I let that be my excuse to coast. To stay small. To not give a damn.

Until one teacher called me into his office and changed the entire story.

I assumed I was in trouble again. Instead, he looked at me with something I hadn’t seen before: genuine disappointment. Not in who I was. In who I was allowing myself to become.

“Your effort isn’t matching your ability. You have far more talent than you show. You hide it with intention and I don’t understand why. I see you. But you won’t let anyone else.”

That cracked something open in me. Because he wasn’t telling me to be quieter. He wasn’t telling me I was too much. He was telling me I was playing small and that playing small was its own kind of failure.

Then he did something no one had ever done: he named actual careers where who I naturally was would be the asset, not the liability. That was the first time I glimpsed possibility. Not certainty. Not a plan. Just a crack of light big enough to walk toward.

The mask we didn’t know we were wearing

Here’s what I’ve come to understand after decades in leadership and a career built on watching humans navigate systems that weren’t designed for them: most women are carrying a mask they put on so long ago, they’ve forgotten it’s there.

It starts early. A girl gets told she’s bossy, and she learns to soften her directives into questions. She gets told she’s aggressive, so she prefaces every strong opinion with “I might be wrong, but...” She gets told she’s emotional, so she trains herself to feel nothing at work or at least to perform that convincingly. She gets told she’s too much, so she becomes strategically less.

And the tragedy is that this isn’t weakness. It’s adaptation. It’s smart. It’s survival. The mask works at least for a while. It gets you through the classroom, through the boardroom, through the performance review. It earns approval. It minimizes friction. It keeps you safe.

But safe isn’t the same as whole. And the version of you that gets through the door wearing the mask is never the version that changes anything once she’s inside.

I’ve watched brilliant women modulate themselves into mediocrity. Not because they lacked talent but because they’d spent so long performing someone else’s version of “professional” that they’d lost the thread back to their own voice. They became technically competent but spiritually absent. Present in the room, invisible in the impact.

That’s the real cost of the mask. It doesn’t just cost you. It costs everyone who needed you to show up fully and didn’t get that.

What unmasking actually looks like (hint: it’s not a weekend retreat)

I want to be honest with you about something: unmasking is not a moment. It’s not a single conversation with a teacher who believed in you, or a breakthrough session with a coach, or a women’s leadership conference where you cried in the bathroom and left feeling changed.

It’s a practice. A daily, uncomfortable, sometimes really hard and embarrassing practice of choosing yourself over the performance.

Here’s what it has looked like for me and for the women I’ve watched do it with courage:

1. Name the mask, don’t just wear it

You can’t take off what you refuse to see. The first act is radical honesty: where are you performing? Where do you shrink? Where do you default to agreeable when you actually think the room is wrong? Name it out loud. Write it down. The mask loses power the moment you see it for what it is.

2. Reclaim the things that got pathologized

What were you told was your flaw that was actually your gift? My “talking too much” became a career built on communication, connection, and influence. The woman who was “too emotional” may be the most empathetic leader in your organization. The one who was “too intense” may be the only one willing to tell the truth in a room full of yes-people. Reclaim it. Rename it. Aim it.

3. Let people be uncomfortable with you

This one is hard. Women are socialized to manage other people’s discomfort at the expense of their own truth. When you start showing up unmasked, some people will not like it. They liked the performance. They liked the version of you that never pushed back, never took up space, never had needs. Let them be uncomfortable. Their discomfort is not your responsibility.

4. Stop the apology tour

Count how many times a day you apologize for things that require no apology. For having an opinion. For taking up space in a conversation. For existing in a way that is inconvenient for someone else. Every unnecessary “sorry” is a small act of self-erasure. Stop. You are not sorry. Lead with what you actually think.

5. Find your people — the ones who don’t need you to perform

You cannot unmask in a vacuum and you cannot unmask alone. Find the people in your life, in your work, in your community who know who you are underneath the performance and choose that version of you anyway. They exist. They are looking for you too. Build your table around them.

6. Get comfortable being a work in progress

Unmasking doesn’t mean arriving at some perfect, fully-realized version of yourself. It means staying in honest relationship with who you are right now and giving yourself permission to evolve without having to perform the evolution for anyone else’s benefit. You are not broken. You are building.

The organizational version of this problem

I’ve spent my career in Sales, HR and people leadership, and I will tell you without hesitation: organizations do to women exactly what those classrooms did to me.

We dress it up in competency frameworks and performance ratings and “culture fit” conversations. We call it “executive presence” when what we actually mean is be less yourself and more like the men who were already here before you. We call it “emotional intelligence” when what we actually mean is don’t let us see your feelings, but please be warm enough that people like you.

The girl who talked too much becomes the woman who’s “not strategic enough.” The one who challenged everything becomes “not a team player.” The one who lit up a room becomes “too emotional for the C-suite.” Same story. Different conference room.

And the cost isn’t just personal, it’s organizational. Every time we sand down a woman’s edges to make her more palatable, we lose the thing that made her dangerous in the best possible way. We optimize for comfort and call it culture. We reward assimilation and call it leadership development.

If you lead people, any people, I want you to sit with this question: are you creating conditions where the women on your team can actually show up unmasked? Or are you unconsciously rewarding the performance and penalizing the truth?

Because the most dangerous thing you can build is a team full of people performing their jobs instead of actually doing them.

A letter to the version of you who was told she was too much

She is still in there.

The girl who talked too much. The one who asked too many questions. The one who felt everything too deeply and got called dramatic for it. The one who had ideas too big for the room she was in. The one who lit up and then learned to dim herself so others could be comfortable.

She’s been waiting. Patient. Quietly hopeful that you haven’t forgotten her.

She wasn’t defective. She wasn’t broken. She was brilliant in a way the world didn’t have the language for yet. She was a building in process and the building didn’t stop just because some people looked at the scaffolding and called it ugly.

What would you say to her right now? What would you want her to know? What pieces of her have you been carrying in secret? The curiosity, the fire, the refusal to be small, that you’ve never fully let back into the room?

Because here’s what I know for certain: the world doesn’t need more women who have perfected the performance. It needs more women who are done performing altogether.

It needs you. Unmasked. Unfiltered. Unapologetic.

The one who was always, already, exactly enough.

Reflection: do the work

Take 15 minutes and write raw, unedited, no one is watching. Answer these three questions:

• What did they call your flaw that was actually your gift?

• Where are you still wearing the mask — and who put it there?

• What is one thing the unmasked version of you would do differently — starting today?

Drop your answer in the comments. I read every one.

This is part of an ongoing series on unlearning the work of peeling back the stories we inherited and building something more honest in their place. If this landed, share it with a woman who needs to read it today.

This weekend was full of celebrations… and endings. Kendyl spent her final days as a child before turning eighteen. Kaitlin watched her youngest sister play soccer perhaps for the last time. We’re hoping Kaeli catches one more game later this spring. And we marked our final trip to the PDT soccer tournament, a journey we’ve made year after year for each of the girls.

So many lasts. And yet, so much love. These trips have always been my favorite. Not because of the destination, but because of the togetherness. I get to see all of us in one space. I get to witness these young women stepping into adulthood. They are no longer little girls although in my heart they always will be. The world now sees them differently. And that makes me proud. It makes me sad, too.

I don’t say “goodbye”. I say, “see you soon”, because honestly, I’ve never liked goodbyes. That word brings a sense of finality that I don’t like. Still, I cry every time. It’s gotten easier, but it will never be easy. Watching Kendyl turn eighteen yesterday was harder than I expected. Memories flooded in, bedtime stories, scraped knees, the Hokey Pokey, laughter in the kitchen, car rides filled with music and teenage eye rolls. And alongside those memories came the questions.

Did I create space for them to become their own people while guiding them through life? Was my absence felt by more than just me? Do they carry regrets from their childhood? Was I enough? Was I a good mom? WHY do we do this to ourselves? I did the best I could. And I know that sometimes my best didn’t feel like enough.

It’s funny, this mask I wear, the mom mask, is the hardest one. It is the greatest role I will ever play, and I thank God I was blessed with three of the most incredible daughters. But motherhood never ends. You never stop worrying. You never stop loving. You never stop longing for their love in return. And you never truly know how you’re doing.

Every other role in my life has metrics, feedback, performance reviews. Motherhood does not. As a mom, you pray you’re not screwing up your kids. You hope you are setting them up for success even when it’s hard, even when it hurts. Maybe it’s all hitting harder because the last one leaving is no longer a distant moment. Empty nesting is close. Too close. And I’m not ready.

I know I’m not the only mom who has felt this way, proud, grateful, honored… and also sad, nervous, and unsure. But I am here. For them. For myself. For my husband. For the people who need me to show up. I will continue to feel all the feelings. I will put on a brave face even when I am scared out of my mind that I am making mistakes. Because they are worth it and they deserve it. Every ounce of pain. Every sacrifice. Every challenge. They are worth it. Because they make me so damn proud.

I love you girls to the moon and back!

Until next time…….

Mama Llama

Reflection moment

Where in your life are you holding both deep pride and quiet grief at the same time?

Journal Prompt

Write about a moment when you realized someone you love was growing beyond the role you once held in their life. What did you feel in your body, your heart, and your thoughts? What are you learning about love in the letting go?

A few years ago, I turned 50. And that birthday? That one cracked something open. I didn’t like it. Not even a little.

I remember how strange it felt to say the words I’m fifty out loud. I thought about my mom at 50. How old it seemed then. I was 25 with a four-month-old baby, my sweet Kaitlin, and fifty felt like a finish line. A slowing. A closing. And then suddenly, it was mine.

That birthday didn’t roll off me like others had. It stuck. It pressed on places I didn’t know were still sore. It asked questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

I was surrounded by my people my closest friends, my ride-or-dies gathered at our cabin in the dead of winter. There was laughter and music and champagne and dancing on the countertop in cowboy boots (yes, really).

It should have felt perfect. And on the surface, it was. But underneath the joy, I felt scared. Untethered in a way that surprised me. While everyone celebrated who I had been, I was quietly wrestling with who I was becoming.

Who am I now? What’s next for me, for my family, for this life I’ve built?
Am I still becoming who I was meant to be? So I did what I’ve always done.

I held my head high. I laughed. I smiled for the photos. I said the right things. I performed confidence because it’s a skill I learned early and learned well. And I don’t regret that.

Because looking back now, I can see that night for what it really was. Not a breaking point but a beginning. The moment something shifted, even if I didn’t have words for it yet.

Now, here I am at 53. And while I still don’t love the number, I understand it better.

As I sit here finally writing this book, I mean series of stories, I feel both content and scared at the same time. Life is still messy. I’m still mourning, just more quietly now.

I’m mourning that Kaeli is back at college for her sophomore year. Mourning that Kendyl is in her final semester of high school, because I know how fast these months will disappear. Mourning the distance between me and Kaitlin, who is building her adult life hundreds of miles away.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am so incredibly proud. These young women are my greatest joy, the best parts of me walking freely in the world. I want nothing more than for them to live out all their dreams, no matter where that takes them.

But still… I’m scared.

Scared of what the quiet will feel like when Kendyl leaves. Scared of what being an empty nester will mean for me and Shane, and for the rhythms we’ve spent decades building. Scared of the space that might open. Scared of what I might lose and what I might find when I’m no longer filling all the moments with someone else’s needs.

I don’t say that out loud very often. I don’t put that weight on their hearts. Instead, I hold my head high. I cheer them on. I show up as the best mom and wife I can be even knowing there’s still room to grow in both.

Because this is the life I’ve built. Because this is how I learned to survive. And now, slowly, imperfectly, it’s how I’m learning to thrive.

Here’s what I know now, a few years past the birthday I didn’t want: with each decade, I’ve become more myself. Not louder but clearer. Not tougher but steadier. Not finished just more honest.

I don’t have it all together. I probably never will. But I am braver now than I’ve ever been. I’ve stopped sidestepping the hard questions and started walking straight through them. I’m choosing the identity that fits, not the one that was handed to me. I’m living this life fully awake, messy, real, and fully mine.

If this season has taught me anything, it’s this: becoming doesn’t end at fifty. Sometimes, that’s exactly where it begins.

Reflection

Before you scroll away, pause for a moment.

Where in your life are you performing strength instead of feeling it? What would it look like to stop pretending and start owning your fear, your joy, your uncertainty, all of it?

Write it down. Name it. Because naming it is the first step in living from the inside out.

The energy in the room buzzed with champagne-level celebration, handshakes, speeches, perfectly pressed suits, crisp press releases, and rehearsed soundbites about success and momentum.

I was standing in the coveted New York Stock Exchange.

This was supposed to be the moment. The moment you imagine when you’re younger. The moment you work toward without even realizing it. The moment that’s meant to confirm, You did it. You belong.

But instead of pride swelling in my chest, I felt my throat tighten. My eyes burned. I had to blink, hard to keep it together. Not because I was overwhelmed with joy. Because I was overwhelmed with something else entirely.

Fear. Doubt. Disappointment. And, if I’m being honest… anger. Mostly at myself.

I stood in that iconic booth on Wall Street, surrounded by symbols of power, money, and legitimacy and all I could think was: What if they find out I don’t belong here?

And what made it worse, what made it infuriating, was that part of me knew how irrational that thought was. I knew what it took to get there. I knew the battles fought, the risks taken, the rooms entered where I wasn’t invited and stayed anyway.
I knew the late nights, the hard conversations, the moments where quitting would’ve been easier.

And yet… there it was. That voice. Loud. Persistent. Familiar.

I smiled for the cameras. Laughed at the right jokes. Hugged the people I’d gone to war with to get to that moment. Delivered my lines with confidence and polish. But inside, I was unraveling.

The voice in my head drowned out the applause:

You’re an imposter.
You were a C-student in high school.
They’re going to figure it out.

And I was furious with myself for letting it speak.

How dare I question my worth here, of all places? How dare I shrink in a moment I had earned? How dare I let an old, tired narrative sneak in and steal something that should’ve felt triumphant?

That ache in my gut? That wasn’t nerves. That was imposter syndrome creeping in again, uninvited but painfully familiar. Despite everything I had accomplished, everything I had built, everything I had proven, it whispered the same lie it always had:

You’re not worthy of this. Any of this. You shouldn’t be here.

And the worst part?

For a split second… I believed it.

That moment standing on Wall Street, surrounded by success wasn’t the peak I thought it would be. It was a mirror. One that forced me to confront how deeply I had learned to measure myself from the outside in. And that’s why I’m writing this.

These blogs aren’t the result of academic research, leadership frameworks, or polished theories. If that’s what you’re looking for, this isn’t it.

This is real life.
Mine.

This is the story of what it actually looks like to rise while quietly falling apart. It’s about what happens behind the LinkedIn posts, beneath the titles, and under the surface of women who look like they’re crushing it but are privately questioning everything.

Women like me.

It’s about surviving self-doubt, sleepless nights, and the constant mental math of am I doing enough? It’s about the guilt of missed milestones, the weight of perfection, and the relentless pressure to keep climbing even when you’re not sure who you’re climbing for anymore.

It’s about being a mother, a wife, a leader, an executive and sometimes a complete emotional disaster that no one sees because you’ve mastered the art of holding it together in public.

It’s about living from the outside in.
Measuring yourself by applause, titles, and validation.
Before finding the courage to finally live, lead, and love from the inside out.

So no, you won’t find charts or footnotes here. What you will find is truth.
Unfiltered. Sometimes uncomfortable. Often hilarious. Always real.

If you’ve ever looked like you had it all together on the outside while falling apart on the inside….Welcome.

You’re not alone. I see you. I feel you. And I wrote this for you.

Now, let’s begin.

My Last Note to You

Before you read any further, I want to be clear about what this is and what it isn’t.

This isn’t a leadership manual. It isn’t a playbook. And it’s definitely not a polished highlight reel of “how to have it all.”

There are no frameworks here. No prescriptions. No ten-step paths to confidence or success. Not because those things don’t have value but because that’s not the story I’m here to tell.

This series exists because, for years, I’ve lived in the space between who the world thought I was and who I was actually becoming. I’ve spent much of my career performing competence, strength, and certainty often while quietly wrestling with doubt, guilt, exhaustion, and the constant pressure to prove I belonged in rooms I had already earned my way into.

Writing this has required me to let go of polish. To stop translating my experiences into something more palatable. To tell the truth without the safety net of expertise or distance.

Some of these stories are unfinished. Some are messy. Some may make you uncomfortable especially if you’re used to seeing women like me show up composed, confident, and in control. That’s intentional.

Because the version of leadership we celebrate most often leaves very little room for humanity. And the cost of that for women especially, is higher than we talk about.

I’m not writing from a place of having it all figured out. I’m writing from the middle. From the tension. From the moments where growth is happening even when clarity isn’t. If you’re looking for certainty, this may frustrate you. If you’re looking for honesty, I hope it allows you to exhale.

This series is for the women who lead, who carry a lot, who succeed loudly and struggle quietly. It’s for the ones who have questioned their worth in moments that should have felt victorious. It’s for anyone who has ever wondered when success started feeling heavier instead of lighter.

You don’t need to agree with everything I write. You don’t need to and probably won’t see yourself in every story. But if even one sentence makes you feel less alone or helps you soften the voice in your own head, then this has done what I hoped it would do.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading with an open heart.

Now, really… let’s begin.

Before I tell you my stories, I need to honor the people who helped me survive them.

No life is built alone. Behind every moment of becoming, every triumph, every failure, every quiet act of courage there are hands that steadied us, voices that called us forward, and hearts that stayed when it would have been easier to leave. Theses stories may carry my name, but they were shaped by many.

Some of these people challenged me when I wanted to hide. Some believed in me when I didn’t yet believe in myself. Some loved me through versions of me that were hard to love. Some stood in the wreckage with me and never asked me to be anything other than human.

These dedications are my way of saying thank you to the ones who saw more in me than I could see, to the ones who held me accountable, and to the ones who loved me fiercely, even when I was still figuring out how to love myself.

This is not a list of perfect people. It is a gathering of real ones. It’s not the full list as there are too many to include.

They are the quiet architects behind Inside Out. And without them, the stories would not exist.

To My Husband

Through every season of becoming, you have been my rock.

You believed in me long before I learned how to believe in myself. When I felt like an imposter, when the doubt was louder than my confidence and I wasn’t sure I could keep going. You stood steady. You carried the weight of my fear, my frustration, my exhaustion, my anger, my sadness and never once withdrew your faith in who I am or who I was becoming.

You have been my quiet strength and my loudest cheerleader. You gave me the freedom to chase what lights me up, even when it meant uncertainty, even when it meant watching me fall on my ass. You allowed me to be both the best and the worst versions of myself, loving me through every iteration (even when I made it impossible) without trying to change me, only reminding me who I was when I forgot.

In a world that often asks us to prove our worth, you gave me something far more powerful: unconditional belief. And because of that, I found the courage to keep showing up, to keep trying, to keep becoming. Even when I wanted to quit so badly.

This book, like my life, carries your fingerprints all over it. Thank you for being the place I fall, the place I rise, and the place I always come home to.

To My Three Daughters

You have been the deepest love of my life, and also my greatest mirror.

There have been so many moments when I felt like I wasn’t enough for you. Times I believed you deserved a different kind of mother. One who was always present, always certain, always right. I have missed moments that mattered. I have carried regret quietly for years. And yet, somehow, you met me not with judgment, but with grace.

You stood by me. You loved me through my becoming. And when you told me you were proud of me, it healed parts of my heart I didn’t even know were broken.

Everything I have done, every risk, every long night, every hard choice has been for you. To give you a fuller life. To build something better. To blaze a trail so that you, as women, would have more freedom, more opportunity, and more space to become whoever you are meant to be.

I know I have not been perfect. I have made mistakes. I have gotten it wrong. But never for a single moment have I loved you less than with every breath in my body. You have inspired me more than you will ever know. You have pushed me to grow. You have taught me humility, resilience, compassion, and courage.

At the end of my days, I hope you look back and know how deeply you were loved. And I hope you see that, in trying to become better for you, you made me better too.

You are my why. Always.

To My Mom

I was not an easy child. I broke rules, sometimes even the law. I was loud, outspoken, fearless, and desperate to prove who I was and who I was becoming. I went about so much of it the wrong way, but underneath it all was a simple, aching truth: I wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted you to see past the noise and the rebellion and recognize the girl who was trying so hard to be worthy of your love.

I know there were moments when my choices must have hurt you deeply. As a mother now, I understand how words and actions can cut in ways that never fully heal. There are things I wish I could take back, moments I wish I could soften, and apologies I wish I had offered sooner.

And still, through all of it, I thank my lucky stars that God made you my mama.

You did the best you could for me and for my sister. You sacrificed in ways I didn’t understand then, but I see now with clear eyes and a grateful heart. Your strength, your endurance, and your love carried us farther than you will ever know.

I love you, Mom. And I hope you know how proud I am of you—and how proud I am to be your daughter.

To my Dad

Loving you has never been simple. It has lived in many forms. Anger and regret, loss and emptiness, alongside love, gratitude, and pride. I have blamed you for moments in my past, for the ways your absence shaped me, for the guidance I didn’t get when I needed it most. If you hadn’t left this world so soon, I would have had you to learn from, to lean on, and to share the moments that mattered most.

I miss you more than words can hold. I wish you were here to see who I was then and who I have become. I imagine you would have kicked my ass more than a few times when you saw my choices or my behavior and somehow, even that makes me smile. Because it reminds me that you would have cared enough to call me out, to want better for me.

And still, I believe you’ve never really left. I swear I’ve felt your presence in the moments I needed you most. In quiet strength, in unexpected calm, in the feeling that I wasn’t walking alone. I carry you with me in ways I’m only now beginning to understand.

Your granddaughters and I talk about you often. I love telling them stories about who you were, keeping you alive through memory and love. You are woven into us, into our laughter, our resilience, our becoming.

Please know how deeply I love you. You are forever in my heart and always a part of who I am.

To My Little Sister

Growing up with me could not have been easy. I brought chaos into our home. I pushed boundaries, angered our parents, and wasn’t always the sister you deserved. There were times when our family felt like it was falling apart, and I know there were moments when you had to fend for yourself when I should have been standing beside you. I carry that with me, and I’m sorry.

But through everything, what has endured is us.

I hope you know how deeply I value our sisterhood. Not just the history we share, but the women we have become. I don’t say it nearly enough, but I am so proud of you. Watching you reclaim your life, grow, heal, and build something better has been one of the quiet miracles of my life. Your strength inspires me more than you realize.

I love celebrating your success. I love seeing you shine. And I love you dearly, fiercely, always.

I wouldn’t want anyone else as my little sister.

Not ever, Pee-wee.

To My Aunt and Uncle

You were the bonus parents I didn’t know I needed during some of the most chaotic chapters of my life. When the world felt like it was collapsing, you held my hand, offered steadiness, and gave me a safe place to land. You showed up in ways that mattered, most profoundly when you walked me down the aisle while my dad watched from heaven. Though physical distance now separates us, my gratitude and love for you have never wavered. Thank you for always being there when I needed you most, and for loving me as your own.

To David Ossip

Some people open doors. Others change the way you see yourself once you walk through them. You did both for me.

You are the one who invited me into the CPO role. Something I never asked for, never expected, and didn’t yet know I needed. I might have stayed where I was, comfortable and capable, resting on what I had already proven. But you wouldn’t let me. You saw more in me than I was willing to claim, and you refused to let me settle for less than what you knew I could become.

You challenged me in ways that weren’t always easy or gentle, but they were always honest. You didn’t soften your expectations to spare my comfort. You pushed me because you believed I could rise. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what you were giving me but now I do. You weren’t just shaping a leader. You were calling forth a woman who was still learning to trust her own power.

What you gave me was sacred: the courage to step into a larger version of myself, to take up space without apology, to lead with both strength and heart. Because of you, I learned that growth often comes disguised as discomfort, and that sometimes the greatest gifts arrive as challenges.

Today I stand in that role fully grateful, grounded, and shining like a star. Not because the path was easy, but because someone believed I could walk it.

To Kimberly Rath

There are people who see us not just as we are, but as who we are becoming. You were one of those people for me. You pushed me, challenged me, and believed in me at a time when I was still learning how to believe in myself. As a young professional, your steady nudging and honest feedback often felt like discipline—but now I understand it was devotion to my growth.

You didn’t let me hide behind fear or self-doubt. You asked more of me, even when I wasn’t sure I had more to give. In doing so, you helped me find a strength and a voice I didn’t yet know I possessed.

Now I see it. I feel it. And I carry it with me. Your influence lives quietly in the way I show up, in the courage I bring to hard moments, and in the woman I have become. I am beyond grateful for your belief, your patience, and your unwavering presence.

Thank you for helping shape not just my career, but my life.

To those who come next

Please don’t let anyone, especially yourself, diminish your light. Be bold. Be brilliant. Be Sassy. Be messy, real, radiant, and unapologetically you. You were made to take up space and to take on the world, exactly as you are. Your authenticity is your superpower.

And finally, to everyone who has played a part in my story, those who have challenged me, supported me, hurt me, healed me, believed in me, and loved me, thank you. Your fingerprint stains are all over these pages. 

I hope this book finds you in the moments you need it most. I hope it makes you feel seen. And I hope you love reading these stories as much as I loved living, well maybe not all of them, and telling them, well maybe not all of them.

With my whole heart, Lisa a.k.a. Mama Llama

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Let’s start with the basics…

I am a mother to three fiercely brilliant daughters who remind me every day why I fight the fights and why I power through exhaustion, imposter syndrome, and every “you’re not ready” I’ve ever been told. I’m a wife to a man who sees me in all my dimensions, the chaos, the confidence, the breakdowns and break throughs. And loves me not in spite of it, but because of it. I’m a daughter and sister who hasn’t always been present, but whose love is deep, loyal, and unwavering.

I’ve built my career brick by bloody brick, and rose all the way to the boardroom—and the NYSE and NASDAQ. I’m the executive who shows up in a hoodie, heels, and a Jeep hat, who tears down broken systems and builds people-centered cultures in their place. I am literally a walking contradiction in all the best ways. Bold and vulnerable. Visionary and grounded. Driven and human. And a mess at times.

What my LinkedIn post has read:

Lisa Sterling is a forward-thinking, engaging, and dynamic leader who has been disrupting the business and HR landscape to create cultural and organizational excellence. As a Chief People Officer/CHRO as well as an HCM product and sales expert, Lisa is recognized throughout the HR world for leading one of the most radical cultural transformations for a rapidly expanding, high-tech organization.

But what that doesn’t tell you is how often I’ve cried or screamed between meetings, doubted my worth, or walked into rooms where I had to convince people I actually belonged.

I have held game-changing roles at Ceridian, Mercer, SmartRecruiters, and Perceptyx, where I’ve had the distinct honor of navigating complex cultures, led companies through IPOs (NASDAQ, TSX, and NYSE), and redefined what modern, human leadership looks like. This work has led to dramatic increases in engagement, eNPS, and shareholder value but what matters more to me is the legacy of inclusion, authenticity, and growth that I will leave behind. That I have paved a path for the women who come next. That my daughters are provided opportunities I had to fight my ass off for. That’s what really matters deep down.

So some may ask why now? Why am I investing my time in this? The answers are simple. Because I am tired of sitting on the sideline, full of fear. Fear of rejection, of judgement, of failure. This is MY time and damn it, I’m grabbing it and running with it. At the end of the day, when someone asks me what I’m most proud of, I can finally say with certainty it’s that I’ve finally stopped living for titles, applause, and perfection and started living from the inside out.

Now, what can you expect from me as we move forward. First, I am hopeful I can create a community of authenticity. A community that celebrates the uniquenesses of each of us. A community where other individuals feel seen and that they are not alone. A community that helps people find their own voice and pride in their stories. And a community where people can learn from others, myself included.

Second, you can expect spontaneity. I am not committing to a posting schedule, a certain day of the week or a logical order to my stories. I am going to tell them when and how I want. This is one of the benefits of telling my stories in this manner rather than a book. I control the narrative, the timing and the sequence.

Last but not least, I will leave each story with something for you to ponder. A reflection point or a journal prompt. Take or leave it. But I want to leave you with something for taking the time to read my stories.

If you’re up for it, I encourage you to subscribe and follow along. I can’t promise it will be pretty. But I can promise it will be raw, genuine, emotional, snarky and hopefully, impactful.

And who knows, maybe at some point, they will be wrapped up, bound and delivered in a different manner. Or, I will have the honor of sharing my stories with others at live events. I really don’t know where this will lead. So lets go and see where it takes us.