About a year before I left my corporate job of 15 years, I took on a meaty project supporting the senior executive team in the midst of a difficult time in our family. My husband had a health scare and the future seemed uncertain. I was running on fumes with very little sleep and thought I was protecting myself and my team by keeping the situation to myself. I tried to compartmentalize my grief so that I could be the superhero I wanted to be. The session was a success but I knew deep down that I was compromising my own value of authenticity by not being open about my situation.

Then, a leader I’d invested months supporting and coaching failed monumentally. They were in the wrong role, and no amount of coaching or advising could change that. Around the same time, some of the coaches on our team started receiving negative feedback from important internal customers despite my best efforts to shield them.

That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t the superhero I thought I was. My team and the leaders I supported couldn’t be saved by me. The only one I could truly take responsibility for was myself. I was on the verge of burnout and this was a “put your own oxygen mask on” moment.

As I thought about my next move, I realized that my prior career choices had been opportunistic and driven by the needs of my organization. This time, things felt different. It was an inside job that couldn’t be deferred to a mentor, sponsor or a LinkedIn job board.

Out of necessity, I stopped trying to save everyone and started asking: Where do I actually create value? What brings me joy AND drives real impact? What is my true Zone of Genius?

After sitting with these questions over a 5 day meditation retreat, the answers became clear:

Leadership coaching and team facilitation was what gave me the most joy and provided the most unique value. Not leading a team. Not marketing or sales where I started my career. Not managing internal change in a large and complex organization.

So I made a difficult choice. I took off the cape and hung up my shingle instead. On Purpose Leadership was born in August of 2023.

When I stopped trying to be everything to everyone, I became exponentially more effective at the one thing I do really well. My life got fuller and more intentional. Within a year, my business grew and I was able to replace my full time income.

Now my clients get the best version of me and not the exhausted superhero version. I have much clearer boundaries and know when to step in and support them and when to step back and hand the project to someone else.

I see this pattern with my clients too. One executive director I work with was drowning in cross-functional commitments. She attended every meeting, weighing in on every decision. She felt indispensable but her team was stalling because she rarely made time for the strategic work they needed her to drive. She looked at her calendar and it was filled with back-to-back meetings with no time to think. She reluctantly agreed to find a delegate for some of the work so she could carve out more thinking time. Her team’s speed and accountability increased, her own stress went down, and her visibility as a leader grew because she was finally doing the work that mattered most.

Saying no to most things is how you become exceptional at the right things. As Dan Sullivan writes in 10X is Easier Than 2X, “Growth happens when you let go of the 80% that’s keeping you busy so you can focus on the 20% that creates real value.”

Summer can be a great time to step back and ask yourself:

• What am I doing that someone else could do 80% as well?

• What am I saying yes to out of guilt, obligation, or old identity rather than impact?

• If I could only do ONE thing exceptionally well this year, what would it be?

The answers to these questions rarely come easily. But they’re worth sitting with because the truth I learned by taking off my cape is that the world doesn’t need you to be everything. It needs you to be exceptional at the things only you can do.

Here’s a framework that helped me get clear on my zone of genius. Hope it helps you too! Drop me a line to let me know.

Yet the moment I entered that waiting room filled with patients receiving cancer infusions and awaiting test results, I felt immediately out of place. My professional clothing, my demeanor, my very presence - it all signaled to them that I was an outsider. Someone with an agenda who they couldn’t trust.

The body language of the harried person at the front desk immediately shifted when she saw me. I knew I’d be lucky if I had a moment of time with a member of the office staff, let alone a meaningful connection.

I hadn’t changed anything about who I was on the inside. My intentions were good. But the position I occupied created a barrier that no amount of friendliness or authenticity could penetrate. They saw the role before they saw me.

Years later, I came to understand what I’d experienced during my first several months as a Clinical Sales Rep: a Role Identity Shift - that disconnect between how you perceive yourself internally and how others perceive you based on the role you occupy. The discomfort was disorienting and limited my ability to meaningfully connect with a number of my customers. This experience taught me something I didn’t fully appreciate at the time: titles have power, whether we want them to or not.

While this was one of the more dramatic instances of a role identity shift I’ve had, it’s not the only one. I’m experiencing it now as I move from a community that became deeply woven into my identity after over a decade. And I witness this phenomenon regularly when coaching leaders stepping into senior positions. The moment someone gets promoted, there’s a perceptual shift. While they may feel the same on the inside, how everyone else sees them changes. The title becomes a filter through which all interactions are interpreted.

When you move into a position of authority, several things shift - often without you realizing it:

Information gets filtered. You’re sometimes the last to hear bad news. What reaches you has often been polished, sanitized, or reframed before it gets to your ears.

Your every move is analyzed. People attribute intention and meaning to everything you do. An eyebrow raise, a terse email, a moment of silence in a meeting - all become data points analyzed for hidden meaning.

People perform around you. It’s human nature. People stop showing up as their full, authentic selves. They perform the version of themselves they think you want to see.

The leaders who navigate this transition well share something in common: they understand that the role has shifted others’ perception of them, and they actively work to counteract the walls that naturally emerge. Here’s what I’ve seen - and done - that helps:

Build grounding relationships at every level. People who knew you before the title are more inclined to tell you the truth after it. Don’t abandon your peer relationships or friendships outside of work - nurture them even more.

Share what’s underneath the surface. When people understand your values and what motivates your decisions, they’re more likely to trust your intentions and engage authentically with you. Make your implicit intentions explicit every chance you get.

Be disciplined about asking for what’s going unsaid. Regular 1:1s, listening tours, skip-level conversations, and direct questions like “What am I not hearing?” create conditions for honest feedback. How openly you react to the feedback will also impact whether you receive it again.

Be thoughtful about what you share and with whom. What feels like a casual observation to you can become a story that takes on a life of its own in the organization.

The leaders who stay grounded and humble aren’t immune to the hidden cost of a promotion. But by staying connected, curious, and grounded, they remain more satisfied in their roles and ultimately more effective.

Your internal sense of self shouldn’t change when you step into a new role. But the world’s perception of you does. Acknowledging that gap - and actively working to bridge it - is what separates leaders who thrive from those who become isolated.

What role are you stepping into, or have you recently stepped into, where you’re beginning to feel that identity shift? What’s one relationship you could nurture today that might help keep you grounded in who you really are?

What I’m reading and listening to:

• Anyone with young kids who lived through “Maycember” will relate to this hilarious article. It’s a perfect satire on what makes the end of the school year feels so intense.

• The season finale of Hacks had me laughing and crying. The show’s star, Hannah Einbinder shares here how comedy helps us have hard conversations. “It’s easier to put an idea into the world if you’re laughing with it. It just expands your mind.”

• In a refreshing departure from the constant optimization culture, Tim Ferris aired a podcast episode entitled “How to Simplify Your Life in 2026 - New Tips from Anne Lamott, Claire Hughes Johnson, David Yarrow and Diana Chapman.”

• In case you missed it: My son created this beautiful piece of self-affirmation as art that pushed me to declare my own self affirmation.

  
  Thanks for reading. If this resonated with you, I'd be grateful if you shared it with someone stepping into a new leadership role so they know they aren’t alone.

  

As we jumped into a conversation about vision, two men began to dominate the conversation. The small company they worked for had recently been acquired by the midsize company they were now part of. They’d noticed real discrepancies between what leadership was saying and what they were experiencing on the ground. Their concerns were valid. But the way they took over the conversation — occasionally interrupting others to have the last word — didn’t land well with the rest of the room.

I wondered how the next two days would unfold after that inauspicious start.

We all enjoyed a group dinner where we got to know each other on a more personal level. Unstructured meals always help a team break the ice. I learned about a team member’s new home, kids’ baseball tournaments and a stage 3 cancer diagnosis and remission over decadent wagyu beef burgers. One of the two men made a self-deprecating joke at dinner that suggested he had received some honest feedback about how verbose he was. The other seemed to have moved on.

The next morning was a chance to start fresh. I introduced an invitation I come back to often with teams: Take Space and Make Space. It’s a challenge to step into a conversation sooner if you tend to be on the quiet side, and step back if you happen to be more vocal. I love how this encourages self reflection, and then a challenge to do something mildly outside of your comfort zone for the sake of the team.

When it was his turn to speak in the opening round, one of the men who had dominated the conversation the day prior did something I didn’t expect. Rather than simply brush it under the rug, he took complete responsibility for dominating the conversation and interrupting some of his colleagues. He asked his teammates to hold him accountable for showing up differently.

The energy in the room shifted.

It would have been easier — and perhaps sufficient — to simply let his actions on day two speak for themselves. Many people choose that easier path because they don’t want to make things awkward or they are afraid admitting mistakes will come back to haunt them.

Instead, this 61-year-old man, who had survived stage 3 cancer, understood something many leaders never learn: you can’t will your way to a clean slate. You can change your behavior on day two, but if you ignore what happened on day one, the room remembers. What he did by naming it out loud and asking to be held accountable was what actually made moving forward possible. The collective emotional intelligence of the group grew by virtue of seeing how he approached this initial “failure.”

Being in community means we will inevitably step on someone else’s toes. Resisting the impulse to move on as if nothing happened, and showing grace to those who want to try again, is worth more than we give it credit for. This team’s ability to move through tension created a solid foundation to stand on, and set the tone for a productive team formation.

Now, think of one relationship in your life that could be better. What is one responsibility you can own in letting it decline? What would it look like to take accountability and begin again?

Worth your time:

• This stunning interview gave me a new perspective on purpose, and how parents find meaning after unimaginable loss. I feel stronger for having listened to it.

• This book, read by the author, was an evocative portrait of a woman navigating the unforeseen breakup of her marriage.

• I launched a new workshop called Leadership Presence: The Human Advantage in an AI world. I'd love to bring it to your team.

• What I Wish I Knew About Luck unpacked the relationship between good fortune, internal preparedness and building a network that will make me a better business woman and mom. Tina Seelig’s viral TED Talk gives you a taste.

  I’m here to help you bring out the best in your team. See how I do it or book a complimentary strategy call here.​

  

I work almost exclusively with leaders, most of whom have spent their careers in medium or large companies. They often ask me what it’s like to work for myself and how I structure my days. I thought I’d share a snapshot of a week in the life of a leadership coach while modeling the reflection I encourage my clients to do each week.

We’ll jump into the week after a spring break trip that included my first visit back to my childhood home in 15 year. (More about spring break’s significance here)

Thursday:

🛫 4am ET wakeup to catch a flight home from spring break. After a quick nap, went straight to celebrating Genentech’s 50th Anniversary. So energizing to connect with former colleagues for this big milestone. So many lives have been meaningfully impacted by this company, including my own. I love seeing members of the Genentech Alumnae Leadership community I built, including the women below.

Friday:

🔊 Speaking to 40 emerging leaders about finding your purpose and relationship mapping. I love presenting to an engaged and open audience. Many of them find that anchoring to their purpose helps them grow their relationships in more meaningful ways. One attendee described the session as “very relevant and refreshing.”

🤝 Brainstorming with a former colleague on a partnership — one of my favorite ways to expand On Purpose Leadership impact. I know this east coast based team is going to benefit.

Sunday:

🎹 Cheering my son on at his piano recital. So proud of his poise and confidence. It makes me think about re-visiting my brief and humbling stint learning piano during the pandemic. It reminded me just how hard it is to learn something new as an adult.

Monday:

🏋🏼‍♀️ Attending my first Orange Theory class. I think I found my new workout obsession! I love the combination of cardio and strength + the ability to track your progress over time. The endorphins last through the day.

💬 Coaching a senior leader through a tough team dynamic. Sometimes the most important advice is to slow down and get curious.

💬 Debriefing with a few clients on sessions we did earlier this year and how to integrate the learnings for their teams.

🎤 Monday night: Bruce Springsteen with my husband and best friends. A nod to my Jersey roots and worth staying up late on a weekday for.

Tuesday:

📋 Deep planning mode for next week’s 2.5 day leadership offsite in Southern California and a new session I’m designing: Leadership Presence: The Human Advantage in an AI World. I’m excited to bring help individuals and teams get more connected to the influencing skills that make them irreplaceable. More about the session here.

📩 Sending a proposal to help a team of experts build facilitation skills. These are foundational, and often underestimated ways to create impact.

Wednesday:

☎️ Two mentoring conversations with women I hadn’t met before who are hoping to get advice on securing a new role. My best advice to the more seasoned leader: Don’t undersell your expertise. For the person just starting out: Your energy and enthusiasm is an asset. Build authentic connections, and offer to be helpful so you’re top of mind when a role opens.

🎧 Wrapping up this excellent podcast episode on How Change Really Happens and purchasing the book. It’s moving to hear anecdotes from someone who has taken on one of the hardest changes - recovery from addiction - and how this applies to some of the change efforts I work with teams on.

🏛️ Board meeting with Leadership Council San Mateo County. Being on a nonprofit board has been fulfilling and enlightening.

🚶‍♀️ An afternoon walk and check-ins via voice memo and Marco Polo with close friends.

Playing back my week reminds me why I made the leap. The variety and autonomy is not for everyone, but it’s very much for me. If you’re curious about what it looks like on the other side, I hope this gave you a peek.

Reflecting on your week is one of the simplest habits I recommend to every leader I work with. It’s easy to move fast and miss what the week was actually trying to teach you. I hope this snapshot was useful.

Here are some prompts:

What are the highs (and lows) of your week?
When did you find yourself most living your values?
What did you learn about yourself along the way?

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The redwoods I walked through during the day in Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve had the same effect. Standing at the base of something that has been growing for centuries has a way of putting your own timeline in perspective.

I came back feeling restored and jumped almost immediately into a 1.5-day retreat with an HR Leadership Team — including one of my favorite sessions to facilitate, a New Leader Assimilation. The parallel wasn’t lost on me. What a personal retreat does for an individual, a New Leader Assimilation does for a team: it creates a deliberate pause, a chance to step back from the day-to-day and look honestly at what’s working and what needs to change.

For anyone unfamiliar, a New Leader Assimilation is a structured, facilitated process designed to accelerate the integration of a new leader into a team. When done well, they reduce the time it takes to build trust and alignment from months to a few hours.

How it works

While the specifics may vary depending on the facilitator, the approach to these sessions is generally the same. The leader steps out of the room while I facilitate a conversation with the team and ask a series of open ended questions that can be customized. Here are some of my favorites:

• What do you want this leader to know about this team?

• What do you want to know about this leader?

• What requests do you have of this leader to help you do your best work?

Unlike a survey or a 360, this is a live conversation. I can follow the thread, ask what someone means, and turn an insight into something a leader can actually act on. This type of discernment means the leader won’t have to spin her wheels making sense of what’s written on a feedback form.

Directly following the team session, I compile the responses into themes and invite the leader back into the room. I share the themes back with the leader without names or attribution. The team can add additional context that I miss, and the leader has a chance to respond or ask questions in the moment.

The impact is immediate. When a leader receives the feedback with curiosity and appreciation rather than defensiveness, the team sees it in real time. Leaders find themselves saying “I’m glad I know that” or “I can absolutely do a better job here, please hold me accountable.” This builds trust and opens the door to future opportunities to provide feedback and support in both directions.

A few common themes

Research tells us the top reasons people leave in the first 90 days are misalignment between job expectations and reality, lack of connection with team culture, and a poor onboarding experience. All three of these reasons are solvable with honest conversations. A New Leader Assimilation creates exactly that opening — helping leaders course correct or avoid common pitfalls before they happen.

And while there’s no replacement for a personalized session with your own team, here are a handful of themes I hear consistently across leadership teams in the life sciences industry:

Teams want context and clarity. They want their leader to be a sense-maker — someone who can translate the chaos of the organization into something they can act on. And they want honest feedback on how they can be more effective, and what the leader’s expectations are from the start.

Teams want air cover. They want to know their leader will go to bat for them even when they aren’t in the room. This requires knowing enough about what the team is working on to advocate for them, but not so much that it tips into micromanagement. Finding the right altitude isn’t easy for new leaders and can take some trial and error.

Teams want to know their leader as a human being. Teams want to know who their leader is outside of work when they aren’t at a board meeting or on a main stage. When a leader shows up as a real person, sharing more details about their life, and being just a bit more vulnerable than they might have thought they should, it gives the team permission to do the same.

Why I do this work

New Leader Assimilations have become one of the cornerstones of my work. I often recommend them, whether I’m partnering with a newly appointed leader stepping into an existing team or supporting a team with a leader who wants honest feedback. You don’t have to be new to your role to want to create a space for honest conversations to help you grow.

These sessions are some of the most intimate professional moments I’ve been a part of. It’s heartening to witness a room full of people trying to say, thoughtfully, here’s what I need, and here’s how you can be successful. I’ve learned as much from facilitating them as any leader has from receiving them.

If you’re 90 days into a new role — or have someone on your team who is — this is worth every bit of the two hours it takes. And, you don’t need an outside coach for a New Leader Assimilation to be effective. A trusted HR business partner or an internal OD consultant can facilitate these sessions effectively. What matters most is that the person running it isn’t the leader’s direct manager, and that the team trusts that their responses will stay anonymous. Psychological safety is so important for this to work.

The truth is, your team is already having this conversation. Wouldn’t you like to have the chance to learn from it?

When I woke up the following morning in a hotel room without a voice, I had to reach out to my client to break the news that I wouldn’t make it. My client gently pointed out that I maybe shouldn’t have gotten on the plane in the first place. Of course, she was right. But in the moment, it had felt impossible to do anything else.

It wasn’t until later that I realized why.

My last three months had felt exactly like what I imagine my kids feel like when they stumble off the sit and spin, that deceptively innocent rotating seat that has somehow made a comeback at every playground we visit. They hoist themselves on, spin for what feels like an eternity, then wobble off and crash to the ground in total hysterics. I watch them every time with a mix of amusement and dread, wondering if this will be the time they end up in the emergency room with a concussion.

When you’re spinning, it’s hard to make completely rational decisions. You emerge from the experience and go where momentum takes you next.

And I had been spinning for good reason. This week, we sold the house my family lived in for ten years, and brought our kids home to. In January, we moved to a beautiful new home in a community I’d visited only a handful of times. My calendar was filled with travel and back-to-back client work. My son started a new school. I went to sleep one night and woke up to learn that our country is at war. A former colleague and five of her friends - all moms to young kids - died in a freak avalanche. Any one of these events alone would feel like a lot.

All of them together made me a little nauseous.

Since this humbling moment, I’ve been sitting with what it means to be on the receiving end of change rather than the one helping others navigate it. Leading myself and my family through the process of changing homes and schools reminded me of a few things I say out loud to clients all the time but needed to hear on repeat. I’m sharing them today in case any of my readers need a refresh:

Change is like a wave. The more you swim against it, the more likely it is to take you down. My attempts to push through, keeping every commitment, meeting every deadline and showing up fully, was unrealistic and set me up for failure. What's helped more is letting myself actually feel the losses: grieving the home and community we left and giving my emotions room to move through rather than distracting myself with my to-do list. Riding a wave means you have to feel it first.

The best leaders know they aren’t indispensable. The workshop I flew to deliver was on Situational Leadership — the idea that great leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all. Situational Leadership means assessing what your team members actually need, and adjusting your approach accordingly. The leadership team I was working with was sharp, prepared, and more than capable of running the session themselves. Had I paused long enough to apply the framework I was there to teach, I might never have boarded that plane. For this high-competence LT, my presence wasn’t the variable that mattered most.

Spaciousness makes you a better leader. If you’re moving from meeting to meeting with barely enough time to catch your breath, you’re not going to make the best decisions for you or your team. Constantly fighting fires and reacting doesn’t create the conditions for good leadership. The first step was to notice that I was spinning. The next, often harder step for me was to ask for and accept help.

Today, the sun is shining, it’s my birthday and I’m heading out of town and off the grid for a yoga retreat. I am looking forward to re-connecting with nature, myself and the work I love to do and returning more steady, balanced and ready to ride the next wave that comes my way.

Which of these change leadership principles feel most resonant for you?

I hope you are having - or had - a restorative and restful break. My family and I are headed to Tahoe today, and this season I’ll be crushing the blue slopes with my first-ever new pair of skis. It feels like such a luxury to skip the rental line and head straight up the lift for the first run of the day. After a few years of investing in ski lessons for our boys, I’m eagerly anticipating riding the chairlift as a family and skiing together for at least a few years until they no longer think it’s cool. Here’s a favorite photo of Simon taking a post lesson snooze a few years ago:

I’m also preparing for an annual ritual with my childhood best friend, Michele, where we connect by phone or in person to share our reflections on the year and our intentions for the one ahead. We’ve been doing this together for over a decade, since we traveled to Guatemala together before kids and spouses. (I love author Courtney Martin’s end-of-year reflection questions if you’re looking for prompts.)

In lieu of resolutions, I’ve been thinking about the power of rituals—designing my life around routines that reduce friction and set me and my business up for success. Like ski lessons, the serotonin hit doesn’t necessarily come in the moment, but the compounding effect leads to a life I want to lead: one filled with connection, freedom, and joy.

The leaders I work with who are most effective are deeply intentional about their time. Many of them have rituals that keep them grounded and energized.

The rituals you build outside of work directly inform your capacity inside of work. As you head into 2026, here are some rituals worth routinizing, both personally and professionally:

Personal Rituals

Weekly connection time - Whether it’s a standing coffee date with a mentor or check-ins with friends, these rituals keep you connected to the people who matter and create the relational foundation that prevents burnout.

Movement you don’t negotiate with - Whatever it is, put it on the calendar and protect it like you would a board meeting. When you move, you think better.

A healthy decision - Remove friction from healthy choices. Make a decision today about something you’ll do or won’t do for the first quarter: a consistent breakfast routine, wine only on weekends, stairs over elevators, or no eating after 8pm are some ideas to get you started.

Team Rituals

Weekly 1:1s - Meeting with your directs is non-negotiable. This is where trust compounds over months and years.

Bi-weekly or monthly team check-ins - Dedicated time to celebrate wins, share learnings, and course-correct together. These signal that learning, iteration, and celebration matter as much as execution.

Monthly customer immersion - Keep your team connected to the people you’re serving. Empathy can atrophy without regular practice.

Quarterly offsites - Build a rhythm where your team steps back to work on the business, not just in it. No team ever regrets spending two full days together building trust and getting clear on their priorities.

The Compounding Effect

Rituals beat resolutions every time.

Resolutions rely on willpower and motivation, both of which are finite resources. Rituals remove friction, create accountability, and generate momentum that builds on itself.

One team I’m working with has already scheduled all their in-person meetings for 2026 and locked in my coaching support. They’re designing their year around what matters.

I’ve intentionally built rituals into my own life that have served me well:

Daily: A consistent breakfast (two soft boiled eggs with olive oil, salt, and red pepper flakes—my good cholesterol is through the roof), check-ins with close friends via the video app Marco Polo or voice memo, and Rose-Bud-Thorn at the dinner table with my family.

Weekly: Friday yoga at a friend’s home, couples therapy, sauna time for meditation and recovery.

Monthly: Women’s group for deep connection and mutual support, business check-ins with colleagues for peer accountability and strategic thinking.

Quarterly: Business retreats to re-energize and revisit goals and priorities.

Annually: Doctor’s check-ups, blood tests, scans, etc.

I can see the compounding impact of these routines on my physical and mental health, my relationships, and how I show up as a parent, friend, and coach.

As you head into 2026, I invite you to ask yourself: What rituals would I never regret building?

What would make you healthier, more connected, more grounded? What would make your team more cohesive, more innovative, more resilient? I’m adding some new items to the list and sharing them here to build accountability: 2x weekly weight lifting classes and quarterly volunteering.

Don’t wait until March to figure out your no-regret rituals for 2026. Put them on the calendar now. And if you feel moved to share, I’d love to hear what rituals you’re committing to. Hit reply and let me know.

Wishing you a joyful and restorative start to 2026. Here’s our family holiday card.

Warmly,

Right now, I’m in that tender stage of transition, preemptively mourning our red front door where we’ve photographed our kids at the start of each school year, our sliver of backyard where the kids rode scooters bare-bottomed during potty training and where I gave my husband pandemic haircuts. And, our beloved neighbors who are a fixture of our daily lives. Saying goodbye to our house feels in some ways like saying goodbye to this sweet chapter in our kid’s lives.

This week, while cleaning out my office, I added some trophies from 10 years as a marketer to the donation pile. Before doing so, I gingerly posed three on a shelf and snapped a photo to remember: I was once an award-winning collaborator who took “insight into action.”

The truth is, all that is truly valuable and important will come with us through this move: my family, dear friendships, cherished mementos. And yet, every transition reinforces the passage of time and the truth we all try to resist. Life is finite. Everything has an ending.

I’m acutely aware of what a privilege it is to choose your own transitions. Many of the leaders I work with are navigating changes they didn’t ask for. I recently taught a course on conscious leadership to leaders across San Mateo County, drawing from “The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.” The framework reminds leaders of their role in being conscious of their emotions and behaviors. When we’re in this conscious state, we can take a beat and choose our response to change, even when the change is not by choice.

For me, the choice is to be deliberate and open about what I’m grieving through this change and grateful for what I’m choosing to step toward. I encourage the teams I work with who are navigating change to do something similar: name their grief and fears, and invite their teammates to do the same. These feelings change shape once they’re out in the open and shared with others. They’re less heavy when accompanied by gratitude.

We can’t control what changes around us, but we can always choose how we meet it. If you’re navigating a hard change right now, particularly one thrust upon you without your choice, remember that you still have agency in how you face it.

Those marketing awards I’m leaving behind don’t define what I’m capable of now or what matters most going forward. The same could be true for whatever you’re being asked to let go of in your own transition.

What are you grieving? What are you grateful for? What are you choosing to leave behind? And, if you have any moving boxes or packing tips, I’d love to hear those also!

My fellow volunteer was flying through labeled plastic bags, sorting indiscernible pieces onto a makeshift cardboard table with the precision of a seasoned pro. When I remarked on her agility, she said “Retail” with a shrug. “Years of folding and organizing.”

The leadership coach in me loved how she recognized and applied her skills to this volunteer opportunity. I, meanwhile, clearly lacked this detail orientation. I could have used it for my less-than-successful volunteer stint in my son’s school library.

After a while, I floated over to the group of painters transforming the elementary school’s walls into colorful murals. I grabbed a brush and got to work.

I was on day one of a three-day playground build at Emerson Elementary, my son’s Oakland school, funded by Eat. Learn. Play., the foundation Steph and Ayesha Curry created. As I primed the wall, kids stopped by to ask questions about the art and volunteer their ideas. They’d played a key role in designing the playground through an interactive, design-thinking process with KaBOOM!, a non-profit committed to ending playspace inequity.

The whole experience was a masterclass in community building. I looked around at volunteers from organizations across the Bay Area, all showing up to support this school where ~80% of students qualify for free and reduced lunch and are working against the odds in a district struggling with a $100M budget deficit. I got choked up watching how much our community cares and wants to do right by these kids. Even in torrential rain on day two (when I quietly backed out of my commitment), over 50 volunteers showed up. By the final day, the beautiful playground revealed itself, complete with a surprise appearance by Ayesha Curry and her two sons.

Oakland needed this moment. Just days earlier, our community lost John Beam, the legendary Last Chance U football coach who dedicated his life to giving Oakland kids another chance at success. His tragic killing was another reminder of the violence that too often defines the city in the headlines. But standing on that playground build, watching strangers paint murals and assemble equipment for kids they’d never met—this was the Oakland I know. The scrappy one that shows up.

But what does this have to do with leadership teams?

The day before, I’d attended the Impact Festival for Life Science Cares Bay Area, an organization that similarly provides opportunities for life sciences companies to give back through employee engagement and financial support. I noted that the drive to support local non-profits and struggling institutions is high in the Bay Area.

I contrast this communal energy with my own recent experience: I’ve been pulled deeper and deeper into my phone lately, algorithms serving up ads and posts perfectly tailored to my interests. I know better, yet I keep scrolling.

And the single most consistent piece of feedback I get from teams I work with is that they want “more time together,” “more movement,” or “more time outdoors.” We’re all craving the same thing—connection, presence, nature—but it’s getting harder to access as the pull of technology gets stronger.

Soren Gordhamer talks about how to engage with technology without losing your mind in a recent episode of 10% Happier. The warnings are real, and I see them happening in real time. But the antidote is simple: we already know what works. Getting our hands dirty with friends or strangers. Giving back. Avoiding screens in the morning and evening hours. Being in nature.

So as we inch closer to Thanksgiving, I hear my clients share how much they “need” a break. I’m inviting you to not only take a break from work but also from technology.

Play outside. In nature. With other humans. Have fun. I’ll be taking my own advice as we travel to New York City for cherished time with my parents and brother.

And if you’re a leader looking to create more of these moments for your team—the kind that build trust, connection, and energy—let’s talk about how.

In case you missed it:

• Check out this 14 minute film about how a doctor and researcher leverages AI to save patients with rare diseases using approved medications, and follow a former client who is also mining her own experience for good.

• Some of my recent reflections on change and transformation

Money often costs too much - Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few years ago, I had what many would consider a dream position. I was leading meaningful work, collaborating with people I genuinely respected, and making an impact I was proud of.

But something wasn’t adding up.

In the evenings I felt drained, my head spinning with the various projects I had on my plate. My driveway moment made me question, what is this costing me? Time with my family. Creative energy. The mental space to think beyond the next deadline. Rest that was actually restorative. I realized that even with great relationships and meaningful impact, the personal cost of my job was so high that it was eroding other parts of my life.

So I created a new equation to evaluate my career decisions:

Fulfillment = (Relationships + Impact) - Cost

It’s deceptively simple, but it fundamentally changed how I thought about success.

Relationships are about working with people who energize you, challenge you, and make the hard days worthwhile. Research shows that having strong work relationships makes you twice as likely to feel satisfied with your job. My relationships with my colleagues and team were one of the things that kept beckoning me to stay.

Impact is about whether your work makes a difference, honors your unique strengths, and rewards you appropriately. I was designing workshops that changed how leaders showed up for their teams, and the financial rewards were there. But that wasn’t the only thing that mattered or the only way to make an impact.

Cost is everything you’re trading for those relationships and that impact. High personal cost can reduce the benefits of great relationships and meaningful impact. The energy I wasn’t giving to my family. The creative projects that rarely got completed. The friendships that I couldn’t fully show up for.

When I did the honest math, my cost created a drag on my overall fulfillment.

So I rewrote my equation.

Starting my own company was scary. I knew the impact would take a hit initially. But the personal cost dropped almost immediately.

I could design my days around when I do my best work. I could be home when my kids were out of school without feeling guilty. I had time to schedule doctor’s appointments. I had space to think creatively again.

Now, more than two years in, I’ve grown my impact beyond what I had in that dream job, but at a fraction of the personal cost. I’m coaching senior leaders through complex transformations. I’m designing workshops that change how teams work together. Just this month, I awarded myself a bonus comparable to my corporate one. And I’m doing it while being present for my family and having energy left over for writing, for friendships, for rest.

There’s still a cost, but the math works.

Here’s what I’ve learned about applying this equation:

Sometimes a big move—like leaving a job to start your own thing—can dramatically reduce personal cost while keeping the other variables intact. But that’s not the only way to rebalance the equation.

You might delegate parts of your role to reduce elements that drain you most. You might take a lateral move to work on a team where you have better relationships. You might take a temporary hit to impact or income to reduce cost, knowing you can rebuild from a more sustainable foundation.

The key is being honest about all three variables and setting an intention around which one you want to grow or reduce. It’s tempting to focus only on impact and relationships while ignoring the cost—until you’re so depleted you can’t sustain either one.

Take a hard look at your own equation:

• Who energizes you at work? Who drains you?

• Does your work honor your unique strengths?

• What is your work currently costing you?

When I look at the business world’s obsession with billionaires and exits, I wonder if we’ve collectively optimized for the wrong equation. Those stories celebrate people who maximized one metric—usually wealth—while the costs remain invisible or are even glorified as necessary sacrifices.

But fulfillment requires optimizing the whole equation.

Where are you thriving? Where is the cost too high? And what might it look like to rewrite your equation?

I’d love to hear what you discover.

Of course not. The result would be a dry, crumbly disaster.

These ingredients act as emulsifiers—binding individual components into something moist, rich, and delicious. Without them, you just have a pile of flour and sugar.

Teams work the same way.

Every high-performing team I work with has someone who acts as the emulsifier. They bring out the best in each team member, recognize unique strengths, and create the right balance of collaboration and challenge. They might be the formal leader, or they might be a team member who naturally fills this role.

A recent Harvard Business Review article by Jamil Zaki entitled "Every Team Needs a Super-Facilitator” provided a name for individuals with this set of attributes: “super-facilitators.” Charles Duhigg’s book Supercommunicators also unpacks their superpowers.

These individuals possess skills that organizations don’t always recognize or reward—because they aren’t necessarily the expert in data analytics, financial modeling, or technical strategy. What they do have are the relational capabilities that help organizations actually get things done.

Three Characteristics That Set Super-Facilitators Apart

Zaki writes “Super-facilitators integrate diverse expertise, promote equitable contributions, and cultivate trust. In doing so they generate collective intelligence, or a group’s ability to reason, innovate, and solve problems.”

Here’s how they do it:

Attunement: They read the room by relying on empathy—the ability to connect with others’ emotions. Super-facilitators excel at this skill, which allows them to involve team members in complementary parts of a project or meeting in ways that maximize everyone’s strengths.

Communication: Through one-on-one conversations and group dialogue, super-facilitators help teammates discover and develop their best qualities in service of the team. They project confidence in the team’s capabilities and voice their trust openly, which encourages people to rise to those high expectations.

Distribution: During collaboration, they help distribute time and attention across the team so that everyone contributes and no one dominates. They notice who hasn’t spoken and create space for quieter voices while also encouraging healthy disagreement to avoid groupthink.

For some years, I found myself playing this super-facilitator role on teams I was part of, so I can easily spot individuals with this skill set. Often, these are the leaders who inquire about team coaching, because they intuitively understand the value of their role and crave the objectivity and distance an external coach can provide.

How to Support Your Team’s Super-Facilitator

Super-facilitators aren’t made overnight. These capabilities develop over years of practice combined with a natural proclivity toward empathy and relational intelligence.

Think you might be the emulsifier of your group? Congratulations—this superpower is invaluable for any team and organization, and it’s a critical dimension of great leadership. Don’t undervalue it just because it isn’t in your job description or doesn’t show up in performance reviews.

If you’re the formal leader: You’re well-served to develop some of these characteristics yourself and recognize when your team members naturally possess them. Super-facilitators often carry an emotional load that others don’t see. Check in on them regularly, ensure they have support, and don’t expect them to fix every team dynamic on their own.

Does your team have one or more super-facilitators?

If not, that might be exactly what’s missing.

Here’s the HBR Article by Jamil Zaki (Reach out if the link doesn’t work and I can send you a pdf) and a recipe for delicious chocolate chip cookies because sometimes you need both metaphorical AND literal sweetness as you navigate team dynamics.

Thanks for reading! What topic do you want to hear more about? Reply here and let me know.

For more insights and information about On Purpose Leadership, visit my website, YouTube Channel or set-up time to talk here.

After a 90+ minute commute home in 2023, exhausted and distracted, I misjudged the turn and hit my neighbor’s retaining wall while attempting to pull into my own driveway. The auto body shop confirmed my biggest fear: the car wasn’t drivable. We wouldn’t see it again for three months.

As I waited for the tow truck, staring at the damage, I remember thinking, is this a wake up call?

The Signs We Don’t Want to See

We’re conditioned to push through. To tough it out. To believe that if we just work a little harder, manage our time better, or get more organized, everything will click into place.

But sometimes the problem is that what we’re doing fundamentally isn’t working, and we keep doing it anyway. For me, there were a number of signs that things were out of alignment that are obvious in hindsight but were hard to pay attention to in the moment.

And then I crashed my car in my own driveway.

When the Universe Uses a Megaphone

In my coaching, I see this pattern regularly: Leaders tune out the quiet signals—The persistent exhaustion, the work that no longer lights them up, or the values misalignment— until something forces their attention.

More often than not, it’s a health crisis, a relationship breaking point, or burnout that forces the reckoning. In my case, there was something inside me that already knew it was time for a change, but I wouldn’t stop for long enough to listen.

The crash was my megaphone moment. The universe saying: Pay attention. Something has to change.

How to Hear What You Already Know

At our talk during the Healthcare Business Women’s Conference last week in Las Vegas, Allison Marshall and I shared ways to connect with that inner voice. Not the one telling you you’re not enough, but the one that knows what you’re capable of and what’s holding you back.

Here’s how to access that wisdom:

Get physically away from your work environment. Take a walk, go for a run, swim laps, or find any activity that creates distance from your desk and your devices. For me, it’s always been long walks where the insight surfaces. Movement quiets the noise.

Ask better questions. Instead of “What should I do?” try: “What do I already know to be true that I’m not admitting?” or “If I were giving advice to a friend in this exact situation, what would I tell them?”

Write without editing. Set a timer for 10 minutes and write continuously about what’s bothering you. Don’t stop to think or revise. The wisdom often appears in the fifth or sixth minute when your inner editor has given up.

Pay attention to your body. Tension in your shoulders, the pit in your stomach or the exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix. Our body sends signals long before our mind catches on.

What I Did Next

Six months after the crash, and after some experimentation to see if entrepreneurship was for me, I took the leap at left my full-time job. Fortunately, I haven’t crashed my car since. More importantly, I feel fulfilled and constantly challenged by the adventure of running a small business.

I was fortunate that the crash was minor in the grand scheme of things. Now, I’m driven to help my clients be brave enough to step toward what’s calling them before their driveway moment.

My work with leadership teams and organizations focuses on creating sustainable practices that prevent burnout before it becomes a crisis. This means establishing team agreements about when and how you work, ways to have difficult conversations and learning from past experiences. When teams and organizations build these practices intentionally, individuals don’t have to choose between their wellbeing and their performance.

What the Warning Signs are Telling You

The warning signs don’t necessarily mean “quit your job.” Sometimes they mean: set better boundaries, have hard conversations or more fiercely prioritize.

You don’t need a dramatic moment to be honest about what isn’t working and give yourself permission to reassess.

Ask yourself: What’s right there in front of me that I’m moving too fast to see?

My advice: listen before the universe has to shout.

Know someone who needs to hear this? Forward this to a friend who might be ignoring their own warning signs.

In case you missed it:

• Reflections on the HBA conference I shared here

• New Book Alert! Mita Mallick, author of Reimagine Inclusion and a former business school classmate, is out with her second book: The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses. Sounds like a great read.

• Thanks for reading The Leadership Brief! Subscribe for free to receive new posts directly to your inbox

Research shows that 70-80% of professionals experience imposter thoughts at some point in their careers, so if this resonates, you’re in good company. The fear of being exposed as a fraud doesn’t just impact individuals in junior roles. Imposter thinking can haunt us even after multiple promotions and external validations.

But, you can turn these Imposter thoughts into your greatest asset. I’ve distilled some science-backed approaches from studies on imposter phenomena and behavioral psychology into this practical four-step framework I’m calling CARE:

C - Catch the Imposter Voice

Our brains are wired to keep us safe. The moment we step outside our comfort zone, they sound every alarm: You’re out of your depth. You don’t belong in this room. Everyone is on to you.

In my career, I often heard these voices the loudest when I stepped into large, highly orchestrated meetings with senior leadership. That inner voice made me afraid to speak up even when I had something valuable to add to the conversation or a question that could have helped lead to a better outcome.

If your inner voice doesn’t tell you you’re a fraud, it may take the shape of someone in the Imposter Family Tree: the Perfectionist, the Expert, the Soloist, or the Superhero.

The first step is simply noticing when this voice shows up and naming it for what it is, your brain trying to protect you. This is often the hardest part because we’ve been hearing the voice for so long that we don’t even realize what it’s saying isn’t true.

A - Acknowledge Its Protective Intent

That voice trying to keep you safe isn’t your enemy. It’s providing useful information about stepping outside of your comfort zone. Rather than fighting it or feeling ashamed, acknowledge what it’s trying to protect you and that the worst case scenario - ridicule, exposure, failure - isn’t the most likely outcome.

In that moment, we have two choices. We can listen to that protective voice and retreat. Or, we can make a braver choice and get curious.

R - Reframe with Curiosity & the Inner Mentor

In many cases, what we call imposter syndrome might actually be intellectual humility in disguise. Intellectual humility is the recognition that there’s always more to learn. Research shows that leaders who display this quality are perceived as more competent and trustworthy. Reframing means using your intellectual humility to get curious:

• What does my inner mentor, the wiser part of me that can rise above this distorted thinking, know about me and my capabilities?

• What would she tell me about this situation?

• What do I want to understand about this situation?

• Who can I connect with to learn more?

• What is the strength I can leverage in this moment?

In my last issue of the Leadership Brief, I shared how I lean on my wiser self when making decisions. I imagine an older version of myself and ask “What decision will she be most proud I made?” I’ve used this approach for major choices like moving to California, living abroad, and launching my coaching practice. The wiser self, or inner mentor, is only available to us when we get quiet and really listen.

E - Experiment with One Small Brave Action

For a few years before I left my job at Genentech, I toyed around with the idea of starting my own business. Most of the time, I’d end up crushed with self-doubt, wondering whether the leadership facilitation techniques I’d learned could translate to other companies and lead to success and fulfillment.

Then one day, I chose curiosity instead of fear. I reached out to a nonprofit leader in the community who I respected for an informational interview.

Through that conversation, something emerged that I hadn’t imagined when I made the first outreach. We hatched a plan for me and a few of my colleagues to help design leadership curriculum for cross-sector leaders across the county. Through this experience I built confidence in myself and my ability to turn my skills into a small business.

That small experiment, born from curiosity rather than fear, created something far more valuable than I could have imagined.

Your Turn

The next time imposter thinking creeps into your head and tells you that you don’t belong, try the CARE framework: Catch the voice, Acknowledge its protective intent, Reframe with curiosity, then Experiment with one small brave action.

Start with something manageable like a question you’ve been hesitant to ask, a connection you’ve been putting off, an idea you’ve been afraid to share.

If you’re attending the HBA Conference, I’d love to connect there. And for those who can’t make it to Vegas please send along your favorite show or restaurant. I read all of your responses!

I work with leaders and teams who want to move beyond limiting beliefs and step into their full potential. Whether it’s navigating imposter thinking, building authentic leadership presence, or creating psychological safety for innovation, small, well-designed experiments can lead to transformational results. I’ll be sharing an experiment worksheet at the end of my HBA session. If you’d like a copy, reply here and I’ll send it to your inbox.

This is a question I love asking to help break the ice during some team coaching sessions. Without fail, the responses fall into two distinct camps: individuals who want to relive a particularly rewarding time in their lives, and those who want to go back to a pivotal moment and see what was behind door #2 instead. This “sliding door effect” could lead to wondering about the paths not taken, and in some cases, decision regret.

As someone who’s admittedly superstitious, I’d be reluctant to go back and change anything that led me to where I am today, even hypothetically. But I’d love to relive my semester abroad in Sevilla, Spain drinking tinto de verano, or our beautiful wedding celebration in Calistoga ten years ago.

While we can't actually travel back in time, this graph is a helpful reminder that even if paths close to us due to past decisions, there are many future possibilities still within our grasp. To limit regret, I recommend a very simple but powerful question that has guided many of my life decisions, including the one start my own company.

A Simple Framework for Fewer Regrets

Here it goes:
I imagine myself as my future self at the end of my life, then ask three questions:

1. Will this decision even matter in the long run?

If no, either skip make the best decision with the information I have or move to #3

2. If yes, what decision will this future self be most proud I made?

This question cuts through the noise of immediate pressures and social expectations.

3. Which decision will allow me to lead a "bigger life"?

I borrowed this question from happiness researcher Gretchen Rubin because it helps me choose the path that builds resilience, character, and fulfillment. She talks about it in this episode of her podcast.

For more excellent approaches to decision making, I highly recommend The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom.

Putting Wisdom into Practice

I don't claim to be a decision-making expert, but looking back, I realize that big life choices like going to grad school, moving to California, living abroad, and launching my coaching practice all emerged from this framework, even before I could articulate it.

The beauty of this approach is that it grounds our choices in intrinsic motivation: personal growth, meaningful relationships, and contribution to something greater than ourselves. Studies consistently show that people who make career and life decisions based on intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivators (money, status, others' approval) report higher levels of life satisfaction and fewer regrets over time.

This approach also helps counteract our natural "loss aversion" bias. Instead of fixating on what we might lose by making a change (in my case: the predictable salary, the known role, the comfortable routine), we shift our focus to what we stand to gain: growth, fulfillment, and alignment with our deeper values. When we frame decisions from our future self's perspective, we naturally emphasize the positive potential rather than dwelling on the risks.

Looking Forward, Not Back

In my coaching practice, I've seen how these simple questions can reduce the anxiety that comes from endless "what if" scenarios.

But the questions that work for me may not be the ones that work for you. My client recently shared that the question of "which option is going to make you happy?" helped her cut through the clutter and make a career decision that was best for her - not just best on paper.

The sliding door effect will always be part of the human experience. But when we learn to make decisions from the perspective of our wisest, future selves, we can trust that whatever door we choose will lead to a life we're genuinely proud to have lived.

Need a thought partner to help you weigh an important decision? I love supporting leaders as they approach big decisions related to strategy, structure, sustainable change or their career. Reach out to learn more about my most popular 3 month 1:1 coaching intensive.

Thanks for reading!

For years, I thought this was just unhelpful anxiety. Then I realized I was actually doing something useful by running scenarios to help me prepare. The problem wasn't the worrying; it was that I was doing it alone, without turning those insights into action.

Last week, I worked with a newly formed marketing and field team launching an ambitious initiative. Many leaders in the room had seen similar efforts succeed—and fail—at previous companies. So how do you help experienced leaders distill their learnings and create a different outcome?

The answer might surprise you: start by imagining failure.

The truth is, in mission-driven organizations, many team members are already up at 3 am with the same worries that kept me awake. A pre-mortem simply channels that natural anxiety into collective, actionable insights. Instead of letting fear fester in isolation, you're turning it into your team's advantage.

The optimists on the team often push back when I propose this approach, saying: How can dwelling on worst-case scenarios possibly help? Won't this just create a negative mindset?

But, research shows that deliberately spelling out what could go wrong through a process called a "pre-mortem" can turn fear into actionable insights. Encouraging your team to imagine what could go wrong helps the whole team work together to address potential pitfalls and feel more confident and excited about how they can impact the future outcome. As the saying goes, "success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." This scenario forces the team to safely "own" their imagined failure and look back at why it happened.

We've all been part of a team where we had concerns that a project was overly ambitious or lacking the conditions to succeed but didn't feel safe enough to voice our concerns. Imagining failure helps a team break free of groupthink—the project has already failed, now let's examine what went wrong.

Here's what happened with that marketing team: Through the pre-mortem, they surfaced that leadership conviction was make-or-break for their success. They couldn't guarantee senior leaders would always feel confident, but they agreed that sharing real-time progress stories, even messy ones, would sustain momentum better than waiting for polished updates.

When a field team member immediately committed to sharing stories in real-time, it reinforced why pre-mortems work: imagining failure galvanizes teams behind the most important work to propel them toward success. Pre-mortems aren’t a substitute for team brainstorms and strategy sessions, they’re a supplement.

If you think a pre-mortem may help your team, here’s how to introduce it:

What is a Pre-Mortem?

• The hypothetical opposite of a post-mortem

• Conducted at the beginning of a project or initiative to anticipate what could derail success

• Helps teams proactively build safeguards into their plan

Here's how to run one: Bring your team together. Ask them to imagine a scenario 3-5 years in the future where their initiative has failed. Break them into smaller groups and ask the following questions:

• What obstacles was the team unable to overcome and why?

• What else prevented our success?

This exercise should take about 30 minutes. Then invite them to return from breakout groups and share what they learned. The team should then arrive at a few key priorities based on the reasons for failure that can drive their behavior today.

Ready to give it a try? I love supporting teams through this process since an outside perspective can uncover hidden insights. But even if you run it internally, you'll be amazed at what emerges when you give your team permission to imagine failure.

For more insights and information about On Purpose Leadership, visit my Website, YouTube Channel or set-up time to talk here.

“No matter how many times you do something, there will come a day when do it for the last time” - Philosopher Sam Harris

This week I walked my kids to their first day of school. My youngest is starting kindergarten, my oldest is entering 3rd grade. Time is moving fast now that we’re through the baby stage.

Fortunately, in middle age, I've become very awake to firsts and lasts. My oldest still asks me to tickle his back each night and my 5 year old kisses me on the lips without reservation. I know that one day in the not-so-distant future, both of these sweet rituals will come to an end, replaced by some other life stage that will be memorable for different reasons.

When I read about the Greek concept of Kairos in Sahil Bloom's "The 5 Types of Wealth," I was struck by this idea of qualitative time - that certain moments are weightier than others, that not all time is created equal. Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning 'the right or critical moment' and it brings to life the notion that time has substance, texture, and weight, not just duration.

This perfectly captured my goal when I left corporate: to ensure I could get the greatest possible return from the time I spend both at work and at home.

Bloom describes four types of professional time, but in corporate settings where 40+ hour weeks are standard, the first two types become all-consuming:

Type 1 - Management: Meetings, calls, presentations, email, team and people management
Type 2 - Creation: Writing, coding, building, preparing

The two forgotten professional times:
Type 3 - Consumption: Reading, listening, studying, networking
Type 4 - Ideation: Brainstorming, journaling, walking, self-reflection

My former coaching team at Genentech recognized this challenge and encouraged us to invest in professional development activities and spend approximately 10% of our time working on projects not directly related to our immediate business objectives. This aligns with David Epstein's research in "Range," which found that as leaders amass experiences outside their field, they can be much more effective in finding innovative solutions to seemingly intractable problems.

This week, I received two messages on LinkedIn that perfectly illustrate the value of connecting with people and ideas outside one’s day job:

A former colleague wrote: "One of my takeaways from this job search is to more intentionally cultivate and nurture my core network going forward." She'd been so busy in Types 1 and 2 while working full-time that she'd neglected the relationship building that ultimately helped her land a great new role.

Another note came from a former workshop participant: "I turn 47 on Friday, and I am treating myself to informational interviews with people who inspire me." She understood that investing time in learning and connection is both fulfilling and strategic. Together we brainstormed how she might introduce more reflection, connection and writing into her days to gain insight and perspective.

One of the most satisfying parts of redefining my work week as a solopreneur has been reclaiming substantial time for Types 3 and 4 - journaling, reading, walking, and seeking inspiration in the company of peers, mentors, and friends doing interesting work.

I acknowledge that it can be extremely difficult to break free from the meeting-heavy culture that consumes most of my clients' time. But there are ways to infuse more Type 3 and Type 4 energy into your life, even during hours outside of 9-5, to bring more Kairos into your day:

• Cross-industry learning - attend conferences, watch documentaries or start a pub club to read publications tangentially related to your field

• Problem-solving retreats - take a big challenge you’re wrestling on a walk or a retreat somewhere beautiful to think it through

• Innovation partnerships - collaborate on side projects with individuals in your network that help you stretch different muscles

• Learning expeditions - make time to connect more deeply with colleagues or people in your network who inspire and challenge your thinking

• Daily reflections - take a few minutes at the end of each day to reflect on one thing you're proud of and identify a few key priorities for tomorrow

The leaders I coach who incorporate more Type 3 and 4 activities become "time millionaires" - people who truly capitalize on their time and enrich their lives while doing meaningful work.

Have you read the 5 Types of Wealth yet? There’s so much to love about this book. What was your favorite part?

In case you missed it:

• How I channel my nerves into confidence

• On Purpose Leadership is celebrating 2 years this month!

• The Regret Framework that changed my client’s life

  

  I'm here to help you bring out the best in your team. See how I do it or book a complimentary strategy call here.​

What our team desperately needed was a reset—a safe space to air concerns and take responsibility for moving forward together. We could have benefited from a coaching intervention but none was in sight.

Fast forward to last week. I had the chance to work with a newly formed Life Sciences leadership team coming together for the first time in person. Their leader, new to the company, did something uncommon: he proactively asked for feedback on his impact—what was working well and what could be improved.

He stepped of the room while I facilitated the conversation, then returned to hear consolidated feedback—delivered by me—from his team. The difference was dramatic. Team members shared insights they might never have voiced otherwise. There was laughter, connection, and genuine dialogue. When this leader made himself vulnerable, his team caught him.

The question that created the biggest insight: "What do we want to know about [Leader name]?”

Why does this work? Because transparency builds trust, and trust is the currency for getting meaningful work done. If you don't know what your team really wants to understand about you, you may be missing a key ingredient for building that trust. And when information isn't shared, it's often filled with guesses and gossip instead.

In this case, the team wanted to know more about his life outside of work. They confided that hearing about what he does on weekends felt like permission for them to share their own lives too. This matters especially in mission-driven work—when people understand the whole person behind the decisions, they're more likely to trust the journey, even when the destination is uncertain.

When leaders model vulnerability first, they signal that the mission is more important than protecting their ego.

Want to try this but don't have resources for a coach? Here's how:

Gather members of your team for a listening tour with questions like these:

• What would be helpful for you to know about me or my leadership style?

• What's one thing I could do differently that would make your job easier?

• How do you prefer to receive feedback from me/give it to me?

Then take it deeper:

• Find a team member you've established trust with and ask them to share any blind spots you might have. Share your appreciation, even if you don't agree with the feedback.

• Use this insight to have proactive 1:1s with your team

• Raise your own areas for development and ask for specific advice on improvement

• Then ask: "What else?"

The leaders I work with who embrace this kind of proactive vulnerability consistently build stronger, more resilient teams. They create cultures where difficult conversations happen early, before they become toxic. Most importantly, they create space for their people to bring their full selves to work that matters.

Maybe you’re on a team that has a leader who could benefit from this experience. This isn’t an easy conversation to have. Try this conversation starter:

"….I've been thinking about [recent team challenge] and came across this interesting approach where leaders proactively ask their teams what they want to know about their leadership style and approach. It seems like it could help us work together more effectively. What do you think about trying something like that?"

Your team is already forming opinions about your leadership. The question is: will you shape that conversation, or will it shape itself without you?

I’m continually impressed by leaders who master healthy detachment.

These exceptional leaders express beliefs like: “This work brings meaning to my life, and my worth isn’t dependent on any single role or outcome”

This reminds me of something I wrote about previously - the idea of ‘holding it lightly’ When we practice healthy detachment, we're essentially learning to hold our work, our teams, even our impact with that same light touch. We're engaged but not entangled, invested but not overly defined by outcomes.

This balance is remarkably rare and genuinely difficult to achieve. In mission-driven organizations especially, several factors make healthy detachment particularly challenging:

• The work feels so personally meaningful that boundaries between self and mission blur

• Teams are often understaffed and over-committed, creating unhealthy dependency dynamics

• The notion of being "replaceable," is viewed as callous rather than healthy

Yet leaders who master this paradox show up powerfully during setbacks, delays, and organizational pivots. They bring perspective, authenticity, and strategic thinking because of their ability to hold both deep care and healthy detachment from any single outcome.

If you're reading this thinking "that's me—I struggle with this balance," you're in good company. The very qualities that make you excellent at purpose-driven leadership—deep empathy, strong commitment, personal investment in outcomes—can also make healthy detachment feel out of reach.

A few practices that can help build a mindset of healthy detachment:

• Cultivate identity anchors outside of work (relationships, hobbies, values) that don’t depend on professional success

• Regularly remind yourself that your impact and value extends far beyond any single role or organization

• Practice the phrase “I care deeply AND I can let go” until it feels natural rather than contradictory

• Cultivate a mindfulness practice to help you notice and disrupt destructive thought patterns

These practices can actually serve your mission better than the burnout that can ensue from letting boundaries between life and work blur. And, you may find that healthy detachment makes you a better negotiator since research supports that emotional regulation and perspective (key components of healthy detachment) lead to significantly better negotiation outcomes - both financially and relationally.

As Mel Robbins reminds us with her "​Let Them​" theory - sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can do is step back, release control and let others rise to the occasion. Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book yet but I think I generally understand the concept.

What healthy detachment practices have you seen work well in mission-driven environments?

Laura

In Case you Missed it…

• What I was up to ​last week​

• A movie about ​someone who found their calling​

• A reminder: ​Leadership lessons​ are often in the messy part

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

When my oldest son learned to ride his bike, he mastered it in one joyful hour instead of the weeks it took me as a child. Ryan McFarland's invention of the Strider Balance bike is what helped him learn so quickly.

Listen to this Issue Instead

The balance bike succeeded through subtraction. Instead of adding training wheels, they removed the pedals which helped children develop balance at a much younger age - around 3 in my son's case. By the time he tried a pedal bike at 5, he was so far up the learning curve that the next step felt incremental.

It's a lesson in one of the most under-utilized levers for innovation: subtraction.

Fighting the Addition Bias

We have a cognitive bias toward adding rather than subtracting. Psychologists call this "addition bias" — our tendency to believe that action through addition is more valuable than action through removal. In organizations, this shows up as teams piling on new initiatives, new processes, new tools, rather than questioning what they should stop doing.

Of course, removing pedals from a bike is different from removing tactics from your launch plan. But the principle remains the same: sometimes the path to mastery requires taking things away, not adding them on.

Even with AI promising to make us more efficient, I see teams using extra capacity to learn these tools while taking on more work to prove their value. This leads to them sacrificing space to think, innovate, or simply be. The real opportunity lies in subtraction.

This Isn't Easy (And That's The Point)

There's real emotional weight tied to proving our value through "doing more." It's baked into how we measure success under capitalism. We've been conditioned to equate busyness with importance and activity with achievement. Saying no sometimes feels like giving up or not trying hard enough.

But like any muscle, the more you flex your subtraction skills, the stronger they get. The first "no" is the hardest. Once you see that nothing breaks, the next no is that much easier.

How to Practice Organizational Subtraction

Make opportunity cost explicit, and quantify it. Before green lighting any new initiative, force the conversation: "If we say yes to this, what are we saying no to?" Then go further: build some discipline around assessing how many hours of work the new initiative will cost the organization. Calculate not just direct involvement, but the meetings, reports, check-ins, and coordination that will spin up as a result.

• End every 1:1 with the subtraction question. "What should we stop doing?" Make this as routine as asking about progress on current projects.

• Create a "not now" list. Instead of killing good ideas entirely, park them in a visible "not now" list. This acknowledges their value while protecting current priorities. Just like kids need to master balance before adding pedals, teams need to master their current initiatives before layering on new ones. Saying "not yet" can be easier than saying no altogether.

• Reward strategic "no." Recognize and celebrate leaders who decline to take on new projects in service of excellence on existing ones. Make saying "no" to protect team capacity as valued as saying "yes" to new opportunities. When someone pushes back on an additional ask because their plate is full, treat it as good judgment, not resistance.

The balance bike worked because removing pedals forced children like mine to master balance before worrying about propulsion. What could your team stop doing—or stop doing right now—to master what really matters?

Explore More

If this topic interests you, I highly recommend the new podcast Change Signal by Michael Bungay Staniard. His episode with Leidi Klotz, the author of the book Subtract, was inspiration for this article.

In Case you Missed it

My reflections on the value of just showing up

Something I never thought I'd say - I have a YouTube Channel

Speaking of great content, this interview with Jon Stewart on the Trevor Noah podcast was wide ranging, funny and thought provoking.

Listen to this article instead

One of the leaders in the room shared her fear around a significant decision she was facing. The room immediately sprang into action. Within moments, team members were offering solutions, identifying problems to solve, suggesting action steps, and helping her think through potential risks. Everyone was genuinely trying to help.

But here's what was fascinating to observe: she looked increasingly frustrated despite being surrounded by support. Finally, with some coaching from me, she paused the well-intentioned advice and said, "Here's what I'm actually looking for..." What she needed wasn't solutions or action plans. She simply wanted someone to listen and help her untangle her jumbled thoughts.

The way you "help" may not be helpful

This moment highlighted a broader challenge I see repeatedly in my coaching practice. We all bring unconscious biases to our interactions about what "being helpful" looks like. Some of us default to problem-solving mode, others jump to action planning, and still others want to anticipate every possible risk. These patterns often reflect our own motivations and comfort zones rather than what the other person actually needs.

Using the Enneagram framework, I helped surface for the team how each member's automatic response aligned with their core motivations—the helpers wanted to support, the challengers wanted to drive action, the skeptics were scanning for danger and the perfectionists wanted to find and fix the problem. All good intentions, but not necessarily what was needed in that moment.

I'm seeing this same dynamic play out with two separate leadership teams I coach. In both cases, leaders are coming to each other's rescue when what their colleagues really want is a sounding board—someone to listen without immediately jumping to solutions and saving the day.

Do this instead

The lesson here is both simple and profound: Make the implicit explicit.

As the person needing support, be specific about what would be most helpful. Do you want brainstorming, problem-solving, emotional support, or simply a listening ear? Don't assume others will intuitively know.

As the person offering support, pause and ask: "What would be most helpful right now?" rather than defaulting to your own preferred way of helping.

Putting these skills into practice requires daily intention. It's a discipline that serves us in our leadership roles, our team dynamics, and our personal relationships.

The next time someone comes to you with a challenge, resist the urge to immediately spring into your preferred helping mode. Instead, take a moment to understand what they actually need. You might discover that sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is simply listen.

What's your default helping style?

How might you pause to ask what's actually needed before jumping in with assistance?

Curious about Enneagram? This article is a great starting point.