People had been telling me for a long time that I would make a wonderful coach and speaker. Friends, colleagues and many people I had helped along the way. I kept finding ways to not fully step into it. Another class. Another workshop. Another certification. All useful, all real growth, and that is what happens when you have a growth mindset . . . you always feel like there is something else you could be learning.

Some of it was me hiding in plain sight.

As a military spouse, I had put my aspirations on hold and made the best I could out of wherever we landed, but as the years went by my longing for having my own business grew. The Small Business Administration sent two successful business owners to teach a class to Americans who were living overseas. I signed up and shared that I wanted to start my own coaching business. I shared how coaching people was a superpower of mine, and they asked me one simple question.

“Do you have any testimonials, Rosanne?”

Well, of course I didn’t. (Try and picture my face BRIGHT red upon this realization!)

They told me to reach out to my network on Facebook that very night and ask my network as a first place to start. The post didn’t need to be complicated. I needed to ask people I’d helped throughout the years for recommendations so I would have something real to work with when I built out my LinkedIn and my website. That was the whole assignment. Ask people who already knew my work to say what they thought of it.

I wrote it and felt an uneasiness go over me. I was sweating. Who am I to be asking for this? People are busy! Will they even remember I helped them? Ughhhhhh. Do I really want to have my own business? Fear and doubt crept in to steal the joy from my dream.

I sat with my finger over the “Post” button until it got dark outside.

Here’s something to know about me. Whenever I get e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y stressed, I simply can’t keep my eyes open and I fall asleep. It’s like watching your computer turn off and when it restarts, it says, “installing update 1 of 1,267 . . .” Okay you and I both know it’s not really 1,267 but you have to sit there and let it process because you cannot rush it.

So I closed my eyes, hit post, and promptly fell asleep.

I woke up floored.

People showed up! They wrote about how I had helped them, what it meant, what changed for them. All of it had been there the whole time. I had just never asked.

That is the part I still think about. I spent YEARS holding myself back on something I wanted badly, and I never once gave anyone the chance to tell me what I needed to hear.

Why did I wait so long to simply … ASK?

You probably have your own version of that. Most of the high performers I work with do, and recently it has been showing up looking like frustration.

Someone I coached wanted a promotion badly. (The details here are blended from more than one person) Every session, she told me about it. How long she had been there, how much she contributed. Somebody less qualified got picked for the last opening, and nobody at the top seemed to notice the work she was doing.

Her frustration was real and I believed every word of it.

After some reflective questions, she realized she had never directly told her boss she wanted the promotion. She had never raised her hand for the stretch project that would have put her in line for it. That conversation had simply never happened.

So I asked her gently, “What happens if you ask?”

That is when it came out. The schedule that might cut into family time. Her kids’ games she might start missing. The peers who might resent her for being picked over them. And underneath all of it, the quiet fear that if she stepped into a bigger role and people started watching her closely . . . she might not be enough.

So instead of asking, she complained. She stayed quiet and called it patience.

Complaining keeps you safe, because nobody can say no to a complaint.

Think about it:

Asking is scarier.

Asking can actually be answered.

And only asking can be answered with a yes.

I call this standing behind the curtain.

You are back there. You have something to offer. People have already told you that you are good at this. And you are waiting for somebody to pull the fabric back so you can finally be seen.

Nobody is going to. That job is yours, and only yours.

Brené Brown describes vulnerability as showing up and letting yourself be seen when you have no control over how it goes. That is the whole thing right there. The fear was never about the promotion or the business or the post. It is about being seen before you feel ready to be seen.

And we have never had better tools for avoiding that. We open YouTube, we scroll TikTok, and fifteen reels later we know exactly how somebody else asked for a promotion. Watching another person do it starts to feel like progress.

It is the same curtain, just with better lighting.

James Clear writes that every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. One post will not transform you. But it is the only way the evidence ever starts building.

⚡ This Week’s Electric Leadership Reflection:

Two lines, on actual paper. You know how I feel about writing things out.

Line one is the fear underneath it. Not the goal. Start with “I’m afraid that . . .” and finish it honestly.

Fear without a name gets to run the entire show in the dark … But a fear you can see is a fear you can walk past.

Line two is the one small step you have been avoiding. Your version of me avoiding clicking “post” on Facebook that one night.

You cannot be chosen from behind the curtain. You have to step out first.

I believe in you,

Rosanne

🎙️ P.S. This one started as a podcast episode. You can hear the full conversation on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts . . . search Rosanne Callens.

My youngest starts her senior year tomorrow. I thought I was ready.

We were sitting at the kitchen table and she started to go through her calendar events she had just loaded into her phone. Tennis practices. Upcoming tennis schedule. SAT prep. Scholarship deadlines. Senior paint day. Senior sunrise. The list went on and on.

And the next thing you knew, I was inputting every single one of them into MY phone!

Almost all of these events have nothing to do with me. Nobody needs a mother at SAT prep. (Or do they? Just kidding!) I don’t have to attend Senior Paint Day … but as she kept rattling off upcoming events, dates, times, obligations, time with friends, scholarship deadlines, class schedules... somewhere around scholarship deadlines I felt it. Time slipping by. I swear I could hear the old soap opera intro “… Like sands through the hourglass … so are the days of our lives.”

This is the last year of all of it. The last year she will be this busy for school while she is still under my roof. Every single item she read off to me is a “last,” and I had what I will call a “Mom of a High School Senior Moment” and decided to put them all in my calendar, too.

Of course I didn’t want to attend all of these. I did it so I can simply see them. So that on some ordinary Thursday in October my phone will tell me what she’s doing, and I will know it. That’s all. I’m not going to be there. I just want to watch the year go by while it’s still going by.

Am I the only one who does this?

She starts her senior year tomorrow. Class of 2027. I know exactly what I am supposed to do here. Stay in the moment. Don’t get ahead of myself. I had to give myself a pep talk. It went something like this: “Rosanne. GET A GRIP. Stay in the moment. She hasn’t even walked onto campus for the first day and you’re already at graduation. Enjoy it. Be present. F-O-C-U-S.”

Of course I KNOW all of that. Rationally.

I mean, even the school emails have affected me, and that part is a little embarrassing to admit. You know the ones. Sometimes it feels like they send six a week. “Hey Parents... here’s this week’s update...” Parking reminders, sports reminders, picture day, forms I already filled out, forms I apparently did not fill out, a newsletter about a fundraiser that started three weeks ago. For four years I have skimmed those and perhaps I even complained about them out loud. (Sorry to all my school admin friends!)

And then one of them landed in my inbox with the beginning of school information, back to school night details, and I read it twice. TWICE!

I sat there and thought:

this.

is.

the.

last.

first.

day.

email.

I will ever get.

Now this is a genuinely weird feeling to manage... being slightly irritated by something and also being sad about it in the same thirty seconds. Admittedly I have spent four years (sometimes) being crabby (okay, mostly) about the logistics of her life, and now I’m thinking the logistics are about to run out.

When I close my eyes I don’t see a high school senior. I keep seeing her at six, standing in the kitchen saying “Hi Mommy!” And then she’s seven. Then eight. Then twelve. It comes at me the way those plastic photo viewers did when I was a kid, the ones you held up to the light. Click. Another one. Click. Another one. School pictures and backpacks and Halloween costumes and science projects we finished at eleven at night. Sports and awards and performances and all the things we rushed to get to on time. And then she’s right there in front of me, a high school senior.

There are these tiny moments my brain apparently decided to save without asking my permission. Everybody tells you when your kids are little that it goes fast. And you smile and nod. But when you’re actually in it, it doesn’t feel fast at all. You’re trying to get through Tuesday. Packing lunches, working, driving somebody somewhere, finding the thing someone lost, answering emails, making dinner, trying to remember whether tomorrow is spirit day.

You don’t realize you’re going to miss a normal boring-ish Tuesday.

So maybe that’s the whole reason I sat there typing all the events into my phone like a woman who has lost her grip. I’m not trying to attend her senior year. I’m trying to witness it.

There’s no leadership lesson this week, friends. I don’t have anything tidy for you.

This week I’m going to get nostalgic. I’ll probably cry in the car, and possibly in a parking lot, and I’m sure I will cry somewhere where crying is absolutely not called for.

I’m not looking for anyone to fix this. I know exactly how lucky I am. She’ll come downstairs tomorrow morning with her backpack and she’ll be fine. She’ll be excited. She won’t look back at me on her way out the door, and that’s how I’ll know I did this right. I’m so incredibly proud of her.

Tomorrow morning I’m going to wave her off and I am going to be completely fine.

(I bought sunglasses for this. I plan to wear them indoors.)

If you have a senior this year or you’ve had these feelings before, I’d love for you to leave me a comment.

XOXO,

Rosanne

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There wasn’t a lawsuit. Nobody got hurt. No one filed a complaint. The CEO didn’t accidentally say or do something that created a public relations nightmare. The project stayed on track. The team kept moving. Everything just...worked.

Most people walk into work on Monday and think, “Good. Nothing major happened.” But I wonder how often we stop to think about why nothing major happened.

Some of the most valuable leaders do work they’ll never get credit for. They’re connecting dots before anyone else sees the pattern and asking the hard question everyone else is hoping won’t need to be asked. They’re paying attention to small things because they know small things have a way of becoming very big things. Their work protects people, organizations, reputations, and sometimes even lives. And when they do it well, nobody notices. That’s the paradox.

Their greatest successes look like nothing happened at all.

A few weeks before I traveled to Germany to speak with Equal Opportunity, Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, and Integrated Prevention and Response professionals from across Europe, I started interviewing people who would be in the audience. I wanted to understand what a normal Tuesday looked like for them, what kept them up at night, and what they wished more leaders understood about the work they do.

Those conversations stayed with me long after I came home because what surprised me wasn’t that these leaders dealt with difficult situations. I expected that. What surprised me was realizing how much of their best work would never be seen by anyone else.

They notice subtle changes in someone’s behavior. They ask one more question when everyone else is ready to move on. They have the uncomfortable conversation nobody else wants to have. Sometimes they’re trying to prevent something from happening. Other times they’re helping people put the pieces back together after it already has.

When these leaders do their jobs exceptionally well, they often can’t talk about it.

They can’t walk into a staff meeting and say, “Hey everyone… remember that situation three months ago? Here’s how we handled it and nothing ended up happening!” They can’t tell everyone about the employee they helped, the conflict they de-escalated, the investigation they navigated, or the crisis they quietly kept from becoming tomorrow’s headline. Much of their work is confidential by necessity, which means many of their greatest contributions never become stories they’re able to tell.

That can feel like a lonely kind of leadership.

You know, these roles exist everywhere... you just have to know what you're looking for. It's the HR leader who notices someone isn't quite themselves and reaches out before a small problem turns into a big one. It's also the communications professional steering an organization through an awful week with honesty and care, while the rest of us only ever see the polished final statement. And don't forget the project manager who spots a risk a month before anyone else does, or the chief of staff who catches a decision quietly headed for unintended consequences. Even the safety professional counts, whose entire career could be summed up in one line: everyone went home exactly as they arrived.

Different titles. Different organizations … But the same kind of leadership.

It’s leadership measured not by what happened, but by what didn’t. That’s a difficult thing to measure because prevention doesn’t make headlines. Quiet decisions rarely become case studies. The conversations that change someone’s life often happen behind closed doors, and the people carrying those conversations usually move on to the next one without applause. The better they become at their jobs, the less visible their work often becomes.

What happens when your entire job is making sure everyone else’s lights stay on?

Who’s paying attention to your light?

Who notices when you’re exhausted from carrying everyone else’s problems?

Who is checking on the people who spend their days checking on everyone else?

Who reminds the leaders behind the scenes that their work matters, even when nobody knows what they prevented, who they helped, or what could have happened if they hadn’t been paying attention?

Maybe one of the most important responsibilities of leadership is noticing the people whose best work looks like nothing happened at all. Because some of the most valuable leaders do work they’ll never ever get credit for.

I think it’s time we started noticing them more often… don’t you?

This week’s reflection: The next time everything seems to be running smoothly, resist the temptation to assume it happened on its own. Ask yourself: Who’s quietly keeping the lights on … and then let them know you noticed.

XOXO

Rosanne Callens

July has always felt like a month to pause, even though there are quite a few summer activities going on around us.

The fireworks are over. Summer settles in. We’re halfway through the year, and whether we mean to or not, we start taking inventory. We think about where we’ve been, where we’re going, and whether the pace we’ve been keeping is one we can actually sustain.

That’s exactly where Electric Leadership was born. I have been spending A LOT of time thinking about all of the things I just listed above. For years, I loved being the person everyone could count on. I loved helping my clients, showing up for my family, saying yes to friends, and being someone people knew they could depend on. I don’t regret that for a second. Serving other people has always been part of who I am.

But somewhere along the way, I forgot that I was part of the equation, too.

I realized I was taking better care of my phone than I was of myself.

When the battery gets low, I plug it in. When storage fills up, I clear space. When my laptop starts slowing down, I stop what I’m doing and fix the problem. Yet when I was exhausted, I just kept pushing. I wore being busy like a badge of honor and convinced myself I’d rest later.

Then one day I started thinking about electricity.

For those that have known me for any length of time, you know me talking about electricity can be a scary thing (HAH!) but the truth is, I love visuals. They help me make sense of the world. When I pictured a lightning bolt, energy, and the idea of something powerful enough to light up an entire room, something just clicked. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. It felt like a SIGN that I needed to embrace.

The more I sat with it, the more I realized that leadership isn’t just about what we know or what we accomplish. It’s about the energy we bring into every room we enter. It’s in our conversations, our decisions, our relationships, and the way people feel after they’ve spent time with us. I kept thinking, “Current….YES” “Spark….YES!” and the list goes on and on. I got totally into it!

That’s why the phrase “Your voltage is your value” resonated so deeply with me. It’s not supposed to be just a clever line. I wanted it to be a reminder.

Your energy is valuable. Your presence matters. The way you care for yourself directly impacts the way you lead, love, create, and serve everyone around you.

I’m still learning this every day. Believe me… There are still moments when I overcommit, say yes too quickly, or forget to recharge before my own battery gets low. Electric Leadership wasn’t created because I mastered this lesson. It was created because I needed it and I wanted to share it with others who can appreciate the visual and be willing to apply the lessons.

My hope is that it reminds other people to protect something we so often give away without thinking.

As we move into the second half of the year, maybe the question isn’t, “How can I do more?” … Maybe it’s, “How can I protect the energy that allows me to become the person I want to be?”

Because your voltage is your value.

And the world needs you fully charged.

⚡ Before you go...

This week, protect one thing that gives you energy.

Remember...Your voltage is your value.

XOXO,

Rosanne Callens

What if you stopped waiting for Beth in accounting? Or your boss. Or your spouse. Or your ex. Or that one coworker who seems determined to make every Monday morning meeting feel like a hostage situation? It sounds funny, but it’s surprisingly common. So many of us quietly hand over the keys to our happiness without even realizing we’re doing it.

Maybe you’ve caught yourself thinking, I’ll be happy when my boss finally recognizes my work. I’ll be happy when my spouse changes. I’ll be happy when my coworkers stop being so negative. I’ll be happy when my kids appreciate everything I’ve done. The problem isn’t that those things don’t matter. They absolutely do. The problem is that you’ve accidentally made your emotional well-being dependent on someone else’s behavior. That’s a difficult place to be because it means your happiness is constantly at the mercy of circumstances you can’t control.

Of course I have times where I struggle with this, too. It’s simply human nature to want to look outward first. I’ve worked with people who are waiting for a promotion before they allow themselves to feel successful. Others are waiting for a relationship to improve before they let themselves experience joy. Some are waiting for an apology they’ll probably never receive, while others are simply waiting for life to become easier. While they’re waiting, life keeps moving. Days become months. Months become years. They aren’t just waiting for change. They’re postponing their own happiness.

When life gets hard, our brains naturally search for someone or something to blame. Sometimes those frustrations are completely valid. Maybe your boss is difficult. Maybe your spouse isn’t showing up the way you’d hoped. Maybe life really has dealt you a difficult hand. While blaming might explain where you are, it rarely changes where you’re going.

Friends, the reality is life isn’t always fair. (Doesn't that take you right back to hearing your parents say that when you were little?) People disappoint you. Jobs change. Relationships end. Health challenges appear without invitation. Dreams take longer than you expected. Storms are part of our journey.

But while you can’t control every storm that rolls into your life, you can decide how you’ll respond to it. You get to choose whether you carry yesterday’s frustrations into today. You decide how long someone else’s careless words get to occupy your mind. You choose the meaning you assign to your experiences. You decide whether bitterness becomes your identity (to be honest, that is so exhausting to even think about, right?)

Think about two people who walk into the exact same workplace. They have the same boss, the same coworkers, the same deadlines, and the same challenges. One spends the day collecting evidence that everyone is against them. The other spends the day looking for opportunities to learn, contribute, and make a difference. They experienced the same environment, yet they lived two completely different days. Why? Because circumstances matter, but perspective matters too. The weather inside you influences how you experience the world around you.

One of my favorite analogies is this: You don’t control the forecast, but you do control your own weather. The forecast is everything outside of you. Other people’s opinions. Delays. Rejections. Unexpected setbacks. The weather is what you choose to bring into those circumstances. Your attitude. Your response. Your resilience. Your hope. Your gratitude. Those belong to you.

Stop waiting for someone else to give you permission to enjoy your life. Stop waiting for the perfect job, the perfect relationship, or the perfect timing. Stop allowing another person’s choices to determine the quality of your days. You don’t need everyone else to cooperate before you decide to build a meaningful life.

Today, I want to leave you with one question:

Who have you unknowingly placed in charge of your happiness?

If someone’s name immediately came to mind, maybe it’s time to take your power back.

You can’t control every circumstance that comes your way … but every single day you get the opportunity to decide what kind of weather you’re bringing into the world. That choice has the power to change far more than you realize. So here's my challenge to you: Be the sunshine someone else wasn't expecting today. You never know whose storm you might help them weather.

Until Next Time … XOXO,

Rosanne Callens

❤️ 🧡 💛 💚 💙 💜

One of the most dangerous things we can do is compare our beginning to someone else’s middle.

As a coach, I see it all the time. It might be in the form of a client applies for jobs for months and watches someone else announce a new position on LinkedIn. Or it could be business owner spending hours creating content and then sees another entrepreneur celebrating a six-figure launch. It could be watching someone who starts a health journey and loses three pounds while a friend loses fifteen. Or, someone who has been working dilligently for a promotion only to watch a colleague move ahead first.

And every single time, the comparison starts whispering.

“Maybe I’m behind.”

“Maybe I’m doing something wrong.”

“Maybe I’m not good enough.”

What makes comparison so dangerous is that it doesn’t just make us feel bad. It can make us stop moving altogether.I’ve watched incredibly talented people become paralyzed because they became so focused on someone else’s progress that they lost sight of their own.

Instead of taking the next step, they started watching. Instead of applying for the next opportunity, they started doubting. Instead of celebrating how far they’d come, they started measuring the distance between themselves and someone else.

The problem is that comparison rarely gives us the full story.

When someone gets the promotion, we don’t see the years of preparation behind it. When someone lands the job, we don’t see the dozens of rejections that came before the offer. When someone loses weight, we don’t see the mornings they wanted to quit, the habits they changed, or the setbacks they overcame.

We see the outcome.

We compare it to our process.

And that’s never a fair comparison.

I often remind clients that life isn’t a race where everyone starts at the same starting line. Some people begin with advantages. Some face obstacles. Some take detours. Some start later. Some move faster. Some move slower.

The goal was never to keep pace with everyone else.

The goal is to keep moving. (Kind of like Dory in Finding Nemo! Just keep swimming…)

I think about this whenever I see someone discouraged because another person seems to be making progress faster. What if the only thing you focused on was your next step? What if instead of looking sideways, you looked forward?

What if your only job was to become just a little stronger, wiser, healthier, more skilled, or more confident than you were yesterday?

That shift changes everything. Because progress becomes personal. Success becomes personal… and your growth becomes personal.

And suddenly you’re no longer running someone else’s race. You’re building your own life.

Today’s affirmation is one that touches everybody at some point or another:

I let go of comparison and embrace my own journey.

And if comparison has been stealing your energy lately, I invite you to spend a few minutes with these questions:

• Where in my life do I compare myself to others?

• How can I shift my focus back to my own path?

Friends, your chapter 3 is not supposed to look like someone else’s chapter 23. The universe has WAYYYYYYY better plans specifically made for magical Y-O-U!

Keep going.

The next step is enough.

Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is simply put one foot in front of the other.

You’ve got this … and I believe in you!

XOXO,

Rosanne

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Graduation season has been in full effect these past few weeks and, for many parents, this time of year can be …

Just. So. Hard.

I’ve been quiet this week. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I’ve been living inside the “high school graduation wave” alongside my friends and colleagues, helping organize and showing up for graduation parties and events, watching people I love move through something that nobody really talks about: the tidal wave of graduation emotions.

A few weeks ago, I started reaching out to friends who had seniors graduating. Just a simple “Hey _____, how are you doing right now with graduation coming up? ….. Okay so now tell me how you are REALLY doing….”

And guess what happens next? They exhale. This long, relieved exhale like they have been waiting for someone, anyone, to JUST ASK. Because they didn’t want to be the one to bring it down… because it’s supposed to be a celebration, right? They didn’t want to seem like they couldn’t handle it

Sandwiched

Seeing all of this unfold has made me go back. Back to 2023. Back to my daughter Emma’s graduation party, standing in a room full of photos spanning her whole childhood, watching the memories play like a movie in my mind. Even when I closed my eyes I could see her. A little girl looking up at me saying “mommy.” Reaching for my hand. Me braiding her hair in the pretend salon I made up called “Helga’s Hair Salon”… watching her music performances and seeing her waving at me with excitement that I was there in the audience ...

And standing there in that room, surrounded by all of those images of who she was, I felt it. The fear that those moments were now gone. That we wouldn’t have them anymore. That the little girl who looked up at me was already someone else now, someone bigger and brighter and ready to go.

And in 2027, I get to do it all over again with my youngest.

I am sandwiched right now between these two moments, and that sandwich is full of parents just like me who are feeling the weight of something we’re not supposed to complain about.

The empty nest. The transition. The grief that comes wrapped up in pride.

What Nobody’s Saying

Here’s what I’m noticing whether it’s with my friends or even with the clients I coach: parents are crumbling inside, and they’re suffering in silence because there’s this unspoken rule that you’re not allowed to grieve the ending of an era while celebrating your child’s beginning of their young adulthood.

When you are struggling with this and then someone asks you how you feel, you get nervous about whether you are going to give them your “real” feelings answer. If you decide to be honest and admit it’s hard, you run the risk of getting judged like you’re living through your children. Or that you’re “too clingy” or like you can’t let go.

But that’s not what’s happening at all.

What’s actually happening is real. It’s legitimate. It has a name. It’s called transition grief. And if that’s what you are going through, it is okay to have these feelings my friend.

Woven Together

For eighteen years you and your child have been woven together, like yarn in a basket that got all tangled up with itself. You can’t just pull one thread out without feeling the whole thing move. That’s not weakness. That’s not clinginess. That’s l-o-v-e. And love that’s been woven together for eighteen years doesn’t just unknot itself quietly.

“The Last” … Everything

If you’re in it right now or if you’re a parent of a graduating senior or staring down that senior year, I think I know what you’ve been saying to yourself. I know because I said it too.

“This is the last summer we’ll all be under the same roof.”

“This is the last first day of school picture I’ll take in the driveway.”

“This is the last time I’ll pack their lunch.”

“This is the last family vacation where everyone just comes, no questions asked.”

“This is the last time I’ll know exactly where they are at night.”

“This is the last time our family feels complete like this.”

“This is the last time they’ll need me like this.”

It’s completely paralyzing. I know because I yo-yoed in and out of it myself! In 2023 I had to catch myself and now I’m practicing it again as I have a child going into her senior year of high school. (Seriously, where does the time GO????)

I want to offer you something different. A reframe. I want to share with you what I need to do if I find myself saying these things (and frankly, freaking myself out and getting entirely too emotional!)

First, we need to stop cataloging all “the lasts” like they’re items on a bucket list you’re checking off in reverse. Because my dear friend, that story keeps your brain stuck in loss.

Instead, try this… Flip it!!!

Think of these quotes as something you can SAY to yourself if you find your brain taking you down the “This is the LAST_____” emotional wave.

“This is the last summer I get to show up for them in this exact way and it’s exciting to think about the adventures they will have and share with me.”

“This is the last first day of school picture in the driveway. But guess what? I can still ask them to send their first day of college picture. Their first day of a new job picture. That tradition doesn’t have to end. It just changes.”

“This is the last time they’ll need me like this, and I am going to show up fully.”

The shift isn’t about denying the bittersweet. It’s about choosing where you put your energy. Are you going to spend it grieving what’s ending, or are you going to spend it actually present for what’s happening? Because those are two very different experiences.

The Chaos You’ll Miss

And listen. When they come home for breaks I PROMISE you that you will find yourself annoyed that the kitchen cupboards are wide open again, or there’s a cereal box sitting on the counter with one serving left in it, and somehow every light in the house is on... just stop for a second. Because that chaos? That beautiful, maddening chaos? That’s them. So feel it all. You’re not living through your child. You’re loving them through a transition. And that is one of the hardest, most important things a parent ever does.

You Will Be Okay … I Promise.

What I know now that I didn’t know then: the relationship doesn’t end. It evolves into something richer and more complex and more delightful than you can even imagine right now. They are not leaving you. They are becoming. And watching that happen up close, as their parent, is the greatest privilege of our lives.

You are going to love who they are becoming. I promise.

You’ve … GOT … this!

Hang in there and ride the wave, parents.

XOXO,

Rosanne

P.S. Check on your friends who just had a graduate. Ask them how they are really doing. And if this hit home, share it with a parent who needs to hear it today.

Last week I sat in that very same theater... transfixed all over again... this time with my mom and girls by my side.

You know that moment at the beginning of the movie where Maverick flips the fighter jet upside down, flies right alongside the MiG, and takes a Polaroid? I found myself grinning at the screen, then looking over to see my girls smiling, too!

But this time watching it through my coaching lens, something hit me differently...

Maverick was not just a movie character. He was every high-performing leader I have ever coached.

Brilliant. Fearless. Flying at full speed. And absolutely convinced that slowing down was the same thing as losing. I have so many stories I could share about this, but today I will share this one:

I worked with a cybersecurity leader not long ago. The kind of person who could run multiple projects simultaneously and make it look effortless. And that was exactly the problem...

He was moving so fast from project to project that he missed one key stakeholder. Just one. But that one missing connection created a domino effect that rippled through the client relationship and landed right back on his leadership. But here is the thing that broke my heart a little...

The external fallout was manageable. His team rallied. The client stayed. Leadership moved on. But he did not.

He was harder on himself than anyone around him ever was.

He replayed it over and over. He let it drain his energy long after everyone else had moved on. Long after it mattered.

That is the real danger zone. Not the pace. Not the missed stakeholder. Not even the domino effect. It was what he said to himself when he finally slowed down. He could not forgive himself!

Because here is what I know after years of coaching high performers...

The fastest way to run out of energy is not the speed.

It is the story you tell yourself when you miss something.

Maverick almost quit after Goose died. Not because he lost his skills. Because he lost his belief in himself.

Your instruments are not just the systems and processes and stakeholders you track and everything else going on at work. They are also the way you talk to yourself when things go sideways.

Check those instruments first.

The danger zone is not always out there. Sometimes it is right between your ears.

I feel the need... the need to remind you that you are human. And humans miss things sometimes. And that does not make you less brilliant, less capable, or less worthy.

It makes you real.

Which is exactly what Electric Leadership is about.

It’s about not being perfect. Remember, you are human! It’s about knowing when to let yourself off the hook so you have enough energy left to get back up there.

Talk to me... have you ever been harder on yourself than the situation actually called for? Drop it in the comments. You are not alone in this.

💗 XOXO, Rosanne

P.S. Full disclosure... Top Gun even had an effect on my hairstyles through the late 80s and 90s… It was completely and totally inspired by the one and only Kelly McGillis. I regret nothing. Check out the side by side!

I have loved words my whole life. Besides growing up playing numerous competitive games of Scrabble, in high school I was the Editor in Chief of our school newspaper, The Orange Peal. While everyone else was rushing out the door I was still at my desk, rewriting headlines (those were the hardest for me!), chasing the perfect sentence, figuring out how to say something in a way that made people feel it.

I’ve never stopped loving the power of words in our lives.

*Meet 17-year-old Rosanne circa 1991... big smile, big hair, and an unflinchingly optimistic belief that words could change things. She was already all in. Some things never change.

Today I am a keynote speaker, executive coach, and the creator of Electric Leadership, a movement for high performers who refuse to burn out in the Age of AI. And I want to write about the thing I keep hearing from my clients: “What can I do? I feel like I am ALWAYS behind!”

Guess what, my friend?

You are not falling behind.

You are running on empty.

Believe me, there IS a difference.

Honestly? I think more people need a place where they can admit that out loud. And maybe that’s why I felt so called to start writing here. Behind the polished LinkedIn profiles and the “I’m fine” responses... so many people are exhausted. So many high performers are quietly carrying waaaaaaaayyyyyy more than anyone realizes.

That’s the conversation I want us to have here. Because I know what it feels like to keep showing up while secretly running on fumes.

I want to show up here like a friend who tells you the truth. I will write about what you are actually going through... the overwhelm, the pressure, the changes in your life that you are struggling to understand, the feeling that everyone else has it figured out EXCEPT you. And then I hope to give you something real to hold onto. Not an overwhelming framework. Just a bit of light and momentum. Something that makes you think, “… okay. I CAN do this!”

Fair warning... I am a GenX girl through and through, which means I am a lover of the dot dot dot... It is how my brain talks, how my heart writes, and how I signal that there is always more coming. (Consider yourself warned)

I want this space to feel like a conversation where you feel like you are talking to ME.

Because the world does not need more AI. It needs more YOU.

I am so glad you found your way here. Let’s get you plugged back in. ⚡

XOXO, Rosanne

Keynote Speaker. Executive Coach. Creator of Electric Leadership™

P.S. Did I mention I love saying “Done is better than perfect?” Well, this first post is a wonderful example… I am going to just hit “post” and figure out even better ways to create my next newsletter! What’s something YOU have been putting off because you want to be “perfect” before doing it?

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