Leadership Companion Blog

How many times have you heard a true champion speak with doubt? How many times have you heard an Olympian say, “It will be a tough competition and we will just have to wait until the event and see how it all works out”? Never, because doubt knocks them out before they even begin. The athletes that are remembered are always those that performed memorably under extreme pressure. I use memorably here because they can either be remembered for choking or rising to the occasion. Anyone who has played competitive sports and gone to playoffs knows that there is a

We all suffer from anxiety at some point or another. Anxiety is just a normal part of everyday life. It can actually be a useful emotion in helping us to cope with stressful situations. There will always be reasons to feel anxious. All ages experience anxiety. Children feel it in school before a test; even young babies feel it when separated from their mothers. Adults have plenty of opportunities to feel anxious whether it is from a job, finances, romance, or due to being self-conscious. I find that often the women I coach have anxiety because they have to do

Before summer ends, I wanted to talk about relaxation. The longer I’m alive, the more I’ve learned that being able to relax is important to achieving optimal performance and health. Being relaxed can increase our productivity in every area of our lives. If we’re not relaxed, everything we do will be a struggle. Relaxation provides mind-body integration necessary for peak performance. GET MY GOAL COMPANION It is important to relax to get ours mind clear and our bodies tension free. It helps us regain focus and cool down. It also helps return to a balanced physical state. Relaxation is vital

I coach an incredible woman who is a leader in cybersecurity for a Fortune 500 company. Her list of accomplishments are a mile long. Equally as long are the accolades others constantly share about her, yet, she came to me because she needed help building her confidence. She felt like she had outgrown her position and was ready to interview for a promotion, but when she talked about her achievements, she was convinced she was not talking about herself. She said it was like having an out-of-body experience. Confidence issues can be brought about by many different reasons and over

“When the soul wishes to experience something she throws an image of the experience before her and enters into her own image.” Meister Eckhart Do you have any idea what you think about all day? No, really. Have you ever stopped to ponder this? It sounds like a silly question, but most of us don’t actually observe the drama that’s constantly going on inside our heads. I encountered this recently in a way that makes me a little uncomfortable to share; however, I think it makes my point very well.  If you coach with me, you know that when we

Time management is a big concern for a lot of women leaders. I keep hearing, “There are just not enough hours in the day…” or “Where does my time go?” As you turned the calendar page to a new month, did you wonder this yourself? As we emerge out of the pandemic, we’re suddenly inundated by all the things again. One of my clients told me recently that she needed better time management and asked if I could help her.  She shared that she is managing a new team with three new supervisors who need her help learning the business

It’s summer and sometimes it means that our schedules have changed and our kids are home and pulling us in a million different directions. GET MY GOAL COMPANION You’re looking at your to-do list at home and at work and thinking there aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done! Here are some ideas to effectively manage your time during these summer months. 1. Clarify your goals and strategy Be very clear about your aims and ambitions, both short and long term. Write them down. Maybe a sit-down family dinner is a goal two or three times

These are the women who inspire me! I’ve studied them, and I’ve noticed they have the following traits in common: GET MY VISION COMPANION 1. They work hard! Yes, they play hard, too! They get up early; they rarely complain; they expect performance from others and expect extraordinary performance from themselves. Repeated, high-level success starts with a recognition that hard work pays off. 2. They are incredibly curious and eager to learn. They study, ask questions and read – constantly! While most of them did well in school, they never stop learning and applying what they learn to their present

I was coaching a woman the other day who told me that when summer comes, she likes to tap into her creative side. GET MY VISION COMPANION It’s like her creativity hibernates for the winter and finally emerges in the summer. I thought it was funny and decided to follow her in the conversation and it was probably one of the most enlightening coaching sessions I’ve had in a while. Here are some of the things that emerged from our conversation that might be worth giving a try if you need to level-up your creativity right now. 1. Change your

When asking the majority of people before a contest, whether it is a basketball game or a spelling bee, what they want, they will inevitably say, “I want to WIN.” Who doesn’t? I have yet to meet anyone who competes that says they don’t care if they win as long as they have fun. That was fine when we were six but it isn’t going to cut it now. So, how do we do it, how do we win? The answer that you are looking for may be found in goal setting. Too often as leaders, we overlook this factor

The other day, I couldn’t take it anymore. My daughter’s room was a catastrophe. She no longer folded her clothes nor did she use her closet to store her clothes. Instead, her clothes were unfolded, wrinkled and heaped high in three laundry baskets. The baskets actually could no longer contain their contents and I often found myself tripping over pant legs and socks that were hanging over the sides of the baskets. She told me that her closet was too full.  Instead of cleaning it out, her solution was just to keep the clothes she was wearing at the ready

Now that I’ve shared with you about my stroke, I want to share some ways I’ve made life better for myself. You see, I didn’t want to return to the hustle culture that defined my life for so long and wanted to intentionally design a better life for myself. I actually didn’t realize how far I had come until I was around a table with some friends recently and two of them seemed to be engaged in trying to one-up each other as to who was busier. One friend said, “oh, I start responding to clients the minute I wake

Have you ever failed – no, I mean like really failed at something big like your career or your marriage or a friendship? J. K. Rowling, whose failure in marriage and business left her a single parent living off unemployment benefits, says, “Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.” Rowling didn’t let those failures define her. She picked herself up and penned the “Harry Potter” series, which has sold over 450

A lot of women I coach who aren’t yet in the c-suite struggle with executive presence. They want to be seen as a competent, polished executive, yet they don’t know how to get there. Below are tips that I’ve gathered from the many coaching sessions I’ve had on this topic. GET MY VISION COMPANION Before we get to those, though, I want to be sure we’re on the same page about what executive presence is. It’s actually probably different than you think it is. A lot of times, when I ask what it is, women will say that it is

One of the most surprising effects of procrastination is the fact that it makes you feel out of control. GET MY VISION COMPANION Procrastination is like an ‘invisible force’ that keeps you from doing the very things you know you must do. With the increasing demands on our time and attention there seems to be an increase in procrastination as a chronic problem, especially among those people who want to succeed the most. Procrastination usually sets in when you feel overwhelmed by all the ‘have to’s’ in life and instead of making steady progress you take on too much without

On the surface it seems an odd idea that you could actually be anything other than who you really are. GET MY GOAL COMPANION However, from the time, we find that we are being programmed to “fit in”. Sometimes we don’t even know it’s happening. We find ourselves conforming in order to please those around us because we think that’s what we’re supposed to do. This conformity comes at a cost and often means that you have to suppress what you know is your authentic self. Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship you’ll ever have. Without a

A year ago today I was laying on an operating room table and my doctor didn’t know if I would survive. GET MY GOAL COMPANION I had suffered a massive stroke that morning and while Dr. Grobelny was in my brain removing the clot, a large saddle clot formed in my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. He quickly removed the clots; however, because of a drug they started to reverse the stroke effects in my brain, they couldn’t do anything further. The MRI of my brain showed extensive brain damage and Dr. Grobelny saved pictures of my clots because they

One year sober. It feels funny to write those words. GET MY GOAL COMPANION My therapist asked me the other day when I last had a drink and I told her April 15, 2021. She told me how proud she was of me. It caught me off guard, because my sobriety journey this year has been a solo and sometimes isolating one, so I wasn’t expecting anyone to comment on it. In fact, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have even thought about sharing my story. I wasn’t an alcoholic and never went to a 12-step program, yet I

As we finish the first quarter of 2022, it’s time to check our vision again. I coach a lot of women who don’t love what they’re doing and they come to me to help them figure out how to find their sweet spot.  However, I have one client who absolutely loves what she’s doing.  Her parents longed for her to perform, so she spent her childhood on stage in leotards, tutus and ballet slippers dancing so her parents could be happy.  She never felt like this was a natural fit for her, though.  She’s actually quite shy and much prefers