Hey there Reader, True story: last month I made a business decision by flipping a coin. Heads, I take on the project. Tails, I pass. It landed on tails. I did not like that. So naturally, I did what any rational, emotionally regulated business owner would do. I flipped it again. Still tails. Flipped a third time out of pure spite. (Also tails. The universe was being extremely clear with me and I was choosing violence.) Here's what that little coin-flipping meltdown taught me. I already knew...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, I have a confession. My client Danielle hired me to help her make a decision. Instead, I watched her build a 14 tab spreadsheet to avoid making one. She called it due diligence. I called it a very expensive form of hiding. Here's the thing about stuck decisions: they rarely stay stuck because the answer is hard to find. They stay stuck because finding the answer feels safer than living with it. Danielle already knew she needed to raise her rates. She just needed permission...
15 days ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, Confession: I currently have over 10,000 unread emails. Ten thousand. Here's how that happened: an automated system in my rescue squad world went haywire and started firing off false notifications. Not one or two. A flood. It took real time to even figure out what was happening, let alone shut it off, and while I was diagnosing the problem, the noise buried the messages that actually mattered. Me, watching my inbox hit 10,000 and deciding today was not the day. That's alert...
21 days ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, Last week at figure skating practice, I ran through a jump combo I've landed a thousand times. My blade caught the back edge, my legs went out from under me, and I hit the ice tailbone first. Full stop, no grace, just me on the ground wondering how many vertebrae I still had. Confidence: still there. Center of gravity: not so much. Here's the part that matters: I did not sit at the boards feeling sorry for myself. I got up, skated it off for about ninety seconds, and did the...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, Confession: last week I needed a doctor for something minor, and my calendar looked me dead in the eye and said "absolutely not." An in-person visit meant rearranging half my day. My usual telehealth option had a wait so long I could have grown the condition a personality. So, skeptically, I tried something new. A quick questionnaire, a text letting me know a provider was reviewing it, and fifteen minutes later my prescription was at the pharmacy with a full treatment plan...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, Picture this: I'm at the rink, my coach says "let's just try that jump one more time," and instead of doing the smart thing (a polite, well-boundaried "absolutely not"), I said yes. Reader. I said YES. Twenty minutes later I'm icing my hip and reevaluating every life choice that led me to this exact moment on this exact Tuesday. Here's the thing about "yes." It feels so harmless in the moment. It's just one more rep. One more client call. One more "sure, I can squeeze that...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, Happy belated 250th birthday, America. We celebrated with a quick trip to our place in OBX, in a heat index that felt more like "surface of the sun" than "beach vacation." Turns out freedom is expensive, and so is the repair guy who has to come out on a holiday weekend. One of my favorite views from our getaway. The AC at our place died. Fixed. We had a plumbing issue. Fixed. It broke again, in a completely different spot, like the place was auditioning for a horror movie....
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, Last week I stood in front of a room of women at the Goochland Chamber and said something a little dangerous out loud: most of us are terrible at saying no. Not because we don't know how. We know how. We just don't trust ourselves to do it. This is the face of a room that learned to say no without flinching. Leading Out Loud with the Goochland Women in Business, where we broke down the Strategic No and asked the big question: what would change if you trusted your no? (And...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hey there Reader, I've been working with a client lately who is, by every objective measure, winning. She's growing. She's restructuring for the better. She's finally putting real systems in place. She's stepping into a bigger leadership role. It is all good news. The kind of good news you'd put on a vision board and caption "manifested." And she is completely wiped out. Here's the thing nobody warns you about: good change is still change. Your nervous system does not hand out a hall pass...
2 months ago • 3 min read