In 2021, I had a rough personal and business year. Funny how those two things usually line up. Personally, I lost a beloved family member–which for me brings up the many other losses in my past. And professionally–I was struggling to keep the business afloat. I was doing a lot of social marketing and trying to launch my groups multiple times a year…and something wasn’t clicking.

It came to a point at the beginning of 2022, when I thought about quitting my business and finding a full time job. While I was sending out resumes and networking toward this goal, I also decided to spend some quality time with my Clifton Strengths report to find some answers.

As is typical with my time spent revisiting my Clifton Strengths–I did find a nugget of truth. One that I’ve been nurturing for the past two years and has brought me the greatest success of my nearly three-decade (oof!) career.

My 2022 insight (that is still hard to say out loud–damn you, Patriarchy!):

My most powerful gifts lie within my ability to build and nurture deep, meaningful relationships.

In this newsletter and in person…

It’s impossible for me to stay on the surface for very long with people. I go there.

And my people, they’re game. They’re in. They stay for the long haul and we go deeper every time.

Everyone else…well, they run for their lives. They change the subject. They unsubscribe.

But truly, that’s ok. I don’t have time to remain on the surface. That’s not real life. Not mine, anyway.

So, in 2022 that translated to reconnecting with coach colleagues, therapists, mentors and former clients. Showing up and giving generously in communities that are important to me. And most importantly, spending more time with friends who energize me and truly see me as I am.

The sparky energy I felt for my work and the business results followed many-fold.

In 2023, I continued to focus my efforts on relationship-building by deepening my work with former and current clients. I created free Monthly Office Hours sessions so I could build community and connect people I respect and admire–so they can support each other. I also experimented with new group formats to learn more about what works and doesn’t for the relationships I want to build.

And here I am after year two of the big relationships project and I’m more alive in my work than ever before. It feels aligned with who I am and the change I want to bring into the world.

To quote psychotherapist, icon, visionary Esther Perel – “It is the quality of our relationships that will determine the quality of our lives.”

Our careers do not get an exemption from this rule.

The quality of our relationships will determine the meaning we find in our careers–and I’m excited to say this will be a new additional area of focus for me in my work in 2024.

I want to build a community where we have monthly discussions on all the many topics at the intersection of relationships and career.

Loneliness, boundaries, dealing with assholes, intergenerational communication, networking in your own way…the list is long.

In addition to monthly sessions there will be quarterly virtual networking facilitated by me.

Most important to me…

It will be human.

It will be vulnerable.

It will go deep.

It will welcome all genders.

And it will be less than $1000 for the year.

I’m still working through the details for a more official launch, but I want to put the word out to all of you who may not be in career transitions and are looking for a way we can work together.

If this sounds like something you’d want to learn more about, please click yes below to send an email my way.

Thanks for continuing to stick with me as I delve into some of the more difficult career topics.

I appreciate you and your commitment to finding meaning in your work.

Are you as exhausted as I am from the onslaught of Big January Energy?
The "you’re already behind, your weaknesses are holding you back " vibe?

Side note to the marketers on this: fear does not motivate people long term.

And to the organizational leaders: you can’t accomplish the entire year’s goals in January. So put away the six decks you’re working on concurrently. You’re burning out your people in week four of the new year.

How can we possibly sustain this pace?

As you may have noticed, I’ve been taking an intentionally different approach to January. One that interrupts the crushing messaging about all I need to change about myself and my business.

It’s unhelpful, unproductive and well…unfun.

While everybody else is Dry Januarying or New Year, New You’ing – I’m rounding out my Self-Love January – and it feels rebellious in all the best ways.

I’m writing down my energizing new ideas for the year AND I’m simply letting them percolate.

I don’t need to take action yet and force the ideas into the world before I’m ready. It feels grounding to give myself some time to let the ideas untangle themselves.

I’m meeting the Big January Energy in my people with calm and compassion. Modeling another way that comes from an inner knowing of what truly motivates me.

I’m building wide berths of buffer into my calendar.

I’m seeing heart filling friends and colleagues for coffee, lunch and REALLY chilly walks.

I’m respecting my body’s desire to hibernate on cold, dark winter nights. I’ll meet you for an evening in April.

My self-love January is mostly about self-trust and the belief that I know what’s best for me.

And it’s not anything you’re selling to make me better. I’m already pretty great.

I hope as we round out this month, we also say goodbye to all that’s already burning you out. And if not, we could make Self-Love February a thing too. I’m in if you’re in.

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As part of my intentional self-love driven January counter-programming, I thought it would be the perfect time to give some of my favorite people the extra TLC they deserve.

Raise your hand if you…

• Inevitably become the glue connecting multiple disciplines.

• Are the translator among teams to find common ground.

• Prefer the forest to the trees.

• Continue to be surprised when you get tapped for leadership roles.

• Are confused about which direction to choose because you’re good at most things you try.

• Have a nagging feeling that your expertise (or the multitude of them) isn’t deep enough.

Congratulations, friend. You’re a generalist. And you have a critical role to play in any and every organization.

Most of my clients who fit this criteria, first admit it to me in a whisper. Like they have a secret. Or they’re saying a dirty word.

My response: Yes, you’re a generalist! Stop apologizing and let’s celebrate your general awesomeness!

Somehow, in academia and in some corporate circles we began worshiping deep expertise as if it is the only way to pursue a career.

As if anything else is superficial. A path to avoid at all costs.

I’m calling bullshit on this.

Generalists are…

General Managers, Chiefs of Staff, Program Managers, Project Managers, Consultants.

They are also…

Strategic problem solvers, flexible communicators, motivating leaders.

So, generalists, if I could write you a love letter, I would say…stand in your power. Talk about your multidimensionality and your brilliance in being the catalyst that brings teams and projects together.

Add it to your elevator pitches, your LinkedIn profiles, your resumes and your cover letters.

Don’t hide your magic anymore.

We need you.

We need you to lead us more than ever.

As I mentioned last week, for several years now, I've been kicking off my year with a word or a theme that will drive me forward.

The first couple of years of this practice, I would choose a word, then get swept back into the reactive way I was living my life. So by the time December rolled around, I completely forgot my word.

In the past few years I’ve found my word in a new way. I get quiet. I don’t settle on one too quickly. I check in with my body. And I only set my intention when it feels right from within. This simple shift amped the power all the way up on this practice.

My 2023 theme was truth telling. If you’ve been with me for a while, you may remember me announcing it to every corner of the earth last January.

I believed it to be the intention and driver that would glue my butt into a seat to write my story. The book…my book that seems to be rolling around in my head instead of on the page.

In Q1, I talked to book coaches. I wrote outlines. I added blocks of time into my calendar for writing. And I did not write. I didn’t want to.

I wanted to rest. Think. Play in my business and in my life.

I told myself the truth about what I wanted and didn’t want and I felt a wave of freedom. I knew I was onto something. I wondered where else I could be truth telling.

I spent time thinking about the types of clients and companies that feel most energizing for me.

I said no to the people and the work that no longer felt like a fit.

I asked for a rate I know I’m worth. And I accepted not a penny less.

Again, the freedom flooded my body and I felt alive.

So alive that I began to tell myself and others the truth about my relationship to my body. I used to say I was restricting my food to tiny portions and going without gluten for 11 years for my health and my longevity.

But it was really to be thin.

A lifelong ache rooted in childhood trauma and a culture that not only validates this self-harm, but requires it for acceptance and “ok’ness.”

But the truth.

The truth was that I was hungry and rigid and I was teaching my daughters this way of being.  

The truth was my body, my whole worthy-of-all-the-love being was done with that.

The truth was that at 49 on my way to 50, with a full life of people who love me and a career supporting women to be their fullest, truest selves – there can only be truth telling.

And so while I wasn’t writing in 2023, I was healing and advocating and connecting and playing with all the extra time that I had now that I wasn’t counting and tracking and planning my completely new life that starts tomorrow.

My body knew this is what it desired last January. It took me until April to figure it out and I’ve been in a healing place ever since.

It’s a work in progress that I will continue in 2024 with a new word that came to me while lying still on a yoga mat.

IMAGINE.

I will sit with clients to imagine their wild and energizing new paths.

I will imagine new areas to deepen within my business and new ways to show up for my community.

I will imagine the words of compassion and love and acceptance I needed to hear as a child, how they would have sounded in all of those memories instead of the ones that made me think my body was a problem to fix.

Because that’s what happens when you tell the truth. You realize the pain was real. That you deserved more and better and when you imagine, there are still some ways you can have it.

I’d love to hear the themes and anti-resolutions you’ve chosen for your 2024.

Welcome to 2024, friend.

As a human doing the hard work to divest from diet culture and the hustley, robotic tools of “productivity” - I’ve been struck in this moment by the strength of my disgust for the concept of resolutions to start a new year.

I have compassion for all the versions of young me who started each January with a new way to lock into an exercise habit. Kickboxing, spinning, barre, pilates, yoga or my favorite – signing up for a marathon.

And all the ambitious Rachels who bullet journaled from 1/1 - 1/7.

Some of them also miracle morning’ed themselves into meditating at 5:30am before the kids woke up.

At the heart of all of these resolutions was the belief…

I’m not enough.

I’m not thin enough.

I’m not successful enough.

I’m not lovable enough.

I was starting each new year with a practice rooted in self-harm.

And that no longer fits with where I am in my healing – even if it continues to be normalized in the culture around me.

For several years now, I’ve been abstaining from resolutions and instead coming up with a theme for the year. I do love this practice and will continue to do it – but somehow this year it doesn’t feel like enough of an opposing force to counteract my resolution disdain.

So, instead I’ve chosen an anti-resolution.

Something I love about myself that I will double down on in 2024.

For me, it is connection and my ability to build community. I LOVE bringing people together. I’m grateful to have this gift and the opportunity to do it often in my personal life and in my business.

More of this 2024, please!

What do you love about yourself that you want to bring into focus this year?

What feels different when you declare your anti-resolution to the world?

What happens in your body when your intention comes from a place of self-love?

Feel free to share your anti-resolution with me and with your people. Change starts with the vulnerable and honest conversations we have within our inner circles.

As you may remember, a key part of my work with clients is helping them find the right next role on their terms.

Often times that means…

At an organization that prioritizes kindness and respects boundaries.

In a new industry.

At the right level.

Full transparency–sometimes these opportunities take awhile to find.

It takes thoughtful, persistent working of your search.

It takes turning down the roles that are “good on paper” but don’t meet your non-negotiables.

A higher title is not going to make a toxic culture easier to tolerate.

And if you truly can’t meet your financial responsibilities with the salary offered–passion is not going to pay the bills.

So–one very viable and popular temporary solution my clients choose is to take on project or consulting work while they are pursuing the right next role.

It’s both a way to experiment with new skills and leverage your deep expertise in an area that’s in-demand for the companies and colleagues in your network.

It’s also a way for you to choose the type of partners with whom you want to collaborate.

And my favorite part of this approach is that it’s a way to test out a company culture before you commit to a more full time opportunity.

With many of my clients who choose this path–they make themselves invaluable and then are asked to join the company full time. They say yes only when the opportunity aligns with their terms.

One of my recent clients consulted for nearly a year before committing to a full time role.

She needed the time to refuel after her last role, truly reflect on what she wanted next and ONLY say yes when the role met her criteria.

Yet she was earning the entire time she was job searching so she was able to be more selective and avoid desperation (not the best fuel for effective decision making!).

Job searches unfold at different speeds and I encourage you to get creative, give yourself some grace and stick to your path, your true north, your terms.

Sending you love and strength on your way to what’s next.

And here’s my annual reminder–November and December are POWERFUL times for networking.

Every single year I have clients who accept their new roles in the last six…even two weeks of the year. So don’t take yourself out of the game. Keep going. This year it could be you!

What if...you won nearly every argument with friends and adults alike since you were in high school, killed it in debate tournaments through college and everyone you ever met told you, “You should REALLY be a lawyer!”. You work your butt off in law school and toil away in a firm to become partner. You get to the destination you’ve dreamed about since those feisty teen years and all you want to do is take the first flight out of this life into something more fulfilling.

What if...both of your parents were teachers and all of their friends were teachers and it seemed like they enjoyed their work and it was meaningful. And hello summer adventures! Becoming a teacher felt like an inevitability – even though you were a bit suspicious about why they were counting their days to retirement. You march forward into the teaching profession. It’s fine, but you’re already counting your days til retirement in year four.

What if...you’ve been doing the same damn job for ten years – with little bumps in title and pay to make you feel like you’re growing – but you fear this is the only role in the entire professional universe that you can do. And so you stay. You wonder, but not enough to take action.

These are the boxes we learn to lock ourselves within.

The safe paths.

The roles we know and can see.

They may be the only possibilities we’ve imagined for ourselves. Often others have told us these paths are part of our identities.

The only way out is owning our stuckness. Admitting same, same is not enough. Acknowledging you want more or different or in many cases – less.

It’s flexing your imagination (remember that part of you?) and dreaming up a hundred scenarios of what else this could look like without judging yourself for thinking any of them.

Then, you act.

This isn’t about manifesting or meditating or even hoping these things are possible.

It’s about test and learn. It’s experimenting and gathering the data to see if they’re possible.

Some of these potential paths will not be the right ones for you. Sometimes that bad news can take you down for a while – so expect that.

Yet – some of them will be right.

And finding that new right path isn’t even the most powerful part of this process.

It’s that you’ve learned how to extract yourself from your own rigidity and fear.

Because you’re human, you will find yourself within those boxes again and again and again.

Until you remember your ticket out.

Happy Halloweeeeeeen! If you love this holiday – I wish for you...

Zero costume malfunctions.
Generous sharing of the kids’ haul – especially on the Reese’s front.
And inspiration from all the creative costumes in your neighborhood.

If you’re not so into the spirit – I highly recommend you buy a bag of your favorite candy and indulge in a show you’ve been wanting to binge.

There’s room for all of us here on 10/31.

In our household, something hit us a little quicker that we expected. Our kids made their own plans in the neighborhood and they announced them one night at dinner.

My husband and I looked at each other like – well...what the hell are we doing?

Of course with the kids being 12 and 15, this is happening more often.

Yet, on days like Halloween the standard fare used to be – plan the costume for weeks, leave early from work, have an early quick dinner, get out in the hood on the least crowded routes and spend way too long counting and trading candy before dragging them to bed.

And now…gulp…we’re not so needed for the planning or any of it.

I try not to panic in these moments when I’m reminded the number of years my kids will live with us and be part of our daily lives is shrinking.

I have time to get used to the idea and the grief that comes along with it. Their growing independence simultaneously fills me with pride and strikes like a ticking clock. The loud kind.

What makes me feel better is thinking 1) Even with distance, we can still be close and 2) There are a lot of meaningful projects I will have time to pull off (I mean…how about that book I’ve been threatening to write for – well – my whole life. The one that continues to not write itself?!).

In my work, I see many women in mid-life and while it’s hard for all of you with kids under 5 to believe this will ever happen – you get a lot more bandwidth as the years go on and the kids grow up.

Part of the work is planning on how to spend that time in a meaningful way that aligns with your values and makes use of your superpowers. It’s about learning all of the things you’ve wanted to learn – just because you want to learn them and not because you have to justify it’s more important than meal prep for the week.

So on this day, my husband and I decided we will put our dog Taco in his taco costume (as we’ve done for the past couple of years) and take a spin around our beloved neighborhood that ALWAYS brings their A game on Halloween.

Sidenote – every time someone recognizes our pup’s costume and yells - “A TACO!!”, he howls back and wags his tail like crazy as if to say - ”They know me!!!”

So we know it will bring us joy. And we still have the precious time to debrief with the kids at the end of the night.

What’s important to me and what I share with clients is that you can be both present in these years and plant the seeds for later.