Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. For a long time I carried a carefully curated list of people who had held me back: My mother. My first husband. That manager. The circumstance. The timing. The industry. The economy. The story was airtight. The evidence was convincing. And I told it so many times it became the wallpaper of my interior life, so familiar I stopped seeing it as a story at all. I thought it was just the truth. And then one day, in a moment of radical honesty I was not...
12 days ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. Here is something I used to believe with my whole chest: if the people around me would just behave differently, my life would be better. If my manager would just be more supportive. If that colleague would just stop being that way. If my family would just understand me. If circumstances would just cooperate...out there circumstances. I was keeping very careful score. And I was losing. The problem wasn't that I was wrong about other people's behavior....
19 days ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. In 1995, Daniel Goleman introduced the world to emotional intelligence as a framework. It contains five competencies that together define our ability to navigate ourselves and our relationships with skill and intention. The five are: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. All five matter. All five are worth developing. And if you spend time with any of them you will grow. But I want to offer you a perspective I've...
26 days ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. No one gets out of this alive. I know that sounds like the beginning of something dark. It isn’t. It’s the beginning of a reckoning, the kind that only comes when someone you knew, someone who had everything the world says should protect you, dies anyway. Her name was Nancy Saustad. She was 61. “ Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver From My Chair to Yours I’ve been in a season of grief. The...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist, a philosopher, and a Holocaust survivor. He lost nearly everything: his family, his freedom, his manuscript, the life he had built. And in the middle of unimaginable suffering, inside a Nazi concentration camp, he made a discovery that would change the way we understand what it means to be human. He found the pause. That space, that tiny, sovereign space, between what happens to you and how you respond to it. He...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. Have you ever lost it? Really lost it and then spent the next three days wondering what is wrong with you? Maybe it was a tone from a coworker that sent you over the edge. A comment from a manager that shut you down completely. A moment at home where something small became something enormous and you couldn't explain why, even to yourself. And in the aftermath, the shame is almost worse than the reaction itself. I want to talk about that. Because...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. On March 24th, I had the privilege of speaking to nearly 300 women (and some men) at the Women in Food Service Forum. The topic was emotional intelligence. But before I ever said a word, the questions that came in told me everything I needed to know about the room. What if I'm already depleted? What if management doesn't support me? What if I'm dealing with a health issue and I don't even know how to bring it to leadership? These weren't abstract...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to the conversation. I'm not a basketball (or any sport for that matter) person. But last night I stayed up late with Paul watching two legendary programs, UConn and Duke, battle it out for a spot in the Final Four. And I could not look away. UConn had been down for most of the game. Down big. And then, in the final five minutes, something shifted. They clawed back. And with seconds left on the clock, down by two points, a young man caught the ball near the edge of the...
2 months ago • 3 min read
Hello Reader, Welcome to my newsletter! Thank you to all the beautiful people who sent positive thoughts or reached out to check on me over the past week. I appreciate how many people shared how my vulnerability helped them feel seen, and several shared they are also in a 'messy middle'. Well, friends, let's be in it together! I definitely see you, feel you and I'm happy to be doing life with YOU. “ I've been dating since I was fifteen. I'm exhausted. Where is he? — Charlotte, "Socks" In The...
2 months ago • 2 min read