It wasn’t always this way. Today, I am living the life of my dreams: I've created a beautiful home that nourishes me, a highly successful and thriving business, and I wake up with a clear sense of purpose. I know who I am and who I am not. I lead and partner with my teams with ferocity, love, direction, and understanding. I navigate my downs with grace and intention, taking responsibility for my impacts in every aspect of my life. This creates a trustworthiness for which I am renowned.
Every day, I am cultivating the relationship and lifestyle I have always wanted with a man who loves me just as deeply as he challenges me (which is a lot). I lead and develop leaders from all over the world—from startup business owners who are taking a chance and rewriting their destiny to 7-8 figure leaders, both individually and within their corporations. I coach them to 'Have it All': success, satisfaction, deep relationships, profound self-awareness, and the skills to compound their transformation.
As a natural-born leader, I was easily able to engage with most teams, groups of people, friends, and colleagues. I excelled at handling everything on my own, and more often than not, I was excellent at delegating tasks and ensuring unity and success. Personally, I often found myself in relationships where I had to bargain, prove myself, and earn love and respect. I was so good at handling things alone that I struggled to recognize when to set boundaries, seek help, feedback, or support, often leading to burnout and setbacks.
The cost of this, however, was that I never got to create an authentic connection and partnership; two things I deeply desired. I created the facade that I had everything handled. I never needed anything from anyone, and as a result, I had trained the people closest to me to believe I didn't need them to be a leader with me, to reach out and check in on me. I never let them see my struggles or pain, and as a high-performing leader, I felt alone, regardless of how many people I was surrounded by.
I was missing out on love, joy, and purpose, and the world was missing out on the real power of my leadership. What was missing was my own awareness and insight into who I was truly being in those moments; proving, bargaining, and striving from a place of lack and not enough. I felt like there was something inherently wrong with me, as if God had made some kind of mistake in the creation laboratory but felt sorry for me, so he let me go and play with the other normal humans. Huge quick success but nothing that was sustainable long term.
I created success in spite of the negative stories I had about myself, and it became clear it wasn’t the formula for long-term sustainability in my career or entrepreneurial endeavors. What needed to change required a radical transformation. It took time, humility, trust, heartbreak, grueling vulnerability, and a mirror I didn’t enjoy looking at for years. As time went on, I grew to love what I saw, and it amplified all of the good and kick-ass nature I’ve always had within me. I’ve always been a junkie for business, innovation, and the ability to make money (and do good things with it); those are my people.