In August of 2014, I flew to San Diego for my first week of Vistage Chair Academy training.

I was terrified. But the good kind of terrified — the kind that means you're finally doing the thing.

And then I got in the registration line.

I grew up in a town of 800 people in Iowa.

Nobody told me I couldn't have big dreams. They didn't have to. There was simply no visual evidence that a woman could. You married. You raised a family.

My soul had been sending me memos for years.

I just kept filing them under someday.

At some point, most leaders hit a wall.

Not a market wall. Not a resource wall.

A them wall.

I have a confession.

I am a recovering procrastinator.

And I say recovering loosely — because some weeks I'm more recovered than others.

For a long time, I thought I had a turnover problem.

What I actually had was a me problem.

I just couldn't see it yet.

Here's something I know for sure after years of sitting in rooms with CEOs:

When we get stuck in our own heads, telling ourselves the same story over and over, we start to believe it.

I've been there.

Not as a CEO — but as someone who has sat across from enough of them to know exactly what 3am looks like from the inside.

I used to soften everything.

Not because I was dishonest. Because I cared. Because I didn't want to hurt anyone. Because I'd grown up learning that keeping the peace was the kind thing to do — and somewhere along the way I confused kindness with cushioning.

My first leadership role taught me a lot of things.

Most of them the hard way.

I thought I was clear. I thought the direction was obvious.

Wanting More Is Not a Character Flaw

More meaning.
More alignment.
More honesty.
More space.

There’s Always Another Mountain

The hardest climb is the one you know is next —
the one you can see clearly,
but haven’t started.

Leadership Can Be Surprisingly Quiet

From the outside, leadership looks full.

Full calendars.
Full rooms.
Full responsibility.

Most Change Starts With a Pause

Big change doesn’t usually begin with a grand plan.

It begins with a moment of hesitation.
A tightening in the chest.
A sentence you rehearse and then swallow.

It Didn’t Look Like Failure

If you’d asked me from the outside, I would have said things were fine.
Not falling apart.
Not a mess.
Functioning. Productive. Responsible.

Leadership Has Quietly Changed

The job of a CEO looks the same from the outside.

The title.
The responsibility.
The expectation to decide, to lead, to hold it all together.

It Rarely Starts With a Big Decision

Self-betrayal doesn’t usually look like lying.

It looks like rationalizing.

Let’s Stop Making This Personal

Burnout gets framed as weakness.

Not resilient enough.
Not organized enough.
Not disciplined enough.