Real You Leadership

Don’t get it twisted, friends—you ALWAYS should not just speak for your work, but name what you want to see on your career growth out loud.

There are so many reasons your work doesn’t speak for itself:

Everybody else is just as busy as you are and simply don’t have the capacity to see your work and impact.

Bias, discrimination, and mediocrity really do block people’s vision for noticing and recognizing good work from many people

Even if your excellent work speaks for itself and gets noticed and recognized with kudos, praise, and affirmations—that doesn’t always mean you’re next in line and top of mind for a pay increase, a promotion, or that next step of growth you might be wanting.

If you want something, say it.
Invite people in to support you in making it happen.
Keep making yours asks and taking steps to bring it to life.

2 weeks off of work and now I’m packed with client sessions my first week logged back in — sharing one of the biggest gems and common threads across 5 hours of coaching sessions, while I’m still buzzing from back-to-back calls.

Being “perfect” is an illusion. Stop striving for it.

Your brain will trick you into feel like an imposter, into self-silencing, and minimize how great you are because you don’t trust yourself enough to handle any outcome.

Some folx are scared the outcome is full of failure, shame, harm, and retaliation.

Some folx are scared of success and actually getting what they want.

Either way, you can learn to grow trust with yourself when you feel safe within yourself, and one way to start doing that is to stop being your biggest bully.

It’s okay to be kinder and nicer to yourself.

It’s okay to give yourself tenderness and forgive yourself for not knowing all the answers, being perfectly imperfect, making mistakes (even as an expert), and learning as you go each day.

Quoted in TIME — not a feature for work, but I was interviewed on the quirkiest thing: My relationship to the notes app throughout time.

Just like my stack of journals, I see my notes app like a time capsule I can dig into at any time. If I look closely enough — which I have many times and often — I can see the essence of who I’ve always been preserved, and all the ways I’ve evolved and grown into who I am today.

My oldest note is from December 2016, about 7 months before I quit my last job and changed the entire trajectory of my life. It was a poem that I remember writing on my commute on the L train to the start up I worked at. Crying, wishing so badly for a life that felt like mine.

It’s mixed in with a chaotic and unorganized array 10 years worth of poetry, evolving grocery lists and food cravings, all my biggest fears, my grandest hopes and dreams, heartbreak and blissful moments, and random as hell lines of thoughts or single words taking up a note.

Proof that I’m living fully, deeply.
That we learn the same lessons over and over again.
That actions and change start with inspiration.
That I, for the most part, do what I say I’m going to do.
That I, even if it’s hard, can also change my mind.
That even the silliest, most mundane, or outrageous thought is worth noting — and that one day you’ll come back to it and see how cool, raw, and significant your existence is.

I love all the iterations and versions of me that are digitally preserved in my notes.

And if you’re a notes app lover like I am, I hope you find some time to meet yourself there.

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Linking the TIME article by Rainesford Stauffer in my stories!

Day 27/30: Oversharing Observations: We’re going to optimize every ounce of creativity, artistic expression, play, critical thinking, and whimsy out of us.

I can’t multi-task anymore.
I don’t have that great of a hustle muscle anymore.
I’m allergic to over-planning anything.

Candidly, if you look at the dates of all my posts for this Oversharing Observations for 30 days challenge, you’ll see that it’s been probably 45 days since I started — and I’m damn proud of it.

Because I do things at my natural pace and I honor the capacity I have.

I have learned to be more disciplined about my peace more than my work, so that when I’m “clocked in” I’m fully, deeply locked in with the people I serve.

The rest is part of my work.
The play is part of my work.
The art is part of my work.
The spaciousness of my day is part of my work.

I don’t want to speed up my creativity, writing, and critical thought with AI, productivity hacks, and optimization tools.

I want time to doodle, scribble, dabble, and make a damn mess in experiments.

I want time to bike to my favorite bakery, dance while watching coffee drip, and enjoying breakfast with the love of my life at our natural pace.

So I do what I can to practice the peace I want, as much as I can on the daily.