Hey, hi, hello! (or, an introduction of sorts)
Look at that! It’s April! Though from the window of my apartment in Massachusetts, you’d never know — we’ve been slogging our way through rain and a wintry-mix for the last few days. My brain is having a hard time accepting this regression after feeling sun-drunk from walking around outside all weekend but this is the pleasure and pain of the northeast and, for me at least, it’s worth it.
When I started this business and wrote my first blog a few months back I had every intention of making blogging a thing I did regularly; it’s a way to connect people that aren’t family members, friends, or colleagues; it’s a way to clarify my thoughts about things I’ve been noodling on; it’s a form of creative expression that I can do on my own time, without much effort (ha!); it’s a way to model vulnerability in a world that benefits from our fear it; it’s a way to attract people that are interested in working with me. And full transparency, the last one is the one that’s kept me silent for this long.
At the end of last year I had so much energy around creating something to call mine and getting to do work that felt really meaningful to me, on my own terms. It took almost no effort for me to make space for working on the things I needed to work on to "launch” the business. Then, once it was launched, I was exhausted. To be clear, that exhaustion wasn’t all due to the effort required to start a new business for the first time.
I am a chronically over-booked, over-scheduled, over-committed, and over-whelmed. The WHYs behind that are long and deep and not ready for prime time but for now, let’s just say that I’m an EXPERT at productively procrastinating. “How’s your business going?” “Oh, it’s not really going anywhere yet because I’ve been…[insert list of worthwhile activities that aren’t the actual thing I want to be focused on right now] but I’m going to set aside some time soon to focus on it.”
The truth is, the activation energy it took to figure out what I wanted to do, who I wanted to do it with, where and how I wanted to do, starting an LLC, coming up with a brand and a logo (aesthetics are important to me), creating a website, and then telling the internet and people I loved about it in posts and videos completely wiped me out. By the time I got to the end of the “TA DA” I didn’t have anything left. “CAN’T YOU SEE FROM ALL THIS WORK I DID HOW EXCELLENT I AM AND THAT YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY HIRE ME?!”
…
It turns out, that’s not how these things work and while I was in the middle of beating myself up about losing steam and not doing “enough” I realized this was the perfect opportunity for me to do the thing I would tell clients/famiy/friends to do: acknowledge what happened, try to learn from it, and get started again.
That pattern is what’s at the core of my coaching.
I tripped and fell into a career as an Agile Coach beginning in 2017. Unless you’ve worked in tech the title probably doesn’t mean anything to you and that’s totally fine - it barely means anything to me anymore. The important things to know are: 1. most people and companies care more about getting something done than getting the right thing done and getting it done right because of the incentivization structures in the companies we work for and the world we live in 2. people are afraid to talk to each other honestly.
My job, with most individuals, teams, and organizations, is to help them remember to care about making something that solves the problems the people buying/using it need it to solve and remember to talk to people outside their specific job function because, turns out, a single department can’t deliver a product and diversity of thought makes everything better for everyone.
The way I approach that work is centered around (you guessed it) acknowledging what happened, trying to learn from it, and getting started again. I’m definitely minimizing and downplaying all of the associated nuance and complexity, but that’s the thrust of it.
The reason why I was drawn to and well suited for the work is because I’m a firm believer that you can learn something from every experience and that it behooves you to do so if you care about making fewer of the same mistakes over time and learning more about yourself and the life you want to lead along the way. In addition to that, I frequently struggle to make space and time for the thoughtfulness and actions necessary to reflect and update my plans/thinking before getting going again; more often than not, I find myself stuck and/or demotivated.
That feeling and situation is exactly what my coaching practice is designed to help with. I want to be the person at your side that’s acting as a curious mirror, reflecting back what I’m able to notice and asking questions that help you more deeply understand your motivations and desired outcomes, so that you’re able to achieve the goals that mean the most to you and help you lead the life you want.
I care about leading a life that feels meaningfully connected and additive to other humans, the earth, and the universe while authentically embodying the nature of my spirit. That might sound a little whifty (to borrow a word from a close friend - hi, Rosa!), especially if you spent your younger years on the #girlboss train (as I did).
I think the human experience is meant to be a lot simpler than how the majority of us are currently living and I plan to spend the next chapters of my life trying to get closer to that and helping others do the same.
