When No Plan IS a Strategy

Seemingly Random — Precisely Perfect

My professional trajectory confuses a lot of people.

Can’t lie. It amuses me.

Because here’s the thing — while I cannot say it was entirely a strategic plan, every step along the way makes perfect sense — when taken as a whole.

But like so many people that’s not how I was raised. I come from a family that operates solidly from a “here’s the path that’s acceptable for life” mentality.

✅ You graduate high school having done all the “necessary” things to get into a “good” university.

✅ You go to said university and study the “necessary” things to develop the “right” skillset for a “real” job.

✅ You graduate (bonus points if you do with honors) and from there you get a job in aforementioned area of study.

✅ You progress through those jobs and then, if you’re a girl, you find a nice guy, get married and have kids.

I don’t know that I consciously balked against that, but I certainly didn’t follow.

That hasn’t always been easy.

I’ve failed.

A lot.

I’ve also had a decent number of wins.

The point, is that one thing I did carry from my family for a long time was this — a deep need that everything “looks good”. Appearances matter. For so much of the time on this journey, I was struggling and doing it alone.

Years of therapy and lots of personal work later, I came to find out that everyone has struggles of some sort; and when I learned to open my mouth and share, not only did I find solutions I also found community.

The challenges didn’t always go away, but the difficulty tackling them sure did.

Over the last several years I’ve been deep in study around mastering leadership and taking those skills into my own work for my clients. Not only doing my own work, but how can I continue to sharpen my own tools in order to help others do the same?

One of the most important people for me in that journey has been Dr. Judith Rich — a self-described Octogenarian who’s been at the forefront of transformational leadership training for nearly 50 years. Judith has called me out on BS, pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone and beyond. She has shepherded, and she has led by example.

Above it all she has shown me what the fierce compassion of a wise woman can be and inspires me to be same.

So when she asked if I would be a guest on her podcast #TheNewBeyond, I was beyond humbled.

We talk about what I’m up to these days, how it’s evolved from my last iteration and — gulp — we dig deeply into cause, condition and context.

In other words, I share some stuff I’ve never done this deeply in public.

Here’s the link to the episode.

Buckle up, grab some popcorn and enjoy!