I AM Living

10/22/2026

I never expected the gift bags to become one of my favorite parts of our Women's Executive Retreats. But here we are. 😍❤️

And honestly, they've become SO much more than gift bags to me.

One of my favorite parts is that the women themselves get to share a little piece of their worlds with one another. Companies they're part of, brands they're building, and products they know and love.

And then there are the wonderful people, founders, and companies I've gotten to know along the way. People whose work I admire, products I personally love, and stories I'm SO excited to share.

Nothing makes it into these bags by accident. ❤️

What I love most is getting to introduce the women to the PEOPLE behind the products, and seeing them discover, support, and celebrate one another.

For our September retreat, I was absolutely blown away by the generosity, enthusiasm, and love that went into making these bags so special.

And the women LOVED everything!! 😍

A HUGE thank you to the incredible people and companies who contributed:

❤️ LeapFrog USA
❤️ Simple Mills
❤️ OOSO Iced Tea
❤️ Seedhouse Coffee
❤️ lost range.®
❤️ Björn's Colorado Honey
❤️ Blossom Fields Farmstead
❤️ Kitsch
❤️ Daily Crunch | Sprouted Nut Snacks
❤️ Honey Stinger

And some extra love to Jessica Savage and Julie Haggerty for the wonderful gifts and special touches they brought to the weekend! ❤️

To everyone who helped make this happen, THANK YOU. It meant so much to share what you've created with these women, and to see how much they appreciated the thought and care behind it all.

And one of the unexpected joys? Seeing some of these relationships and collaborations continue well beyond the retreats themselves. I LOVE that!!

Were already beginning to dream and scheme for January, and I cant wait to see what (and WHO!) will be part of the next one. 😍🎁❤️

10/20/2026

I did a radical thing the other day.

Everything was piling up.

My brain was telling me there wasn’t enough time. There wasn’t enough space. There was too much to do.

So instead of pushing harder, I stopped.

I went for a walk.

Which, in that moment, felt almost ridiculous.

You don’t have time for a walk.

Except I was starting to realize that continuing to operate from that state wasn’t exactly helping either.

Now that we’re in the final quarter of the year, I’ve been noticing this more and more.

Time feels tighter. Space feels harder to come by. Every minute starts to feel like it matters.

There’s more to finish. More to move forward. More I hoped would happen this year that now has a much shorter runway.

And when that pressure builds, I can feel what happens in my own nervous system.

I speed up. My mind gets ahead of where I actually am. I try to fit one more thing in.

And before I know it, I’m caught up in the momentum of it all.

Hooked.

The more hooked I get, the harder it feels to stop. Because stopping seems like the exact opposite of what the situation requires.

Except those are often the moments I most need to unhook.

Not because the deadlines disappear or the work suddenly stops mattering.

But because I don’t want the momentum to be the thing deciding how I move through my life.

I recently came across an idea from Mark Nepo about contemplative spaces being places where “the inside is larger than the outside.”

That landed in my bones.

Because I think that’s part of what happens when we intentionally create space.

The outside may still be full. The calendar may still be full. The list may still be the list.

But something shifts inside.

There’s a little more room to notice what’s happening. To figure out what actually needs our energy. To choose what comes next instead of simply being carried into it.

Maybe that’s what my walk gave me that day.

It didn’t give me more hours. It gave me more space inside the hours I already had.

We may not always be able to create more time. But we can create more space.

I’m curious: When the pace starts to hook you, what helps you unhook?

10/14/2026

Some chaos is not cute.

Some seasons are genuinely hard.

A sick parent.
A child who needs more than we know how to give.
A business that feels uncertain.
A relationship in transition.
Grief.
Exhaustion.

The kind of life chaos that does not need a reframe as much as it needs compassion, support, and space to be real.

So this is not about pretending chaos is exciting.

And it is not about telling ourselves to “just enjoy the ride” when the ride feels scary, overwhelming, or deeply tender.

Recently, at an EO Catalyst training in Nashville, someone shared a frame I haven’t stopped thinking about:

Life brings chaos.
We create order.
From that order, we grow.
And then growth creates a new level of chaos.

Chaos. Order. Growth. New chaos. New order.

It sounds simple, but it feels so much like the experience of being human.

Entrepreneurs know this.
Parents know this.
Leaders know this.

And I’ve been thinking about what happens when we try to force order before a season is ready for order.

Where we create more tension than the moment already holds.

Where our need for certainty starts costing us the energy we need for the next step.

And where surrender may not mean giving up at all.

I wrote more about this on my Substack. Link in my bio 🔗✨

10/06/2026

Awareness is not the problem.

The pile-on is.

It is wild how quickly awareness can turn into a full-on pile-on.

“I should have used that time better.”
“I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
“I should have handled that differently.”
“I should be further along by now.”

And listen, maybe there is something useful in there.

Maybe there is something to see.

Maybe there is a cleaner choice for next time.

But the awareness is not the problem.

The pile-on is.

This is where mindfulness matters.

Because awareness is meant to give us choice.

Not send us into a spiral.

So when you notice something you would do differently, don’t use it as another reason to beat yourself up.

Use it as information.

What did I learn?
What would I choose now?
What is the next most honest move?

That is the shift.

Not pretending you did not notice.

Not punishing yourself because you did.

But using awareness for what it is actually here to do:

Give you back your choice.

10/02/2026

I am so excited to share that my episode on The Leadership Laboratory Podcast with Championing women to build unstoppable confidence at work! is now live! In this episode, Jamie and I talk about meditation for busy professionals and how just two minutes can change the way you show up under pressure. We also discuss what happens in the brain when we meditate, common misconceptions about meditation, and how mindfulness can help high achievers respond instead of react. I loved this conversation and hope you'll give it a listen!

09/29/2026

Misconception #4: Meditation is what happens on the cushion.

The meditation itself matters. But the real practice begins when you get up.

It shows up when you notice you’ve been hooked by a thought – and can unhook.

When you recognize an old habit is driving – and suddenly have another choice.

When frustration rises and you catch it before it becomes the email you wish you hadn’t sent, the conversation you wish you’d handled differently, or the spiral that takes over the next three hours.

It shows up in meeting our own experience with more compassion instead of fighting, fixing, or judging it.

Because we can sit across from someone we love and barely hear them. Be in a meeting while having a different conversation in our head. Move through a day driven by fears, assumptions, old stories, and reactions we don’t realize are running us.

Physically there. But not present.

We spend so much of our lives assuming the voice in our head is us. That our fears are us. Our habits are us. Our stories are us.

But they’re not who we are.

Meditation helps us see all of that without being completely run by it.

And when we’re less run by it, we get access to more of who we already are:
More choice.
More compassion.
More capacity to see what is actually here and be with the people and life in front of us.

Maybe that is what it means to transform the mind.

Not to eliminate our thoughts.
Not to become endlessly calm.
Not to become a wiser, more evolved version of ourselves.
But to become less bound by the fears, habits, assumptions, and stories shaping our lives without us realizing it.

Perhaps we don’t find a better version of ourselves.

Perhaps we find more of ourselves.

The part that can choose instead of react.
Listen.
Love.
Risk.
Create.
Connect.
Actually be here.

So yes, we practice on the cushion.

But we practice so that when life asks something of us – when someone we love needs us, when the hard conversation comes, when fear gets loud, when something beautiful is happening in front of us – more of us is there to meet it.

Because the practice isn’t about becoming better at meditation.

It’s about becoming more fully available for the life we are living.

09/24/2026

Expansion isn’t only about seeing what’s possible.

It’s also about staying open enough to see what’s possible when pressure rises.

I’m heading out today to lead a retreat with an incredible group of women leaders, centered on expansion – and I keep coming back to this.

Because there's the challenge we’re facing.

And then there's everything our mind starts doing with the challenge. 😅

The conversation we keep replaying.

The comment we’re now making mean seventeen other things.

The problem our brain has apparently decided needs to be solved 4,000 times before anything has even happened. 😂

Sometimes the thing taking up the most mental real estate isn’t only what’s happening.

It’s everything we’re carrying around what’s happening.

And when the pressure is high enough, it can get surprisingly difficult to tell the difference.

And all of that mental load matters, not only for how we lead, but for how we feel while we’re leading.

Next Thursday, I’m leading a Chief Core Connect on Working With Your Mind Under Pressure, and this is exactly where we’re going.

We’ll look at what happens in the brain when pressure & uncertainty narrow our thinking – and work w/ a practical process for noticing the stories & assumptions we may be treating as facts, seeing what we might be missing, and creating enough space to make a more intentional choice about what comes next.

Not so we can convince ourselves everything is fine.

Not so we can “think positively.”

But so we can see more clearly, and respond to what the situation actually requires, rather than only what our pressure is asking us to do.

And we’re going to make it real. Everyone will bring a leadership challenge into the room & have a chance to work with it alongside peers.

So if there’s a decision, conversation, relationship, team issue – or simply that thing currently occupying far more of your brain than you would like 😂 – bring it.

Next Thursday, October 1 | 12 PM ET / 11 AM CT

And if you’re a CHIEF member, you’re invited. ❤️ It’s listed as an Executive Leader (VP) Core Connect, but it’s open to all members, and I would genuinely LOVE to have you there.

RSVP + hit “Add to calendar”

Link in my bio.🔗

09/22/2026

Ever have 15 frustrating minutes try to take the rest of your day down with them? 😆

That was me a few weeks ago.

An 18-wheeler. A missed exit. A few spectacularly questionable driving decisions.

I could feel it happening. My body tightening. My irritation building. My mind beginning to build a VERY compelling case for why everyone on the road had completely lost their minds.

And then, right before I let it come with me into the rest of my day, a thought came through:

I deserve better than this.

Not better drivers.
Not a better commute.

Better than giving away my own peace to something that had already passed.

That thought has stayed with me.

Because how often does one frustrating moment try to recruit and influence the next one... and the next one... and the next?

I wrote about that this week. About what happens when we get hooked, the stories our minds start telling from there, and what we can actually DO to keep one moment from taking the next one with it.

Including the practice I keep coming back to:
Name the state before you obey it.

✨ Read the full piece on my Substack. Link in my bio 🔗

09/17/2026

Pressure doesn’t just affect how we feel.

It can change how we think.

Under enough of it, our perspective can narrow. We can get more attached to the first story our brain gives us, make assumptions faster, and reach for what’s familiar.

And sometimes, we start solving for what will make the pressure go away right now instead of what the situation actually needs, or what we’re ultimately trying to create.

This is one of the reasons I think about wellbeing a little differently.

Wellbeing isn’t only what we do after the pressure. It’s also how we learn to work with our minds while we’re in it.

Can I notice when my thinking has narrowed?

Can I separate what is actually happening from what I’m making it mean?

Can I create enough space to ask:

What am I missing?

What else could be true?

What actually deserves my attention here?

And then choose how I want to respond.

Not because the pressure magically disappears. 😂

But because even a little more internal space can give us access to more perspective, more creativity, more choice, and a greater ability to respond to what the situation actually calls for.

On October 1, I’m leading a Chief Executive Leader Core Connect on exactly this: Working With Your Mind Under Pressure.

We’ll dig into some of the neuroscience behind what happens when the stakes rise, work with a practical process for creating more clarity and choice in real time, and then apply it to a real leadership challenge alongside peers.

I care a LOT about this one. ❤️

And if you’re a CHIEF member, you’re invited. It may show up as an Executive Leader (VP) Core Connect, but it’s open to all members, and I would absolutely LOVE to have you there.

Thursday, October 1 | 12 PM ET / 11 AM CT

RSVP + add it to your calendar here:

https://members.chief.com/events/292fec4c-342e-484c-917f-b1a67d9e7c56/details

09/15/2026