And this is Week 2.
It’s funny—in a not-so-funny kind of way—how you can check something off your bucket list and watch it unravel in a matter of months.
That’s what relocating my life and business to New York City did.
As a newly minted empty nester, the opportunity presented itself for my family to relocate. We had just made updates to make the house more office friendly due to the pandemic but we packed up, sold it and moved to the big city. It was a dream.
Until it wasn’t.
If I’m honest, the move wasn’t just a long anticipated family relocation. It was supposed to be a reset. A return to the heart of the work and my relationship.
I had built a business I was proud of: a team of six coaches, a strong administrative team, real momentum. But my role had quietly shifted into management, invoicing, and business development, and that wasn’t why I got into this work.
At the same time, I was noticing a pattern with the women I was serving. These were strong, capable, visionary leaders, but they were also overextended, burned out, underfunded, and constantly being questioned by their boards, funders and partners.
They had big ideas and nowhere near enough support to bring them to life. They were being asked to do more, be more, hold more—without the resources, infrastructure, or backing they actually needed.
And it was taking a toll.
Their progress was slower than it should have been. Their leadership was constantly under scrutiny. They weren’t able to do the work they knew needed to be done because there were real, systemic barriers in place.
And if I’m honest, that was me too.
I was increasingly unhappy. It was affecting my work, and I was carrying more than I acknowledged. And here’s the part I didn’t see clearly at the time:
Work also became a place to hide.
Because when you’re that busy—serving, leading, solving problems—you don’t always notice what’s happening in your body, your home, or your relationships.
You don’t have to.
Empty nest left me in a new city with an old relationship that had run its course and no kids at home to distract from this truth. So we did what most leaders do, we buried ourselves in work.
My plan was to shift the business model.
Up until that point, my work had been primarily focused on organizational shifts: about 80% organizations and 20% leaders making life shifts. But I had been feeling a pull. I wanted to serve those women more directly—the ones I was already seeing up close. The ones who were carrying so much and quietly unraveling while still leading. So I made a decision:
To flip the model. My goal was to shift to 80% of my work supporting the life shifts of leaders and 20% supporting their organizational shifts.
I reinvested heavily into the new business model. We paused taking on new clients, and planned a major roll out event for June 2022. I was thrilled about the new direction and proud to making such a milestone move for my tenth business anniversary.
And then shift happened. It had been building, but my marriage hit its breaking point in May 2022. I moved out, unsure of where I was going; but certain that New York wouldn’t be it.
Six weeks later I settled in Nashville.
During those six weeks I was still coaching. Still showing up at conferences. Still honoring my commitment to emcee weeklong events. And yes, I still hosted LeadHerShift Live, the big event that was supposed to kickoff my bold new business model.
But my soul was exhausted. My spirit was broken and my mind was not at ease. So needless to say, the event did not produce the results we were hoping for. In fact, as far as revenue goes, it put me in the hole.
I did what so many leaders so. I ignored the cues from my body. I ignored the cues from my books. For months, I just went through the motions as best I could.
Behind the scenes, I was navigating the beginnings of a nearly three-year divorce process that became increasingly difficult and emotionally consuming as time went on. The business was hemorrhaging cash. And eventually, I had to lay off my team and pull everything back to just me.
At the time, I told myself it would only be for a few months. A short reset.
But a few months turned into a year. That year turned into another and eventually, I stopped resisting it, and I leaned into what was actually happening: the healing, the processing, and the work I had been too busy to fully face. Thankfully, word of mouth kept me busy enough to pay the bills. I was still working.
But I wasn’t rebuilding yet. And if I’m honest, there were moments where I questioned:
Could I even come back from this? But here I am. Partially because I never fully left (because how could I) and partially because the other things I tried never fully worked.
Not in the “I wasn’t capable of doing anything else” kind of way—but in the “you’re not where you’re supposed to be, so everything else will either reject you or make you extremely uncomfortable until you find your way back” kind of way.
And that’s often how life happens. When your purpose is clear, it waits for you until you’re ready to fully step into it.
And what I know now is this: They were never separate.
Not life.
Not leadership.
Not the work.
I wasn’t built to choose between them. And you weren’t either.
You should not have to abandon yourself in order to lead well.
You should not have to check your humanity at the door in exchange for professional success. And you should not have to carry everything alone until your body, your relationships, or your work finally force you to stop.
That’s not sustainable leadership.
Real leadership is knowing when something is no longer working.
It’s having the courage to acknowledge what’s misaligned before it becomes destructive.
It’s knowing when to pause, when to pivot, when to ask for help, and when to let other people step up.
Because leadership isn’t about holding everything together at all costs.
It’s about building the clarity, confidence, capacity, and community required to navigate change without losing yourself in the process.
And honestly?
I think we’d all be healthier leaders—and healthier organizations—if we stopped pretending those things were separate.
LEADERSHIP LESSONS
Leadership Lessons (from when the shift ain’t shiftin’)
- You cannot separate life from leadership—eventually, one will expose the other.
- A good strategy cannot compensate for a depleted leader.
- Sometimes what looks like a failed launch is actually a misaligned foundation.
- Pausing growth is not failure—it’s preservation.
- You can’t out-strategize what you haven’t processed.
- And when the shift finally does happen… it’s because you’ve done the internal work to sustain it.
If you’re in a season where things aren’t working the way you thought they would—personally, professionally, or both—you’re not alone.
More importantly, you’re not stuck.
Sometimes the shift doesn’t happen the way we planned for it to. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
And if you’re in your own version of a shift that isn’t quite shiftin’… we should talk.
More to come.
