For my entire adult life, I have been a Type A personality. I am driven, ambitious, and goal-oriented. If you are like me, you know the pros around this way of being is that you tend to achieve.

But the downside of wiring yourself to lead and live like this is there is little peace in your mind. You are always thinking, strategizing, and planning. Eventually, this can lead to a feeling of never being in the moment because your brain is always swirling around. And before you know it, this becomes the way our lives are conducted as days roll into years and even though we are achieving, we are really not fully living.

How does Mindfulness do all of this?

As leaders, we are familiar with discussing people issues with our Executive team. We want to retain top talent and keep them engaged. But, what if the trend now is the actual leaders themselves are feeling a lack of engagement and motivation? As an Executive Coach, I am seeing that trend with some top leaders. If you or others in your organization are feeling this way, here are some things I want you to know.

After I suffered a severe concussion 12 years ago when I fainted and smashed my head off the concrete floor, I was told the only form of treatment was to go home and lie in the dark until at least some of the brain pain subsided.

I lay in my darkened bedroom for 11 days. There was no stimulation of any kind allowed - no music, podcasts, cell phones, TV, even conversations with my husband. And, my baby girls had to be sent to my parents’ house. I didn’t see the sky, or anything outside of my room, other than the ensuite bathroom for 11 full days.

One of the first things I remember when coming out of the darkened room is the details of everything. The bright blue sky. The vibrant green of the trees. The way the wind felt as it caressed my skin in the sunlight

I would not consider myself the most patient of people. I know that a lot of my Type A, hard-driving Executive Coaching clients find themselves in the same boat. Over the years, I have moved the dial in my level of patience but I still have room to grow.

On a recent retreat, I found myself standing outside this Labyrinth. I have walked Labryths before. Normally, I focus on walking mindfully. I am aware of the feel of my body, my feet crackling on the dried fallen cedar branches crushing against small pebbles embedded within the soil. But, this time I found my intention to be different. As I started the walk, I tried to shut off thoughts from my brain and just trust my body to find its way through this winding path.

As an Executive Coach, I work with a lot of leaders to prepare them for entering into and then succeeding within C-level roles. What is important for people interested in entering into the top tier of leadership to develop and know to set themselves up for success? Here is a summary of my top tips…

Feminine energy is when you relax into who you are more deep in your core and take the time to really connect with people. It is not about hard drive or competition. It is looking at opportunities and challenges with an open heart and asking yourself what is possible and using your gut instinct to take steps towards that, being patient with yourself and others along the way. It is caring. Kind. But, also honest.

If a project isn’t going as planned, someone leaning into their feminine energy wouldn’t ignore the issue. They would pause and ask themselves, as much with their intuition as their head, what is going on here? They would then communicate openly with the team from a place of vulnerability (and of not having all the answers) to work together to rally the troops and take steps to get to the goal. The process is just as important to the goal from a feminine perspective. People in this realm feel they are doing the right thing every step of the way and if not, they listen to themselves and others until it is resolved openly.

Full disclosure: I am a goalie Momma. My 12-year-old daughter plays on a provincial-level team, and I have recently learned the intense pressure a goalie deals with. This daughter is also an avid NHL hockey fan, with the Leafs being her number one team. She has succeeded in doing what no man before her in our family has ever done…got me to be a regular viewer of Leafs games! She comes from a long line of hockey-obsessed relatives from Great-Grandfathers, Grandfathers, her Dad when he was alive, Uncles, Cousins, and even my Mom!

And because of her interest in hockey and particularly in goalies, I have had the opportunity to watch the drama with Toronto Maple Leafs Goalie Ilya Samsonov go down.

Have you been feeling you’re not getting the traction you want in your work or life? Does it feel like the harder you try, the more things aren’t working out? Or, maybe you’re just feeling a lack of motivation.

Even for a high-achiever, these feelings can be very normal and they can be a natural part of ‘wintering.’

I have worked with a lot of people over my years as an Executive Coach and seen them make amazing transformations. How are most of them doing it? Baby steps!

I know there can be the appeal of waiting for that one life-changing moment to turn things around and propel you to where you want to be. But, the reality is that it often doesn’t happen like that.

Sustainable change happens when we take small steps every single day, which alters our habits and rewires our brains so that over time, a real shift can take place.

No doubt you have worked hard to climb your way up the corporate ladder. Probably at times throughout your career, you wished there would be two of you to accomplish what you needed to do.

And then, you made it to the leadership ranks, and voila…an Executive Assistant appears! This is a dream come true. An extension of yourself. Someone to help you free up more time to be strategic and coach your people. But in the work I do as an Executive Coach, I can tell you that this Executive Assistant Fairy Tale sometimes ends up being just that, and the time of the leader and the EA is not utilized as well as it could be. As such, I’d like to share some tips for working with your executive Assistant for the best results!

We all have so many things to do and so much responsibility. I reached a point earlier on in my life when I knew that something needed to shift for me. Doing it all was no longer an option. This led me to create a two-question filter system I use now whenever I am presented with a new work project or a social event. I have found this filter system works so well that I now share it with my clients and they are finding it beneficial too. The good part? It is so easy. It feels like common sense, yet pausing to ask yourself these two questions can completely change the way you work.

If you are running around the clock, it is time to look at your calendar. It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO or a student. If you are feeling flung through the day, you are not setting yourself up for success. It is no longer a badge of honour for leaders to talk about how busy they are. Busyness doesn’t equate to strong leadership. If you have got so many things to squeeze into your day and you are not sure how to do it, here are some tips for you!

am noticing a trend in the Executive Coaching work I do where leaders who are normally intensely focused on the next thing and always striving for more, have hit a lull.

There is nothing wrong with them. Their performance isn’t suffering, yet they aren’t feeling particularly inspired to go guns ablazing onto the next project or career move. And, this lack of goal-setting and intense desire to strive is feeling very weird for them. It is hard to put a finger on what’s ‘wrong,’ except they report just feeling “okay.” What has caused this feeling amongst many leaders?

This week, I gave a keynote speech for a corporation. I had a busy morning juggling a few things so got to the point where I realized I didn't have time to BOTH review my notes for this speech AND take a few minutes for me to ground myself, close my eyes and breathe deeply and visualize my connection with the audience. I had to choose one area to put my focus on for my prep for this speech.

I have learned some great lessons throughout my career about presentations. I was the former speechwriter for the CEO of General Motors, then became a VP of Communications and Business Development responsible for making regular presentations to clients and Boards. I have been a spokesperson for a variety of global and national brands. And, I have been interviewed for more than 5000 media interviews since the time I was 23 years old. Now I am a keynote speaker.

What Tips Can I Share With You to Make Your Talks More Impactful?

As an Executive Coach for almost 15 years now, I have seen a lot of trends in people development. But, I’ve never seen anything quite like the impact that already busy professionals have faced when they entered into a global pandemic. Leaders needed to push into a new layer of resilience around working at a high level from home while having other responsibilities laid upon them like homeschooling their children. It really has been a unique time.

So, how do you start to feel more like yourself again?

This is the conundrum faced by many a Type A workaholic perfectionist who works so hard and likely drives a hardworking, successful team. How do I really make space to celebrate? I mean really celebrate your successes, not just the token holiday party or dinner out for the team to mark the completion of a big projection while you are consumed already by the next thing. This celebration shift is just as much about a state of mind as it is about what you actually do for yourself and/or your team to celebrate.

I have always been a believer that we can have it all in our lives. And for a while, it may seem that I did. A great husband, beautiful and healthy children, a fabulous job and I was feeling healthy and vibrant myself. Although ironically if you would have gone back in time and asked me if felt 100 percent fulfilled, I would have likely said no. I was continually striving for more, feeling anxiety inside as well as suffering from insomnia. I was driving myself way too hard and nothing was really ever good enough.

Then I learned life has a way of rearranging our best-laid plans. After I suffered a brain injury and then lost my husband to esophageal cancer, I really began to question what was possible after all. Can we really have it all?

Is there something you really want in your life or career right now? You feel in your gut that it is going to come to fruition although you have no idea how. And, it might feel like it could be way out of your league? I learned from my Dad on a cool autumn Thanksgiving evening that this is when we need to tap into our inner knowing and trust. To hold onto hope and belief even in the darkness.

Last week, I attended my first silent retreat at Loretto Maryholme along the beautiful shores of Lake Simcoe, Ontario. I am a big fan of meditation and building periods of silence and stillness into my life. I think we are faced with so many demands each day that sometimes we need to just say stop and get off the hamster wheel for a while to re-connect/or connect with ourselves at a deeper level.

What is important about connecting to yourself at a deeper level?