When Leadership Isn’t Enough Anymore—And You Know It’s Time to Evolve

Well, hello. Welcome. Welcome. So, as is my goal, I am initiating a new conversation with my listeners and my clients. And I want to talk to you about why, and I also want to talk to you about what it is. So. So, you know, one of the best things about being an entrepreneur is that we have this fertile playground. And I have been blessed with being a visionary who was willing to take the risk to take, you know, the. The very big risk of leaving a corporate job and starting her own thing. And I'm also what a lot of people would call it's on the Colby. I think it's an index that I'm a quick start. So not only do I envision things that don't exist yet, I tend to move pretty quickly. Now, there's a poison with that superpower, and that is that sometimes I can move too fast. And so in this case, I have not moved fast. I have been quite deliberate in the process that I'm following to really secure this initiative in a way that feels good to me. But what I do want to emphasize is that through this work that I'm now sort of pivoting into, I think it's very important to recognize that there are a lot of people who will listen to this who are also entrepreneurs, who are afraid to pivot. And I want, through my work, to model for you the very real potential, the very real possibility that you, too, have to pivot, to not be stuck in the business you created simply because it's too big for you to let it fail or to let it go.

So I'm going to call this, from my perspective, a rebrand and a redesign. But it's not going to be a. It's not like I'm going from, you know, teaching people how to lead and manage teams to buying real estate. I am still in the same lane, and I'm really still coaching the same woman. But it's the conversation I want to change. I've been teaching people, coaching women, coaching leaders, men and women, how to be better at leading people since I was about 26, 27 years old. I didn't come into it naturally. I. Well, let me say that differently. I didn't come into it intentionally. I came into it on accident. I tripped over myself and my own failures and found myself trying to find my own remedies for. For two things. One, how do you galvanize the hearts and minds and hands of other people to achieve results? And how do you do that without falling apart yourself, without feeling the weight of your people pleasing and your inability to face conflict and your constant need to make everybody feel good in every decision that you make. How do you. How do you manage and lead when you know you will be constantly disappointing someone? How do you manage and lead when the things that other people do trigger disappointment in you, fear in you, sadness in you? And so I. I was hungry to find how to be better in the role that I was in after I realized I wasn't going to quit. You know, the first six, seven months I was a manager, I. All I could do was fantasize about going back to my role of not being a manager because there was. It was hard enough just to manage my own emotions. But then when you become the leader of people, you, you now, especially if you're an empath like I am now, this absorption of everybody else's stuff, right, Like, I had to seek it out. I was voracious in my pursuit of figuring it out. I read, I studied. At the time, it was CD ROMs, right? CD ROM.

And so through the course of all of that work, you know, I established a few things. I was very good at managing people. I. I was a top performer for the entire time that I worked inside the company that I worked in. My team members became top performers in the for themselves. Many of them became leaders on their own. And through my discovery of life coaching and learning about the work of Brooke Castillo and Martha Beck and Brene Brown and another guy named Dennis Deaton who changed my life, I realized that there were tools that also helped us satisfy and calm our nervous system. How to feel better. Being a manager was as important to me as being a better manager. Probably more so again because I was so plagued by the emotional tension that I felt all the time and the work I was doing. And so that trajectory took me through the corporate role that I had. Through building a performance coaching team in that business, designing it, writing the RFP for it, building the whole thing out and landing outside of that business, creating my own business. And in that business, when I first started, my focus was how do I teach people how to be better leaders? And I have done that since 2012 on my own. So all of the work that I created over this time has been really culminated in the Leadership is Feminine podcast and the Lead for Women self study program. I also have written books and blueprints and workbooks and good heavens, I have more content in this topic than anyone. And what I have come to realize is I am one of very few women and really a pioneering woman who has created these tools and practices and Approaches for women who lead. There's a lot of content, copious amounts of content. It's a $200 billion business leadership development. So there's plenty of books, there's plenty of workbooks, there's plenty of courses people can take. I could point to them that will help leaders be better at leading. But 90 plus percent of them were created by men with men in mind, even today. And so I know that the legacy of my signature work will last forever. And if you're listening to this and you have yet to invest in the work that I've built for women like you, I think you should do it. I think you should go get the lead program. It's not expensive. And it will be your library. It will be your go to. I just. I just did a coaching call with a woman I worked with two years ago and she pointed to her credenza behind her. Of all the things that she has that I created that she still uses. It will become your brain chest to help you not just lead people better, but to feel better as a leader. I think it's a critical distinction.

Last year, I did a podcast series focused on the Gen X founder. It was the first time I really stumbled into this kind of space. So I've had this evolution, right? It was four years ago I created the Sage CEO, which was designed and still is to be a container for women who want to elevate the conversations they're having about being leaders in their business and also the leader of their life. And then the Gen X founder kind of found its way to me and I realized, wow, there's a lot of us who fit into this Gen X space. And while it's not to be exclusive because I do coach women who are not Gen Xers, it sort of gave me this hypothesis that the majority of thriving female entrepreneurs right now who are leading multimillion dollar businesses are between the ages of 45 and 60. We are gen X. And Generation X has always been sort of this weird little generation. We aren't very big. We were the young women coming up on the heels of mothers who had much and way less, fewer rights than we do did. My mother couldn't get a credit card without a man. My mother couldn't get a business loan without a man. My mother couldn't file for a divorce.

One generation ago. But I can. I can get a credit card, I can get a loan, I can buy a house, I can divorce. I can do anything I want now. I have all of that access. Although we're standing on A little bit of a frightening time with attempts to. And very real disappearing and removal of rights that women have had. And I'm, I'm worried about it. So Gen X is this weird little pocket. And yet we have been the first powerful group of women to push through and be successful entrepreneurs in mass. We currently are the largest group of women who are running multimillion dollar businesses, our Generation X. But as is the case with the natural cadence of life, we get into our early 50s and we start to think, huh, right. And so a lot of my clients, like, yeah, my business is good. Like, yeah, there's still problems to solve. Yeah, there's plenty to do. I mean, I can always have work to do in my business, but huh, I don't want to keep doing this. I. I feel like it's Groundhog Day. I feel like sometimes I'm sort of on repeat. I don't want to do this anymore. But because we've spent the better part of 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and this business is defined not just how we make a living, but who we are, what our value is, what our purpose is. We're trapped in this dynamic because who am I if I don't have this business? How do I make money if I don't have this business? Who am I? What's my role? What's my purpose? Because we're also for those of us who have children in that part of our lives where our children are leaving or have left. And so I've likened this whole time to be sort of like empty nesting, right? The. The Empty Nesting CEO, the Empty Nesting founder. She's a Gen X. She is imbued with a, with a knowing that she can do whatever the frick she wants. And yet if it's not this business, then who is she? What does she do? And it is in our inability to answer that question that we stay stuck. Maybe we don't sell the business. Maybe we sabotage the success of the business so we have something to work on. Maybe we buy another business to add into the mess so that we have a lot of work to do. Maybe we cause problems in the business. We swoop where we shouldn't. We re engage when we shouldn't. I was just coaching a woman a couple weeks ago who says she took. She went kind of back into like that frontline role just so she could do the thing that she says she loves to do. And she realized, oh, I don't want to do this anymore.

Right? Because what we have to keep in mind is that the woman that you were. She had dreams, she had wants, she had ideas, and she created you. But the woman that you are is not her anymore. So we can't go back to her and ask her, what should we do? We have to use our entrepreneurial spirit to go beyond the CEO. We have to look beyond where you are. We have to look to the future, and we have to begin to use the power of our mind and our vision, the magic that we can create, because we already have. We have to go to her and explore that landscape. We don't have to find an answer right away. We don't even have to be in a hurry, love. But what I want to honor is that it's real. You know, when my kids, I still get teary still. And I'm a year, half a year and a half in. So I have three kids. One is going to be 25, and the other two are 20. They're twins. When the twins left to go to college a year and a half ago, I thought it would be, like, not a big deal, right? And how many of us, we have younger families, We. We sort of like, oh, God, right. Once I don't have to drive them there, feed them there, you know, pay for things, whatever it is. Right? Ah. And then it comes, and it's met with deafening silence. The house. I work from home. My husband goes to work every day. He has a business. He has an office that he goes to. I do not. I am existing in an empty home with dogs every day. And it wasn't until our chocolate lab died just about a year ago that even he was old and he hardly interacted anymore. But when he died, the silence of this house crushed me. And I know that whether you've had kids or not, the same is true for that transition that comes to all of us in our business. And I have coached women into their 70s who remained in this matriarch role of their company to maintain and keep relevance. And they were miserable. And frankly, so were the people they worked, who worked for her. Them, I should say. It's been a couple of them.

She, the one I'm thinking of specifically missed her moment to walk away, and she clung. It's like parents who cling to their kids. They don't let the kid develop. Well. There are founders who don't like the business develop for their own need for relevance. As. As women who sit in this pocket of life, we are too young to stop contributing. We aren't our grandparents. I don't know about you. My grandparents, I think they were My age. God, they looked old compared in my memory. And they would watch Price is Right with their TV Trace. And that was. And then maybe play golf or putter in the workshop. Like that's not who we are. I'm gonna be playing pickleball till they cart me off the court. I want to travel. I want to create things I'm still going to create. I will be 56 this year. I have no interest in no longer contributing to the needs I see the service I can be. I 100% have zero interest in ending that. And yet, even as the coach of these women that I'm talking about, I too have walked and been walking this path. If I'm not a leadership coach, if I'm not teaching you how to hold Rhonda accountable in accounting, who am I? And what's interesting is that the feedback has been there all along. The truth of who I really am and what I'm here to do has been here all along. It's in whispers. And this is why, you know, selfishly, I'm so glad I created a business that invites women into beautiful experiences. Like Hawaii, like the one that's coming up at 21 Royal, at Disneyland, in the Blue Sky Suite, like Sonoma, in a gorgeous room they call the living room, surrounded with three three sided window walls, staring at the vineyards. I'm so grateful that I know how to take time out and reflect because I have years of journals. All of them point to my North Star. The gap has been my fear, my risk, my worry that I will disappoint you, that I won't show up and do the thing that you want me to do. And therefore you will leave me. And some of you will. And I understand that. But I wasn't ready for that until now. Because I know that my next step is to partner with women who want to go beyond the CEO, who want to meet and live into her sage era as a pocket, as a population, this Gen X Y group of women who are standing inside highly successful businesses they created but are unsure of the future they are curating, I know how to help you. You are a magician. You are filled with wisdom and brilliance and ideas and solutions that we all need. And whatever it is that you step into once you get into your sage era, beyond the CEO, we need it. We need you to be that authentic version of you that, that version that says I built this and now I have the freedom to, to do this. And I have coached women through this process and I am coaching myself through this process and this process. Is not a snap of the fingers. This process is replete with questions and reflection and testing and sitting and crying and releasing and saying goodbye. The last thing I would want to see is a woman who's built a successful business and she has to keep using the pride of the business to secure her self worth. You are worthy of more. You are worthy just because you exist. You are worthy because you're a human.

Your worth is not attached to the business. Your name, your title, your worthiness is yours. And if we take away the fear that comes with the perception of risk by letting go, I do believe more of us would fly. And we need you to fly. One of the women that I have coached off and on for years was very much in this space. When she did stage with me the very first year, she. She just was like, what is this it? Like, I'm in my mid-50s and I'm rich and I just am gonna like design the houses I own. That's who I am. She was lost. And it was, it was a. It was a poke here and a scratch there. And we talked and we would dig into it, we would talk and we would dig into it. And then she'd had these little notions and she chased some other ideas. And with her husband, she still has the business that brought her all her success. The business is fine and she knows how to run the business. And she hardly really has to do a lot to run the business because she's built such a great infrastructure. But you know, she said one day in one of our sage meetings, she said, I really want to have a hotel that is for women, run by women. I want women to be able to come and feel completely safe. So everybody in the business that works there is going to be a woman. The hotel manager is going to be a woman. The, the cleaning crew, women, the restaurant crew, women, the janitorial or landscape services are going to all be women so women can come there and be alone and feel safe. That was an idea that she shared in Boston two and a half years ago. And wouldn't you know, that little idea, that little dream that matches her line that is so aligned not just to the vision that she had, but to her values of being an advocate for women for. Of being an advocate for fairness, equality. Here she is building this and she's building it in a country where women are notoriously not equal, not safe. Her little dream that she allowed, that we just kept, we just held the space for while. She was not sure what this was. What is this phase of my life who the f. Am I? I'm not the woman I was. I'm not motivated by the stuff she was motivated by. I'm not inspired by the stuff she was inspired by. I don't freaking know. Within this little whisper, sitting in a room in Boston, it was enough, because she has the gumption, the tenacity, the resources. And as soon as that entrepreneurial spirit kicked in for her and the risk finally was outweighed by the reward, it began. I have another client that just came to Hawaii this past year, and she's come to a couple of my Hawaii retreats. And she sat there with us, and she said, you know, it's really interesting because I was. She was at a retreat with us, with me, a year and a half prior to that. I think it was a year and a half. And she had so much she was working through and working on. And she's in her mid-60s now. I think she was 62 at the time. And she said, it's so weird to sit here now. I made it all happen. Like, it's all good. I don't really have anything to work on. But it was weird for her. It was like this liminal space of we spend a whole life having all this crap we have to work out and figure out and reflect on and. Right. And then. And cure and heal and solve. And now here she is, like, no, I think I. I have arrived. And so she sat with us over the course of our session in Hawaii, and she was very involved and very engaged, and she just kept thinking, wow, this is so interesting. But what's. What I think is so cool is there's little whispers that were giving her possibility, but it was through her acknowledgement of. Almost like her Sadie, of like, I have. I am sated. I am complete. And allowing herself to speak. That created space for who knows? So if you're a woman running a business and you know that business runs well, sure. Are there things you need to work on? Of course. And you know, what's the best news is as a coach and as an advisor, that's all stuff I can help my clients with in my sleep. What I want to also help you figure out and now really lean into is what. What's beyond the CEO. How do you feel when I even ask you that? Does it scare you? Does it excite you? Do you get defensive? Why does there have to be something?

What happens? I want you to answer that. Because those of us who haven't, and I speak for myself, those of us who have, who arrive and we realize, oh, my God, I didn't give this any thought. It's gonna confront you. So just like if you have children, that empty nest thing, it confronts you. That's why so many people let their kids confront back and live with them for a long time. Right? Purpose. Meaning. Oh, I know it's such a hassle to have them here, but, you know, it's so lovely. I mean, I. We all know that we dwarf the potential of our children if we don't release them. And I do believe that you dwarf the potential not just of the business that you have, but of the ideas that you aren't feeding if you don't release yourself when you're ready. And I'll say that as my last thing. Some of you who might hear this will say, I'm nowhere near this. I got a lot of work to do. I get it. But there are some of you. You know exactly what I'm saying. You lay awake at night wondering, what am I gonna do if I don't do this? I'm not staying home with my husband all day.

What am I gonna do? And you are a racehorse. You do need to run. It's okay. But how about we run in a direction we love? But I do believe it requires an investment. It requires a willingness to explore and play, to allow potential and possibility without a lot of rules. But I also know how freaking amazing it is to watch women lock in and feel the pull of her future once she's established and connected to what that possibility is. So beyond the CEO, I will meet you there.

Hey there, gorgeous. Wouldn't it be so cool if we could have a conversation together? I'd love to invite you to join me for beyond the CEO in August in Sonoma. Just go to TheVisionary CEO.

That's TheVisionary CEO, Beyond CEO. Add your name, and I will send you all the details. It's going to be so amazing. I hope you'll join us.