Leadership Magic

What if the most powerful leadership work you'll ever do is the work nobody sees? In this episode, I'm using Elsa from Frozen as our guide - and not for the reasons you might think. It's not the ice palace or the magic - but it's when Elsa goes to the top of the mountain . That quiet, private, uncomfortable space where she finally stops concealing and starts becoming. So many of us are doing insid...

I just saw the the recent release of the PIxar movie, Toy Story 5 - and I couldn't stop making leadership connections (as I tend to do). In this episode, I walk through all five Toy Story films and trace the arc of Woody's leadership evolution from ego-driven insecurity in 1995 to quietly showing up without needing the spotlight in 2026. Along the way, I share where I was in my own life and career...

I was not expecting a leadership masterclass at my daughter's high school graduation...but that's exactly what I got! Three student speakers took the stage and delivered some of the most honest, human leadership wisdom I've heard in a long time. In this episode, I'm walking you through three lessons from those speeches and connecting them to what I see every single day in my work with leaders. Les...

Self-trust is one of the most foundational skills in leadership — and one of the most overlooked. In this episode, I'm unpacking what self-trust actually is, how it's different from confidence, and why it's often the hidden root cause beneath the challenges leaders bring into coaching. I share seven ways to build self-trust, from taking action and learning to recognize your own voice, to naming yo...

It's graduation season - and this replay felt like the perfect episode for this moment. I'm bringing back one of my early episodes: my takeaways from Wolfpack by Abby Wambach. With my own daughter graduating high school, the message in this book hit even closer to home. Abby Wambach's Wolfpack started as a commencement speech and became a rallying cry. In it, she lays out eight rules for changing...

Most leaders say they care about their people - but there's often a gap between saying it and actually showing up in a way people can feel it. In this episode, I'm asking the question that I think every leader needs to sit with: Are you giving your employees what they need? I'm talking about the kind of investment that doesn't require a big budget or a new program - the relational, everyday invest...

I've been doing leadership development for a long time - and I've learned there's one thing that actually changes everything. It's not the skill. It's not the framework. It starts inside. In this episode, I'm sharing a moment from a coaching session that stopped me in my tracks: a client said something so simple and so profound that it became the entire lens for this conversation. I'm breaking dow...

What if painting your bathroom could teach you everything you need to know about going after hard goals, having tough conversations, and growing as a leader? This week, I'm taking you somewhere unexpected — my guest bathroom — and walking you through a painting project step by step. I realized that everything I was experiencing during my painting project maps directly onto what happens when we fin...

If you've ever been on a team where you were constantly editing what you said before you said it, you know what low psychological safety feels like. And if you've been on the other side of that - where honesty was welcome and mistakes weren't career-ending - you know how different that can be. In this episode, I'm digging into the connection key of my Three Keys to Leadership Magic and what it rea...

This episode started with something I heard on a podcast during my morning commute home from the gym — and I couldn't let it go. Esther Perel asked a live audience: have you ever looked at something broken in the world and thought someone should fix it — and then realized that someone should be you ? That question really made me think. And I think it might do the same for you. In this episode, I t...

Most of us think we're pretty good listeners. But if we're honest? We're often just waiting for our turn to talk. In this episode, I'm diving into one of the most underrated leadership skills out there: listening. Not just hearing words, but truly listening to understand. I break down the difference between listening to respond and listening to understand — and why that distinction matters more th...

Recently, the NASA mission of Artemis II took place. For almost 10 days I followed this crew of four as they traveled further than any human has in over 50 years, orbited the moon, and came home talking about love, unity, and each other. It was riveting. It was beautiful. It was therapeutic. In this episode I'm sharing some of the most powerful quotes from the crew and mission control — from Victo...

Have you ever made a decision and known, even as you were making it, that something wasn't quite right? Not wrong exactly — but off. That feeling is almost always a sign that fear was running the show instead of your values, your vision, or what you actually believe. In this episode I'm talking about the difference between leading from fear and leading from possibility — what each one looks and so...

There's a thought running in the background of your leadership right now. Quiet enough that you might not have noticed it. But it's been shaping your decisions, your voice, and your relationships at work for longer than you'd probably like to admit. In this episode, I'm naming nine of the most common thoughts I hear from leaders — and the ones I've had myself.  Then I'm giving you three moves you...

220 episodes in, and I keep coming back to the same foundational question: why does leadership even matter? It sounds simple. But I promise — by the time you're done with this one, you'll see it differently. In this episode I'm getting real about what leadership actually is, why most people step into it without ever stopping to ask the right questions, and what it costs when we lead on autopilot....

  I finally took The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks off my shelf — and I couldn't wait to bring it to you. In this episode, I'm walking through the core concepts of this powerful book and connecting them directly to what I see in leadership every single day. The big idea? We all have an internal thermostat — an upper limit — for how much success, joy, recognition, and fulfillment we believe we're allow...

Confidence comes up in almost every coaching conversation I have — and I've come to realize that most of us have it a little bit wrong. In this pixie dust pep talk of an episode, I'm reframing what confidence actually is. It's not about having it all figured out, knowing the outcome, or feeling 100% certain. Real confidence — the strong, quiet kind — is self-trust. It's believing in your own abili...

Self-awareness gets a bad rap in leadership. It's either dismissed as too "soft" or treated like something you either have or you don't. But I believe self-awareness is the pixie dust — the foundational ingredient that makes everything else possible. In this episode, I'm diving into one of my favorite topics: the difference between self-awareness and emotional intelligence, and why the order matte...

Most leaders default to leading the way they prefer to be led — and communicating the way they prefer to receive communication. It's natural… but it's also where misunderstandings begin. In this Pixie Dust Pep Talk, I'm talking about the leadership magic of adapting. There's no single "right" way to communicate, connect, or make decisions. Strong leadership calls us to look beyond our own preferen...

Joy can feel like a risky word at work. It can sound frivolous or unrealistic — something we'll get to once the pressure eases and everything feels calm. But leadership doesn't happen in calm, imaginary future moments. It happens in the middle of deadlines, uncertainty, complexity, and emotion. In this Pixie Dust Pep Talk, I'm reframing joy as fuel — not forced positivity or denial, but a deeply h...

Change is constant in leadership. We talk about strategy, timelines, and communication plans all the time—but what often gets overlooked is the human side of change. In this Pixie Dust Pep Talk, I'm diving into what really matters most: the emotions beneath the surface. Change brings loss, uncertainty, identity shifts, and sometimes even grief—all at once. And as leaders, we feel it too. When we a...

This episode is a short Pixie Dust Pep Talk created to meet you exactly where you are — no pressure, no fixing, no striving. Just a reminder. Leadership doesn't happen in ideal conditions. It happens in real life — in uncertainty, change, heavy emotions, and moments when the world feels like a lot. Somewhere along the way, leadership became associated with having it all together. But leadership wa...

Leadership isn't a title — it's human. And because leadership is human, connection is everything. In this episode, I'm diving into the third key of my Leadership Magic framework: connection . We talk about why connection isn't a "soft skill," but a human skill — the delivery system for trust, communication, and meaningful leadership. I explore what connection really means (and what it doesn't), wh...

Confidence is one of the most misunderstood parts of leadership - but in this episode, I'm reframing it. In this episode, we talk about confidence not as certainty, performance, or personality, but as  self-trust . This is the second key in the three keys to leadership magic: character, confidence, and connection . And confidence is the bridge between who you are on the inside and how others exper...

Leadership magic doesn't start with skills or strategies — it starts with character . In this episode, I begin a deeper exploration of the three keys to leadership magic by focusing on where leadership truly begins: self-awareness . Character isn't about being good or bad. It's about understanding who you are, what drives you, and how you show up — especially under pressure. When leaders build awa...