Brilliant Balance

Being able to articulate what you want so you can get it is a powerful skill. It's also a foolproof way to take one step closer to achieving your dreams. But after taking calls with some listeners of this podcast, I discovered most of them weren't getting what they wanted simply because they were afraid to speak up about what they wanted. Here's the thing… If you want to claim what you want in lif...

Taking time for yourself is a powerful practice that allows you to reflect and reset from the stress of everyday work, life and family. But most women don't do it. Why? They think they're busy with everything going on in their lives, so they can't afford the time to decompress.  And that's normal. But there will never be a perfect time to do it, so in order to have these experiences you have to ac...

We all have those seasons - the ones that we experience as a surge. Fast. Full. Little time to rest.  They take up most of our time and energy. And we need more concentration and agility just to stay afloat and not go under. This can be hard, but it can also be JOYFUL and EXCITING. The goal is to get through these busy seasons with your mental, emotional, and physical health intact and your relati...

The mass shooting at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee brought the school shooting count to 89 for the year in the U.S alone. Guns are now the leading cause of deaths in children and teens. As a parent who speaks to an audience of parents, this is horrifying. We simply must find ways to curtail these acts of gun violence before they happen. Why? So we're not just left cleaning up the afterma...

We're wired to hustle. We've been trained to hustle since childhood and most of us don't know any other way. From babysitting, to working through college, to working through grad school. We don't know any other way to navigate life than by grinding it out. But there are certain seasons in which we should slow down, because rushing at the same pace during that time would be detrimental to our physi...

Conflict is something we often try to avoid.  But that's not something to be proud of. Want to know why? If you'd rather be a people pleaser and ignore the things that bug you rather than face them head on - it can fester resentment and erode your relationships. Or… You can face the situation head on and have a courageous conversation. You can soften the conflict and move the relationship forward....

Finish lines have a powerful allure to them. They inspire us to begin important journeys and give us strong motivation to go after our goals. However, sometimes we misinterpret which parts of our lives need finish lines, so we approach everything the same way and wind up overloaded. If this sounds like you, there's a way you can find a cadence you can sustain as you pursue  your goals all while re...

You might be a perfectionist if… You're restless and discontent with anything that is incomplete, operating at over-capacity and running yourself ragged to get things just the way you like them. Or you might start LOTS of projects and never finish them. Or you might work REALLY hard to get people to like you. It turns out there's not just one kind of perfectionist, but nearly all the faces of perf...

There's a voice in our head…and it isn't very nice. Labeling us, attacking our insecurities, and constantly making us feel like we're just not good enough.. If we let it, this negative inner dialogue can really take us under, keeping us stuck and even making us question who we truly are. But we can change that negative dialogue to a positive one. We can start our day motivated and move through it...

We are working all the time. And not always in the classical sense: going to an office, burning late hours etc. Instead, we use most of our waking hours to do things that feel like work. Whether it's calls taken from the car, scheduling people to do other work, taking care of our parents, or organizing new projects. There is always something to be done. And we never feel like we are ever completel...

Merging professional ambition with managing your home life isn't easy, but I think it's worth it. While you may constantly have to task-switch between meeting professional goals and meeting the needs of your family, the satisfaction that comes from having a foot in each world runs deep. The question is - what do we do with the guilt?! Wondering how our professional ambition will affect our kids ke...

I've spent a LOT of time talking to women in midlife, women who have to constantly re-balance the competing demands of their professional lives and family responsibilities to make room for some FUN. And a sad little secret of this life stage is that a lot of us don't actually like our lives very much. We've done all the things that are supposed to deliver us to the 'promised land'. We have the car...

Have you ever felt like you're underwater? You have your head down, you're swimming hard and just trying to get through whatever life throws at you. We've all been there at some point in our lives. It happens when you're struggling to keep your business afloat, or dealing with career upheaval, or taking extra care of a family member. It's not easy. In these dark and difficult times, we need light...

Midlife is a life chapter I see a lot of women struggle with. It's a time you suddenly start questioning everything you've devoted yourself to for the last couple of decades. All your carefully laid plans don't seem to make sense anymore.  You tend to ask: Is this all there is to it? Am I doing enough? Am I enough? Women that experience the midlife blahs go through a range of tough emotions: a sen...

Do most women know how to set boundaries?? Not at all. We rarely protect time for ourselves. We always delay the mini adventures in our life because our kid gets sick, or there's a surprise meeting, or that one extra-needy friend calls. And what happens when we stand up for ourselves? We feel guilt, shame, anger, and resentment when we impose boundaries. But in order to take our careers to the nex...

How can we be lonely when we always seem to be so busy and surrounded by other people? We're constantly at work, on zoom calls, in our homes with children running around, running errands, watching sporting events, and generally living our lives out in the world…and yet, we're isolated. How on earth does that happen? It's because feeling lonely doesn't necessarily mean being alone. Loneliness is a...

So many of us want to be more productive.  Because most of us live in a chronic state of affairs in which we have too much to do and not enough time to do it. Staring down our never-ending list makes us feel like we'll never catch a break…we're just destined to run on this treadmill forever.  Worse, we think when we finally get this never ending list done, only then will we have time for ourselves...

Whether it's for a sense of security, having the funds to fulfill our life goals, or to feel the thrill of freedom, we all want to save money.  But most of us get stuck when it comes to actually doing it. Habits like impulse buying or upgrade-itis stop us from saving regularly so we can move closer to our goals. In this episode, I'll show you a simple hack you can use to save almost effortlessly....

This is part one of a four part series on "Getting what you want." And #1 on the list is to live healthier and feel better…which makes sense because a healthy lifestyle helps us feel vibrant and energized so we can contribute in meaningful ways to ourselves, our families and our careers. We know we can maintain this lifestyle by sleeping more, eating healthier, exercising more, and quitting bad ha...

As we progress in our careers from office newbies to seasoned leaders, we face the challenge of updating our look to keep up with the image we want to project to the world.  It can all be confusing: trying to understand your style and what it means for your personal brand, and at the same time wearing what makes you feel confident and look good. So, the million dollar question is: How do you dress...

January can be seductive with so many "new year new you" marketing messages. We can easily get swept up in the excitement and then crash and burn by taking on way too much at once. It's not a great way to begin a new year. Instead, we could give ourselves the chance to restore order in our lives and ease into the year one day at  a time Let's take a minute to get our body, mind and space  in order...

Happy New Year to you! As I reflect on my years as an entrepreneur, I see that a lot of things have changed in the past 13 years. I've changed. My family has changed. My needs have changed. My dreams have even changed. I know that ALL of our lives are dynamic. We all change, learn new things, and face new challenges with every passing day. We're dynamic. That's why, going into the new year, I don'...

As we get ready to turn the page and begin the new year, it's a great time to slow down and reflect on the past one. When we press pause on the typical rhythms of our lives and take a little time to review everything that has happened and what we've learned, we can use those insights to move forward. So let's set you up to host your own self-guided retreat. What's a self-guided retreat? Glad you a...

What makes us buy things we don't need or give our time away by saying yes to all the things - social events, meetings, volunteer shifts, and projects? What is that voice that constantly questions us: 'is it enough?' There isn't exactly an objective definition of enough, so the real question is can we let it be enough? What will it take for us to respect our capacity, our financial and time constr...

Life isn't always as easy as we'd like it to be.  We will face difficult chapters in our lives where things feel like they're crumbling, breaking down, or falling apart. Peculiar seasons where everything seems to just go wrong and the solutions feel out of reach. It's not impossible to gather the courage to march through these challenging seasons and even take a lesson or two from them. Following...