She would have replayed the conversation in her mind before it even happened, carefully choosing words that might help everyone understand why she made the decision she did. She wanted people to see what she saw. To know what she knew. To understand why this mattered so much to her. Not because she needed to be right. Because she wanted to be understood.
She smiled politely when someone said, “I miss the old you.”
For just a moment, she almost answered, “I don’t.” Not because she was angry. Not because she regretted the woman she used to be. But because she had finally realized something that had taken years to understand.
The woman they missed had spent much of her life making sure everyone else was comfortable. The woman standing here now was finally learning to make room for herself.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard a woman say, “I just want to get back to myself.”
Sometimes she says it quietly, almost as if she’s admitting something she hasn’t even allowed herself to think before. Other times she laughs when she says it, trying to soften the weight of the words. But no matter how it’s expressed, the feeling underneath is remarkably similar.
Somewhere along the way, she believes she lost herself.
There is a particular kind of loneliness that doesn’t look like loneliness from the outside.
It looks like competence.
It looks like being prepared, responsive, calm, and available. It looks like being the person others trust when the room gets tense or the plan starts to wobble. It looks like knowing how to keep things moving, how to steady the conversation, and how to listen without making the moment about yourself.
From the outside, it can look like success. But inside, many women who lead know there is something else happening too.
For most of our careers, leadership credibility was built in familiar ways.
It included of experience, judgment, relationships, the ability to read a room and the confidence to make a call when the answer wasn’t obvious. Those things sill matter deeply.
But quietly, another layer is being added to how leadership credibility is perceived.
It’s not found in job descriptions or leadership frameworks or in performance reviews…at least not yet.
If there’s one topic creating unnecessary anxiety among women leaders right now, it’s AI.
Not because women don’t understand technology. Not because they aren’t capable of learning it. But because so much of the conversation has been framed around fear:
Will AI replace me?
Will my role disappear?
Will I be left behind if I don’t move fast enough?
That framing is outdated and frankly… unhelpful.
This is the week when the world traditionally rushes toward “New Year energy.” That means fresh goals, big declarations, more commitments and new expectations layered on top of an already full life.
But this year…something different is happening among women in leadership.
Instead of pushing forward faster, they’re choosing to pause…not out of exhaustion, but out of wisdom. They’re doing something powerful, intentional and deeply strategic
Executive women are some of the most capable, resilient and visionary leaders in the world.
And yet, behind closed doors…or more often, behind composed smiles, many are wrestling with a truth they rarely speak aloud:
Success has been expensive.
Not financially.
Emotionally. Energetically. Spiritually.
“Why does it feel like I’m giving the best of myself everywhere…except to myself?”
These are the silent trade-offs no résumé shows. No performance review discusses. No leadership conference acknowledges.
What if resilience isn’t about returning to who you were, but becoming who you’re meant to be?
For women especially, challenges show up in every corner of life-personally, professionally and in the space in between. Sometimes, it’s a sudden disruption in your career. Other times, it’s a family situation you didn’t see coming. And while it might feel tempting to retreat under the covers with your favorite blanket and call it a day…life has other plans.
You’ve made it through the week. You’re still settling into the new routine, the new tools and the new conversations. For some reason you feel as if you haven’t progressed as far as you thought you would…The conversations you are having with yourself are less than supportive.
How many times in your life have you been told to “just be yourself”? It sounds simple, but when you’re facing challenges or watching others pass you by, it can feel anything but easy.
Lots of people write books with the intent of being a best selling author. There are all kinds of systems that you can put in place to make that happen online and when any of my friends do this, I am more than willing to offer my support. When I wrote my book, I wrote it […]