FWM: In 2014, after suffering a breaking point, you launched YOU SO NEWTM. Share your experience.
On my way to that breaking point, I believed that I was the only one who couldn’t figure out how to juggle an executive career with my personal life. I worked with high caliber talent, assuming everyone had their life together. I was surrounded by other female executives who were married with children, yet they seemed content with working long hours and frequently traveling. I never heard anyone complain.
So it was much to my surprise that the first time I finally shared my story with a colleague, that her response was not one of surprise or shock. She instead said to me, “I’m sorry if I’m staring at you and not saying anything, but it’s as if I’m looking in a mirror. I feel the same way!”
That’s when I knew I needed to share what I’d learned with other women, thus launching YOU SO NEWTM. I took my personal experiences and research and created a process for women to begin living, what I now call, the “and” life – where they can continue to have a successful career and an extraordinary personal life.
Launching YOU SO NEWTM wasn’t some fancy rollout with a red carpet. It simply began with four women sitting in my living room. I invited them in to share all that I’d learned about how they could transform their own lives. And through future events, speaking, and coaching over five more years, I’ve refined and strengthened the process of what you see today. It’s now the foundation for one of my signature keynotes and the process used for training in my membership group, ‘The 5-Star Society.’
FWM: You have excelled at aligning business challenges with smart solutions, how are you helping clients today?
Today I help clients in two ways:
1. Keeping top people from leaving their positions due to the challenges of balancing career and personal life.
2. Making sure good individual contributors don’t turn into bad leaders who cause good employees to leave.
I do this through speaking, consulting, training, and coaching at both the B2B and B2C level.
FWM: What is your mantra? How does it relate to helping others lead?
“Lead and live for the ‘and’”.
The concept of “or” is my enemy. No leader should ever feel they must choose one or the other – people or results. They can and must choose people and results. The most effective leaders know how to balance both.
But leaders each begin as individual contributors, and in that role they’re evaluated on their results. In fact, they’ve been promoted based upon their results. So it shouldn’t be a mystery that, unless trained otherwise, when they become a leader they’re still focused on driving results. There must be a transition from thinking about your results to a focus on the people and the results as a whole. I spend a lot of time on this when working with managers during my leadership training.
FWM: Share a few stories about how you have inspired others across organizations to impact cultural change.
In my last corporate position, I was a Group Director of Business Development, and there were only a handful of us in that position across the country. Unlike our vice presidents, who we directly reported to, we didn’t have a formal collaboration process – no monthly calls, group emails, or breakout sessions at our company’s national sales conferences. I took it upon myself to initiate and facilitate a monthly virtual coffee for our group. There we were able to bring up challenges, share new ideas, and demonstrate our unique contributions to the overall organization. I had a peer once share with me as a result of these monthly meetings, “Colleen shares selflessly with the entire organization, and through her leadership motivates others to do the same.” To my knowledge, those virtual coffees continued for some time even after I left the company.
I made it a regular habit to share what I was learning with others, especially as it pertained to self-development. I’d buy a copy of my favorite book for each of my team members, I’d lead a roundtable discussion on a topic or I’d facilitate a lunch-n-learn that was open to the entire office. One particular lunch-n-learn was focused on the topic of happiness where I brought in a TED Talk on how happiness leads to better work. The energy across our sales and office staff among those who attended, immediately shifted, creating a ripple effect across the office. Knowing that we didn’t need to wait for external results to create our happiness, that we could generate happiness thus driving the results was a game-changer to the culture.
But my most memorable experience happened not too long before I left my last company. A particular senior leader had created a truly toxic environment for over a decade and then suddenly turned that toxicity directly to me. I’d never faced such extreme and intimidating behavior during my entire professional career, behavior that would cause the average person to outright quit. But after several failed attempts to other senior leaders and human resources asking for help, I still showed up every day to be the best employee and leader I could. My team and peers witnessed this leader’s behavior and my unwillingness to lower my standards. I refused to quit, not just for myself, but because I couldn’t bear the thought of this happening to somebody else should I leave. I endured and fought this for nearly eight months until a solution finally came. Not only did the culture immediately change without this person leading the office, but the impact it had on individuals was clear as they thanked me for sticking it out.
FWM: What is the #1 secret to sustained high performance?
The #1 secret to sustaining high performance is to experience a holistic life.
Growing up, you were most likely modeled behavior by parents, teachers, or other leaders that showed you must be “all in” on that one thing, it’s the key to ultimate success. It may have even appeared others were weak if they had interests in things other than school or work, or if they took time off for vacation.
But it’s the opposite. You must seek out a holistic life – professional, financial, personal, health, relationships, and fun!
Because I did not do this, I hit that breaking point at the end of 2013. I knew exactly what I wanted professionally and financially, but because I ignored all other aspects of my life, I hit burnout. So if you want to sustain high performance, you must have recovery, you must have your health, you must fulfill your biological need for connections and relationships.
Live holistically and you’ll be an elite performer for the long run!
FWM: Tell us about your bestseller, Women Who Ignite and Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me This Sh!t Before.
Women Who Ignite is a bestselling book and the first in a series of six. In this book you hear stories from twenty women from a variety of backgrounds and professions, sharing their personal stories of overcoming challenges to reconnect, uplift, and inspire your soul’s journey.
Why Didn’t Anybody Tell Me This Sh!t Before is the second book that I co-authored. This is written as letters to our future selves, providing wit and wisdom from women in business to show how everyday women have the power to direct their own lives.
FWM: As a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, what advice would you give to entrepreneurs during this Coronavirus crisis?
Change is inevitable. While this change is extreme, possibly the most extreme many entrepreneurs will face, it’s just another change in business. Give yourself some grace to feel uncertain, but give it an expiration date – don’t live there. And even if your business is in survival mode, don’t start each day saying that. Take the necessary steps to survive, but also have just as much intention to take the steps to revive. Look for the opportunities during this time – they’re out there!
FWM: You offer weekly videos to learn how to excel in your career & create professional impact without sacrificing an extraordinary personal life. Share a few of the key points and a link.
My weekly videos range from topics on how to be extraordinary, avoiding distractions, having mental toughness, how to put you first, tips for working parents, and success strategies for leaders and your careers. You can have my videos sent straight to your inbox here: https://bit.ly/3cElWL2
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