At the 2026 Soulful Leadership Retreat, I had the privilege of speaking on an expert panel about the inner game of leadership.
I was seated alongside founders and leaders stewarding seven- and eight-figure enterprises, all of us invited to speak not about strategy, but about stewardship.
The room was warm. Reflective. Honest.
These were the questions we were asked and the answers that came through me.
What changed inside you when your life and business started getting bigger?
What actually changed for me is that my life and business didn’t get bigger.
They got truer.
In 2025, growth wasn’t about expansion. It was about refinement.
I stopped measuring progress by volume — more offers, more people, more noise — and started measuring it by alignment.
What changed inside me was permission.
Permission to choose depth over scale and intimacy over reach.
Sustainability over spectacle.
I deeply respect those building large, scalable enterprises.
This season asked a different question of me:
What kind of life does my business need to support now?
What version of yourself did you have to outgrow?
I had to outgrow proving energy.
The version of me that needed to be impressive, everywhere, or externally validated no longer fits.
I also outgrew following the herd, even when the herd was successful.
Becoming what I call Be Your Own Wizard™ meant trusting my own discernment instead of borrowing someone else’s definition of success.
That shift wasn’t rebellion.
It was leadership.
Was success harder on you than failure?
For me, disappointment and failure have actually been harder to navigate than success.
Success clarifies what’s working.
Failure forces discernment.
The most important lessons in my career didn’t come from wins alone. They came from moments where something looked right on paper but wasn’t right in my body or my life.
Leadership requires listening beneath optics.
When everything gets heavier — more responsibility, more pressure — what keeps you steady?
Even in a lean, boutique business, weight still shows up.
Clients’ lives. Commitments. Expectations. My own standards.
What steadies me is remembering that I choose the container.
I choose how many people I serve.
How I serve them.
What pace allows me to show up well.
Steadiness comes from designing my business around my nervous system and not asking my nervous system to survive my business.
That distinction changed everything.
What do you do now to lead yourself that you didn’t know how to do earlier?
I lead myself with far more discernment and far less urgency.
Earlier in my journey, I thought leadership meant pushing through.
Now I know it often means pausing.
Choosing less.
Saying no before resentment or exhaustion sets in.
Leadership now looks like protecting my energy as carefully as my revenue.
What internal practice keeps you grounded?
I ask a simple question:
Does this choice support a life well lived?
As a two-time — and very recent — cancer survivor, I am deeply aware that work is one part of the picture, not the whole canvas.
That awareness keeps me honest.
This season of my life asks for space for joy, memory-making, rest, and meaning.
My business is designed to serve that.
Not compete with it.
A Final Reflection
Growth can look like scaling.
It can also look like refining.
What matters most is that it is chosen and not inherited.
If This Resonates…
If you are in a season where growth feels less like scaling and more like refining…
If you are craving depth over spectacle…
If you are building a business that supports a life well lived —
You might be ready for a different kind of room.
The Ruby Slipper Collective™ is a curated circle of accomplished, thoughtful women choosing their next magnificent chapter with discernment, companionship, and courage.
It is not about getting bigger.
It is about getting truer.
A few seats remain for this intimate cohort.
If you feel the nudge, you’ll know.
👠 Learn more here.
