Celebrating 5 Years of Mind Organizing

🥳🎉 I’ve officially been a MIND ORGANIZER (aka coach) FOR FIVE YEARS.

I am incredibly proud of creating a coaching practice that leads to break-throughs for my clients, while doing something I love and maintaining a fantastic work-life balance.

It feels weird to call it “work-life balance,” because so much of the past five years has been about redefining what it means to work and to live. Work-life balance doesn’t do it justice.

Starting my coaching practice came at a time of major shifts.

Nearly a decade into a “successful” career as a product leader, I quit. Most of my life, I clung to being a “hard-worker.” I never questioned my work ethic and who or what it was serving…until I broke.

My sense of wellbeing hinged on feeling like I was “doing a good job,” often as perceived by an older, white male boss. Even if he wasn’t there, the values and expectations were. They became my own despite how they failed to make sense or serve me. My body showed me something was broken before my mind could.

I was lucky enough to be able to take a year off without expectations of earning. I decompressed. I began asking questions. How did I/we get here? Where exactly is here? Now what? In the process, my art and coaching practices were born, and answers emerged.

I saw our system's roots in exploitation and extraction. So many people struggle to find work, or work that lets them do more than just survive. In a country that ties your healthcare, home, sustenance, and worth to your earning-capacity, not being able to work is life-threatening - literally and psychologically. Many of those privileged enough to have well-paying work they enjoy are still struggling, even if they are not conscious of it. The fear of not having enough, of losing the trappings (i.e. self-worth, purpose, belonging, wealth, security, comfort) that comes with their position, and the spiritual disconnect required to maintain it, harms the most “successful” along with everyone else.

I got curious about how we could work differently. How could I support people trying to navigate our current system, or dream up new ones? Mind Organizing started with realizing how important (yet hard) it can be to step back and reflect. I saw how having a partner who could help you see more clearly - hold you accountable to you - helped people move forward with more confidence, compassion, creativity, and ease…or, at least, a little less alone.

I cherish getting to listen, challenge, and support people as they untangle the knots that come up around work and life. Clients share incredible stories of how I have changed their lives, but they have just as meaningfully changed mine.

I am grateful that I get to give my gifts, and for people to receive and witness them. I feel equally grateful to do this work, while still having so much space for the other, non-coach, parts of me.

Thank you to everyone who has been along for the journey. I’m excited to see what’s to come!