Somewhere Between Then and Now… It Became Real

There was a moment last week—nothing dramatic, nothing big—that stopped me.

I was sitting at my computer, working through emails, mapping out content, responding to messages…

And I realized:

I need a calendar.

Not a mental one.
Not a “I’ll remember that” situation (which, let’s be honest, I absolutely will not).

An actual, real, adult calendar… to keep track of calls, conversations, and commitments.

And I just sat there for a second.

Because not that long ago… none of this existed.

There were no calls to track.
No conversations building into something more.
No reason to map out my time like this.

And now there is.

And the strangest part?

I didn’t plan it this way.
At all.

I didn’t sit down one day and say, “I’m going to build a leadership platform.”
There was no business plan. No roadmap. No big, confident launch moment.

Leaders on Edge started somewhere completely different.

It started in the middle of a difficult season.

A season where I was leading, showing up, doing everything I was supposed to do…
but internally, I was carrying more than I knew what to do with.

The pressure.
The responsibility.
The constant navigation of people, emotions, expectations…

And like a lot of leaders—I held it together on the outside.

But I needed somewhere to put what was happening on the inside.

So I started writing.

That was it.

No strategy. No audience. No “content plan.”

Just… a place to process.
To make sense of what I was experiencing.
To work through the moments that didn’t sit right.
To unpack the emotional weight that leadership carries—but rarely talks about.

And then something shifted.

People started reading.

And more than that… they resonated.

Not with polished leadership advice.
Not with perfectly packaged frameworks.

But with honesty.

With the parts of leadership that feel heavy, unclear, and—if we’re being real—sometimes isolating as hell.

And somewhere in the middle of that, I had a realization I hadn’t fully said out loud before:

I’m actually good at this.

Not just doing leadership…
But understanding it.

Seeing the patterns.
Recognizing what’s happening beneath the surface.
Helping people navigate it in a way that feels steady—not scripted.

That realization changed everything.

Because I didn’t want this to just be perspective.

I wanted to understand why.

Why do some leaders stay grounded under pressure… while others spiral or burn out?
Why do some environments quietly drain people… while others build them?
Why do we spend so much time teaching leadership skills… but almost no time talking about what’s happening internally?

So I went deeper.

Into psychology.
Into human behavior.
Into emotional regulation and performance under pressure.

Not to make this more complicated—
but to make sure what I was seeing was real, supported… and actually usable.

And that’s when Leaders on Edge started to take shape.

Not as a blog.
Not even really as a business.

But as something sitting right at the intersection of lived experience… and real understanding.

And now… here I am.

Sitting at my computer.

Realizing I need a calendar.

Because this thing that started as a way to process has turned into something people are reaching for.

Something people are asking for.
Something that’s growing.

And if I’m being honest… there’s still a part of me that’s like,

Wait… what is happening right now?

I never would have planned this.

But I also can’t imagine not following it.

Because this isn’t just about leadership the way we’ve been taught to think about it.

This is about what actually happens when the pressure is real.

And helping people build the internal capacity to meet it.

So yes…

I guess I need a calendar now.

And honestly?

I can’t wait to see where this goes.

The Strange Productivity of Being Stuck in Bed

When Progress Doesn’t Look the Way You Planned

There are seasons of life that feel aligned, energized, and full of possibility.

And then there are seasons that arrive with a sudden thud.

Sometimes literally.

Last week I took a fall down the stairs that has left me mostly confined to bed. It wasn’t exactly how I envisioned this phase of building Leaders on Edge. My plan for the week looked very different: filming content, recording videos, diving deeper into the research behind the framework, and finally putting some of the pieces into motion that have been sitting in notebooks for months.

Instead, I’ve been horizontal.

Not exactly camera-ready.

But strangely, still moving forward.

Progress Doesn’t Always Look the Way We Imagine

One of the things leadership teaches you—especially in healthcare—is that progress rarely follows the timeline you planned.

You prepare.

You organize.

You build momentum.

And then life inserts its own agenda.  And in that moment you pivot.

For me, that meant trading a camera and whiteboard for a laptop balanced on a pillow while working from bed. Instead of recording videos, I spent the week deep in the architecture of the Leaders on Edge website—building out pages, refining the framework language, strengthening the structure behind the work I’m creating.

It wasn’t the progress I planned.

But it was still progress.

And sometimes that distinction matters more than we realize.

The Reality of Different Seasons

We talk a lot about growth like it’s one continuous upward climb.

But real life doesn’t work that way.

There are seasons of acceleration.

And there are seasons that force you to slow down.

Some seasons feel expansive and exciting.
Others feel uncertain, uncomfortable, and a little scary.

Ironically, sometimes those feelings happen at the same time.

This moment of my life is exactly that.

There is an incredible amount of momentum building around Leaders on Edge—the framework, the conversations, the connections with people who believe leadership can be more human and more sustainable.

And at the same time, stepping away from the familiar structures of traditional leadership roles and building something new carries its own level of uncertainty.

That tension is real.

Growth and fear often travel together.

The Unexpected Gift of Slowing Down

For the past year, I’ve joked that I’m basically pretending to be a graphic designer.

Mostly because I downloaded Canva and found myself constantly playing around in it—experimenting with colors, layouts, icons, and ideas for Leaders on Edge graphics.

I would laugh and say something like, “Apparently I’m a graphic designer now.”

But if I’m honest, most of that time was surface-level experimentation. I was moving quickly, trying things, adjusting, but never really slowing down enough to fully learn the program.

Being stuck in bed this week forced a different pace.

With fewer places to go and fewer ways to move around, I had the chance to actually sit with it. To explore the tools more intentionally. To learn how the program works instead of just clicking around and hoping for the best.

And something interesting happened.

The images I’m creating are starting to look exactly the way I want them to.

The graphics for the framework.
The visuals for the leadership capacity work.
The diagrams that explain the concepts behind Roots & Edge.

Instead of feeling like someone pretending to design things, I’m starting to feel like I actually understand how to build the visuals that bring the ideas to life.

But the Canva learning curve wasn’t the only unexpected productivity of the week.

Because when you’re stuck in bed, you either stare at the ceiling… or you start organizing your life.

This unexpected pause has allowed me to push my first mini-course much closer to completion. A project that has lived in scattered notes, voice memos, and half-written documents is finally starting to come together into something real that will be launching soon.

I’ve also had the chance to connect with some incredible people during this time. Conversations that remind me why I started building this work in the first place. One of those connections even led to an invitation to be a guest on the Voices of Hospice Leadership podcast—something I’m genuinely excited about because it creates space to talk about leadership in hospice in a deeper, more meaningful way.

And then there’s the less glamorous but very necessary work that most entrepreneurs quietly wrestle with.

My computer.

Which, until recently, looked like digital chaos.

Folders inside folders.

Documents saved under names that made sense at the time but now require detective work to decipher.

At one point I realized I was spending more time looking for work I had already done than actually doing new work.

One of the perks of ADHD, I suppose.

So this forced slowdown also became a chance to start cleaning up the backend of my work—organizing files, renaming documents, and creating systems that might actually help future me find things without going on a scavenger hunt through my hard drive.

Not the most glamorous progress.

But very necessary progress.

Leadership Lessons Show Up in Ordinary Moments

One of the most interesting things about building a leadership framework is realizing how often the principles show up in everyday life.

Leadership is not just something that happens in boardrooms or strategy meetings.

It shows up in how you respond when your plans fall apart.

It shows up in whether you allow frustration to take over or whether you adjust and keep moving forward.

It shows up in your ability to zoom out and recognize that temporary setbacks are not the same as failure.

Sometimes leadership looks like making hard decisions.

Sometimes leadership looks like guiding a team through uncertainty.

And sometimes leadership simply looks like patience with yourself.

Building Even When It’s Messy

This week wasn’t polished.

It wasn’t Instagram-ready.

It definitely wasn’t camera-ready.

But it was real.

And in many ways, the work that happened quietly this week—writing, structuring ideas, learning new tools, organizing systems, and finishing pieces of projects that have been waiting for attention—may end up being some of the most important groundwork for what comes next.

Because building something meaningful is rarely glamorous.

It’s often messy.

Slow.

Unexpected.

And filled with moments that force you to adjust.

Keep Showing Up

If there’s one thing this week reinforced for me, it’s this:

Progress is not defined by perfect conditions.

Progress is defined by continuing to show up.

Even when you’re frustrated.

Even when you’re uncomfortable.

Even when your plans have to change.

The season might look different than you imagined.

But that doesn’t mean the work stops.

Sometimes it just happens from bed with a laptop, a Canva window open, a mini-course coming together, and a slightly more organized computer than the week before.

And sometimes that’s enough.

Confessions of Someone Who Cannot Be Concise

There are certain character traits that follow us everywhere.

Not in a dramatic, personality-defining way.

More in a quiet, persistent way—like that one habit you’ve had since childhood that simply refuses to disappear no matter how much life evolves around it.

Apparently, mine is the inability to be concise.

And it has now officially followed me into academic writing.

Which is slightly inconvenient considering I am currently preparing a 15-page literature review as part of the research foundation behind Leaders on Edge.

Now let me say something very clearly before I go any further.

I take this work incredibly seriously.

The research.
The peer review process.
The academic integrity behind building ideas on the work that has come before us.

For as long as I’ve been in leadership, I’ve deeply admired the mentors and thinkers who contributed to peer-reviewed literature. The people who didn’t just share ideas, but tested them, examined them, challenged them, and refined them through scholarship.

That process matters.

It protects the integrity of knowledge.
It keeps ideas grounded in evidence rather than opinion.
And it’s something I’ve always respected enormously.

So when I began preparing the research review behind the frameworks I’m developing, I approached it with the seriousness it deserves.

Careful reading.
Careful synthesis.
Clear organization.

A disciplined 15-page review.

At least that was the intention.

At some point yesterday, I paused to review what I had written so far.

You know… just a quick check to see how the structure was coming together.

I glanced at the bottom of the document.

Thirty-two pages.

Thirty-two.

For a fifteen-page paper.

And I haven’t even finished the sections on recovery cycles yet.

At first I stared at the number in disbelief.

Then I did what anyone in this situation eventually has to do.

I laughed.

Because if you know me—even a little bit—you probably saw this coming.

The Trait That Never Left

Here’s the thing about character traits.

They don’t politely stay in one chapter of your life.

They follow you.

The way you think as a student often becomes the way you think as a professional.

The way you process information early in life tends to remain your default approach decades later.

And in my case, my brain has always had one operating principle:

If something is interesting, I want to understand all of it.

Not just the summary.

The full context.
The surrounding research.
The mechanisms behind the idea.
The opposing arguments.
The studies that led to the conclusions.

Pull one thread and I want to see the entire tapestry.

Which is wonderful in many contexts.

It’s less wonderful when you’re supposed to produce a concise literature review.

The Very “Typical Katie” Moment

Somewhere around page twenty-five I had a realization that felt very familiar.

This was one of those moments where you can almost hear the people who know me best saying:

“Yep… that sounds like Katie.”

Because this is the same pattern that shows up everywhere else in my life.

When I’m learning something, I want the whole system.

When I’m building something, I want the deep structure behind it.

And when I’m writing about something I care about, my instinct is to include every piece that might help someone understand it more fully.

Which is probably why I am now in the slightly amusing position of needing to figure out how to turn thirty-two pages of research into fifteen.

The Serious Work Beneath the Humor

Despite the humor in this situation, the work itself is something I care deeply about.

One of my goals with Leaders on Edge has always been to ensure that the frameworks I’m building are not just personal observations from leadership experience.

They are grounded in the broader body of knowledge that already exists.

Psychology.
Leadership development.
Emotional regulation.
Neuroscience.
Burnout research.

There are brilliant thinkers who have spent decades studying these areas. The responsible thing to do when building something new is to respect and integrate that body of work.

That’s what the literature review process is about.

It’s the difference between simply having ideas and situating those ideas within the larger field of knowledge.

Which is why I’m taking the research process seriously—even if my page count suggests I might be taking it a little too enthusiastically.

The Leadership Lesson Hidden in the Page Count

If there is a leadership lesson hiding in this very “Katie” situation, it’s this:

Our character traits rarely disappear.

They simply evolve with us.

The same tendencies that shaped us earlier in life continue to show up as we grow.

Curiosity.

Intensity.

Depth.

Attention to detail.

Those traits can be tremendous strengths.

But they also require awareness.

Because sometimes leadership—and writing—requires something that doesn’t always come naturally.

Restraint.

The ability to distill.

To choose the most important points.

To make something complex understandable without losing its depth.

So yes, the research is serious.

The peer review process matters.

And the literature that has come before us deserves respect.

But it also turns out that somewhere inside a 15-page review…

there is currently a 32-page reminder that character traits travel with us.

And apparently mine decided to come along for the ride.

This Is the Season I Said I Wanted

And It’s Still Scaring Me

There was a time when my days were measured by doorbells.

By gravel driveways that crunched beneath my tires.
By winding back roads at dusk.
By the stillness that settles over a house when everyone knows why you’re there.

Not a hospital.
Not a facility.

A home.

Family photos lining the hallway.
A recliner pulled close to a rented hospital bed.
The soft rhythm of oxygen.
Coffee brewing in the kitchen while life, quietly, was winding down.

I learned to pause before knocking.

To enter without disrupting the air.
To sit at a kitchen table and speak gently about what was coming.
To hold a spouse’s hand in their own living room while they whispered,
“I don’t know how to do this.”

Home hospice taught me how to be invited into sacred space.

Leadership taught me how to carry what happened inside it.

Later, my days were measured differently.

By morning census.
By team huddles.
By the subtle shift in a nurse’s voice after a hard visit.

I learned to steady others.
To hold stories that didn’t belong to me but still lived in my chest.
To make decisions where compassion and compliance had to coexist.

Sometimes I was the one holding the hand.

Sometimes I was the one holding the team that held the hand.

But I always knew where I stood in the rhythm of it.

There was structure.
There was urgency.
There was weight.

There was a clear answer when someone asked,
“What do you do?”

Now my mornings are quiet in a different way.

No census.
No office.
No badge clipped to my collar.

Just light coming through the kitchen window.
A laptop.
An idea.

This is the season I said I wanted.

Space.
Autonomy.
The chance to build something that reflects the kind of leadership hospice modeled for me — steady, human, grounded.

But identity does not loosen its grip overnight.

When your work has been defined by service — by being needed in visible, tangible ways — the absence of that structure can feel disorienting.

No doorbells.
No driveways.
No charting in my car while replaying a conversation before turning the key in the ignition.

For years, I knew exactly why I was walking into a room.

Now I am building rooms that do not yet fully exist.

And some days, that feels brave.

Other days, it feels exposed.

At the bedside, I never had to explain myself.

Families did not need positioning.
They did not need a pitch.
They needed steadiness.
They needed someone who would not rush their grief.

Credibility was built in silence.
In eye contact.
In how you lowered yourself into a chair.

No one asked for proof of concept in a doorway.
They watched how you entered.

Now I am learning how to build something visible without letting visibility replace integrity.

How to speak about my work without performing it.
How to grow something sustainable without turning every conversation into strategy.

I don’t want to lose the posture hospice gave me.

The kind that listens first.
The kind that is comfortable with long pauses.
The kind that does not rush to fill quiet with noise.

And yet, I am building.

Building requires language.
Clarity.
Invitation.

It requires saying, “This is what I offer,” without apology.

There is tension in that.

Hospice prepared me for tension.

It prepared me to sit in rooms where two truths coexist:
We are doing everything we can.
And it is still not enough.

Maybe this season holds its own version of that.

I can miss the rhythm of structured service.
And still know I am meant to expand beyond it.

I can feel unsettled.
And still be aligned.

This is not grief.

It is not departure.

It is the quiet reshaping of identity.

A shift from fitting inside a system
to building alongside one.

From being defined by where I stand
to deciding who I am when no one assigns the place.

Some mornings, that feels steady.

Some mornings, it doesn’t.

But the gravel driveways are still with me.
The living rooms.
The sacred pauses.
The team debriefs after hard days.

They built the steadiness I carry now.

And maybe leadership is not only about guiding others through sacred space.

Maybe sometimes it is about walking yourself through it —
without a badge,
without a census,
without a clear map —

and trusting that the steadiness remains.

This is the season I asked for.

And I am still learning how to stand inside it.

The Sacred Space Between Chapters

There is a particular kind of silence that exists in hospice care.

It’s not empty.
It’s not awkward.
It’s sacred.

It’s the quiet between breaths.
The space where families hold hands.
The pause before goodbye.
The moment when presence matters more than productivity.

Hospice shaped me.

Not just as a nurse.
Not just as a leader.
But as a human being.

It taught me that leadership, at its highest level, is not about authority. It’s about steadiness. It’s about who you are when the room is heavy. It’s about how you carry responsibility when the stakes are irreversible.

For years, I had the privilege of leading inside that sacred space.

Complex teams.
Grieving families.
Regulatory pressure.
Operational demands.
Human fragility.

Hospice leadership is not theoretical. It is lived in real time — where compassion and compliance must coexist, where emotion and execution intersect, where people look to you not just for direction, but for grounding.

I will always respect that work.

But something shifted.

Not because I stopped caring.
Not because the mission stopped mattering.

Because I began evolving.

There is a quiet truth that high-performing leaders don’t talk about enough:

Sometimes you outgrow a chapter you deeply respect.

Sometimes growth isn’t about climbing higher.
It’s about building differently.

The weight of constant responsibility, the pace, the travel, the invisible pressure — it began to compete with something else that matters just as much to me:

My family.

My presence.
My long-term vision.

And the vision became clear.

I don’t want to just operate inside leadership systems.
I want to build them.

I want to shape how leaders show up — especially in high-stakes environments like healthcare.

I want to help leaders develop the internal infrastructure required to carry real responsibility without losing themselves in the process.

Hospice taught me that leadership is sacred because people are vulnerable.

Healthcare is sacred because life is finite.

Leadership within that space requires more than skill.

It requires steadiness.
Self-regulation.
Clarity under pressure.
Integrity when no one is watching.

And that is the work I am now building full-time through Leaders on Edge.

This transition is not a rejection of hospice.
It is an extension of what hospice taught me.

Presence matters.
Culture matters.
Leadership matters.

And how we lead in sacred spaces matters most.

I don’t know exactly how every future chapter unfolds.

But I know this:

I want to build something that honors the sacredness of care.
That strengthens the leaders who carry it.
And that allows me to be fully present in my own life while helping others do the same.

Hospice will always be part of my foundation.

Now, I am building from it.

A Coach, A Chapter, A Complicated Gratitude

Today I learned of the sudden passing of someone widely regarded as a cornerstone of the college swimming community.

His legacy is expansive. His influence undeniable.

But for me, it lives in one narrow, unforgettable chapter of my story.

The year and a half I spent at that university remains one of the most complicated seasons of my life. When I look back, I don’t feel just one thing. I feel many. Sadness. Pride. Regret. Gratitude. Confusion. Strength. All layered together.

The news of his passing didn’t simply make me mourn — it unlocked memories. Both good and hard. Memories that had quietly settled over time, suddenly rising to the surface.

I arrived at college barely eighteen. Young. Driven. Immature in ways I couldn’t see yet. Swimming had always been the place I felt most certain of myself. It consumed my days — nine swim practices a week, three days in the weight room, competitions on weekends. If I wasn’t in class, I was in the pool. If I wasn’t in the pool, I was thinking about it.

When it became clear that nursing school and Division II athletics were going to collide, I made a decision that changed the trajectory of my early career. It felt easier to change my major than to step away from the one thing that had always defined me.

So I swam harder.

I hyper-focused. I poured everything into one piece of my life. I swam until I physically couldn’t continue — and then I swam some more. Meanwhile, other parts of my life quietly slipped behind. Academics. Balance. Perspective.

Despite giving everything to the sport, I thought about quitting constantly.

That was my first real experience with emotional contradiction — wanting something deeply while simultaneously wanting to run from it. I didn’t have the language for that at eighteen. I only had instinct. And eventually, I walked away.

On paper, I had potential. All-American. High expectations. Spotlight. The team was strong. The reputation mattered. The standard was excellence.

And our coach demanded it.

He was not gentle. He was not soft. He was not affirming in the ways we often celebrate today. He was intense. Loud. Abrasive at times. He pushed without apology. He expected perfection and rarely accepted excuses.

I struggled under that weight.

Where some leaned into the pressure and sharpened, I shrank. I internalized. I didn’t know how to articulate what I was feeling, so I absorbed it. And eventually, instead of facing the discomfort, I ran.

For a long time, I carried that season as something that broke me.

But time has a way of reframing things.

I can see now that even in the breaking, something was being built. Resilience. Endurance. The understanding that I do not respond well to fear-based pressure — but I do respond to challenge when it is anchored in belief. The realization that leadership style matters deeply. That intensity without attunement can fracture some and fuel others.

He pushed me to my limits.

And while the process was painful, it laid a foundation. Not for the swimmer I might have been — but for the leader I would become.

The dichotomy is real. I can acknowledge that the experience was hard — even too hard at times — while also honoring that it shaped me in ways I could not have understood then.

When I see the tributes shared by former teammates and athletes whose lives he profoundly impacted, I don’t feel disconnected from that. His impact on me was profound too.

Just different.

Growth is rarely clean. Neither are the people who help create it in us.

Today, I don’t sit in resentment. I sit in reflection.

I am grateful for the strength that season carved into me. Grateful for the lessons in pressure, identity, and resilience. Grateful that even in the moments I felt broken, something inside me was still forming.

Rest peacefully, Coach.

Your chapter in my story was complicated — but it mattered.

And it helped make me who I am.

When My Past Won’t Stay in the Past

There are moments when life stops feeling linear.

When your past, your present, and your future all seem to occupy the same breath.

That’s where I am right now.

Every time I start to feel like I’m finding my footing in the present — every time I begin to imagine a future that feels steady, hopeful, and real — my past seems to come rushing back like a wave. It doesn’t knock gently. It crashes. And in the middle of ordinary, unexpected moments, I’m suddenly pulled into a kind of grief that feels catastrophic in its intensity, as if something inside me is drowning.

I am caring for someone who is deeply loved by my husband — someone I hadn’t known long before this — yet somehow I now find myself standing in one of the most intimate roles a human being can hold. To sit beside someone at the end of their life. To tend. To witness. To help carry them through a sacred threshold.

And layered on top of that… I am doing it in the presence of people who once meant everything to me.

The clinicians who come into this home — the steady hands, the quiet voices, the gentle guidance — are the very people I used to lead, work beside, and hold close to my heart. They are no longer mine. And yet here they are, walking with me through this moment, guiding me now in a way that feels both beautiful and shattering.

I don’t know why this is breaking me the way it is.

But hospice has always lived somewhere deeper than logic in my soul.

There is something profoundly sacred about being allowed into the final chapter of someone’s story. About slowing down enough to honor breath, touch, and presence when the rest of the world keeps racing. About knowing that what you are offering is not something you can quantify — only feel.

Being here, doing this, has filled something in me I didn’t realize was empty.

And at the same time, it is opening old wounds I thought had already healed.

My two worlds — the one that shaped me, and the one I am becoming — are colliding inside this quiet home. The past. The present. The future. All pressed into the same fragile space.

I feel peace.

I feel grief.

I feel purpose.

I feel pain.

All at once.

I don’t yet know what any of it means.

I only know that this moment is asking me to stand in the middle of it — not to solve it, not to make sense of it — but simply to feel it.

And maybe that, too, is part of what it means to care. 💜

When the Spark No Longer Felt Dangerous

There was a season where grief occupied almost every corner of me.

I could still function. I could still lead. I could still show up with purpose and momentum. But underneath it all, grief was the dominant frequency — shaping how I saw the world, how I held my body, how I imagined the future. Even my growth was born inside it. Motivation and mourning lived side by side, inseparable. I didn’t know how to have one without the other.

And then—something changed.

Not dramatically. Not all at once. But in a way that was undeniable. Almost like a heartbeat.

I felt the spark again.

It wasn’t forced optimism or a decision to “move on.” It was a quiet internal recognition: I’m still here. Not just surviving. Not just pushing forward out of obligation. But alive. Curious. Oriented toward what’s next in a way that felt natural instead of strained.

For the first time in a long time, grief wasn’t leading the conversation. It was still present—but it had softened. It had moved out of the foreground of my every day. And in that space, excitement returned. Not reckless excitement. Grounded excitement. The kind that comes when you reconnect with who you actually are beneath the weight of loss.

This season I’m in now feels different because it’s honest. I’m no longer trying to separate the past from the present or pretend that grief didn’t shape me. It did. Deeply. But it doesn’t get to define me anymore.

There’s an in-between space that so many of us get stuck in—looking toward the future while still grieving the past. It’s complex. Tender. Easy to misunderstand. We tell ourselves we should be “over it” by now, or that hope somehow invalidates what we’ve lost. But that’s not how healing works.

The present deserves acknowledgment. The past deserves respect. And growth requires room for both.

What shifted for me wasn’t the disappearance of grief—it was my relationship to it. I stopped trying to outrun it. I stopped treating it like something I needed to conquer. I learned how to hold it without letting it hold me.

And in doing that, I came back to myself.

Not the version of me from before the loss—but a truer one. More self-aware. More emotionally fluent. More grounded in my own nervous system. Able to sit with feelings, name them, and still move forward with clarity and confidence.

I’ve written before about how last year held some of the hardest moments of my life alongside some of the most meaningful. Today, I can say this with certainty: I’m back in that space of forward energy. The belief in what’s possible has returned. The excitement about what I’m building—personally and professionally—feels real again.

If you’re in a season where grief is all you can see right now, I want you to know this: the spark doesn’t disappear forever. Sometimes it’s just waiting for enough safety, honesty, and space to return.

And when it does, you’ll recognize it.

Because it feels like coming home.

When Confidence Cracks — And Why I’m Grateful It Did

Lately, I’ve been working closely with a lot of very new hospice nurses.

And I have to say—there is something about this season of my work that fills me with deep gratitude. Not because I have all the answers, but because I remember exactly what it feels like to not have them.

I’ve written before about my leap from inpatient hospice to hospice case management, but the memory feels especially alive right now.

In the inpatient unit, I was confident.

I had seen the worst of the worst—patients who were so sick they could no longer be cared for safely or comfortably at home. Crisis was familiar. Intensity was normal. I knew how to move in those moments.

So when I stepped into case management, I thought, I’ve got this.

These were the “stable” hospice patients.

The ones at home.

The ones everyone talks about as manageable.

In my mind, this would be easier.

And for a moment, I believed it was.

Until I didn’t.

When that confidence cracked, my world shattered.

I went from feeling like I was excelling to feeling like I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. The shift was sudden and disorienting. I cried—and not just occasionally. I cried daily.

Some days, the despair was so heavy that I would call my old boss from the inpatient unit and beg her to let me come back.

“I made a mistake,” I kept saying.

“I’m not cut out for this.”

“I should never have left.”

She listened.

And she was kind—but not the kind of kind that rescues you.

She was the kind of kind that holds the line.

It would have been easy for her to take me back.

It would have benefited her.

It would have felt like relief for me.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she pushed me—just far enough.

Far enough that I struggled.

Far enough that I floundered.

Far enough that I cried and questioned myself and truly believed I had failed.

But what I couldn’t see then was that I was growing.

That moment—the one I thought was a mistake—became a cornerstone.

Because of it, I became the leader I choose to be today.

The leader who will look you in the eye and tell you what you need to hear, not just what feels comforting in the moment.

And the leader who will stand right beside you, holding you steady, when I believe in you more than you can believe in yourself.

Working with new hospice nurses now, I see echoes of myself everywhere—in the doubt, the overwhelm, the quiet fear of not being enough.

And every time I do, I feel grateful.

Grateful that someone once believed in me enough not to pull me back to safety.

Grateful that my confidence cracked—so something stronger could take its place.

Coach Up or Coach Out Isn’t Leadership

Why Nurturing Strength and Coaching Through Flaws Builds Better Humans—and Better Teams

Somewhere along the way, leadership adopted a phrase that sounds efficient but feels hollow:

Coach up or coach out.

It’s often said with confidence. As if it’s bold. Decisive. Strong leadership.

But every time I hear it, something in me tightens.

Because leadership—real leadership—has never been that clean.

And people are not checklists you either fix or discard.

The Problem With “Up or Out”

“Coach up or coach out” assumes something dangerous:

That performance is a permanent state.

That if someone struggles, it’s because they can’t do the job—

not because they’re human.

But I’ve watched incredible people falter during:

• Leadership transitions

• Personal loss

• Burnout

• Moments where confidence quietly eroded

And I’ve watched those same people rise again when someone chose to stay.

When leaders jump too quickly to “out,” they miss what’s actually happening.

Most of the time, it isn’t inability.

It’s misalignment.

It’s overwhelm.

It’s a nervous system under pressure.

What We Lose When We Default to “Out”

Here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about enough.

When teams see people removed the moment they struggle, they learn one thing fast:

Don’t let anyone see you wobble.

So they stop asking for help.

They hide mistakes.

They perform instead of grow.

And suddenly, the team looks “strong” on the surface—

but underneath, it’s brittle.

Compliance replaces curiosity.

Silence replaces honesty.

That’s not excellence.

That’s fear wearing a productivity mask.

Weakness Isn’t Failure. It’s Information.

Every leader I respect has flaws.

Every high performer I know has edges.

Yet we’ve somehow decided that weakness disqualifies someone from belonging.

But what if weaknesses are simply signals?

Not warnings to exit—but invitations to coach.

Some people don’t need to be removed.

They need:

• Clearer expectations

• Better role alignment

• Psychological safety

• Time to rebuild confidence

And yes—sometimes they need accountability.

But accountability doesn’t have to mean abandonment.

The Leadership Model I Believe In

I believe in nurturing strength and coaching through flaws.

Not because it’s easier.

Because it’s harder.

It requires patience.

Presence.

And the willingness to sit in discomfort instead of taking the fastest exit.

It means saying:

• This is where you’re strong—let’s lead from there.

• This gap matters, and I’m not ignoring it.

• If I believe you can grow, I’m willing to walk with you while you do.

This isn’t lowering the bar.

It’s teaching people how to reach it.

Especially in Healthcare

In hospice.

In nursing.

In caregiving leadership.

People are carrying grief—sometimes silently.

Emotional labor is constant.

Burnout doesn’t announce itself politely.

A system that discards people for struggling doesn’t create better care.

It creates exhaustion.

Turnover.

And a quiet loss of compassion.

We don’t need leaders who are faster at cutting people loose.

We need leaders who know how to hold people steady while they find their footing again.

The Truth We Avoid

“Coach up or coach out” often isn’t about performance.

It’s about leadership discomfort.

It’s easier to remove someone than to invest in:

• Hard conversations

• Imperfect progress

• Human growth

But leadership was never meant to be easy.

It was meant to be responsible.

My Edge

I don’t believe people are disposable.

I believe in strength.

In growth.

In coaching that sees the whole person.

And I believe that when we stop leading from fear—and start leading from steadiness—we don’t just build better teams.

We build better humans.

That’s the edge I stand on.

A Soft Landing, Revisited

Not long after stepping into a new role, someone said something small to me.

It wasn’t unkind.
It wasn’t inappropriate.
It wasn’t even meant to carry weight.

But it did.

The words themselves weren’t the issue — it was what they pulled forward. A version of me I had already outgrown. A role I had worked hard to release. An identity that no longer fit the work I was doing or the leader I was becoming.

I remember being surprised by how emotional I felt. Embarrassed, even. The reaction felt bigger than the moment warranted, and yet I couldn’t shake it. I wrote about it then — about how something so minor had cracked something open in the earliest days of my transition.

At the time, I assumed it was just part of the adjustment. A tender spot I hadn’t known was still there.

I didn’t realize it was the beginning of a pattern.

Transitions Leave Us More Exposed Than We Admit

When we change roles, we don’t just change titles.

We change posture.
We change how we are seen.
We change how we see ourselves.

There is a quiet vulnerability in that in-between space — where you are no longer who you were, but not yet fully settled into who you are becoming. In that space, even the smallest moments can feel amplified.

I had just stepped into something new. I was still orienting — not just to the work, but to the weight of it. And without realizing it, I was craving something I hadn’t yet named:

A soft landing.

Recently, I found myself using that phrase while talking with a nurse.

“It would be a soft landing.”

It came out easily — instinctively — because by then, I understood exactly what it meant. We spoke briefly about change. About how vulnerable transitions can be. About how important it is to feel steady before being expected to sprint.

The conversation ended.
The day moved on.

And then later — quietly, almost offhand — that same person spoke again.

This time, it wasn’t new language.
It was the same words.

The same words that had been spoken weeks earlier, in the fragile early days of my transition. Words that had once landed without warning — touching something raw, unfinished, and still searching for footing.

Back then, they almost shattered me.

Not because of intent.
Not because of harm.
But because I hadn’t landed yet.

Six weeks later, after acknowledging the importance of soft landings aloud, those same words returned.

Same words.
Different moment.

But this time, something had shifted.

The words didn’t knock the wind out of me. They didn’t pull me backward. Instead, they marked the distance I had traveled in a short time. What once destabilized me now grounded me.

Not because the words had changed —
but because I had.

That was the full circle.

When the Moment Isn’t the Point

By then, I knew better than to focus on the surface.

This was never about what was said.
It was about what happens when we don’t fully land.

When parts of our old identity remain reachable.
When our nervous system hasn’t caught up to our new reality.
When we are leading — but still orienting.

These are the moments when small things feel heavy. Not because they are, but because they brush up against something unsettled.

A Soft Landing Isn’t About Ease

A soft landing isn’t about comfort or avoidance.

It’s about safety during transition.

It’s about having enough grounding to release the old version of yourself without being pulled backward. Enough space to integrate who you’ve been with who you are becoming — without being jolted by reminders you didn’t ask for.

When people don’t get that space, the emotion finds another way out. Often through moments that seem too small to explain their weight.

Especially in Healthcare, This Matters

In healthcare, we move people fast.

We expect competence immediately.
We reward endurance.
We call survival resilience.

But when we deny soft landings, we don’t create stronger teams — we create quieter burnout. Leaders who stop asking questions. Clinicians who carry fear into their work.

A soft landing isn’t indulgent.
It’s protective.

For people.
For patients.
For the work itself.

I Had Landed

That moment — the return of the same words — showed me something I hadn’t realized yet.

I had landed.

Not perfectly. Not permanently. But enough.

Enough that an old echo no longer had the power to unseat me. Enough that what once shook me now simply reminded me of how far I’d come.

And maybe that’s the quiet power of a soft landing:

It doesn’t just protect us at the beginning.
It prepares us for the moment the past tries to call us back.

Roots Before Edge

You cannot lead well if you are bracing for impact.
And you cannot grow if you never had space to land.

Before edge comes roots.
Before speed comes steadiness.
Before proving comes grounding.

Sometimes leadership isn’t about pushing forward.

Sometimes it’s about noticing when you’re finally standing

On the Edge of What’s Next

Somewhere in 2024, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD.

I’m not sure if I’ve ever said that out loud here — but naming it matters. Not because it changed who I am, but because it finally explained how I move through the world.

Impulsivity.
A deep desire for momentum.
An almost physical discomfort with stagnation.
A pull toward instant gratification — not out of immaturity, but out of urgency.

These traits haven’t disappeared with age. And honestly? I don’t want them to.

What I’ve learned is that many of the qualities I once tried to suppress are the very things that fuel my leadership, creativity, and vision. ADHD isn’t something I’m “working around” — it’s something I’m learning to work with. And that shift alone has been critical to my growth.

How Leaders on Edge Began

This year, Leaders on Edge started as a blog. Nothing more than a space to tell the truth — about leadership, about healthcare, about the moments that shape us both professionally and personally.

Stories from the field.
Lessons learned the hard way.
Reflections I wish someone had shared with me earlier.

As the year unfolded — and as both personal and professional shifts reshaped my world — Leaders on Edge began to evolve. What started as storytelling became something deeper: a philosophy.

I’ve said this many times, and I’ll keep saying it:

Compliance metrics and people are not mutually exclusive.

In healthcare, we tend to treat three essential elements as if they compete with one another:

• Compliance

• People

• Financial sustainability

But the truth is — all three must coexist to form a healthy, functioning agency.

And yet, the people piece is the one most often overlooked.

When that happens, the impact doesn’t stop with staff morale. It ripples outward — affecting patient care, outcomes, culture, and ultimately the very metrics organizations claim to value most.

I believe in a world where all three are in balance.
That belief is what has catapulted Leaders on Edge into what it is becoming.

Roots. Edge. And the Reality of Time

Now, back to the ADHD — because it’s relevant here.

I’m currently in the midst of building a comprehensive online course centered on my Roots & Edge leadership framework. It’s deep, reflective, and designed for leaders who want more than surface-level tactics.

But I also have:

• A full-time leadership role

• A full-time family

• And a very real human capacity

Progress hasn’t moved as fast as my impatience would like.

And instead of forcing something unfinished into the world, I chose a different path.

I’m preparing a mini-course — one that focuses on three core focal points of Roots & Edge. Something intentional. Accessible. Grounded. A place to begin, not a shortcut to the finish line.

That decision, in itself, is leadership growth.

This Year Was Hard. And It Was Good.

2025 stretched me.

It challenged my assumptions.
It tested my patience.
It required me to slow down in ways that felt deeply uncomfortable.

And it also clarified my purpose.

When I look ahead, I see possibility — not because everything is perfect, but because the vision is clearer than it’s ever been.

I believe this with my whole being:

You do not need to sacrifice compliance to maintain relationships.
You do not need to sacrifice financial health to retain good people.
And metrics alone will never tell the full story.

Numbers are meaningless without the humans producing them.

Stepping Into 2026

In this coming year, you’ll see more of me — in different capacities, through different platforms, and with deeper intention.

My goal isn’t visibility for visibility’s sake.
It’s impact.

If I can help leaders avoid even a fraction of the pain I experienced on the way to growth — then every hard moment becomes worth it.

This isn’t about having it all at once.
It’s about building something sustainable, human, and real.

And that’s exactly what I’m bringing with me into 2026.

The Lesson I Almost Missed Because I Was in a Hurry

This week, I started a new audiobook series.

I had purchased it intentionally—drawn in by the promise of insight, growth, and clarity. I pressed play expecting direction. Frameworks. Tools. The meat. I wanted something I could apply immediately, something that would grab my busy, racing mind and give it something solid to hold onto.

Instead, within the first forty-five minutes, I found myself frustrated.

The focus was on centering your mind. Slowing down. Being present. Meditation woven into the early chapters. And while I genuinely appreciate guided meditation—normally, I love it—this time felt different. This time, my mind rejected it.

I remember thinking: This isn’t what I came here for.

I didn’t want to be told how to breathe.

I didn’t want to hear about grounding myself.

I wanted instructions. Action. Tangible steps.

Tell me what to do. Tell me how to fix it. Tell me how to move forward.

So I did what I tend to do when something doesn’t immediately give me what I think I need.

I set it aside.

Later that night, I was lying in bed—exhausted but wired. My body tired, my mind running at a million miles an hour, replaying conversations, responsibilities, ideas, worries. The familiar restlessness that comes when the world quiets but my thoughts refuse to follow.

I put on one of my go-to guided meditations. The kind I’ve used dozens of times. Usually reliable. Usually grounding.

But this time, I couldn’t stay with it.

I kept restarting it.

Rewinding.

Trying again.

My thoughts wandered almost immediately—jumping ahead, drifting sideways, refusing to settle. And somewhere between the third and fourth restart, my mind drifted back to that audiobook.

The one I had dismissed.

The one that annoyed me.

The one that talked about staying present in the simplest of tasks.

I am going to the grocery store.

I am walking into the produce section.

I am picking up the apples.

I remember rolling my eyes at that part when I first heard it.

I know what I’m doing, I had thought.

I don’t need to narrate my life.

But there it was—suddenly unmistakable.

The very thing I claimed I didn’t need…

Was the very thing I couldn’t do.

I couldn’t stay present in a meditation for more than a few seconds.

I couldn’t keep my mind anchored in the moment.

I couldn’t slow down long enough to let my body catch up with my brain.

And that’s when it hit me.

The book didn’t lack substance.

It didn’t lack direction.

It didn’t lack value.

It lacked my willingness to slow down.

I had been so focused on finding the meat and potatoes—the action steps, the productivity, the forward motion—that I missed the foundation entirely.

Presence.

Stillness.

Intentional attention.

The work I wanted to rush past was the work I actually needed most.

And if I’m being honest, that realization was uncomfortable.

Because slowing down feels counterintuitive when you’re used to carrying a lot.

When you’re responsible.

When you’re leading.

When you’re building.

When your mind is always ten steps ahead.

Stillness can feel like wasted time.

Presence can feel unproductive.

And centering yourself can feel like a luxury you don’t have room for.

But maybe that’s the lie we tell ourselves.

Maybe slowing down isn’t a pause from the work.

Maybe it is the work.

That night, I didn’t restart the meditation again.

I let it play.

I let my thoughts come and go.

And I allowed myself to sit with the truth I had been resisting.

I wasn’t ready for the book because I wasn’t ready to stop running.

And that awareness—quiet, humbling, and grounding—was more impactful than any checklist or directive I could have been given.

Sometimes growth doesn’t arrive as a breakthrough.

Sometimes it arrives as a mirror.

And sometimes the lesson we’re desperate to skip…

Is the one that holds everything we’ve been searching for.

The Day I Started Becoming the Leader I Didn’t Know I Was Yet

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership styles—how personal they are, how often they evolve without us noticing, and how they’re rarely shaped by formal training alone.

When I look back at my own leadership journey, I can clearly see that so much of who I am as a leader wasn’t built in meetings or manuals. It was built in moments:
moments where I was pushed, stretched, humbled, or unexpectedly called forward.

The truth is, my leadership style emerged long before I felt ready for anything that resembled leadership.

In fact, when I stepped into that first leadership role, I was barely convinced I had fully mastered being a case manager.
There were days I still questioned myself.

There were times I felt like I was barely keeping up.
And honestly?
Sometimes I wondered if I had made a stupid decision jumping into leadership before I had fully found my footing.

But somebody—somewhere—saw something in me.
Something I didn’t see in myself yet.
And that push, that belief, that nudge into the unknown became the foundation of everything that came next.

One of the earliest moments that shaped my leadership happened not long after I took the role, at a time when I still felt like I was walking around in shoes a size too big.

A Visit I Still Remember

In those early days, I was still carrying a small caseload. I wasn’t ready to let go of fieldwork, and honestly, fieldwork wasn’t ready to let go of me.

One patient in particular—a young person not much older than me—had become a quiet anchor in my week. Their family was kind, emotionally open, and deeply trusting. I wanted to do right by them in every way.

But that morning, I knew something had changed the moment I entered the home.
The decline was sudden.
The air was heavy.
The family was holding themselves together with thin thread.

I did everything I could clinically and emotionally.
I explained.
I supported.
I tried to stay steady.

But somewhere in the middle of that visit, the human part of the work hit harder than the clinical part. And I felt myself break open.

I cried.

It was the first time I ever cried in front of a family, and that moment felt both terrifying and honest.
They didn’t question my professionalism.
They thanked me for caring.

Their compassion in that moment said more about this field—and the weight of it—than any textbook ever could.

I left that home drained, with a lump in my throat and the kind of emotional exhaustion that sits in your bones.

And that’s when my phone started buzzing.

From One Emotional Storm Straight Into Another

Before I could process the visit, I was pulled back into the reality of leadership.

Multiple messages.
Multiple problems.
A team unraveling.

We were short-staffed for the day.
A new clinician was overwhelmed after making a documentation mistake.
Two team members were frustrated with each other.
A family was upset and asking for a supervisor.
And the schedule was already a logistical disaster.

I was barely hanging on emotionally myself, and now I was being looked at as the person who was supposed to hold everything and everyone else together.

I walked into the office to a room full of tension—people frustrated, venting, spiraling.
People I had worked beside for years were now turning toward me with expectation.

Inside, I was thinking,
I’m not ready for this. I barely know how to do my own job some days. Why did I think I could lead anyone?

But here’s the thing about leadership:
It doesn’t wait for your confidence to catch up.
It demands that you step in before you feel prepared.

Choosing Calm When I Didn’t Feel It

I felt raw from the morning visit.
I felt inadequate stepping into this role.
And yet, the room needed something—something steady.

So I took a breath and said,
“Everyone, let’s pause for a minute.”

It wasn’t commanding.
It wasn’t forceful.
It was grounding.

The room quieted.

And that moment taught me one of the most important lessons of my career:
Leadership begins the second you regulate the room, not the second you solve the problem.

We slowed down enough to think:

✔ Who had the emotional bandwidth for which visits?
✔ Who needed a moment to step back?
✔ How could we divide the work realistically—not perfectly?
✔ What could wait until tomorrow?
✔ What needed compassion, not correction?

I took visits myself.
I called families.
I filled in gaps.
And I helped my team stabilize piece by piece.

By the afternoon, things were still busy—but the panic had eased.
People were breathing again.
People were focused.
People felt supported.

One of the nurses said quietly,
“I don’t know how you stayed calm.”

If only she had known how unsteady I actually felt inside.

The Turning Point I Didn’t See Coming

I stayed after everyone left, sitting in the quiet office, realizing that something important had happened.

Not only had I made it through the day—
I had led through it.

Me.
The person who still doubted whether she’d mastered being a case manager.
The person who sometimes questioned whether she’d jumped too soon.
The person who had cried in her car just hours earlier.

And yet, somebody had once seen something in me.
And here, in this moment, I finally began to understand what they saw.

Leadership isn’t about being fully ready.
It’s about being willing.
It’s about stepping into the role when the room needs you—even when you doubt yourself the most.

And while this was one of those moments that shaped me in a powerful way, I’ve had just as many moments that shaped me through failure.
Moments where my response was not what it should have been.
Moments where I didn’t regulate the room, didn’t ground myself first, didn’t rise in the way I hoped I would.

Those stories matter too.
They are just harder to tell.
But they are just as powerful—because they shaped the same leader, just through a different doorway.
And I’ll tell those stories too.
Because growth doesn’t only come from the moments we got right.
Often, it comes from the moments we didn’t.

Looking back now, I can see that this day—along with the failures that followed—shaped the leader I am today.

Not from confidence, but from humanity.
Not from certainty, but from showing up anyway.
Not from perfection, but from presence.

These moments—the emotional, messy, unexpected ones—refined me.
They made me the kind of leader who can anchor a storm, even when I still feel the waves inside.

The Year That Reshaped Me

This year wasn’t what I expected.

Last year at this time, I felt like I was finally arriving. Personally. Professionally. In my confidence. In my calling. I was stepping into the life I had worked incredibly hard to build — and I genuinely believed the hardest parts were behind me.

Then everything shifted.

This year brought me to my knees in ways I didn’t see coming. It tested my identity — both as a leader and as a mother. I found myself in a storm of decisions, pressure, judgment, and massive change. There were days I sat in my car, forehead against the steering wheel, gathering every piece of strength I had just to walk in and keep leading.

And somewhere in the chaos, grief found new territory inside me.

But here’s what’s true today:

I am still standing.
Maybe not in the same place I once was,
but in a place I fought to grow into.

Grief Doesn’t Just Live in the Past — Sometimes It Shows Up in the Present

Grief didn’t only show up for the people I’ve lost.
It showed up for the life I thought I’d have.

And most painfully, it showed up in motherhood.

Watching Maddie navigate her own struggles this year — feeling her pain, her fear, her uncertainty — forced me into a level of vulnerability I wasn’t prepared for. There is a unique ache that comes from wanting to fix everything for your child and realizing you can’t.

You can advocate.
You can love fiercely.
You can show up.
But you can’t shield them from life.

There were nights I tossed and turned, praying she would feel the strength I see in her. There were moments when guilt swallowed me whole — wondering if my own stress, absence, or exhaustion played a role in her battles.

Being a mother while breaking inside is a specific kind of courage.

And yet… in the midst of all of it, I watched her rise.
And in her rising, I found reasons to rise too.

The Professional Loss That Became a Turning Point

This year also pushed me to make a career shift I never wanted but desperately needed.

I love hospice. I always have. But I started to feel that my values and my workplace weren’t aligned anymore. That the kind of leader I want to be wasn’t welcome in a system prioritizing the wrong things. And the cost of staying was becoming too high for my mental health, my family, and my integrity.

Leaving, recalibrating, and rebuilding professionally has been one of the hardest pivots of my life.

When leadership is your identity, stepping away feels like failure — even when it’s the most courageous thing you can do.

But that decision created space for something new…

What Grew Out of the Hard Stuff

Two things emerged from this difficult year:

✨ Leaders on Edge —
born from my desire to help leaders lead like humans — not robots programmed for “productivity.”

✨ Roots & Edge —
born from the truth that hospice workers deserve the same compassion they give every day.

These weren’t born from victory.

They were born from reality.
From seeing the cracks in the system and refusing to look away.

They are the result of choosing to build what I needed when I felt most alone.

Rising Anyway

This year taught me that grief and growth are not opposites — they are companions.

I can be proud of myself and also still healing.
I can love hospice deeply and also fight to change it.
I can be strong for my daughter and also fall apart at the end of the day.
I can leave spaces that no longer fit while building new ones that do.

So here’s my truth:

I am rising not because life got easier,
but because I got braver.

If you’ve had a year like mine — full of complexity, heartbreak, rebuilding, and unexpected transformation — I see you.

We are not who we were twelve months ago.
We are someone stronger.
Someone wiser.
Someone more aligned with who we’re meant to become.

And the year that nearly broke us?
Might just be the year that built us.

Here’s to stepping into the next chapter with shaky hands but a steady heart.

— Katie 🖤
For Maddie.
For the daughter who reminds me every day why I keep becoming better.

Burn the Bridge: The Outdated Leadership Advice Holding Us Back

For decades, workplaces have been shaped by a collection of old-school mantras—phrases passed down like unquestioned gospel, repeated so often that no one ever stopped to ask whether they made sense anymore. “Don’t burn bridges.” “Stay in your lane.” “Pay your dues.” “Just keep your head down.” “It’s business, not personal.”

But here’s the truth:

The modern workplace has changed. Humanity has shifted. Leadership has evolved. And many of these mantras are now not only outdated—they’re actively harmful.

Today’s teams crave authenticity, transparency, collaboration, and psychological safety. They want leadership that is grounded and human, not rigid and performative. And as a leader who has watched culture shift in real time—through growth, conflict, grief, reinvention, and everything in between—I can confidently say:

Some bridges should burn.
Some lanes must be crossed.
Some dues were never ours to pay.
And “just keeping your head down” is how people lose themselves.

Let’s break down the mantras we’ve outgrown—and what leadership looks like now.

1. “Don’t Burn Bridges.”

The old wisdom: Stay neutral, stay quiet, stay agreeable—no matter how poorly you’re treated.
The real wisdom:
Why maintain a bridge that led to harm, toxicity, or misalignment?

Today’s leaders understand that boundaries matter. Integrity matters. Culture matters. Protecting yourself is not unprofessional—it’s strategic. Some bridges end because they were never meant to carry the weight of your growth.

A burnt bridge doesn’t mean you failed.

It means you walked away from something that already failed you.

2. “Stay in Your Lane.”

Translation: Don’t speak up. Don’t innovate. Don’t question norms.

But the most transformative ideas in any organization come from people who don’t stay confined to the lane assigned to them.

Today’s environment demands:

• Cross-functional collaboration

• Curiosity

• Initiative

• New perspectives

• “Staying in your lane” is how organizations stagnate.

Stepping into the unknown” is how leaders emerge.

3. “Pay Your Dues.”

This mantra once served as a justification for inequity:
“Because I suffered, you should too.”

Modern leadership rejects that mindset.
We now understand:

• Talent matters more than tenure

• Opportunities shouldn’t be earned through burnout

• Mentorship beats gatekeeping

• Growth should be supported, not withheld

The goal is not to recreate the hardships of the past—it’s to build workplaces where no one has to survive the very things that almost broke us.

4. “It’s Business, Not Personal.”

Everything about leadership is personal.
How you communicate.
How you show up.
How you respond under pressure.
How you treat human beings.

We’ve learned that people don’t leave jobs—they leave cultures.
And cultures are built from deeply personal interactions and decisions.

When we pretend emotions don’t exist, we create environments where people don’t speak up, don’t feel safe, and don’t trust leadership.
Today’s leaders understand that being human at work isn’t a weakness—it’s a competitive advantage.

5. “Keep Your Head Down and Work Hard.”

The modern translation:
Stay invisible. Don’t advocate for yourself. Accept whatever comes.

But visibility matters.
Voice matters.

Self-advocacy matters.
Hard work alone is no longer enough—not when organizations reward presence, communication, and impact.

Today’s leaders encourage people to look up, speak up, and show up fully.
Because your head down means your potential stays down with it.

6. “Good Leaders Are Always in Control.”

Control used to equal strength.
Now?
It equals disconnection.

Today we know:

• Vulnerability builds trust

• Transparency builds culture

• Admitting you’re learning builds credibility

• Collaboration beats hierarchy every time

Modern leadership is less about controlling and more about co-creating.

7. “Leave Your Personal Life at the Door.”

Impossible.
We are whole humans—grief, stress, joy, family, dreams, and fears all included.

As a leader, I’ve seen firsthand how life follows people to work. Pretending it doesn’t exist is how burnout festers unnoticed.
Compassionate leadership requires space for humanity.

We don’t need leaders who ignore the human behind the badge.
We need leaders who see them.

So What Replaces These Outdated Mantras?

Today’s working world calls for a different kind of wisdom:

• Protect your peace more than your connections.

• Say the hard thing when it’s the right thing.

• Cross the lane if your integrity lives elsewhere.

• Grow out loud. Advocate boldly.

• Build cultures that lift—not limit—your people.

• Lead with grounded strength and courageous humanity.

This is where leadership is heading.
This is where the real work lives.
This is where you rise—not by repeating old mantras, but by writing new ones.

Because the modern workplace doesn’t need leaders who cling to the past.
It needs leaders who are willing to burn the bridge, rebuild the path, and walk forward with purpose.

Nature, Nurture, and the Leaders We Become

Where grounded leadership meets courageous growth.

The conversation around nature versus nurture pops up everywhere in parenting, leadership, and personal development. We ask ourselves—what shapes a person more? Who they inherently are, or the experiences that mold them along the way?

I’ve always believed it’s both. But it wasn’t until recently, during parent-teacher conferences of all places, that I saw the concept play out with striking clarity. And the more I pay attention, the more I see it in my children every single day.

Three Kids, Three Stories, Three Proof Points

Maddie — Order, Structure, Predictability

Our first child.
Our test run.
The one we raised with the “perfect” schedule because we thought order would make things easier. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

But something fascinating happened as she grew—she craved order. Structure. Predictability. Change feels hard for her because her entire early world revolved around routine. Nurture didn’t just influence her; it left fingerprints.

Olivia — The Frequent Flyer in the Medical World

Olivia spent more days in medical offices than playgrounds in her early years. Hospitals were her second home. When a child spends years navigating illness, uncertainty becomes familiar—and sometimes, fear does too.

Now?
We just crossed the 50th day of school, and she’s been to the nurse… more times than I can count. Olivia’s experiences shaped her hyper-vigilance around her body. Nature gave her sensitivity; nurture amplified it.

Allie — The Go-With-the-Flow Kid

Sweet Allie arrived in chaos.
COVID baby.
Night-shift mom.
A nanny in and out of the house. Routines were more suggestions than systems.

So now, she floats.
She rolls with change.
She adapts.

Not without challenges—but with a flexibility her sisters don’t naturally have. Again, nurture leaves a mark.

The Bird, The Panic, and the Mirror

Against my better judgment, I let Maddie buy a bird. Her hard-earned money, her responsibility—so I took a deep breath and said yes.

Fast-forward to the first quiet evening after bringing it home. I was curled up on the couch, basking in the soft crackle of the wood stove, when a tiny chirp cut through the silence.

Totally normal.
Birds chirp. That’s what they do.

But Maddie wasn’t prepared for it.
Her world thrives on predictability—and this new, feather-covered curveball wasn’t part of the script.

Every chirp was met with panic.
Every flutter triggered a cascade of what ifs.
She rushed into the room breathless, convinced something was wrong because she didn’t expect… normal bird things.

And there it was: nature and nurture intertwining like a mirror held up to both of us. Her need for order. Her overwhelm in the unfamiliar. Her sensitive nervous system reacting before her logic catches up.

She gets that from me.
Deeply.
Painfully.
Beautifully.

From Parenting to Leadership: The Same Rules Apply

Watching my kids navigate life—shaped by their personalities and their experiences—has made me deeply reflect on leadership, especially in hospice.

Every nurse who steps into our world is a blend of what they brought with them and what we give them next.

Their nature is who they are.
But their nurture—the environment we create—determines who they become as professionals.

And this is where leadership matters:

• A nurturing environment builds confident, compassionate hospice nurses.

• A chaotic or dismissive environment creates hesitation, fear, and burnout.

• A culture rooted in support produces future leaders.

• A culture rooted in criticism creates future exits.

We either shape the next generation to rise,
or we unintentionally teach them to shrink.

Just like our children, our team members are being shaped in real time—by our tone, our structure, our patience, our expectations, and the way we respond when something “chirps” unexpectedly.

Mindful Leadership Is Modern Leadership

Nature vs. nurture isn’t just a parenting debate.
It’s a leadership truth.

We don’t get to choose someone’s nature.
But we do influence their environment.

The question for every leader—especially those guiding new hospice nurses—is simple:

Are we nurturing growth, or nurturing fear?
Are we creating confidence, or creating chaos?
Are we reinforcing strengths, or triggering panic?

Just like Maddie and her bird, people thrive when they feel safe enough to explore, learn, and make mistakes—without spiraling into fear of doing something wrong.

Because the way we lead today becomes the story they carry tomorrow.

And leaders?
That’s nurture.
That’s impact.
That’s legacy.

Where grounded leadership meets courageous growth.

When No One Says the Hardest Words

My brief time in psychiatric nursing has its stories, but hospice—well, hospice stories are something else entirely.

Driving home today, replaying the day in my mind, I found myself drifting back to one of the wildest situations I’ve ever been pulled into. The first patient, the first family—a case that began from the leadership side of my role, but very quickly evolved into me stepping in as the case manager. What I saw at first was a moment calling for compassion, a moment where a family needed someone to show up fully, gently, and without judgment.

But in that space of compassion, I realize now I may have overlooked the other side of the story—the part that was brewing beneath the surface, the part that denial was quietly feeding, the part that would later erupt in ways no one saw coming.

One of those stories… that one still breaks my heart. Not because of the chaos. Not because of the anger. Not even because of the irrational behavior that spilled out when emotions ran hotter than anyone could contain.

The heartbreak came from something much simpler—something far more devastating.

Because the devastation of that situation wasn’t rooted in the chaos that unfolded. It wasn’t the anger or the fear or the volatility. The true heartbreak was in recognizing that this was one of those moments where we, as a system, as clinicians, as humans, need to do better.

While the truth was what that family desperately needed, the pull to care—to comfort, to soften, to support—was so strong. And when that instinct collided with the level of concern and urgency beneath it all, the gap between what was said and what needed to be said grew wider and wider.

This wasn’t just a family in crisis.
This was a family navigating the unspoken.
This was a moment where silence did the most damage.

And that’s what still stays with me.

Because all of that silence, all of that unspoken reality, became the perfect breeding ground for a moment I will never forget. A moment where one overwhelmed, terrified, grief-stricken family member stormed into the room—angry, shaking, convinced we were somehow giving up on their mother.

A weapon was produced, not waved around wildly, but displayed with purpose. Not to harm, but to prove a point.
A point born from denial.
A point rooted in fear.
A point sharpened by the fact that no one had spoken the truth out loud.

In that moment, there was a tense discussion—one that teetered between emotion and danger—about ceasing hospice care entirely. About “taking her somewhere else.” About “fixing this.” About how “she just needs more time.”

And there I stood, trying to hold the room together, trying to hold myself together, balancing on the thinnest line between strength and weakness. My compassion, my instinct to soothe, my desire to de-escalate—they were my strengths. But in moments like that, they also felt like my greatest weaknesses. The place where my heart wanted to take over, even when the situation demanded a firmness I was still learning how to wield.

It was the fact that no one had said the words.

Your mom is dying.

Words you’d assume would be the norm in hospice. Words you’d think someone—anyone—would have spoken long before we were standing in a room full of fear and confusion.

But the truth is, they’re not normal.
Not for families.
Not for the medical system.
And, sometimes—maybe more often than we want to admit—not even for us. The ones who dedicate our lives to this work. The ones who sit at kitchen tables and bedside vigils. The ones who walk into these stories every day.

Those five words can feel heavier than any diagnosis, any order set, any medication adjustment. They catch in the throat. They rattle something deep. They force reality into a space where denial has been doing everything it can to survive.

I wish I could say this was the only story, but this, unfortunately, was just the first. Each one deserves its own moment—its own truth. But this first one… the pain isn’t in the incident itself. It’s in what wasn’t spoken. What should have been said. What could have prepared a family for the seismic shift that was already happening right in front of them.

And that’s what stays with me.
Every day.
Not the drama.
Not the volatility.

The silence.
The silence where honesty should have lived.

Grief comes in all shapes, and it rarely looks the way we expect it to. Looking back now, I can appreciate the compassion I showed in that moment—the depth of care I felt, the instinct to protect a family drowning in anticipatory grief. But grief doesn’t follow rules, and it doesn’t stay neatly contained. When emotions run high and denial is fighting for its last breath, compassion alone can’t hold the room. And when those emotions collide with something as unpredictable as a weapon—when bullets and heartbreak exist in the same space—things can shift in an instant and go drastically in the opposite direction.

The First Pushback: Lessons from My Early Days in Leadership

As I’ve begun re-listening to The First 90 Days, I can’t help but laugh at myself. There’s something humbling about looking back on those early transitions into leadership—the moments that felt chaotic then but taught me the most about who I was (and wasn’t yet) as a leader.

Before I ever wore a stethoscope, I held a management title. Nothing major—just a small team, limited responsibility, and plenty of room for rookie mistakes. Fast forward a few years, and I was deep into my hospice career. I had worked my way up through the ranks and finally landed in a management role that felt both exciting and terrifying.

About a year in, everything changed.
The agency went through a drastic shift—mass turnover, new structure, and suddenly I was handed a slew of new responsibilities and direct reports. I was now not only managing a team but also filling gaps, covering cases, fielding on-calls, and doing whatever was needed to keep the wheels turning.

And right in the middle of all that—entered her.

The Nurse Who Taught Me More Than Any Leadership Book

She was an incredible nurse—skilled, respected, and loved by patients and staff alike. But she was also one of the most challenging people I had ever managed.

She was outspoken, opinionated, and often insubordinate. The kind of nurse who didn’t just push boundaries—she redefined them. To make things even more complex, she was an LPN in a world that required RNs to case manage, so her limitations within policy often clashed with her confidence in practice.

Our early interactions were… spirited, to say the least.
She had a habit of speaking her mind, and I had a habit of standing my ground. It was my first real test as a leader—to balance respect for her expertise with the accountability required for my role. I quickly realized that no one had ever told her “no.” People just went along because it was easier.

Until me.

When her annual review came around, I was tasked with giving honest feedback. It was tense, uncomfortable, and absolutely not well received. She was defensive, argumentative, and every other challenging adjective you could imagine. But I stood firm—and respectful.

And somehow, that moment changed everything.

The Turning Point

Months later, during yet another agency realignment, leadership reshuffled reporting structures. On paper, she was supposed to move to another manager. But then my boss walked into my office and said, “She’s requesting to stay under you.”

I was stunned.
I thought she despised me. But that wasn’t the truth.

She didn’t like me because I had challenged her. But she respected me because I did.
And that respect became the foundation of a working relationship I never expected to succeed.

What That Experience Taught Me About Leadership

Leadership isn’t about being liked.
It’s not about being right.
It’s about being real—and being consistent enough to earn trust even when you’re the last person someone wants to hear from.

You will lead people from all walks of life. Some you’ll instantly connect with. Others will take time. And a few will test every ounce of your patience. But in all those relationships lies an opportunity—to grow, to coach, to understand.

That nurse taught me that pushback isn’t always defiance. Sometimes it’s defense. Sometimes it’s a test to see if your words match your actions. And sometimes, it’s the very moment when respect begins to grow.

Final Thought

If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing, it would be this:
Don’t fear the tension.

Don’t avoid the uncomfortable conversations.
The people who challenge you the most may just be the ones who teach you what leadership truly is.

Because leadership isn’t about control—it’s about courage.
And sometimes, courage sounds a lot like quiet confidence in the middle of a loud conversation.

When Change Comes Full Circle

It’s no secret that I love audiobooks.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you already know my car has become less of a vehicle and more of a mobile classroom — or maybe a therapy session on wheels. I listen to multiple audiobooks a week on my commute. Typically, my mornings are filled with voices that challenge me to grow — personally, professionally, and emotionally. Self-help books, leadership insights, stories about resilience, or strategies for navigating the very situations I find myself knee-deep in at that moment.

Lately, though, my focus has shifted toward one simple yet complicated theme: embracing change.

Now, when I say “embracing change,” I know that’s a broad statement. Change has so many faces — loss, transition, reinvention, letting go, or even rediscovering who you are beneath all the versions of yourself you’ve had to be. And for me right now, I’m standing on the edge of something that feels like both grief and growth — a collision that’s both beautiful and devastating at the same time.

This morning, my audiobook of choice was : Learning to Let Go. And honestly, it felt like the universe placed that one in my queue for a reason.

What struck me most was how each chapter — deep, reflective, sometimes painfully honest — ended with a guided meditation. A pause. A moment to breathe and actually feel what had just been said before rushing on to the next thing. It reminded me how rarely I give myself permission to do the same.

And it brought me back to a memory.

A few months ago, I was sitting in my car after a particularly heavy day at work. The kind of day where emotions ran high, and leadership felt more like carrying the collective weight of everyone else’s pain on top of your own. I remember turning off the ignition, but not getting out of the car. I just sat there, staring at the steering wheel, feeling everything I’d been trying to suppress — grief, exhaustion, and maybe even a little guilt for not being able to “hold it all together.”

Out of habit, I opened my audiobook app, looking for something — anything — that could help me make sense of what I was feeling. The title that popped up was Letting Go Is Not Giving Up. I hit play.

The narrator’s voice said, “Sometimes, release is the most courageous act of strength.”

And for the first time that day, I exhaled.

Maybe that’s why these morning drives and meditations have become so important to me. They’re not just about learning; they’re about remembering. Remembering that even in seasons of uncertainty, there’s space for grace, for grounding, for gratitude.

And then, recently, I had a full-circle moment.

I was once again sitting in my car — but this time, I wasn’t weighed down. I was reflecting, planning, and realizing how far I’ve come. Lately, I’ve been conducting a lot of interviews, meeting nurses from all walks of life. Periodically, I pause between questions, taking in the stories being shared.

The first question I always ask a nurse without hospice experience is, “What brings you to hospice?”

The answers vary — work-life balance, a shift in focus, a search for meaning, a personal connection — but every once in a while, you get that one response that makes you stop and say, “This is a hospice nurse.”

Recently, I had one of those moments. The nurse sitting across from me began sharing her story — and suddenly, it felt like I was looking into a mirror of my younger self.

She told me she’d always wanted to be a hospice nurse but was discouraged right out of school. People told her she needed to “build her skills first,” to try something else before she could “handle” hospice. I smiled because I knew that script by heart.

I was her.

Fresh out of nursing school, everyone told me hospice wasn’t the place for new grads. I shadowed in the emergency room, labor and delivery, psych — trying to find that spark everyone said I should feel somewhere else. But then, one night on a quiet hospice floor changed everything.

The calm. The peace. The presence.
I knew right then and there that nothing could push me away from my passion.

Someone, thankfully, took a chance on me — believed in my heart and my why enough to open a door that’s rarely opened for new nurses. I had applied to be a case manager, but there happened to be an opening on the inpatient hospice unit — the ICU of hospice care. It was the perfect place to learn the true art of hospice nursing in a supportive setting, surrounded by mentors who cared about both skill and soul.

And as I sat there listening to this nurse share her own dream, I realized: I’ve come full circle.

I’m now in a position to be that person for someone else — to take a chance, to create the same kind of safe space that once shaped me.

Because leadership, at its core, isn’t about filling positions. It’s about building the future — especially in fields like hospice, where compassion and courage intertwine. It’s about recognizing the ones who are called to this work, even when they don’t fit the mold.

That’s where growth lives.
That’s where change becomes clarity.
And that’s where I’m reminded — once again — why I do what I do.