Hi there, and thanks for stopping by!
I'm a leadership coach and here's what I do.
I help people develop the skills and qualities that form the bedrock of ALL great leadership. In coaching, I help leaders thrive by cultivating and using emotional intelligence (sometimes called “EQ”) and empathy — whether that’s measured in dollars, team members’ engagement, organizational mission, or anything else.
While I happen to coach lots of leaders and lawyers at big law firms, leadership coaching can benefit anyone who’s a member of the human race. I firmly believe that ANYONE — regardless of title, role, background, or education — can be, and, in my opinion, should consider becoming, a leader in both their professional and personal worlds.
My own road to becoming a leadership coach was anything but linear.
My interest in leadership started when I left my hometown of Warwick, RI to study at Wharton, the University of Pennsylvania’s business school.
After college, I attended law school at the University of Michigan (Go Blue!). I loved not just the intellectual rigor, but also my terrific classmates, who elected me to represent our class all three years. Many of them are now my clients, thought partners and sounding boards, and my friends.
Since then, I’ve had at least 4 different careers, depending on how you count them. I clerked for a judge and then practiced law with major law firms in NYC. Then I spent a couple of years working as a legal recruiter, before becoming a stay-at-home-parent to my two kiddos (now both teenagers) and a caregiver to my aging parents and parents-in-law.
My experience as a full-time parent and caregiver has become a huge and indispensable part of my professional journey. Surprisingly to me, the many leadership skills I honed then — along with my recent learnings as Dog-Mom to my family’s labradoodle puppy, Ozzie — are among those I use the most in my coaching now.
When I was ready to return to the paid workforce, I joined a respected legal talent management consultancy as a career counselor and a trainer. I loved that work so much that I decided to enroll in “coach school.” In my case, that was a rigorous program called iPEC, which I now consider one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Today I hold the certification of Professional Certified Coach (PCC) from the International Coaching Foundation (ICF), which is the gold standard for coaching globally. I’m privileged to serve on the Board of Directors and DEI committee of my local ICF chapter.
I'm passionate about superpowers -- yours, mine & everyone's.
Many of my beliefs about leadership stem from what might seem like an odd source: my learnings about neurodiversity, specifically ADHD. I have ADHD, as does one of my kids, and while that sometimes leads to a messy house or running out of groceries, I fully credit my ADHD for giving me the qualities to which I attribute most of my success. Those include my tremendous energy level and my ability to see connections that are not always apparent to others.
I often observe similar strengths in others with ADHD (whether or not formally diagnosed). That’s why I’m passionate about helping to educate the world about the gifts of ADHD specifically and of neurodiversity generally. Just consider the luminaries with ADHD who have shared their gifts with the world: business mogul Sir Richard Branson, Olympian Michael Phelps, and JetBlue founder David Neeleman (to name a few).
I’ve been especially inspired by Dr. Edward (Ned) Hallowell, MD, one of the world’s pioneering and foremost experts in ADHD, who believes — as do I — that ADHD usually brings with it “superpowers” that our society all too often dismisses or fails to value and leverage properly.
You can hear Dr. Hallowell interview me about leadership and superpowers on his podcast. (It runs about 20 minutes after a brief ad.)
My passion is now my specialty.
The concept of superpowers now underlies my personal definition of leadership: A leader is someone who uses the full weight of their unique superpowers to benefit themselves and their organization and inspires others to do the same.
I call this “Owning Your Power.”
It only took a quarter-century, but I — hallelujah — am finally doing what I know I’m “meant” to be doing: inspiring and supporting other people to Own Their Power. It’s thrilling to me to be a part of someone’s journey as they make a change or reach a goal they initially didn’t believe possible.
Increasingly, the people who choose me as their coach want not only to lead their own organizations more effectively, but also to use their influence to improve our world in bigger ways that elevate ALL of us.
I love that.
In fact, the only thing more satisfying to me than watching someone Own Their Power is having that person go on to inspire others to Own THEIR Power… and then having those newly inspired folks do the same. That’s what I call the Ripple Effect. To me, creating that Ripple Effect is the hallmark of leadership. And seeing this cycle of inspiration happen again and again is truly amazing.
How I'm sharing my experiences with a larger audience.
In addition to my coaching, I’m devoting much of my time to writing and speaking. My goal is to share coaching techniques in an entertaining, affordable and accessible way, so others can reap their benefits.
My current passion project is the Fully Human Lawyer™ column I write for The American Lawyer. I’m also busy writing my first book for a more diverse audience to start sharing the gifts of coaching with the world.
Want to know more about how coaching saved me, and how I'm paying it forward?
