Q WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED IN THE PAST YEAR?
With ForthRight People humming along, Anne Candido and I started a spinoff, ForthRight Women. Our focus is on building a community of successful women who are hungry for the support and camaraderie of similarly minded executive women. Our goal is to pave a new path to achieve a greater level of fulfillment for ourselves and the women who will come after us. We’re doing this through discussions on how you can unleash more capacity, develop strategies for achieving unlimited goals, and help each other realize it’s possible to find success as an executive and a mom without compromising or apologizing.
Q HOW DOES INNOVATION HELP IN YOUR CAREER?
As a lifelong learner, finding new perspectives is the best way for me to continue growing and improving at work and in life. I consume content voraciously and find at least an hour a day to listen to or read something that adds to my education. Lately, this has been through listening to audiobooks that have changed my life, including “The Code of the Extraordinary Mind” by Vishen Lakhiani, “Finding My Virginity” by Richard Branson, “Think Again” by Adam Grant, and “Late Bloomers” by Rich Karlgaard. Some pushed my thinking beyond where I thought I was capable of going. Others busted myths and challenged societal norms that have existed longer than any of us have been alive. And still others provided tools for building new experiences and behaviors in our toolkit.
Q WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU’VE EVER BEEN GIVEN?
We aren’t saving lives (at work). I say it all the time to our teams. It’s a good reminder to keep things in perspective and remember what’s important versus what’s a perceived “major problem” at any given time. We all have triggers that, in the heat of the moment, can cause us to place disproportionate importance on the situation. By taking a step back into an objective space, we can better see things for what they really are and where they fall in terms of our priorities and focus.
Q WHO WAS YOUR ROLE MODEL GROWING UP, AND HOW DID THEY HELP SHAPE YOU INTO WHO YOU ARE TODAY?
My parents and, in particular, my mom. I’m one of five kids, and my parents did a tremendous job of treating us all as individuals and giving us what we needed to succeed while never comparing us. My mom held our feet to the fire when it came to standing up for ourselves. She would say, “You have a voice. Use it. At the end of the day, we’re all just people.”