Category: Life Lessons

A New Chapter

I left my full-time job about a month ago. I had been with the same company (more or less…) for 2 months short of 16 years. During that time, I held 4 roles, supervised dozens of employees, and survived an acquisition. I went from being in one office full time to traveling between 2 offices and then traveling among 5 offices and then mostly working from home except for monthly site visits. This stage in my career saw me recovering from a divorce, raising my kids, surviving the pandemic as an “essential worker,” and recovering from a stroke. Many of the lessons I have learned about leadership, both what to do and what not to do came from this job. I have grown as a person and as a leader as a result.

It’s a strange experience when leaving a work-from-home job. On my last day, I finished tying up the last of the loose ends and then shut down my computer. There was no boxing up my office, saying goodbye to my coworkers, or walking out of the building. I had said goodbye to some folks in person in the week prior to leaving, and some of my team had a virtual meeting full of goodbyes, but at the final moment, it was strange to just get up from my desk and walk to my kitchen. The primary closure came when I didn’t log back in to my computer after the weekend. Just like that, I was done.

Before any of you think that I just went crazy and quit my job, I didn’t. It was intentional and with a plan that was over a year in the making. In May, 2024, I knew that my current job was not where I needed to be for several reasons. I spent some time brushing up my resume and looking for other positions, but that was yielding only frustration. (from my fellow job hunters, can I get an Amen!!) As I was trying to work through the stress and frustration, I had a crazy thought of going back to my degree and what I had been intending to do when I graduated 15 years prior. Maybe, just maybe I could go into professional counseling and marriage & family therapy!

The first hurdle in that plan was figuring out if my degree still met the requirements for licensure, which, thankfully, it did. I then had to find someone who would take a chance on me by being my licensure supervisor even though I was 15 years past graduation. I contacted one of my former instructors who has a therapy practice in town, and she was willing to give me a shot!! Then, I spent the next 3 months studying for the National Counseling Exam, which is required to get a provisional license. In August, I passed on the first try, despite the guy sitting next to me that was driving me crazy by coughing and hacking the whole time (who, come to find out, had Covid, and was kind enough to share!). With the exam (and Covid) behind me, I just needed to jump through the hoops of submitting my paperwork and fees to get my provisional license. My provisional license came in October, and then I was on my way!

From October, 2024 to May, 2025 the therapy practice referred as many clients as possible to me to establish my client base. The tough part about being provisionally licensed is that there are very limited insurance companies that allow billing. This means that I have mostly been referred clients who are willing to private pay. By February, I was starting to fill up my evening hours with clients while spending my days doing my full-time job. I was consistently working 12-14 hours a day between both jobs. At the end of May, I hit a breaking point where I realized that I was struggling to do both jobs well. We crunched some household finance numbers, I talked with my supervisor (who is one of my dearest friends—and not just due to workplace trauma bonding!), and I put in my resignation.

So, here’s to a new chapter! I’m finally what I want to be when I grow up—3 months before I turn 50! It is scary. It is rewarding. It is stretching me in ways I haven’t been stretched before (I’m looking at you, insurance billing!!). It is a much slower pace, which is taking some getting used to.  I’m excited for my caseload to grow so I’m working full-time again. In the meantime, I’m trying to soak up learning opportunities and trying not to stress about not having a predictable salary. All in all, life is good.

Thanks for reading! 😊 EW

Beginning Again–I’m Back!

It is a new day. There is a new blog design. Old posts have been reposted and I’m charging ahead. One of the hard things about blogging without being particularly tech savvy, is that when things on the website break, it is a huge process to fix them. I had some sort of virus/security breach on my website in the fall of 2022—Google saw it as a threat and stopped showing it. Chats and emails ensued with my domain host trying to figure out what to do and how to do it with my very limited knowledge. Then, I got intensely frustrated with my lack of understanding and busy with other things, so it ultimately fell by the wayside. I started trying to figure it out again in May, 2024, which ultimately resulted in the reboot the site got today.

Time has passed. More lessons have been learned. I’m excited to jump back in with the mental health, faith, leadership, memories, and general life writing that I had come to enjoy. Onwards and upwards!

Thanks for reading (especially after all this time!) 😊 EW

The Human Side of Leadership

Originally posted 12/16/2020

Today was a tough day. There are parts of being a leader that are hard…and then there are parts of being a leader that are really hard. Today was really hard. Being a leader means making difficult decisions and doing the right thing even when it is hard. It means finding the balance of the job we do, the employees we need to support, the deadlines, the accountability, and the myriad of other things involved in leading. As a leader, being human falls pretty low on the list. It is important to be real, but there is a definite difference between being honest and real and being vulnerable and human. It won’t serve those I lead to see my moments of doubt, uncertainty, sadness, and the other emotional ups and downs of being the person who is supposed to have the answers amid uncertainty. Those I lead need to be encourage, empowered, and reminded that things will be ok—because in the long run, that is true. Things will be ok. We need to keep on keeping on and remember that nearly everything is fixable. My doubt won’t be encouraging to those who are looking to me for support. So, my humanness as a leader is reserved for you, my dear readers.

Anytime I am faced with someone under my leadership umbrella who is not open to being led, I doubt my abilities as a leader. As those folks struggle to be successful (or flat out fail to accomplish the job set before them), it is often said that I was too much or not enough. I was too demanding, expected too much, too particular, too intense or I didn’t teach enough, support enough, provide enough resources, cut them enough slack…the list goes on. As much as I know my qualities as a leader are strongest around clear communication of expectations, teaching and support—I am also human. Sometimes I don’t get it right. Did I do enough? Did I miss something? Could I have done more? Should I have done more? Would anything I could have done or not done changed the outcome to something more positive? Those questions all go through my head as I review the situation. It is easy to feel like I am not enough. If the common thread in those who aren’t successful under my leadership is me, then am I not the right fit?

Sometimes being a leader brings sadness. When I see someone who I believe in not reaching the potential I see in them, it makes me sad. I want to see and believe the best in people—and no amount of leadership boundaries will keep that from being a part of who I am. I don’t want to be cynical and skeptical of people. I truly believe that the greatest gift you can give someone you lead is honest feedback and constructive correction when needed. I don’t want to change that, even though I struggle when it doesn’t go how I want it to.

Those are hard days. But, tomorrow is a new day. The hard things don’t change the fact that there is still a job to do, deadlines to meet and people to support. Sad tonight and then back at it tomorrow…

Thanks for reading. 😊 EW

Integrity and Responsibility

Originally posted 11/14/2020

I have always told my kids that integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is looking. Dictionary.com defines integrity as “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.” The definitions are pretty much the same. The issue isn’t in defining integrity, it’s in living it out in our day to day life—both personally and professionally. All of us have thoughts, decisions, or moments that we aren’t fully proud of. That is part of being human. Our natural inclination as human beings is to be self-focused, self-preserving, and self-righteous. That doesn’t lead as readily to sound moral character as we might hope. Integrity takes work. It takes being intentional, making hard decisions, and being courageous. That is hard, and we don’t always like hard.

Sound moral character must include honesty. Being honest is great when it comes to positive things. We like to talk honestly about our accomplishments or the good things happening in our lives. It is much harder to be honest about our mistakes. Taking responsibility for mistakes is difficult, especially when those mistakes have hurt others. It is sad how infrequently people truly and fully take responsibility for missteps—too often self-preservation kicks in in combination with self-righteousness to help us to find an outside circumstance or another person to view as responsible—or at a minimum more responsible than we are.

I strive to live a life of integrity. I want to be transparent, open, vulnerable, and real. I fall short. Daily. The hope of honesty, sound moral character, and doing what is right is to do better as you know better, to learn from mistakes and moments of struggle. Integrity is more than seeing and admitting mistakes, it is also about having the courage to learn from those mistakes and change going forward.

Integrity is also about speaking with honor and dignity about others—being honest when we speak of others. We must remember that we can lift others up and support their growth and success without diminishing our potential for success. We don’t have to tear others down or see competition in others in order to grow and progress ourselves. As much as I cringe a little bit when I hear some of the cliché comments on teamwork, it is so true that when we surround ourselves with people we can grow and develop with, we all benefit. We are more than the sum of our parts, which is how we were designed to be.

I hope you will think about the role that integrity has in your personal and professional life. Where can you be more honest, take more responsibility, lean into to help yourself and others grow stronger? How can your honesty, integrity, and positive sense of responsibly build up those around you? If we could all focus on learning from our mistakes rather than trying to deny them, cover them, or make them someone else’s responsibility, the better we will all be.

Thanks for reading! 😊 EW