What did your eight-year-old self-love doing and how does it relate to what you do now?

When I was 8 years old, I lived on a farm, outside of a small town. There wasn’t a neighbor around, so I spent a lot of time alone with my imagination. Gratefully, we had a lot of land and a lot of places to play and create. My favorite thing to do was after they harvested the hay in the pasture to make hay bales, I would climb and jump from bale to bale and pretend that the hay bales were elephants and I was the ringleader of a circus riding on them into a ring. Being a ringleader in a circus is analogous to the role I’ve played in many organizations in my career.

As it relates to today, and Glowe, I would say that I am being more creative than I’ve ever been before. Instead of creating make-believe environments, I’m using my imagination to help my company and other companies create things that are real. It’s very interesting that you asked this question, because I reflected on this for my book, and that point in time in my life, where I felt the most joyful, free and creative, is exactly how I feel now. There was about a 40-year gap in between the two points where I lost myself and transformed into a better version of that 8 year old self.

If you could go back 10 years and share some advice with your younger self, what would it be? (This could be a specific mistake that you learned from)

Trust yourself and your inner knowing; and stop letting fear drive your life. Ten years ago I was reliving a familiar cycle of abuse and continuing to allow it in all areas of my life. I had taken steps to stop the pattern, but I was far from healed. The last 10 years have been the most healing and have led to my transformation.

How do you see your job as an HR leader changing over the next five years?

In the next five years, I see my role evolving in a way that allows me to spend the majority of my time engaging my superpowers: inspire, create, and connect. While I do this a lot right now, we are in the beginning stages of building Glowe so I’m a lot more immersed in the business operations and execution then I will be in the next five years. I don’t fear change or the threat of being replaced – I embrace both and feel it’s healthy for me and the company. What I’m committed to always is ensuring I am in alignment with myself and that I’m spending my time doing what I’m meant to do in this lifetime.

Do you have a podcast (or book) you have listened to in the last year you would suggest to other people leaders? Why?

Wow – this was the toughest question for me. I listen to a lot of podcasts and often they are related to healing and transformation. While I know I’m creating my own reality in thinking that these topics are EVERYWHERE, because I seek them out and gravitate towards those having the conversations, my hope is that people really are listening and beginning to think differently about their own healing.

One of the podcasts I was excited about and posted on our company Slack channel was Jay Shetty’s On Purpose episode from August 8 with Jenna Kutcher. She was very glowey. A few of her key points that I referenced to my team were: Being in pursuit of balance doesn’t make sense if you look at the definition of balance, learning to listen to yourself, not feeling guilty about ‘resting’, the romanticization of hustle culture, and giving ourselves permission to seek support. Honestly I could go on and on about this one, but instead give it a listen and just reflect on how you feel about some of these items and do not SHAME yourself. Just be honest.