Breaking Free from the Ghosts of Past Mentors

Early in your career, someone’s great advice helped you make progress.

Maybe you were lucky to have multiple stunning mentors.

They taught you everything:

💡How to manage direct reports.

💡How to show up with executive presence.

💡How to demand results.

💡How to take accountability.

Brick by brick these tips and tricks built the foundation of your career. 🏗️

You climbed up the steps, the scaffolding to your current role at the top of the organization.

Those voices accompany you every day. They are in the back your head when you make decisions.

They’re comforting, but they are also holding you back:

❌ How to manage direct reports, but from another generation.

❌ How to show up with executive presence, but for an in-person audience.

❌ How to demand results, but from a pre-pandemic culture.

❌ How to take accountability, but with an outdated power structure.

The advice is no longer offering you a staircase and scaffolding, rather it’s a gilded cage. 🔒

Now you are a leader in a complex, dynamic, volatile, and ever changing present. 🚀

To be successful as you can be, you must let go of messages that once served you well.

✅ You can align to your own values, beliefs, and current environment.

✅ You can be a discerning consumer of the old voices.

✅ You can lead from your own integrity.

It’s time to give those ghosts a little shove. 👻

P.S. This is hard. What would it take for you to acknowledge the voices that helped get you here, while decluttering to make room for your own voice?

(Sunrise over Barton Springs in Austin, TX - a natural cold plunge year-round)