This is my wish for you on my birthday
and John Steinbeck's reminder to stay focused
as seen on:
Ten years ago, a fellow veteran reached out and asked me to come to California for an event honoring the WASPs — several women who had flown for their country in WWII would be in attendance. It wasn’t officially a work event, and I guard my time carefully, especially while our kids are still at home, but there was something especially compelling about this. I decided to go at the urging of one of the organizers, retired Navy Captain Karen Fine Brasch; I’d interviewed Karen for The Grit Factor (her story is one most often referenced!) and we learned we had many things in common (boy moms, love for music and classical education, and more).
It’s because of making this trip that I was able to talk with Bev Beesmeyer and Alice Rohrer, both Women Airfare Service Pilots from WWII (Bev was able to go up on another flight when we were all together— picture below!) It was an incredible honor to meet both of these women who were funny, humble, and kind. I included as much as I could from the interviews with them in The Grit Factor, marveling that we didn’t have their stories when I had served in the Army— they just weren’t mainstream at all.
What is evident to me as I think of them today is how much the ripples of our decisions, actions, accomplishments and failures continue to reach into the universe— how much our lives are connected in oft unexpected ways to so many others. For these women of a past generation, it’s certain their lives made mine better, even in retrospect. I started to understand my own past story differently because of knowing them and all that they did.
My hope for anyone reading this newsletter is to take notice, to believe that what every one of us does matters—in the creative energy we offer the world, in how we serve others, in how we simply love others and this incredible planet we call home.
Recommendations for your WHM reading (and always):
My Bookshop has a number of Booklists, but this is the one to consider ordering from for WHM: books by women veterans. As stories continue to be retold or buried, it’s more important than ever to read and share the stories of those who have come before.
My friend Jenn Donahue’s new book is out this week, too— so if you’ve already stacked yourselves with the others, look at her Becoming the Warrior!
My wishes for you on my birthday
Today is my birthday, and I’m grateful. Not because everything is perfect— it isn’t— but because of the astonishing gift of existence, and the incredible gift of love. Love for people who are important in my life, and love for this amazing even when broken world. This is the place that leadership must begin— out of love.
Leadership can mean many things. It has to start with ourselves, of course, and that’s a changing mission over time. And at work, leadership isn’t just about the mission. It IS the mission, and it starts with how we take care of ourselves and the people we lead.
I’ve recently encountered or witnessed health scares that change perspective— realign what might have gone off course, bring us back to center. One thing that is clear in the midst of these encounters is that we cannot lead (ourselves or others) at our best when we’re running on empty. And we cannot ask the people on our teams to give their best when we haven’t created the conditions for them to truly thrive — physically, mentally, and in connection to their purpose.
This is not soft leadership. This is the hardest, most important leadership work there is.
Three things I believe (see Steinbeck below for where this phrase comes from!) with everything I have:
1. PURPOSE IS PERFORMANCE. When people understand why their work matters — truly matters — they bring something to it that no incentive structure can manufacture. Connect your team to the mission. Do it often. Do it genuinely.
2. YOUR HEALTH IS A LEADERSHIP DECISION. How you treat your body — sleep, movement, rest, recovery — directly shapes the quality of your judgment, your presence, and your resilience under pressure. You can’t pour from an empty vessel. And your team is watching how you model this.
3. VULNERABILITY IS STRENGTH. When leaders acknowledge that they are human — that health matters, that struggle is real, that none of us are invincible — we give our teams permission to be human too. That’s where psychological safety lives. That’s where people do their best work.
The leaders who will define the next decade won’t just be the ones who drove results. They’ll be the ones who understood that sustainable excellence is built on human beings who feel seen, purposeful, and well.
We can do this differently. I’m convinced of it.
What would it look like if we treated the wellness of our people — and ourselves — as a core leadership metric?
John Steinbeck’s reminder that your work is important
“There is a great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused.
At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask these questions. What do I believe in? What must I flight for and what must I fight against?
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
And now the forces marshals around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on that preciousness, the mind of man, By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forces direction and the stunning hammer blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunter drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.
And this I believe: that the free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world, And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I’m about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.” - from East of Eden
Am reading:
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
Leadership:
How Nine Women Define Their Leadership
On women in leadership: Sponsorship is what’s missing, by J. Kelly Hoey (check out her new book!)
AI: This piece is a helpful counterpoint to much of the hype.
Education:
Kristof shows us the way forward in education, and it doesn’t come from the place you’d assume
Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTube
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