Validation from Cardboard

I love coaching.

Every time I sit with a client, I get a little electric zing of happiness. ⚡ There is something deeply satisfying about being fully present with another human as they untangle a challenge, discover a new perspective, or finally say the thing they’ve been circling for months. On the days when a client has an “aha” moment, I can coast on that joy for hours.

For years, I had what felt like a dream job as an in-house coach at a remarkable, mission-driven organization. I was supporting brilliantpeople working to unravel cancer. I was helping good humans become stronger leaders. I was part of a thoughtful, talented team. The work mattered, and sodid the people.

Then, in the blink of an eye, our department was abolished.

In the months that followed, I questioned everything.

Coaching is not just something I do. It is woven into my identity. If I wasn’t coaching, who was I? The uncertainty felt like standing on a trapdoor, never knowing when the floor might disappear again.

Eventually, I made a decision that felt equal parts terrifying and exhilarating: I would build my own coaching practice.

I would continue doing what I love and trust that the people who needed me would find me.

The parents trying to understand their neurodivergent children while juggling work and home.

The managers who wake up each morning wondering if they are actually cut out to lead.

The people who feel they are “pretending” to be leaders instead of discovering what authentic leadership looks like for them.

Instead of supporting someone else’s mission, I chose to fully embrace my own:

to create confident leaders at work and at home who value themselves and others as unique, capable humans.

Cue the triumphant music. . . and the screeching record.

Tiny detail: fifteen years of coaching did not prepare me for even one second of entrepreneur-ing.

Suddenly, I was learning about marketing, branding, pricing, and all the other mysterious creatures that live in the entrepreneurial jungle. I joined a three-month cohort of aspiring women entrepreneurs and spent much of that time feeling gloriously, painfully uncomfortable.

And then the gremlins showed up.

You’re not cut out to run a business.

You build leaders. You’re not one.

You want to do the work, not chase it.

But beneath all those doubts was the biggest fear of all:

What if my mission didn’t matter?

Then came a day in late March.

I stood in front of a room full of successful women and pitched my business. As I spoke, I saw heads nodding. I saw smiles of recognition. I felt something shift as I explained, with complete authenticity, what I do and why I do it.

That day, I won a prize from the Maryland Women’s Business Center.

They handed me a giant piece of cardboard that said, “We believe in YOU.”

Okay. Technically, it said I had won $2,000.

AND, more importantly, it was a room full of accomplished women saying, in effect, We see you. We believe in what you’re building. Keep going.

That oversized piece of cardboard became something much more meaningful than an award. It became a tangible reminder that my mission matters.

Some days, entrepreneurship still feels like trying to assemble an airplane while flying it. With instructions written in a language I don’t quite speak. While someone asks if I’ve optimized my SEO.

But now, when the doubts creep in, I think about holding that piece of cardboard with my kids.

I think about being seen by this crowd and the look in my kids eyes when I did it.

Sometimes the validation we need arrives in unexpected forms.

Sometimes it looks like a giant check.

Sometimes it looks like a room full of women nodding in recognition.

And sometimes it looks like a piece of cardboard that quietly whispers:

We believe in you.

‍