I don’t have a leadership program. I have a leadership pedigree.
All of it working almost purely on instinct, flying by the seat of my pants.
For a long time I wondered where that instinct came from. Turns out it isn't magic - it's pattern recognition, the kind you only build in a high-stakes place where reading people wrong gets someone hurt. The circus qualified. But the real teacher was the horses.
When I went back to school in my 30's for a masters in leadership, I was eager at the start of every class to learn something new: Power & Politics, Leadership Concepts & Practices, Leading Organizational Change.
In all these classes, I discovered something surprising - I already knew the tactics. I had lived them and successfully implemented them already when I was leading "from the hip" in my 20's.
The greatest gift of my degree was proof that my instincts for leadership were spot on. The research backed up what my intuition already knew.
Why? Because power is something I started learning in the cradle.
For 6 generations before me, my family has built things that moved people and outlasted them. Two senators, a congresswoman, and a mayor of Chicago. They made two US presidents. They moved the needle on women's suffrage. They built one of the most powerful newspapers in the country. They pioneered equine genetics. And then they built a circus.
The circus is where My leadership Grew up
I was backstage by eleven, performing on horseback for thousands by fourteen, directing the show at twenty-three, and running the whole operation at twenty-seven. 65 horses, 500 shows a year, 365 days a year, a thousand guests through the doors at a time, and we served them all dinner too.
Then, right after I took over, the 2008 crash forced a $3 million budget cut, a full quarter of everything. That's the kind of hit ordinary businesses don't survive. But a circus is no ordinary business, and "the show must go on" isn't a catchphrase - it's gospel.
So I didn't just cut. I restructured, protecting the people who cared the most, and we came out the other side with every metric higher than before: food, show quality, guest experience, morale.
I’ll get you un-stuck
The person you keep having to do everything for? I'll help you turn what only you can do into something your team can actually run.
Keep getting read as cold, or difficult, or "too much"? I can usually tell you exactly why - and what to shift so people get you.
Can't tell whether someone will ever change? I can - and I'll tell you how to move them if they can.
How Horses taught me to read people
"Horse" was my first language. I was born onto the breeding farm and took my first ride at three days old. I was eight when the circus opened.
That childhood does something specific to a person. I was raised by animals who cannot lie, in the middle of a circus full of people who perform for a living. The honest thing and the performed thing stood side by side, every day, and the gap between them was obvious - so I learned to read that gap by reflex.
It's why people don't mystify me, not even the ones who mystify everyone else. I have a kind of x-ray vision for understanding why people do what they do. Which means I can usually see why someone is getting misread, too - and how to fix it.
Eventually, that ability led me to a career in helping leaders be understood.
Most of the leaders who come to me are stuck on something they can't quite name.
You’ve read the books, tried the methods, and don't have time for another program. If the problem had an easy solution, you’d have solved it already.
My family tradition is to build something that outlasts us, and in that respect I’m no different. But my calling isn’t politics or newspapers or horses or entertainment - it’s leadership.
I develop leaders with conscience so they can be more effective. So their leadership is sustainable. So they can impact more people.
That’s why I built Conscience-Driven Leadership.
Trust Physics is the way in.
Start with Trust Physics
Explore CDL
Work with me
Your leadership is my legacy
How I live
I live in Spain with my college-sweetheart-turned-husband and our too-smart working Aussie, Thora. We’re close enough to regularly visit our families in Norway and Germany, and far enough to stay warm in the winter.
When I’m not working, I knit, cook simple meals, and keep stumbling my way into Spanish (which I’m loving more than I expected). We live in the Valencian Community, where fiestas unfold right outside our building, fireworks punctuate ordinary evenings, seafood and tapas are less a treat than a daily staple, and our unlikely best friends here are a pair of Scouse women who keep us laughing and grounded.
