Hello Beautiful Human,

I don’t think anyone desiring to make a meaningful impact with their career imagined that it would consist of so many meetings and challenging conversations.

It doesn’t take much time within a nonprofit to know one can’t avoid ‘those meetings’ with ‘that person’ who makes your life and work more difficult.

You know the type of interactions I’m talking about; you rehearse in your head what you are going to say. You imagine their responses and objections. You mentally build your defense. You wish they would be more agreeable. Ugh.

These very thoughts cause annoyance to run through your body before you even get to the meeting.

Your emotions are hijacked every time you think about it or see it on your calendar.

As a result, that project you thought would take 10 minutes is actually taking an hour, because the truth is, thinking about that meeting you dread is draining your energy and focus. This ends up creating even more annoyance and exhaustion. It is an emotional (and time consuming) cycle.

The lack of focus and energy then causes you to question your abilities. You know you’re not leading at your highest potential.

You wonder why you feel so horrible when you finally close your computer or leave the office. You are NOT alone.

Here’s where Holistic Leadership Coaching can transform your meetings.

Expert Insight: Informed by Intrapersonal Neurobiology

Our brains are predicting machines. We draw on historical interactions and past emotional experiences to help us prepare for what we may face. Meeting PTSD, negative experiences with someone in the past? Your nervous system will remind you that it could happen again.

The problem is, we can’t actually predict the future, we create it with the way that we are thinking and feeling about the experience. The anticipated dread contributes to the result we create.

But the good news is that, without relying on the behavior or responses of others, you have the incredible opportunity to choose how you show up and how you respond with conscious awareness, and practice.

Back to transforming your meeting dread…

Stepping off your own train of thought and changing your emotional reactions isn’t easy on your own.

I often invite my clients to do a thought experience and imagine…

• What could go well?
• Why is it important that you have this interaction?
• How do you want to feel going into this conversation?
• Focusing on what you can control, what’s the best case scenario?

Together we uncover authentic empowerment, creativity and possibility.

It varies based on the specific situations, but more often than not my clients come up with brilliant solutions or experiments to transform the interaction they were dreading.

You don’t need to continue to dread parts of your work.

There are many possibilities for creating transformation, especially when accessing a full toolkit of mental, emotional, and embodied leadership practices.

Imagine all the energy you will save when those dreaded meetings no longer have power over your mental and emotional world.

Imagine feeling curious and confident even in those tricky conversations.

This is possible. And it will bring so much ease and joy into your world.

May your meetings bring meaningful connections and move your mission forward in powerful ways.