Member since November 2023
I'm Cheryle Hays, known as The Human Potentialist. I help leaders turn human dynamics into a strategic advantage through Courageous Curiosity℠ — the leadership operating system that moves leaders from reactive default to intentional design.
My July 2026 TEDx talk, "Wired to React, Built to Respond," explored why our brains are wired to protect us, not make us successful — and what it takes to move from reaction to response, on stage and in life. React, and you surrender your power. Respond, and reclaim it. That same insight became a leadership tool, and is why I developed Courageous Curiosity℠.
My debut solo book, Courageous Curiosity: For Leaders Brave Enough to Lead Differently, launches in October 2026 — building out that same operating system into a full leadership practice.
With 25+ years of leadership and business growth experience across technology, manufacturing, and service industries, I've worked with over 60 companies and 5,000+ employees. I'm also an Amazon bestselling co-author of People Fusion: Best Practices to Build and Retain a Strong Team.
I partner with organizations, teams and leaders to build leadership operating systems that create real alignment — not just better behavior, but transformed leaders, stronger teams, and cultures that actually work.
My purpose and passion are to change the world one leader at a time, reaching as many leaders as possible, as quickly as possible. Leaders are one of the fastest levers for real change. Change how a leader leads, and that shift ripples through their whole team, and everyone that team touches. That ripple is how the world actually changes.
Early in my career, I was promoted above my own boss and his team into my first leadership role. To top it off, I had to fly back to Dallas and tell them. No coaching, no training, basically no idea. I didn't fail — but I quickly realized how much I didn't know about leadership, and what I did know was wrong. That gap between the title and my actual readiness didn't discourage me, it just gave me the incentive to keep climbing out of the holes I dug myself in!. This first leadership job actually encouraged me: from what I saw was missing in the leader role models I'd had, and in my own efforts, made me fall in love with the potential of leadership — what it could be, what it could unlock in people, if we actually learned how to do it well. That moment started the lifelong journey I'm still on.
I wasn't raised knowing I could be anything; in fact, I was told I was less than — less pretty, less smart, less worthy. I lived through physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and had not one but two stalkers. That kind of upbringing doesn't stay in the past. It trains your brain to scan every room, from family room to board room, for threats before it looks for possibilities. I learned early that other people's judgment was the truth, and staying safe meant staying inside it.
For years, I built a career and a life inside limits other people set for me, without ever questioning them. I was winning by every visible measure — but I was still living an "in spite of" life. In spite of what I survived. In spite of the doubters. Every win was measured against what I'd overcome, which meant the past was still running the show. I'd just negotiated better terms.
The shift came when I finally saw the pattern whole — not the false safety I'd been chasing for years, dressed up as ambition. That's when the question changed: not how do I stay safe, but how do I stop defaulting to false safety and actually become successful — not just in my career, but in life, in leading myself and others.
That led to earning an Executive MBA without an undergraduate degree. From there, I started my leadership strategist business, realizing that all tools, all strategy, all attempts to gain team engagement only minimally succeed when we're running them on top of a flawed operating system, one designed to keep us safe, not make us successful.
That's also where "InPower" came from. Empower is something you do for someone else. InPower is unlocking your own potential first — so you can help someone else find theirs.
Early in my career, I was promoted above my own boss and his team into my first leadership role. To top it off, I had to fly back to Dallas and tell them. No coaching, no training, basically no idea. I didn't fail — but I quickly realized how much I didn't know about leadership, and what I did know was wrong. That gap between the title and my actual readiness didn't discourage me, it just gave me the incentive to keep climbing out of the holes I dug myself in!. This first leadership job actually encouraged me: from what I saw was missing in the leader role models I'd had, and in my own efforts, made me fall in love with the potential of leadership — what it could be, what it could unlock in people, if we actually learned how to do it well. That moment started the lifelong journey I'm still on.
I wasn't raised knowing I could be anything; in fact, I was told I was less than — less pretty, less smart, less worthy. I lived through physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and had not one but two stalkers. That kind of upbringing doesn't stay in the past. It trains your brain to scan every room, from family room to board room, for threats before it looks for possibilities. I learned early that other people's judgment was the truth, and staying safe meant staying inside it.
For years, I built a career and a life inside limits other people set for me, without ever questioning them. I was winning by every visible measure — but I was still living an "in spite of" life. In spite of what I survived. In spite of the doubters. Every win was measured against what I'd overcome, which meant the past was still running the show. I'd just negotiated better terms.
The shift came when I finally saw the pattern whole — not the false safety I'd been chasing for years, dressed up as ambition. That's when the question changed: not how do I stay safe, but how do I stop defaulting to false safety and actually become successful — not just in my career, but in life, in leading myself and others.
That led to earning an Executive MBA without an undergraduate degree. From there, I started my leadership strategist business, realizing that all tools, all strategy, all attempts to gain team engagement only minimally succeed when we're running them on top of a flawed operating system, one designed to keep us safe, not make us successful.
That's also where "InPower" came from. Empower is something you do for someone else. InPower is unlocking your own potential first — so you can help someone else find theirs.
