I can remember a life changing morning that brought me to why we’re here together today. It started out no different than most. I greeted the Ikea home office in my chilly basement office at 6 in the morning, getting ready for my first round of virtual calls. Hot coffee in hand, scanning my to-do list.

But I just stood there, unsure why I couldn’t bring myself to sit in my well-worn desk chair. I felt more empty than energized. Like an overweight animal was sitting on my shoulders, symbolic of the stress that had accumulated.

I had been feeling an insatiable hunger to soak in these precious first years of my children’s lives, filling up my rare spare time with school trips and family museum outings - as if I could forcibly slow down their express lane through childhood. But generally, I felt pretty good about the career-mommy juggling act.

As I tried to muster up the work mojo, words from the prior day were kicking me in the gut. “I just don’t understand where you’re going with this…it seems like we’ve been over this …. what we really need is to figure out the triangulation….” My client unloaded a blur of accusations that I wasn’t meeting her needs, using words that landed like Dilbert phrases, that I didn’t know what to do with.

I had been working with this client on a consulting project for over a year, and though we spoke at least weekly and saw each other for few days each month, she was still a mystery to me. There were days when she was pleasant and even fun. And other days when she made me feel like a moron. Until I heard a certain tone I got to understand in her voice, I wasn’t sure what version I was getting. This was now the third week in a row where I walked away feeling incompetent to the extent that I questioned my ability to do the job that, up until recently, I felt I could do well. Have you have worked with people who could make you feel this way?

I was going through the motions of what appeared to be a really fulfilling and even enviable life. My children were, happy, healthy, fun. My husband and I were strong partners to each other. A comfortable home, the ability to travel a few times each year, and if I'm going to be honest with myself, never in need of anything material. At that time, our parents and most other family members were in good health. We were too ignorant to realize this would soon change. On any given day I would read the newspaper or turn on the news and be reminded of the horrific things going on the world, everything from third world calamities to local families dealing with poverty or unthinkable personal tragedy.

All that good stuff and still something felt missing. Did I need another challenge? More volunteer time at the kids’ school? The truth was that when I took on one more thing, I felt even lower. “More” was not necessarily better. If not more, than perhaps “different” is what I was yearning for.

As I thought about how to feel more engaged, fulfilled, and effective there was one word that kept coming to mind – HUMAN. I wanted to work with clients who treated me, well, like a human. I thought about the bosses I’ve had in my life that I most admired and who the most successful. The clients who most fired me up (in a good way). The leaders I read about in books who I found most inspiring. They were real, not phony. They showed compassion, vulnerability. They respected boundaries for my personal life, and role modeled this in their own routines. And yet they were results driven, solid decision makers, great problem solvers, keepers of a great culture, clear communicators, good listeners.

This is what learn in our journey together today. How to be THAT leader…the human-centered success that will impact people and results. The version that will leave you and others fulfilled. Today you will get clear on where you shine, so you can do it with greater intention. And identify what is harder for you, so you can learn new skills and create a plan to keep growing in the future.

Are you ready?

Did you ever watch the 80’s TV show “Who’s The Boss?” Growing up, I wanted to be the lead character – Angela Bower. All I knew about Angela was that she wore a power suit and commuted to an important job in New York City. I didn’t have any personal role models like Angela, and had no idea what I wanted to do for work. But the idea of this future totally spoke to me.

This led me to become a business major as an undergrad, though sadly I was finding that my business classes were not bringing more clarity to a career path. Then I took psychology classes, and I loved them. But how could I fit psychology into my dream of working in the business world?

While reading a psychology textbook in my dorm room at American University one day, I saw a reference to the American Psychology Association (APA) with a Washington DC address. Since this back when phone long distance calls where pricey, and the internet was in its infancy, I was excited that I could make a local call and ask the APA a question that changed my life – “Do you have information about the different types of careers in psychology?”

As I read a thin pamphlet called “Careers in Psychology,” I lit up as I found a small blurb on “Industrial and Organizational Psychology”. There it was, it had a name! From there, I looked into graduate programs and will thrilled when Columbia admitted me to their Master’s program in Organizational Psychology. I have been in this field ever since, and I know with certainty that it’s my life purpose to help talented people improve their results and their happiness, and help organizations be the place those people want to work.