During our early years of marriage, I would get so angry with my husband when it was time to clean. I would get up on Saturday and get to work. He would get up, goof off, go hang out, and then clean. He always did the chores he was supposed to do, but it was typically at the end of the day. Despite the fact that he would always do his part, I would get so mad.

This went on for a while until one day I said “Kniché, why are you so mad? He always gets his stuff done. Why does it matter when he does it?” Truth was, I was jealous. I had had a long week, just like him. I wanted relax or do something fun while the sun was still up, but I didn’t feel like I was allowed. You see, I was following a rule from my childhood – work first, play later. This made sense back then because my mom wanted to get stuff done quickly. But I’m a grown up now. Who cares when I mop the kitchen?

In that moment, I realized this rule, “work before play” no longer applied. I was now an adult and this was my house - I can clean when I feel like it. It was in that experience I realized that I was following an old rule that no longer served me. I was following it “just because”. This lesson caused me to start to look at other rules from my past I was mindlessly following that were not only not adding value, but were potentially causing undue stress.

I've held leadership positions at various levels from 2007 through 2020. During that time, I realized that the aspect of those roles I loved the best and was most passionate about was coaching and mentoring my team in the development of their leadership skills. I also found that people outside of my team would come to me for leadership advice. I found it very fulfilling to be able to add value to others in this way. I realized that I wanted to make a career shift to have a role focused on developing leaders and began that journey in 2015. I decided to pursue a Masters Degree in Organizational Leadership and obtained my degree in 2019. As the world shifted in 2020, so did I. In the Fall of 2020, I joined the John Maxwell Team and became a certified John C Maxwell Coach, Trainer, and Speaker, as well as a certified Trainer in the John Maxwell Team DISC behavioral analysis methodology. I also decided to launch my own company, New Beginnings Leadership Coaching LLC. I now help leaders learn to lead themselves so that they are more productive, hitting their personal and professional goals, without sacrificing their personal lives.