There is something wildly unfair about July and August in El Paso.
It’s the middle of monsoon season. The afternoons are hot enough to fry your common sense, temperatures routinely climb well past 100 degrees, and just stepping outside feels like opening the oven door to check on dinner. Summer is supposed to feel endless this time of year.
And yet somehow…We’re already buying school supplies.
As a kid, I swear summer vacation lasted forever. It wasn’t measured in weeks. It was measured in freedom. Sleeping in. Riding bikes until the streetlights came on. Popsicles. Swimming pools. No homework. No alarms. No responsibilities bigger than remembering where you left your jelly shoes (showing my age). .
Three months felt like three years. Now?
I feel like my son’s middle school graduation happened sometime around Tuesday, and somehow high school orientation is next week.
My fourteen-year-old—whose ideal summer schedule involves playing video games until two in the morning and sleeping until lunchtime—looked at me the other day and said exactly what I was thinking.
“What the heck happened to summer?”
I couldn’t argue with him. This week feels like one of those invisible dividing lines in life. The kind you don’t recognize until you’re standing right on top of it.
For AJ, it’s Cub Camp, his all day orientation for high school. In just a matter of days he’ll walk into a brand-new building with new teachers, new expectations, and the realization that he’s no longer one of the little kids. How is this even possible? Didn’t I just go back to work 3 weeks after having him?!
For me, it’s my own first day of school in a way. My very first virtual cohort of The Unfiltered Leader begins this week. The program I’ve spent months dreaming about, writing, rewriting, questioning, and building is finally becoming real. Speaking engagements are stacking up on the calendar. The podcast continues to grow. At the same time, I’m actively searching for what I believe will be the next chapter of my executive career.
From the outside, it probably looks exciting. Because it is. It’s also completely terrifying.
If I’m being honest, the last several weeks have been a strange combination of purpose and panic. Some days I wake up convinced I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Other days I wonder if I’ve completely lost my mind.
Entrepreneurship has stretched me in ways corporate leadership never did. Building something from scratch requires a different kind of courage. There isn’t a boardroom to validate your decisions. There isn’t a title that automatically grants credibility. Every win feels deeply personal, and so does every setback.
But somewhere in the middle of all this, I’ve also realized something I wasn’t expecting. I miss leading. Not because I miss the title. Not because I miss the office. Not because I miss the politics. Lord knows I don’t miss those.
I miss serving people. I miss walking into a room with a team that needs direction, encouragement, clarity, or simply someone willing to carry the weight with them. I miss helping leaders become stronger than they believed they could be. I miss solving impossible problems with people who cared deeply about the work they were doing.
Coaching women has reminded me how much I love developing people. It’s also reminded me that leadership has never simply been what I did. It’s part of who I am.
That realization has been unexpectedly comforting. Because for a long time after losing my executive role, I questioned whether leadership had been taken from me. It hadn’t. The position was. The purpose never left.
As both AJ and I stand at the edge of entirely different new chapters, I’ve found myself returning to two lessons that have carried me through some of the hardest seasons of my life.
The first is one you’ve probably heard me say before.
Live where your feet are.
It’s deceptively simple. Don’t spend all your energy replaying what should have happened yesterday. Don’t spend all your energy catastrophizing everything that might happen tomorrow. Be here. Right now. Because the truth is, most of us don’t actually live in today.
We live in yesterday’s regrets or tomorrow’s anxiety. We replay conversations we wish we’d handled differently. We obsess over decisions we can’t undo. We imagine worst-case scenarios that haven’t happened—and in many cases never will. Meanwhile, today quietly slips away unnoticed.
I’ve learned that some of life’s most meaningful moments happen in these messy in-between seasons. Not after everything works out. Not after the job offer comes. Not after the business succeeds. Not after your child graduates. Right here. In the uncertainty. In the anticipation. In the sweaty palms. In the butterflies. This moment deserves to be lived too.
The second lesson has become one of my favorites because it’s changed how I talk to myself. Fear and excitement are remarkably similar experiences. Your heart races. Your stomach flips. Your breathing changes. Your palms sweat. Your mind starts running a hundred miles an hour. Physiologically, they’re almost indistinguishable.
The difference isn’t always what your body is feeling. It’s the story your mind attaches to those sensations. Am I terrified…or am I thrilled? Am I panicking…or am I preparing? Am I afraid of what’s coming…or excited to discover what’s possible?
Years ago, I shared a story in my book about comedian Kevin Hart riding a roller coaster. Rather than screaming, “I’m scared!” over and over, he kept yelling, “I’m so excited!” It makes people laugh.
But there’s wisdom hidden inside the humor. Sometimes we don’t get to choose whether our stomach is doing flips. We do get to choose what we call it. If my anxiety is already showing up for the ride, I’d much rather let it ride shotgun with hope than with fear.
Because the truth is, neither AJ nor I know exactly what these next few months will look like. He’ll walk into high school carrying equal parts confidence and uncertainty. I’ll press “Join Meeting” for my first cohort carrying exactly the same thing.
We’ll both wonder if we’re ready. We’ll both have moments where we question ourselves. We’ll both discover that we were capable of more than we knew.
Maybe that’s what growing up really is. Not reaching a point where you stop feeling nervous. But reaching a point where you stop letting nervousness convince you to stay still.
So if you’re standing at the edge of something new today—a new job, a new business, a new relationship, a new city, a difficult conversation, or simply a season you didn’t ask for—I hope you’ll remember these two things.
Live where your feet are.
And if your heart is pounding anyway…
You might as well decide it’s because you’re excited.
After all, the next chapter of your life has no idea how ready you actually are. It just needs you to take the first step!!
