Slingshot Designs

Tag: Self-Leadership

  • The Goal Was Always Zero

    The Goal Was Always Zero

    This essay is one of the more personal pieces I have shared. It sits at the intersection of motherhood, adoption, leadership, and quality—and asks what becomes possible when we finally acknowledge the human systems producing our outcomes.

  • Worry Is Creativity’s Shadow

    Worry Is Creativity’s Shadow

    Worry and creativity both create something from nothing. The question is what we are building with that imagination.

  • What Problem Are We Trying to Solve Today?

    What Problem Are We Trying to Solve Today?

    Leadership begins long before the first meeting. A cup of coffee, a yoga pose, and one simple question reminded me why alignment always comes before strength.

  • Recovery Isn’t Returning. It’s Finally Becoming Yourself.

    Recovery Isn’t Returning. It’s Finally Becoming Yourself.

    Recovery isn’t about returning to who you were. Sometimes it’s about becoming the first version of yourself whose body, mind, and leadership finally align. Reflections on grief, resilience, chronic illness, leadership, and what healing has taught me about people and systems.

  • Root Cause Starts with the Leader

    Root Cause Starts with the Leader

    Most leaders don’t wake up looking for leadership advice. They wake up knowing something feels different. Before we diagnose an organization, we should learn to observe the system making the diagnosis—including ourselves.

  • Winning Is a Practice

    Winning Is a Practice

    Five years of Winning Wednesday taught me something unexpected: winning isn’t about achievement. It’s about learning to notice evidence of progress, one week at a time.

  • The Stetson

    The Stetson

    A dog drops a rope ball and walks away. What happens next becomes a lesson about resilience, recovery, scientific thinking, and the mentors who teach us to trust ourselves.

  • The Difference Between a Sting and a Wound

    The Difference Between a Sting and a Wound

    A hidden garden flag, a patch of stinging nettle, and a morning storm became a reminder that growth changes our relationship with discomfort. The sting stayed the same. The response did not.

  • The Work We Don’t Count

    The Work We Don’t Count

    I spent years believing work only counted if it appeared on a job description or generated a paycheck. Then I started paying attention to where value was actually being created. What I found changed how I see leadership, talent, and the people organizations overlook every day.

  • Steel Toes & Plaid: The Website Was Never the Problem

    Steel Toes & Plaid: The Website Was Never the Problem

    A few days of unexpected website traffic revealed the real lesson: the work was already there. The missing piece was visibility.

  • The Difference Between Preparation and Prediction

    The Difference Between Preparation and Prediction

    Most people spend their lives trying to predict the future. The people who navigate uncertainty learn something far more useful. I keep a Magic 8 Ball in my bathroom. Not because I believe it predicts the future, but because it reminds me that most things worth doing require preparation, not certainty. Every morning starts the…

  • The Difference Is Observation

    The Difference Is Observation

    A garbage truck, a spaghetti diagram, Guardian Industries, Toyota Kata, and a lesson that has followed me for decades: observation often comes before language.

  • The Difference Is Observation: When Frequency Becomes Harmony

    The Difference Is Observation: When Frequency Becomes Harmony

    What we do under pressure reveals the system. What we do next determines whether trust can grow.

  • The Things We Keep Alive

    The Things We Keep Alive

    A reflection on fermentation, resilience, stewardship, motherhood, and the quiet discipline of rebuilding life under pressure. From ginger tonic and home remedies to boundaries, discernment, and nervous system regulation, this piece explores what it means to keep living systems healthy — in the kitchen, in relationships, and within ourselves.

  • Operating Under Complexity: Ethics, Care, and the Cost of Being Misread

    Operating Under Complexity: Ethics, Care, and the Cost of Being Misread

    A reflection on healthcare complexity, moral injury, caregiving, rebuilding trust, and maintaining ethical clarity under pressure. Through family crisis, disability advocacy, parenting, and systems-level awareness, one woman examines what happens when vulnerable people are misunderstood inside overwhelmed institutions—and why integrity still matters.