Make Yourself Human

So, you decided you don't want to outman the men anymore in terms of how you communicate. Everyone has their own unique style of communicating. And it is important for leaders to understand that. So, how did you change your own communication style and how was that then received?

So, it was actually pretty easy because I just returned back to kind of my authentic female. And I realized that having the full range of emotion in life it's not a weakness, it's actually a strength and it enables you to connect with other human beings at a relationship level. And so it helped me a lot in telling stories of who I was as a person and how I felt. And when I was sad, you could tell I was sad. When I was excited, you could tell I was excited. I didn't try to hide all of that. I tried to show all of that. I had a number of really hard things happen in my personal life. My husband -- I was pregnant with my second daughter, my husband was diagnosed with stage four non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. And it was a really humbling time in my life. And I realized I need to stop being so strong. I need to ask for help when I need it. I need to admit that I am broken to my core and those experiences as horrible as they were, we came out of it in a really good place. He is alive and well but it was really, really difficult. But it taught me a lot of really valuable lessons of how to share those things because other people are having those experiences as well. And you can be a successful leader, still have a life, still have struggle and showing that makes you human.