Shows
The Shepheard-Walwyn PodcastStephanie Peirolo -The Saint and the Drunk: Navigating Life's ChoicesIn this episode of the Shepheard Walwyn podcast series, Jonathan Brown welcomes Stephanie Peirolo, author of the newly released book 'The Saint and the Drunk: A Guide to Making The Big Decisions In Your Life.' Stephanie brings a diverse background to the discussion. She is a board-certified executive coach with academic credentials from Stanford and Seattle University, a recovering alcoholic, an associate of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, and a writer with her own newsletter and podcast.
The central theme of her book draws from the decision-making processes of both St. Ignatius of...2025-07-0750 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Shame SpiralI’m not sure why we like to trace the origin of our sick and ask who gave it to us. It’s often phrased as active, the dank gift pressed upon us, or something we brought upon ourselves “she gave me the flu” or “I picked up a cold” rather than the reality of a random connection between germ and body in any open space.I picked up my three-year-old grandson from day care the other day and thought I am walking into a miasma of germs right now, all those small, adorable Petri dishes with...2025-06-1809 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastYouth, interruptedMy favorite audiences for the corporate trainings I do are people in their twenties and early thirties. They want to learn, so they are usually interested and engaged. They are curious. Often they start asking me questions about difficult work situations, even if they aren’t connected specifically to the training topic.The women ask me more questions, because I am not shy about talking about my experiences as a woman in corporate America. Some of the questions that arose in a recent training made me think about the other side of ageism.I have wr...2025-06-1108 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastOn stealing other people’s livesI was picking up my granddaughter Ruby from her house, and my son in law mentioned reading my recent substack in which I quoted Ruby. As I am wont to do. And Ruby looked up from putting on her shoes.“Wait. You write about me?” she said.She is six. She knows I write about her because she made me open the advanced reading copy of my new book and read her the part she’s in and she was delighted. But on this day she wasn’t delighted. I could see her thinking it through...2025-06-0408 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastRevel revelTomorrow is the launch of my book. And I’ve had mixed feelings about it. But as I was talking about it with my friend Juliette she stopped me.“Revel,” she said. “You’ve been working towards this for years. And now it’s happened. Revel in it.”Our culture has so many narratives about success or dreams achieved. It’s going to be wonderful. Or it’s not. I’ve seen clips on social media of very rich and famous people talking about how being rich and famous did not fulfill them, even at their riches...2025-05-2808 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThin Skin“I should develop thicker skin.”I heard that phrase again this week and it got me thinking. I don’t think our job is to change our skin, or our personality or to file off the sensitive tender parts of our psyche. For one, it’s painful. Two, it’s often not productive, moving away from being who we truly are to some version of ourselves that is more palatable to the dominant cultural norms.Because that’s where this phrase comes from, right? We’re told to “toughen up” not to “be so sensitive.” As if...2025-05-2108 minThe Shepheard-Walwyn PodcastStephanie Peirolo -The Saint and the Drunk: A Guide to Making the Big Decisions in Your LifeIn this episode of the Shepheard-Walwyn podcast, host Jonathan Brown interviews Stephanie Peirolo, author of The Saint and the Drunk: A Guide to Making The Big Decisions In Your Life. Stephanie, a board-certified executive coach with a background in transformational leadership, explains her unique approach of blending the wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous to guide significant life decisions. Stephanie elaborates on her experience with discernment practices rooted in Jesuit spirituality and opens up about her personal journey as a recovering alcoholic. She emphasizes the importance of inner wisdom, cultural narratives, and honoring resistance...2025-05-2136 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastPersuasionI’m putting together a sales training for a client, and I’ve been thinking about the best way to teach people how to persuade others. Last weekend, I was driving my grandkids to church, and I heard the following exchange – for real, I’m not making this up.For context, my six-year-old granddaughter and I go to church together most Sundays, but her three-year-old brother was, until quite recently, a bit overwhelmed by the people, the music, all the other kids. So, he has just started joining us.During the service, the children are invited...2025-05-1407 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastFeverI got sick last week, and my left tonsil turned into a lake of flaming pain. When I finally limped into the urgent care Sunday afternoon both the nurse and the doctor did that little medical flinch when they looked in my throat, both indicating “that’s quite, uh, inflamed.” Which is the professional way of saying damn, your throat is on fire.I had a fever, which is unusual for me, since I usually run to a reptilian chill in the body temperature department. The fever made me stupid, too stupid to realize in the moment how im...2025-05-0708 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastHell, High Water, and the Day JobI usually write about things I know or that I’m curious about. But what’s been on my mind lately is what I don’t know. My book launches one month from today. And I am consistently surprised by everything I don’t know about publishing a book. Not the mechanics as much as the experience of it. I understand intellectually the process of publishing a book; the need for social media, the shouting from the various hilltops that you wrote a thing and you need people to buy it so you can get the chance to write another...2025-04-3010 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe other lovesI remember a conversation I had with a co-worker vividly, even though I can’t remember her name or even where we were working. We were both salespeople, and we were at an event, staffing a table somewhere. It was slow, so we were talking. She was in her twenties, a few years younger than I was, and I liked her. She was personable, kind, intelligent.But she told me that she didn’t have any women friends. She confided it with the same focused sadness with which a person might talk about infertility or a string of b...2025-04-2305 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastTake Your TimeWhen I was in New Mexico I went to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. I didn’t know much about O’Keeffe, but I was curious. One of her paintings, The Barns, Lake George captured my attention. She painted it in 1926. It is of two massive barns, one seen from the side, the other seen from one end, as if they are lined up at a right angle. The massive hulks of the black barns fill the canvas. Off to one side is another structure, a tiny slice of what looks like a cabin or studio. That wall i...2025-04-1611 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Charismatic GriftI’m working on promoting my book, which is what I’m supposed to be doing right now instead of writing this. And I keep getting the same question.What about the God thing?Phrased one way or another, I’ve gotten this question from various professionals who are helping me market my book. The book is about discernment, a spiritual practice generally associated with Catholicism. I want to make discernment available to people who are spiritual but not religious. So, I talk about the Divine in the context of the 12 Step “Higher Power” c...2025-04-0907 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastPick a SideThis weekend I read a guest essay in the New York Times by Keker, Van Nest and Peters, the senior partners at the law firm Keker, Van Nest and Peters. It was a bracing exhortation for lawyers to stand up to Trump’s attacks on law firms who Trump feels did him wrong. The authors call out the pusillanimous behavior of Paul, Weiss, a law firm who “capitulated, agreeing to direct $40 million worth of free legal work to causes Mr. Trump supports” to forestall an executive order that the authors assert “violates the First Amendment, contravenes fundamental due process rights a...2025-04-0208 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastFlockingThis weekend I gathered with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while. We were waiting for the teapot to boil when one of my friends told me that her husband had been diagnosed with cancer. She then told me a story about a relative’s bad behavior. I won’t repeat it here because it’s not my story to tell, but if you’ve ever cared for someone who is very ill, you most likely have your own story of family bad behavior. I do.I reacted strongly to my friend’s story with my words, ex...2025-03-2608 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastAI: The Plagiarism EngineLast week, my podcast partner Eugene S. Robinson sent me a link to an article that sounded a lot like content we’ve done on The Bad Boss Brief. My first thought was that plenty of people write about bad bosses, and the idea that more than one person can come up with a similar concept in a similar time frame is not hard to swallow.Except, AI. AI scrapes everything, indiscriminately, including, I assume, everything I put here on Substack. Like a vacuum sucking up all the words from all the people and then sp...2025-03-1907 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Enchanted Forest and the Bully LieOur parents are the stewards of our pasts, as individuals, families and communities. They tell us who we were from the time before we can remember. Stories of our birth, our first word, how old we were when we started walking. They tell us stories about their lives, or our grandparents’, building a scaffolding of history and identity upon which we can train our own understanding.Unless they don’t. My mother was an unreliable narrator. The stories she told did not connect with what I had lived through. At first, they were largely cosmetic lies...2025-03-1210 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastToot your own hornTrumpet your accomplishments. Blow that f*****g horn. Like the walls of Jericho, knock down the barriers to your advancement, to getting paid what you are worth, to staying employed.Recently, in a comment thread on LinkedIn under a post I made, a comment showed up that disagreed with me. The writer made a good point but ended with something to the effect of “but good job promoting yourself.”It’s entirely possible that this was written with good intent, as a genuine compliment. I do promote my work. I am self-e...2025-03-0506 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhen is an hour not an hour?Recently I was having a philosophical conversation with my 5-year-old granddaughter about time. I was trying to explain to her why time can feel like it’s moving quickly when you’re doing something fun, and feel like it’s moving slowly when you’re experiencing something unpleasant.Considering that she is still learning how to tell time and only recently moved away from the “how many sleeps” metric, it was perhaps a bit of a conversational overreach.How we measure time has been on my mind. For many years, there has been an argument...2025-02-2607 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastRender Unto CaesarWith my new book coming out in May, I need to engage in social media more than I have up to this point. I know about marketing. I need to market the book to the best of my abilities. I have a publisher who has offered extensive and useful guidelines and assistance to show me how to use social effectively.And yet I balked.The balking is complex. I would like to say that it is solely a result of my moral compunction about acting on platforms that further enrich and empower amoral oligarchs. That...2025-02-1907 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWho taught us our names for anger?A friend mentioned a recent substack in which I wrote about how grief can cause us to lash out. I was referring to specific situations in which my grief spilled out into unjustified, unskillful outbursts at people who were helping me.She nodded and said she had, in her grief, lashed out. She used that specific phrase, which I had used. As a veteran lasher-outer, I got curious about what lashing out meant to her.She described a situation that, to me, sounded like setting appropriate and necessary boundaries with a medical professional...2025-02-1208 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastAge is a number, not a personalityIt’s human nature to enter a new season of life, look around, and think, oh my goodness, this is so different from what I expected. Is it like this for other people? How do I navigate this?In our hyperconnected world, we are just a few clicks away from other people who share or speak to our season of life, who invite us to huddle together and swap stories about this new/challenging/exciting time.Pregnancy and parenthood are a good example. It’s such an epic change physically, emotionally, and psychologically to care for...2025-02-0512 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastAuthoritarian vs. FeministConsultants and coaches work with different models and methodologies, and I think most of them are valid, and provide useful perspectives. Most of the executive coaches I know are committed to helping the people and organizations they work with thrive.But there’s a particular model that seems to be gaining traction, and I can’t stand it. I call it the authoritarian. Male and female coaches do this, but there is usually a top dog who is a white male, and he has a Process. He has Experience Working with the CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies, and he’l...2025-01-2907 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastUnmetabolized GriefPeople who are grieving make decisions they wouldn’t make if they weren’t riven by loss, riddled by bereavement. I know this from personal experience. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” is how I frame decisions I made in grief that had negative consequences.We kind of know that individually, and you hear it when you’re going through grief. Don’t make any big decisions after a loss, people say. But we’re less aware of how that works culturally when an entire world, country, group, or city is stricken.We understand...2025-01-2309 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhat if we make it throughLately I’ve been thinking about a conversation I had with my father when I was in third or fourth grade. We moved so often that I keep track of my personal timeline by which house we were in. This memory takes place in the dining room of our house in Leland Street, in Maryland, so I was eight or nine years old. It would have been about 1970.I had just learned about the Bay of Pigs crisis in Cuba. My parents told me what it was like thinking we were on the brink of wa...2025-01-1507 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Golden SubstackAll my life, I have tried to keep the various parts of my existence in separate places. Work, motherhood, writing, community, I wanted them all to be walled off from one another. When I was younger, I didn’t even like when friends from different areas of my life met one another. I remember being at a football game in college and seeing that happen and feeling acute unease. I had to restrain myself from running down the bleachers and separating them.I’m a deeply private woman who speaks and writes about very personal experiences. Part of t...2025-01-0808 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastDirty GriefOne day, when my sister and I were young, she cut her knee on a piece of playground equipment. She screamed. I ran to her and looked at her leg, and for an instant there was no blood, just the white flesh angling down to the glutinous pad of her kneecap at the bottom of the wound. Then the bleeding started, our parents came running, my father scooped her up and we all went to the emergency room.It was a clean cut, they said, easy to stitch up.Some bereavements are clean...2024-12-1010 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastPay Attention to the FoundationMy house was built in the 1940s. I don’t know much about the people who lived here before me, but I have questions. The green shag carpet? The blue flowered wallpaper glued on with a mystery adhesive almost impossible to remove?The cosmetic issues I was able to see and solve soon after I moved in. But every time we get anything fixed or remodeled, more questions come up. Right now, an electrician is upgrading the kitchen in preparation for a new oven, and he’s shaking his head in disbelief. He pointed out a co...2024-12-0406 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastDo you need to take or share power?Imagine you had an augmented reality device that could show power in a room. Now imagine a meeting where a person or team is trying to close a deal with a potential client. With your naked eye, you can see the slides, and everyone present, in their seats or on a video screen.Now imagine if you could hold up an AR device that highlights where the power is and how that power shifts during the meeting. Even what kind of power it is; a green swirl for social capital and relational power, a blue wave of...2024-11-2008 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastTake it again, from the topPeople get sloppy. We know that. How many of you have cleaned out a drawer and thought you’d keep it clean this time? You might even buy clever organizers to help, but at some point in the future it’s the same jumble of junk spilling out of those cute bamboo dividers.The running shoes bought in a haze of good intention that now gather dust, the organizing app we never open. The list of well-meaning commitments that we fail to follow through on gets long.Look at your calendar. How many hour...2024-11-1408 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Liminal SpaceThe word liminal means being in an “intermediate state, phase or condition,” according to my Merriam Webster app. It is from the Latin limen or threshold. It is the experience of being between one thing and the other.If I’m the one choosing to step over the threshold and move from one space into another the sensation can be exhilarating, or filled with trepidation.But if the transition is out of my hands, if I have done everything I can and now just have to await the outcome, it can be agonizing. It’s n...2024-11-0606 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastConsolidationWhen I was younger, I thought I would keep working until I didn’t want to work anymore, a time I vaguely assumed would be in my sixties. I worked in technology and then advertising, and I saw that the only older women still working in advertising owned their own agencies or were in executive roles, so I worked my way up to an executive role.And got fired. My job performance was demonstrably exemplary, but the thirty something creative director didn’t think that I, in my fifties, could understand his creative vision.I have...2024-10-3107 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastAre you a consumer or a citizen?What do we lose when we are just consumers, passive vessels who spend and receive, and not citizens, not active participants in the muscular work of co-creating our reality?I complain about social media vociferously, but it’s the owners, the algorithm generators that I despise. Some content creators are so smart it brings me joy. I was just listening to a video series done by Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) on 10/17 where she talks about DEI in universities in response to articles in the New York Times.Among the festival of brilliant observations, I...2024-10-2308 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastMoney StoriesMost of us have narratives about money. Often they’re not helpful. Articles, books and podcasts offer financial advice meant to help reduce debt, save more, invest effectively.But fewer discuss how our self-defeating or limiting narratives about money impact us at work. We think of our individual or domestic financial situations first, not about how we can build skills when we’re spending or managing money that belongs to our organization or client.What narratives about money do you have? How might they impact you at work? Are people in leadership at your organization read...2024-10-1609 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastMy mad is better than your madIntellectually, we understand we are all different. When and how you work best, your talents, skills, tastes, your personality, family, privilege, culture, can all impact how you work and your expectations of your co-workers. We know this. Many of us have been “typed” by some tool used in a corporate or academic setting – ENFJ or Hedgehog or whatever.And yet. We often have that surprise, that moment of disbelief when faced with the difference. Wait, there are people who get energy from being with others, says the introvert (me). You don’t like chocolate? Cilantro tastes like soap to...2024-10-0907 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastDeath and IndustryYesterday I wrote an obituary.It was for my Uncle Larry, who died on Thursday, a few weeks short of his 88th birthday.He’d been sick for a long time, and his death wasn’t a surprise. I spent much of the day with him, as he was dying, with my Aunt Tanya.Being with a person who is dying is a very specific experience. This is not the first time I’ve done it. The labored breathing, referred to by most people as a death rattle, and by medical worker...2024-10-0205 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastGutter BallWere you told something in your childhood or youth that left a mark? Some narrative that you still get tangled up in even now? Maybe you were told you were stupid, or ugly, or too much by people who mattered to you. Maybe it was how you were treated at school or in the community because of your race, culture, gender, or how your brain works.When I was a child, my mother would buy me presents for my birthday and then within a day or two, start screaming at me about what a horrible...2024-09-2507 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe DressI’m looking for a wedding dress. I’m sixty-two years old and shopping with my adult daughter. As I come out of the dressing room wearing a loose, ankle length number she raises her eyebrow.“Mom, it looks like a hospital gown,” she says. She’s an RN. I look at my reflection in the mirror. She is not wrong.My search for a wedding dress seems emblematic of the cultural peculiarity of being a woman marrying late in life, as if I am searching through a sales rack of tropes and cliches, sexy bride, mat...2024-09-1807 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Outrage FactoryOutrage is the ultra-processed food of digital commerce now, extruded rather than considered, an amalgam of substances not found in nature combined in an artificial way to override our natural appetites and spur us on to consume more, to create more, to spread it like wildfire in dry grass.Bad things happened to a number of women in the last few weeks.This is not unusual. If I don’t detail the specific atrocities, this will be an evergreen article, as relevant this week as it will be three months from now or as it wo...2024-09-1007 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Guide The Gate The GrievanceGuides and GatesCulturally, we have clear ideas about who is qualified to do certain jobs. You need to be an MD or DO to practice medicine. You need to pass the bar to practice law. Few are going to argue with a standardized approach to education and skills testing to certify people who are working in areas as critical and specific as heath care or criminal defense. Or, for that matter, for electricians or plumbers.But we carry the idea that certain jobs must have certain qualifications into corporate settings and often...2024-09-0408 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastExplain your sandwichImagine a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Picture it. The bread, the peanut butter, the jelly, how and if the sandwich is sliced.Got it?My imaginary sandwich is on whole wheat bread, with chunky unsweetened peanut butter and the kind of raspberry jam I used to make in the summers with my grandmother. It is sliced diagonally to form two triangles.Your sandwich is probably different than mine. It reflects your tastes, experience and possibly what supplies you have available. If we were all sitting together in a room I would have...2024-08-2807 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastMetabolizeYears ago, I dated a man who talked too much about his exes. He said these women were, without exception, crazy, demanding, mean, and still interested in him. If one of them so much as checked out his profile on LinkedIn he was convinced she wanted him back.Now I understand, like most of us who have ever been on a date, that behavior like that is a big red flag. The common denominator in all those relationships was, of course, him. But it also showed that he lacked the common sense or good judgement t...2024-08-1408 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe silent unsung test of griefIt’s a media trope, the person persevering in the face of the loss of a loved one. Cooking show contestants say they are honoring their dead grandmother by baking her cheesecake. A grieving spouse writes a book, a bereaved parent starts a foundation.Look at them, being brave. So brave.I watched, in the desultory manner of a person who lives with someone who is interested in the Olympics, more sports that I normally do this week. So I read an article in the New York Times about McKenzie Long competing in he...2024-08-0707 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe rest of the storyImagine you are part of Gen Z, between the ages of 11 and 26. Now imagine that almost every article you read about people in your generation is about puberty. No one is talking about the work you do or the art you make, or what interests and engages you because they’re obsessed with what your body did, the thing that just about every body has done, forever.It would be weird, right? Especially because most of the people in Gen Z are through puberty and onto the rest of their lives. You would no...2024-07-3109 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastYoung“It’s the first time a 59-year-old woman has ever been referred to as young.”My friend said this to me as we were discussing the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris. Who is, indeed, significantly younger than President Biden (81) and former President Trump (78). Two decades, give or take, is a big gap, which makes Harris much younger. That context changes the cultural narrative about women aging. It is quite obvious that Harris is more physically, intellectually and mentally competent than Trump or Biden. There’s video.The cultural narratives about who gets to work...2024-07-2406 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhat I really really wantAmbition is good. Having a dream, a goal, a deeply felt sense of how you want to move through the world, spend your time and energy, and earn a living is important. I wrote a whole book about hearing and honoring those inner promptings.The book I’m still waiting to work on, navigating the labyrinth of publication rather than actually editing and finishing, which is what I thought I would be doing this summer.I’m not great with down time. But I have been thinking about the difference between being steered by a...2024-07-1709 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastSickI had children in my twenties, and was a single parent of two kids by the time I was 27. Which meant I was learning how to be an adult and a parent at the same time. Which isn’t unusual, I suppose. But it did instill some habits in me that are hard to jettison.I have COVID, again, as does my partner. He got sick first, then I did. Thursday, I was feeling crummy, and I did something else I learned as a single mom with no family support – I prepared. I got ready to be sick...2024-07-1007 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastDespair is cheapRight now, in many neighborhoods, literal or virtual, despair is rising like water on the road in a flood. Despair about politics, ongoing genocides, climate disaster.Despair is cheap. Hope is harder.When I was a kid, ankle bracelets were a fad and you often saw small, cheap gold bracelets around a young woman’s ankle. My father hated them. To him, they were tawdry, a sign of some unnamed perfidy, and he forbade his daughters to wear them. He wasn’t big on forbidding generally, that just wasn’t his style, so I reme...2024-07-0308 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Introvert's Survival Guide to SummerIt’s summer. Kids are out of school, families and friends are gathering for barbeques and potlucks, weddings and graduations. If you’re an extrovert, contemplating months of people filled activities might be inviting or exciting.For introverts like me, it can be daunting. So, here’s a Summer Survival Guide for Introverts, which might also be useful for the people who work with and live with introverts.Introvert or extrovert?First, let’s be clear about what an introvert is. Extroverts get energy from being with people. It charges their emotional batteries. Introver...2024-06-2608 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastBody DoubleRecently, I found myself stymied by a series of tasks. But I didn’t think I needed help because I knew how to do the tasks. I just wasn’t doing them. My narrative was that the problem I needed to solve was my procrastination.I felt bad about it, which increased the negative energy around the tasks, which made them harder to approach, which made me put them off, and then I felt worse.Last week, I was talking with a friend who offered to help with some of the onerous items on m...2024-06-1908 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastZipperWhen I was a kid I was fascinated by zippers. The sharp metal teeth surrounded by supple fabric, rigorously aligned by the zipper slider with its little pull. Who thought of that? What a great idea.Basically, I have confidence in zippers. When I packed my suitcase to go to North Carolina this weekend for my cousin’s big Italian wedding I closed the suitcase with zippers. The little pulls are decorated with blue so I can recognize my suitcase when it comes out of the baggage carousel, a job made easier by the bright pi...2024-06-1212 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastHigh Intensity ListeningI’ve spent a big portion of my life in meetings. In person, on video, in conference rooms, at conferences. So many meetings. And I had a pretty good understanding of the physical and mental toll of those meetings. Facilitating big meetings or presenting – tiring. Attending, less tiring, although as an introvert being around other people is always a bit enervating.My equation was length of task + complexity of task = fatigue level.This equation helped me plan my recovery time and set expectations for myself.Then I started doing executive coaching. And...2024-06-0507 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWide SwimmingWide swimmers. The plague of my pool experience. Since I swim for a while, I had time to think about it. I was more uncomfortable because it was a man, the deeply conditioned gendered experience of being a woman in proximity to physical threat from a man. While almost every wide swimmer ever in the history of wide swimmers has been an older white guy, there have been one or two women. Even though no wide swimmer presents more of a threat than a few bruises, the men scare me more. I’ve spent so much of my...2024-05-2906 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastYou Want a Job. They Want to Steal Your Ideas.Have you ever been asked do unpaid work to prove you have the skills needed to get a new job? Write us a white paper, put together a strategic approach. But what happens when the work you do to get the job doesn’t get you the job and the prospective employer keeps your intellectual property? Recently, a woman I’ll call Belle was being recruited for a marketing position at a mid-sized advertising agency that touts its expertise reaching the coveted Gen Z audience. Belle, who asked that her real name not be used since her current...2024-05-2206 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Strong FriendWelcome to the recent flurry of new subscribers! A lot of you get here from Eugene Robinson’s substack Look What You Made Me Do, which made me think of a Eugene story, included in today’s piece. I am trying to increase my subscriber base to this all still free content, so I really appreciate any recommendations, ratings or reposts on substack or wherever you get this.I was an adult before I realized that I’ve always had at least one strong friend I could call. They were often, but not always, male friend...2024-05-1509 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Force Rate ExerciseIf you get two or more people trying to make a decision together, it can get complicated.Whether you’re trying to decide what to have for dinner or how much to budget for marketing for the upcoming fiscal year, it’s hard to get a group to decide anything.Here are some reasons why making decisions as a group is hard and potential ways to deal. Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2024-05-0808 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhen there could only be oneBarbara Walters considered Diane Sawyer a threat. The narrative at the time was that there could only be one female television journalist on a show, and Walters wanted it to be her, not Sawyer. They competed fiercely, with Walters even going so far as to go around ABC President Roone Arledge to try to steal a White House interview with then President Clinton from Sawyer.I do think there is a generational divide. Women who began their careers in the seventies do seem programed to compete with other women who are peers. I’ve seen it...2024-05-0108 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastSocial media is the long conEveryone is promoting something. Their personal brand, their services, their book, their side hustle. I am too. I get it.Personal brands now mean more than accepted markers of excellence like experience, ability or education. And social media success has become the stand in metric for actual talent for those too lazy or uninterested to assess genuine merit.Why work for free?Many people don’t have the time, inclination, interest or capacity to become content creators on social. Because they have jobs and kids and/or prefer to not spend their life lo...2024-04-2410 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastConsigliera College: How to Build a Skill in Three Easy StepsI haven’t done a Consigliera College in a while. For those of you who are new here – and I see you, welcome, glad you’ve joined us – the Consigliera College posts are about building skills. Things I might work on with an executive coaching client.Today’s skill is going to be building skills. How do you build a new skill or level up on an existing skill set?Step One. Identify the skill you want to build.A skill is a specific set of behaviors or actions that you can improve and develo...2024-04-1706 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhat if it's not you?Our culture is enamored with self-help. We love stories of the self-made. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Manifest your dreams. Rarely do these narratives acknowledge that, as individuals, we exist within systems that can support us or hold us back in ways that have become almost invisible.Most of us have, at some point in our careers, gotten bad feedback. We’ve been told about areas where we should improve, skills we need to develop, unskillful behaviors we need to curb. Advised, in short, to help ourselves be better, different, more effective.Th...2024-04-1007 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhat do you think is fair?Same same is not always fair.Managers need to stop playing samesie samesie, and pretending their team are young children fighting over cake. And they need to carry that attitude into their culture. I’ve seen employees grouse about benefits they themselves won’t use because they, too, are playing samesie samesie. Some people will take parental leave, others will never have children. Some will avail themselves of training stipends and take evening classes while others will not. Some will need extended medical leave or FMLA protection and others will enjoy rude good health. Benefits or r...2024-04-0308 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Creative Partnership Starter PackOne friend turns to another and says, “Let’s start an ad agency.”Or film production company, or publishing house, or podcast. Let’s make a cool consumer product or change the face of an old category. Two friends start a company. What next?I’ve been consulting and coaching for over a decade, and in that time I’ve worked with quite a few partners. Two people, friends or colleagues, decide to go into business together. Since I work with creative companies, one or both of them is usually a creative, a...2024-03-2713 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWe can’t all be Boundary NinjasIt seems like every fourth post I see on social media is about setting boundaries. Often the aphoristic messages are portrayed as handwritten on a white board or note pad or held up on a piece of poster board.Like, ok, we should set boundaries, got it, check.But the way it’s portrayed makes it sound like the old narratives around food and weight. Eat less, exercise more, it’s simple. If you’re not doing it, or you’re doing it and it’s not working, then it must be, well, you. Somet...2024-03-2007 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastBig FeelingsYears ago, when I was selling TV advertising, I came to work one day, and my key card didn’t let me into the garage. I’m leaning out of my car in the rain, frantically waving the card in front of the reader. The TV station was in Seattle, parking was a mess, which was why the company parking mattered.I had two young kids, I was a single mom, and I carried a chip the size of a washing machine on my shoulder because everyone else that I worked with had lots of mone...2024-03-0607 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe SuckThis weekend, I opened up a computer file that contains old essays I wrote between 2018 and 2020. At the time I thought they were good enough to send to big publications, and I was surprised to get rejected or ignored.I read one of the essays. It was terrible. Disjointed, unclear, muddy. What I thought was good in 2018 is different than what I think is good in 2024, yes. But what surprised me is how much better I write now than I did then. I don’t know why I was surprised; I’ve been working my ass o...2024-02-2809 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastContact Work: I'd know your hands anywhereLast week I was looking through the ad trades and saw a mediocre headline about CMOs. I don’t subscribe to this trade, so I was scrolling past. Until I realized the picture of the CMO was a picture of me.I was a fractional CMO during the pandemic, but I wasn’t in the press in that role. I zoomed in. The haircut, the glasses, the face, were all mine. But the ears were wrong, and I don’t think I actually look that jowly, do I?What is it about us that i...2024-02-2106 min
The Consigliera Papers Podcast“How are you just going on with your f*c&ing life?”I have mixed feelings about social media and how it impacts us. That said, I have learned quite a bit in that arena. Today, I was struck by some things Emily Amick said. She’s an attorney and posts about politics and political communications on Instagram at emilyinyourphone.“When you are grieving, you have this myopic point of view. You don’t understand how anyone else is doing anything other than being upset about this. ‘How dare you talk to me about this other thing. How can you not understand what’s happening to me? How are yo...2024-02-1407 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastVacheIn 1930 Alexander Calder twisted a wire or two and made a sculpture of a cow. He called it Vache, which is French for cow. Vache is also French for mean and nasty.I saw this piece, which is small enough to fit in the proverbial bread box, at an exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. Calder is best known for his mobiles, which floated majestically through the exhibit. But it was the little wire cow that held my attention.What fascinated me is the interplay between what is there and what is not...2024-02-0708 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastControl IssuesOutrage begets outrage, insult invites retaliation.I have often spoken pejoratively about middle-aged white men. But really, older white women are getting to me. And I am an older white woman. No doubt I recognize in these women behaviors which I have either done or do, or cultural expectations we should all have jettisoned long ago that many of us still carry.Social media has monetized outrage, so everyone seems to be easily offended. And it’s tiresome from everyone. But it does seem like older white women have pe...2024-01-3107 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastHow to Triage RageI’m angry. The why isn’t that important, because the first why is a bit of a smokescreen. What I want to write about today is what happens when you look under that first why, when you triage the rage.My reaction was disproportionate to the precipitating event. That’s clue number one that something lies underneath. I was so angry. I stalked about the house, then went for a swim. Usually, the pool is quiet in the afternoon, but for some reason – new year’s resolution arrivistes perhaps – the pool was crowded. One half of one lane was...2024-01-2407 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastTell me what to doIn the past year, I’ve talked with a number of prospective executive coaching clients in a one hour meet and greet, so we can see if we are a good fit. Since most of my business is from referrals, the people who get in touch usually know someone who knows me, so they have a frame of reference.Sometimes they hire me, sometimes they don’t. I don’t take it too personally when they don’t. An executive coach is a very specific, personal service, and people need to feel right about it.But I fe...2024-01-1707 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhen things go awryI’m supposed to be on a plane tonight. But I’m flying Alaska, and they had a plane lose a big piece of the fuselage last week. As they were flying. They made an emergency landing in Portland. No one was physically injured. Groundings and inspections and a cascading array of flight cancellations ensued. Just after checking into my flight last night, I got the notification that my flight was cancelled. I’m on the same flight, scheduled two days later.I’m staying with my best friend and her wife, I have my computer, I can work...2024-01-1007 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastShiftThis is not about resolutions, or intentions, or plans for the New Year. Because, please, I’ve seen a million of those.This is about attention. Are we paying attention to what works for us?An exercise I’ve used with my executive coaching clients who like end of year wrap ups is to ask what went well. What did you do in the past year that was interesting, engaging, reinvigorating? What brought you energy and enjoyment?Put aside any lens of judgement. If the dog training class you did with your...2024-01-0306 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe power of the U turn“Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?”This is a frequent question in recovery circles, usually delivered with a sage nod, as if to say we all know the answer is that you’d rather be happy.I’d rather be right.I’d rather be right because I do believe there is often a right and a wrong, and the right is important. To do the right thing matters in relationships, at work, in our families and communities. Right and wrong exist. Ethics are not fungible. It is more impor...2023-12-2006 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastBlood to bloodWe just got back from a long weekend in Denver visiting family.Altitude sickness is a thing. We went for a hike – actually it was more like a scenic walk – and I felt this pressure in my chest, like I couldn’t get enough air. I was a bit dizzy and queasy and I thought, oh, this is altitude sickness. I’m a sea level girl and now I am actually a mile high.We cut short the walk, looked out briefly over the scenic reservoir, picked our way through the copious goose poop and...2023-12-1307 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastDon't DiagnoseWe like catchy names, diagnostic sounding appellations, new phrases that parse old behaviors or narratives. It’ll get a click or a share or a link, the coins of the social media realm. For the lucky coiners, they may get an article that includes a number – “Five Problems in an Insecurely Attached Team,” “Eight ways to tell if your partner is a narcissist.”Remember that old Ramones lyric “I want to be sedated”? Nowadays we want to be diagnosed. Or to diagnose others. Listen to find out why this is a problem. Get ful...2023-12-0604 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastRespectI was a difficult teenager. My mother would tell me to treat her with more respect. I would respond that she should do something that I respected.That still resonates for me. Respect me because society says so, because the title I have dictates respect has never been a very compelling rationale for me.Who has authority at work and why? How much respect are we required to give to leaders because of their position, regardless of their abilities or skill?I’ve heard people say that they treat the office of the Pr...2023-11-2907 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastConjugationConjugating, moving from a consideration about what’s best for me to what is best for us, is very countercultural. And positive. Because that “us” can grow. From centering the partnership to centering the family, or team, to centering the community.So much of the content I see about work focuses on the “me”. Self-improvement, life hacks, assessments to better understand me and how I tick. I'm not suggesting that we don’t attend to our needs or set appropriate boundaries. Self-awareness and building skills are always helpful, and they will help us be better friends and...2023-11-2208 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastShamePeople who grow up in families and cultures rooted in shame and shaming bring that mentality to work. Often, they don’t even know they are doing it. bell hooks said “Shaming is one of the deepest tools of imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy because shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis.”If, as hooks states, shaming is one of the “deepest tools” of capitalism, then we need to assume that most work environments are rife with shame and shaming. That is certainly what I’ve observed, as a worker, manager, consultant, and executive...2023-11-1508 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastYearningThis past week Matthew Perry died at 54. This New York Times article said “It seems to have been hard for Perry. “I wanted to be famous so badly,” he told The New York Times in 2002. “You want the attention, you want the bucks, and you want the best seat in the restaurant. I didn’t think what the repercussions would be.”I pay attention to celebrities with problems with drugs and alcohol because I am a non-celebrity who had a problem with alcohol. There’s nothing yet to indicate that drugs or alcohol played a part in Perry’s...2023-11-0106 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastFailWe all fail. Sometimes we make a mistake. Sometimes we lose a competition we thought we could win. Sometimes we fall short of expectations we had for ourselves, a situation or a relationship.Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.How do you come back from a setback? Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-10-2507 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastCosmic GrannyMy friend is a mental health specialist who works in schools. She is frequently up on a stage doing trainings for educators. She’s my age, sixty-one. Often, she is introduced as a “legend.” She’s had school administrators fawn over her “contributions to the community” over “so many years.”“They act like I’m some Cosmic Granny,” she said to me.She is great at what she does. But when she was in her fifties no one marveled at her being a “legend.” Or her forties. It’s almost always white men who crow about her legendary...2023-10-1806 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastQuietYou don’t have to weigh in on everything. It’s ok to have an opinion and keep it to yourself. It is a good idea to consider and listen and learn, especially about topics where you have no personal experience, no learning, no research or study. Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-10-1106 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastIs this your problem? Are you sure?I frequently ask my clients these two questions.Is this a solvable problem? Is it solvable by you?Two simple questions, but I ask them often because we sometimes miss that step. Why do we try to solve problems that aren’t ours to solve? Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-10-0407 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastOscillationI sent off my manuscript to the publisher last Friday for my book on intentional decision making which will be published next spring.I’m thinking about aftermaths, right after a thing is completed. A book. A birth. A pitch. It’s often a time when I get sick, when my body says, ok, we’ve hung on this long without rest, but it stops here. Now you will rest. We will make you rest. Bring on the phlegm.You’d think from reading LinkedIn and other resolutely positive self-helpish business texts, that we all should b...2023-09-2706 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWhat a toddler can teach a bossI’m finishing my book, so I’m going to do a rerun of something I wrote a couple of years ago that still seems valid. Or maybe I’m just a sucker for any grandkid content.UppyThis is the phrase my granddaughter uses when she is afraid. Ruby is 19 months old and doesn’t like loud noises. When the garbage truck rattles by, she runs over to me and says, with some urgency, “Uppy!” Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-09-2004 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastWork HistorySince I’m furiously finishing my book manuscript, which is due this month, I didn’t have time to write a substack. So, I’m going to share a portion of the book, which is about intentional decision making about work and career. It will be available next spring, and you’ll hear more about it as it gets closer.Let’s think about a kind of work history that isn’t the history of the jobs you’ve had or the work you’ve done, but the history of your unique understanding of what work is and the role of...2023-09-1309 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe professionally aggrievedPissed off people can wreck organizations.And yet more and more people are pissed off. I call them the professionally aggrieved. You’ve seen them on social media, across the political spectrum. They misinterpret, inflate, conflate, attack, defend. High dudgeon is their default mode.The social media outrage discourse also happens at work. Typing venom into Slack isn’t that far removed from doing it into any social media outlet.What do you do when this happens at your workplace? Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at cons...2023-09-0608 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastIn Praise of CohortsWe should all have work cohorts. Gatherings of people who do a similar job or who are in the same season of life. Not to network, not to sell each other anything. Just to be in community. To rest in a place where we don’t have to sell or seem smart or be anything other than just another person in the group. Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-08-3007 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThis is 61A few years ago, back when I was still on Facebook, I saw a second-tier celebrity post a picture of herself with the caption “This is sixty.” She posted it on her sixtieth birthday. She was standing in side view, so you could see her flat stomach, thin, fit body, and perky breasts.Apparently if you’re going to tout being sixty, you’d best look like a conventionally-attractive-as-considered-by-male-dominated-mass-media thirty-year-old.I turned sixty-one this weekend. Sixty-one doesn’t feel that different than forty-one or fifty-one. I’m in good shape, active, still working, with all my...2023-08-2305 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastGrief at workPeople die.And some of the people they leave behind, some of the people grieving the loss of loved ones, have to go to work. Suggestions and experience of how to deal with grief at work, your own or that of a co-worker. Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-08-1606 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastConsigliera College: Look BackThe importance of a retro When I was coming up, we called them postmortems. Some people call them retros or sunsets.Whatever you call them, it is a review of a project that takes an honest look at what went well and what did not.A review of a project is not like a review of a person. It’s important for two reasons. One, by gathering a group and focusing on what went well, you both reinforce that behavior and make sure it lodges in the collective memory of the organization. By di...2023-08-0907 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastDistress FlagsWhen is a distress flag a problem? LIsten for more! First, let’s understand what your automatic reaction is. If someone on your team raises a distress flag, what do you do?I’m talking about your first reaction, the knee jerk, automatic one. Generally, I see people fall into three categories: fixer, avoider or neutral. Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-08-0209 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastChange GearsOne of the things I liked about working in ad agencies was summer Fridays. In the days before remote work was an option for most of us, we had summer Fridays. Most agencies would close early on Friday afternoons in the summer in Seattle. Given that we have so much rain for so much of the time, Seattleites are really into their summers. It stays light late, up to 10pm and is generally not too hot. The mountains and islands and various bodies of water all beckon in this short spurt of summer.What is your ideal...2023-07-2605 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastHow to find an executive coachFirst, figure out what kind of coaching you want.There are generally three kinds of coaching.1. Remedial coaching. A top performer has some gaps in either skillset or awareness, and it’s impacting their ability to work effectively. This could be an effective sales leader with a bad temper, or a skilled creative director who doesn’t work well with women. It is often short term; 3-6 months. Usually, this is arranged and driven by HR or L&D rather than individuals.2. Skills or objectives-based coaching. The main reason people get coaches is t...2023-07-1210 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastThe Competence CureCompetence and the sense of our own skills can be a fantastic corrective for worry or insecurity. Finding and owning our own ta das can be a grounding restorative.When you feel bad about an aspect of your work, go do something you’re really good at, and you’ll feel better. That’s it, that’s the competence cure. Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-06-2807 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastEmbrace DiscomfortMost of us are willing to get uncomfortable in pursuit of things that are important to us, whether it’s looking for a romantic partner, asking for a promotion, telling a story at a Moth StorySLAM or learning how to paddleboard.Most of us also know the difference between physical pain that signifies injury or risk of injury and the discomfort of using muscles in a more vigorous way. We can categorize in our minds that the pain in our shoulder is the dull ache of soreness from a particularly vigorous game of basketball and no...2023-06-2108 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastNeural SmudgingWe all carry a mental image of our bodies. It’s called proprioception. It lets you know where you are in space. When you have chronic pain, it can mess with your proprioception. Essentially, your body’s map of itself in space gets it wrong. This is how “phantom limb” pain happens, pain that a person senses in a limb that has been amputated.This is called “neural smudging.” When I got my head around the fact that chronic pain could re-map my understanding of my how I move through the world, I began to wonder what...2023-06-1407 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastSheer PlodOn writing through the messy middle Get full access to The Consigliera Papers at consigliera.substack.com/subscribe2023-05-3107 min
The Consigliera Papers PodcastDon't touchDon't TouchWe are socialized early to take what men dish out. When the older man put his hands on her, she was talking to the cashier in that animated way of young people sharing some information – I think it was about a band. She wrote down a name on a white napkin for the cashier. She looked happy. Then he was there, the dirty uncle, slipping his hand around her waist. It was unexpected, and so quick. To move from happy to harmed can take a minute and at the end of the minute he was do...2023-05-2410 min