Building Season

When I decided to take the leap and start my own business, I knew I’d need to become stronger—in mind, body, and spirit—to fortify myself for the coming ebbs and flows of entrepreneurship. The most direct way I could think of was to become physically stronger.

Direction

I had no idea where to begin. I didn’t know a dumbbell from a barbell, and I was worried I’d hurt myself. I preferred yoga, and often told friends, “I’ll never go to a gym.”

Fortunately, a friend reminded me that our favourite yoga teacher was also a strength coach. I reached out to her and asked if she was taking new clients. To my relief, she agreed to take this newbie on. But there was a hitch—it wouldn’t only be strength training; it was an entire lifestyle program, including nutrition and mindset work. I took another leap.

What I wasn’t expecting was how much building muscle would mirror building a business, and life, for that matter.

Practice

In strength training, as with entrepreneurship, long-term progress rarely comes from a single, immediate effort. It often comes from a series of repeatable practices:

Consistency. Showing up is most of it. Do the reps, mind the tempo, add a little more each time, and the results eventually become inevitable. When I first started doing hip thrusts, I used a single 20-pound dumbbell. I looked at the rack, saw the heaviest one was 45 pounds, and thought I’d be so stoked if I made it there. More recently, I was moving over 200 pounds for 4 sets. I approach my work the same way: I design a routine and complete what’s in front of me with intention, even when (especially when) I’d rather be doing something else.

Managing capacity over pushing to failure. Most of my training happens at RPE 8 (Rate of Perceived Exertion), which means working hard but stopping two reps short of failure. It’s still very challenging and uncomfortable, but it lets me manage my energy so I can keep returning. Occasionally, my coach programs an AMRAP set where I do as many reps as possible, until failure, to find my true limit. It usually shows me where I’ve been underestimating my own strength—physically, mentally, and sometimes both. But going to failure is an exception, not the norm. In the gym, business, and life, sustainable momentum outlasts burnout.

Recognizing the season. Training and business move in phases. In a building phase, the body requires an intentional calorie surplus to fuel higher-intensity training and grow muscle at a slightly faster rate. A cut is shorter and reveals the definition of what’s been built. Entrepreneurship follows the same rhythm—knowing when I’m in a season of expansion and when I’m in a season of refinement.

There’s always a way. I have a long list of physical “quirks” that shape how I move and the exercises I can do. But there’s always a modification, an alternative angle, or a different tool to get the work done. Constraints don’t stop progress; they just require better discernment.

Rest as structural repair. Muscle isn’t built during the workout; it repairs and rebuilds during rest. Sustainable strategy requires honouring recovery with the same discipline as doing the work.

Maintain a beginner’s mindset. No one begins as an expert. Mastery is honed from all the above and more. And even when we think we’ve reached the peak, the view usually just reveals more. I love a quote Ina Garten often references: “Go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.”

Perspective

My coach encouraged me to cultivate an athlete mindset, but for a long time I thought it was a huge stretch and I didn’t identify with it at all. Then one day, scrolling Instagram, I saw a UFC champion doing a workout split similar to one in my own program. It clicked—I’m an athlete in the game of life.

The confirmation came when I least expected it. While navigating the health issue I wrote about in Proof of Practice, I had a treatment where nurses checked my vitals every hour for several hours. One of the nurses looked at my numbers and actually asked if I was an athlete, because my heart rate remained so steady despite the stress my body was under. It was a reminder that, even when progress feels slow, it’s the work we do when no one is watching that shows up when it matters the most.

In our first conversations to discuss my training goals, I told my coach that so much in life is out of our control but I wanted to be strong so I could handle whatever might come my way. I’ve learned that, whether in life, business, or training, results rarely happen easily or quickly. They come from consistent choices, actions, and repetition that move me in the direction I want to go.

Thought starter

Where might you be underestimating your own strength—and what’s one small rep you can do to test it?

DM me on Instagram or send me an email, I’m curious to know.

DCxo

Living a Dream

When people learn I’ve completed board certification in health and wellness coaching after two decades leading global communications and marketing, the question I hear most is: “Why the career change?”

It’s a fair question, and it carries an assumption I held for a while too—that stepping into something new means leaving what came before.

Direction

Some career transitions happen for a change of scenery, a new challenge, or better compensation. Others are more abstract, beginning as a feeling rather than a decision. A feeling of satisfaction yet a curiosity to explore more. I’ve made moves for all of these reasons, and my most recent transition was the latter.

I had a colleague who would ask me if I was “living the dream.” Sometimes it was a question, sometimes a statement, probably a little rhetorical but always in good spirit. I always took it to heart and answered honestly: “Yes!” Gradually, I noticed the yeses weren’t coming naturally; something was out of alignment.

What I was seeking was a way forward where I wouldn’t have to choose—between what I’d spent so many years building and what I was growing into, between strategy and well-being, between my professional self and the rest of me.

Perspective

For a while, I wondered how to frame this evolution without feeling like I was running two separate practices in parallel. In my mind, they were perfectly complementary, but as I worked with more clients, I noticed it wasn’t as obvious to others. I began to think about why the integration of strategy and well-being felt second nature to me.

My path has always been more intuitive than intellectual. I was on an advanced academic track in school, but my gut kept pointing me in a different direction.

I also remember that as a kid, I spent endless hours playing with dolls, constantly changing their outfits rather than playing out scenes. Growing up in Edmonton (Canada), Fashion File, Fashion Television, and Style with Elsa Klensch were must-see TV for me, a world away from my own. Collages of iconic late-’90s fashion spreads covered my bedroom walls and shelves. Years later, I found myself having a hand in organizing the kinds of fashion shows I used to watch—a takeover of NYC’s Guggenheim Museum early in my career was a surreal moment I can still vividly recall. Over time, what made it all feel like a dream was that collaborating with people I respected, and some who inspired me growing up, became my job.

Well-being was always there too. I was raised with Traditional Chinese Medicine principles and practices, and I discovered meditation as a teenager—when a difficult period of illness in my family led me to look for deeper meaning. Around the same time, one of my closest friends was moving to Montreal to study fashion, and on a whim, I went too—deciding within a couple of months and without ever having visited the city. What I thought would be two years away turned into my second home.

When I needed an internship to complete my program in Montreal, I happened to walk by a boutique with a copy of Visionaire in the window, a prestigious art and fashion publication I’d only read about but could never get my hands on in Edmonton. I went in, met the owner, and asked if he needed an intern. He didn’t, but he introduced me to his brother who led Sales & Marketing for a popular fashion brand at the time. He hired me as an intern, and my first project was the opening party for the brand’s inaugural Canadian flagship store, happening just a few days later. What started as a two-week internship turned into eight years with the brand, and it’s how I discovered the communications side of marketing.

My mom once observed that she thought I worked in fashion because it helped people feel good. Like a lot of things, she was right. It was never only about the clothes. As my career evolved, the work that I enjoyed the most was helping teams, founders, and executives navigate uncertainty, articulate their story, and lead with intention when the stakes were high—and I had the privilege to do it in an industry I grew up dreaming about. Certification in well-being and behaviour change was a way to go deeper into that same work.

Practice

I share this because I was practising this integration long before I had words for it. When I prepared executives for high-profile interviews and pressure-filled situations, meditation became part of our preparation to help ground them for their moment. Strategy and well-being were already working side by side.

Now I’m building my business to hold both. Instead of leaving everything behind, I brought it with me—the discernment that shapes a brand, the care that supports a person, and the imagination that started with a pile of dolls and their tiny outfits.

When I work with people navigating their own transitions, whether it’s their career or another aspect of life, we often start the same way—noticing the thread that runs through every role or circumstance (regardless of labels), and what brings them joy. It’s almost always there. Sometimes it just needs someone to help name it.

My favourite reminder of this came recently from a young family member, who has been my biggest supporter since I started my own thing. She’s always asking how business is going, sharing ideas for how I can help more people (she’s the one who sparked the idea for these notes), and giving me tips on how to make my guided meditations less “boring.” A friend helped me make a DCxo hat for myself, and one day she asked if she could have an “xo hat” too. I beamed, told her I’d be honoured, and we had one made at the mall right away.

While we waited for the hat to be embroidered, she, along with her younger brother and sister, asked what I actually do as a coach. I explained that I help people who are going through change, or want to try something new—by supporting their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. She changed the subject, so I thought my pitch had flopped.

A few days later we were at an event with friends and she was wearing her hat. Someone asked her what DCxo stood for. She explained it was my business. “What does she do?” they asked. “She makes people happy.”

When I heard about it later, I was thrilled, in awe. In one simple observation, as only kids can, she crystallized the thread that has run through my life, from dolls to dream jobs to this: helping people feel good—to feel whole—and finding their own way there.

Thought starter

What’s a skill or interest you’ve been treating as outdated, and how might it actually be your greatest asset?

DM me on Instagram or send me an email, I’m curious to know.

DCxo

Proof of Practice

Let’s start with an icebreaker—two truths and a lie:

1. I’m writing notes because I enjoy talking about myself.

2. I trained in ballet for many years.

3. Rocky is my favourite cinematic series.

…

…

…

Truths:

Years of ballet training throughout childhood and into my teens left a lifelong impression. It’s a breathtaking art form in many ways, and one that instilled qualities that have served me well—like discipline, creativity, and grace under pressure. But I also learned to chase perfection and to push through pain and exhaustion, and those qualities stayed with me too.

And yes, Rocky. If any one of the movies is on (or even better, a back-to-back binge), I will watch it. It’s not only the underdog storyline and the montages that get me, it’s the lesson: “It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.”

It occurs to me, as I sit here writing and reflecting on the past year and a half, how I continue to be shaped by these seemingly disparate truths.

Direction

In January, I launched my website. After a few years earning credentials and quietly refining my work with clients, I felt ready and excited to expand. But a health issue had been unfolding in the background since the summer before, and by spring it was affecting me in ways I couldn’t predict. As the saying goes, the body whispers before it screams. My trained instinct, throughout my life, had been to keep pushing through and forcing progress. But my internal capacity was near depletion. So I made a choice I would have struggled with earlier in my life and career: I stepped back.

Practice

Stepping back didn’t mean stopping. I continued to practise what I help others to do.

I anchored to facts. When a round of tests raised the possibility of a life-changing diagnosis, I made myself a promise: I won’t worry unless I need to worry. The heaviness was real, and I gave myself room to feel it. I also kept coming back to what I actually knew in each moment, instead of every outcome my mind could invent. The test results were reassuring, but I still had important decisions to make about what to do next.

I listened to my body and studied the data. I tracked my sleep, activity, nutrition, lab results, and energy. Not in an obsessive, over-engineered way, but as a means to better understand the patterns—to bring literacy and a sense of predictability to what was increasingly feeling unpredictable. When I felt I needed to rest, I rested. When I had more in the tank, I made the most of it. This combination of understanding and intuition enabled me to have focused conversations with my care team and to make decisions that were best for me.

I let people help. Close friends, family, and practitioners, near and far, supported me through it all. As someone who’s fiercely independent, this wasn’t always easy but it made all the difference.

I started again, more than once. I would build a routine, fall out of it when my body needed something else, make adjustments, and then try again. Each restart got a little easier once I thought of it as practice and information, rather than failure.

Perspective

On a self-imposed silent meditation retreat (a note for another time), I was reminded that everything is in constant flux, and that much of our suffering comes from craving what feels “good” and resisting what doesn’t. This year, as most years, I craved steadiness. Instead, I got practice in returning.

My own philosophy echoes this. I believe in alignment over balance because balance is something we try to hold onto, whereas alignment is something to return to, again and again.

While at times this year felt like a long pause and stalled plans, it has actually been the most honest training and the work itself. During my meditation retreat, I thought about the three types of wisdom—the wisdom we receive, wisdom we understand, and wisdom we live. This year was the third kind.

Now back to the lie… I don’t enjoy talking about myself. By reading my notes, you are witnessing me in the process of doing something that’s deeply uncomfortable. I’m notoriously a “behind the scenes” person, setting the stage for others to shine—it’s something that continues to bring me a lot of joy and satisfaction. But I understand that I can’t always help people from behind the scenes—so maybe it’s less a lie than a story that needs a rewrite, and as always, practice.

Call it a season, a cycle, a chapter, a journey… the gift of life is that things will always change. That we will always change. Winning isn’t always loud and it’s definitely not finite, and sometimes it doesn’t feel like winning at all. The hits will come but so will the wins, as long as we keep moving forward.

“Because you are alive, everything is possible.”—Thich Nhat Hanh

Thought starter

What’s a story you’ve been telling yourself that could use a rewrite? (And what’s the soundtrack to your montage?)

DM me on Instagram or send me an email, I’m curious to know.

DCxo