Since last week, the words of one of my favorite Peloton instructors, Alex Toussaint, have been top of mind: "Validate your greatness." Usually, I'm thinking it during my virtual spinning classes, as Alex is shouting it, urging us to crank up the resistance and the speed, despite the protests of my almost middle-aged knees (BTW, if you're a member of the Pelo fam, you can find me @BlackStarSwag 🚴🏿‍♀️). But this week, "validate your greatness" has come to mind every time I'

“We must dare to invent the future.” If you were to ask me which words have most inspired me over the past few years, these from Thomas Sankara would be somewhere near the top of the list. (For evidence that I've been rocking with Sankara for a minute, take a look at the talk I gave at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute in 2015). These words were printed on the back of my first business cards as a coach to remind me, and anyone I was working with, of what my practi

These are some of the perspectives that I needed to reframe my thinking and shut down a pity party, because frankly, wallowing has never moved anyone closer to their goals. 🤷🏾‍♀️ What triggered this pity party, you ask? Chrissy Teigen's Instagram. For the record, I (and her other 34.8 million other followers) love Chrissy Teigen! When she's not making mogul moves with her family by her side, she spends a lot of time in her bathrobe eating. So basically, on weekends, I am he

“Being a part of the Accelerate journey has been life changing! I will be forever grateful to you for creating this space and platform and for granting me a seat at this table. It changed the way that I view my career. It changed me as a person. I now acknowledge and respect the value I bring.” -EV, Windhoek I recently read a piece in the NY Times about the YOLO economy, and I cringed. Because A: what even is that? B: the story was evidence that too many of us are settli

This morning as I was making breakfast, I thought about my mom, and how on Sundays before Church, as a special treat, she would often bring my four siblings and me (aka the Fabulous Five) Dunkin' Donuts. To this day, glazed donut holes are my favorite. I suspect this memory came to mind because I was thinking about all of the work my mother put into raising us (and probably because I would have preferred a donut to this morning's oatmeal). My mom was usually out of the hou

As a coach, one of the things I’m asked most often is, “how do you stay motivated?” And while it’s a reasonable question, it usually makes me want to laugh. Why? Because most mornings, the only thing I feel motivated to do is to eat my body weight in Cinnabon and chase it with Amarula spiked coffee. Fortunately for me (and my cholesterol) motivation isn’t only dependent on what we feel like doing. At its most basic, motivation is the driving force that inspires our actions.