Bake Me A Leader

How do you feel about trying new things? Does it excite you? Terrify you? Something in between? For me, it can be some or all of those things because…let’s be honest…failing (or even the prospect of failing) can be horrifying. I’ve talked before about how little changes can make a big difference. A primary goal of mine is to teach you ways in which you can grow as a leader through parts of your life you wouldn’t normally pay attention to. To help you learn how to think throug

Here come the holidays! I've curated a short list of some easy things you can do now, and every day, to keep yourself organized and ready to win personally and professionally. We all know that life gets crazy. Even the most successful of people have stress, deal with conflict, have to bounce back when something doesn’t go as planned, and have insane schedules to manage. I’m sure you’ve heard many ideas on how to manage the stress and embrace chaos and I can personally say tha

They always tell you not to cry over spilled milk…and believe you me, that saying is a better indicator of your character than you may think. I’ve long been a believer that how you handle yourself publicly, assert yourself as a leader, and treat others will directly impact your ability to succeed. From moving across the country 4x in 3 years for different jobs/promotions, having to adapt to brand new cultures, make friends, and manage my emotional well-being to being rejected

I’ve been thinking a lot about trust lately. This past spring, my cell phone was taken from a secure room. While I TOTALLY take responsibility for leaving my phone unattended, circumstances made it so I couldn’t go back to get it for an hour…fast forward to the end of that hour and yup, you guessed it, the phone was gone. As irony would have it, I was having a conversation about the importance of being transparent with business partners…aka building TRUST…right around the sam

Baking is great. You have rules, you follow said rules, you achieve a result. Who wouldn’t love that?! For me, having guidelines is so SO welcome…I’m a serial rule follower, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve found that while rules are great and guidelines are great, sometimes it’s even better to just go with the flow and let your judgement guide you to create something even better. As we roll into Labor Day, I’m going to throw something out there for you to try and, like well coo

Imagine a day in our society when people can be leaders, just leaders. Not a female leader, not a Hispanic leader, not an old leader, not any sort of demographic label + leader…just a leader. We so often focus on the differences that divide us, especially because it’s easy to default to the labels that have always existed, but as the world has evolved, we need to remember that the labels are more powerful if they don’t exist with a disclaimer. She is a leader. He is a leader.

Be the smartest. Work the hardest. Show your passion. Smile more. Try harder. So and so can do it, why can’t you? The list goes on and on and everyone has an opinion about how you should run your life…and let’s be perfectly honest, it’s exhausting and overwhelming! Because we are not all alike. Plus, everyone finds it easier to critique other people than to reflect on their own actions and change. Now I could tell you that it’s easy…that you can just decide who you want to be

What differentiates a leader from a manager? My cousin asked me this question during our discussion on NYE about Bake Me A Leader. I told him that to me, a leader is someone who seeks to understand the perspectives and motivations of themselves and others and empowers people to leverage their unique skills in order to achieve a goal or vision where a manager is more focused on tasks and the execution of a vision. He stated that he agreed, but was able to sum it up in a very s