Mining for Gold: Notes on Courage, Culture, and Care |
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March 2026 Pizza & ACE Hardware: A love story for the ages  I’ve been thinking a lot about the pain of being misunderstood. To reach out for connection and belonging  and be met with “no thank you” or “I don’t understand you.” is brutal. The truth is it’s more than emotional. There have been PET scans done showing that the same place in the brain that gets activated when someone has been in a car accident or experiences physical harm is the same area of the brain that lights up when we experience social rejection. The brain can’t tell the difference.  Yet when we experience a physical injury, we get evaluated at the hospital, we openly discuss treatment, rest, physical therapy, support, and counseling. With social rejection, we might drink it off, shop it off, sleep it off, off-load the hurt onto innocent people, or bury it and try to move on. When we experience social rejection, especially with those that we are doing daily life with, it leads us to keep trying, over-explaining, accommodating, excusing, allowing, and swallowing our pain over and over again in the hopes that things will get better.  When we keep pursuing a connection with someone who can not give us what we need the miscommunication is sometimes within ourselves. We are not accepting the truth of what this person can provide or is capable of. People are often doing the best they can. When they show us what their best is, and it's not what we need, the work that needs to be done is with ourselves.  It may seem strange to read this from a coach who’s built a career on connection & belonging, but not everyone has earned the right to be “all in” with you. That’s an honor. That’s precious. We can let people into our lives, but the kindest, clearest, bravest thing we can do is place them accordingly. When we don't do that, we wind up judging, resentful, and usually both parties are hurt. |
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It’s like we have ordered a pizza, and we go to ACE Hardware to pick it up.  We order the pizza: The pizza is what we crave, what we need, what we desire from the relationship; whether it’s work or personal life. “ I want my colleague to be my friend.” “ I want my brother and I to be close.” “I want work to feel like family.” “I want my spouse to be my soulmate.”  Then we drive to ACE Hardware to pick up the pizza: We try to get what we need from someone WHO DOESN’T DO PIZZA. “Lady, we don’t even do food. We do tools. Do you need something fixed, built, solved, or cleaned up? That’s all we do here.”  Ahhhh. There we have it. We don’t need to end the relationship. We don’t need to flip any tables or burn things down.  This is not necessarily about severing ties. Up until this point, we've been frustrated, blaming, venting, over-explaining, repeating ourselves about needing pizza, and all along we were going to the wrong location (person).  There is no judgement between pizza or ACE Hardware. They are both needed. They are both valuable. They are both useful.  Things that get in the way of seeing people clearly:  Grief: we have to grieve that this relationship can't be what we hoped. We saw potential and possibility. We had a lot of dreams and hopes for this relationship, and it can't meet the moment. What do we have to let go of and simply grieve to get to a truer relationship?  Perfectionism: clinging to “what will people think” or “I need it to look a certain way” vs. what reality is. Perfectionism is rooted in what will other people think, or how will this look to others? We have to loosen our grip on the optics and lean into what will actually be healthy, spacious, and honest for us.   If we desire to keep the relationship (or need to), then we recalibrate our boundaries and our expectations. We set the relationship up for success by going to ACE Hardware when we need tools, solutions, a project completed, a transaction made. They are HAPPY to provide that for us. They want to meet that need and feel successful when we reach for them with what they do best.  When we order pizza and go to ACE Hardware to pick up, it hurts both people. You don’t get pizza and ACE Hardware feels they have failed, but they don’t know why. That leads to confusion, story weaving, distance and frustration.  We can let people into our lives, and the kind thing to do is place them accordingly. We aren't placing them in anger. We are placing them with love so that we can be in a truly honest, reciprocal relationship rather than a relationship filled with hidden expectations and disappointments.   |
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Mining for Gold: The Practice  Think about a relationship at work or in your personal life that frustrates you. A relationship where you have to repeatedly ask for what you need. Is it possible this person is doing the best they can?  What boundary can you set so that they can be successful in your life? It might not even be a boundary you need to discuss. It could be a boundary you create within yourself so that both people can feel seen, accepted, and fulfilled.Â
Next, can you think of people in your life that can fulfill what you need effortlessly, naturally, and easily? Â Maybe they don't have a certain title of brother, sister, mother, or manager, Â but when you think about it, they offer what you truly need. Â Expand your definition of the roles people play in your life.
    And when you need pizza, I will leave the light on for you.   |
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Bring the Dare to Lead ™ Academy to your Organization Spring 2026 12 week Dare to Lead™ program |
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Today’s work needs leaders who are self aware and can lead through uncertainty, risk, and change with grounded confidence. When leaders don’t do their own internal work, they work their issues out on their people and cause harm. |
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Teams thrive on two essentials: courageous leadership and effective communication. When leaders build trust and teams understand how to connect across different communication styles, collaboration deepens, innovation grows, and accountability sticks. |
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