I quit! (An important project update)

Long but important email alert: Today's email is about a big exciting initiative that I am quitting. To tell you about it, I need to start at the beginning…and include an anecdote from the Atomic Habits book below. I hope you hang with me for the lesson here :) 

If a pilot heading from Los Angeles to New York City adjusts the plane's course by just 3.5 degrees south, the barely noticeable shift at takeoff would cause the plane to land in Washington D.C. instead. This minor, incremental change, when compounded over a long journey, results in a significantly different final destination. - James Clear, Atomic Habits

Last October, I caught wind that a fellow author I knew was coming out with a book called….Closing the Confidence Gap (yes, the exact title of my book, written for the same genre of reader). While you can't trademark book titles, you CAN trademark the name, which luckily I had done, so even though she could technically still title her book the same as mine, she wouldn't be able to title any keynotes, training courses, blogs, etc using my title. Luckily, after several emails back and forth, she changed her book name to something else. I filed that as a win.

Little did I know that this would be a precursor to two major action shifts in my business.

Action 1: The book title infringement lit my fire to begin thinking about my next book. I had two ideas in mind, but I took some advice from a fellow author friend of mine who said that many times your next book is on the topic that your clients ask you about the most. In this case, it was all topics related to advancing from high achiever to strategic leader. I wrote a book proposal, about ⅓ of the book and reached out to dozens of literary agents. I loved this topic, even thought it wasn't as exciting to me as another topic I was considering.

Action 2: The shift in sentiment of diversity programs. While all of this book ideation was happening, the US elected a new president. With this new president came a strong shift in how organizations viewed, supported and funded their diversity programs. In short, this meant that many organizations were spending less on women's leadership initiatives. This massively impacted my business as I watched the amount of women's leadership presentations I conduct for corporations plummet (In sharp contrast, I luckily had a record number of 1-1 coaching clients). 

Because of this, I doubled down on the content in Chapter 5 (Leading More by Doing Less) of my original book teaching a course I love, Advancing from Achiever to Leader. Since these tools are perfect for growing leaders no matter their gender, this was the most requested topic for corporate workshop this year…and the topic of my new book. 

"This will be perfect!" Or so I thought. I moved forward thinking I would shift my focus slightly and get this new book out into the world, helping leaders shift from high achievers to strategic leaders. As a book and workshop, it was an in-demand topic. 

By March of this year, I was full swing into my 1-1 coaching client load and feverishly writing the content and frameworks for my new book. I genuinely looked forward to the corporate workshops I had booked for small companies up to a few Fortune 500s. 

About that same time, I noticed some old health issues perk up. TMI, I've had a cranky bladder for years and can usually manage it through diet or physical therapy. I chocked it up to the fact that we'd sold our house and moved to a very small one-bedroom condo in downtown Omaha. I had changed gyms and workout routines. So, I diligently cleaned up my diet and got back on board with my physical therapy exercises. I figured it was due to my life routine upheaval. 

Over the course of the summer however, cranky bladder still holding on, I began to feel burned out, something I hadn't struggled with since my corporate days. I was exhausted, sapped of creativity and struggling with heaviness and anxiety. I felt this way even though I had set some extra boundaries in my business around communication tools and working hours. Still, I kept trucking along, writing my new book, pitching literary agents and coaching leaders. 

Finally, at the end of July I took a week long staycation to unplug and rest. Around this same time, a consultant/author friend of mine, Shanna Hocking, who works in higher education released a compelling report on the state of women leaders in her industry. I was so geeked out to read her report and almost a bit envious that, despite all the headwinds on diversity and women's programs in our current environment, she was still laser focused in on serving the women leaders in her industry. 

I was literally staring out my window one day during that break and the James Clear example (above) popped into my head. I had this epiphany, Duh! Of course I feel burned out. I'm suffering from a type of burnout I write about extensively, rust out. It's what happens when we aren't working on projects aligned with our best skills and talents. That's when it hit me, just like James described with the pilots, I was 3.5 degrees off course. 

I was off. I felt off. When I started my business, my mission was (is) to help women advance to the rooms where decisions are made. When I made my 2025 business shifts in book writing and workshop focus, I explained it away that men also needed to be a part of this (they still do) to create more gender balance in senior leadership. While I have always included men in my corporate leadership workshops and in some coaching, the mission has typically centered women.

In short, I'd lost sight of leading with my mission.

I didn't feel off early on because I was building upon one of my favorite book chapters (Lead More by Doing Less) from my first book, but as time stretched on, the departure from centering women in my conversations and new book writing snuck up on me.

Maybe I was only ONE degree off, but off is still off.

During August, I wrestled with what to do next, however, something else started happening. Former clients and other women leaders I know, hungry for development and connection, asked if I had a virtual community to join. And after hundreds of conversations with women leaders this year, they tell me that they need help, support, community and advancement tools more than ever as their organizations have dialed down this type of support.

I also attended a negotiation training at a law firm and one of their taglines to foster support amongst colleagues was “never argue alone.” It hit me again, what if there was a place where corporate women leaders could feel like they are never leading alone? 

What if my clients and contacts from ALL OVER THE WORLD could collaborate with others like them as they advance to the rooms where decisions are made? Another light bulb moment (and more to come on this community, stay tuned…but if you're curious just hit reply and I'll spill the beans privately to you :) ). 

At the end of August, my gut was clear on what I needed to do:

1. I emailed my book coach and told her my current book idea was toast and I'd no longer be writing that book

2. I stopped querying literary agents and told my old publisher the book idea was done

3. I informed some dear friends and colleagues in a local women's group I was leading that I would need to leave the group to make room for what was next (so hard!).

4. I put the very first ideas down on paper to dream up the community of corporate women leaders my clients had been asking me about

Here's the crazy thing, remember my cranky bladder and burnout that had stalked me for MONTHS? Gone - completely gone in three days. The symptoms have been gone now for two full months as I've been quietly shifting my focus back to center. 

If you read Closing The Confidence Gap, then you know I dedicated a whole chapter on the wisdom of your body, detailing a past situation in which my body was painfully telling me that I was off course. Our bodies always know the truth, it's just that we frequently ignore it because our minds think, “Well, that's inconvenient!” It takes courage to follow your gut because many times we have to disappoint people, tell others no, or risk being perceived as a failure. 

Courage, choosing yourself, will require you to disappoint people. It will require you to tell people you that are not doing something that they expect. This includes things like writing a book people ask for, one I have been talking about here and on social media. If you're Taylor Swift, it means disappointing your eager fans with the news that re-recording your Reputation album just isn't happening. 

Here are all the ways I ended up one degree off:

1. I let my protective nature on my first book title rush me into false urgency of writing book two

2. I took well-meaning advice from another author that my second book should be about a topic that people ask me about the most (instead of something I really wanted to write about)

3. For fear of my business security, I succumbed to the common pressure that diversity programs need to be dialed down or aren't “a thing” anymore

4. With good intentions to include everyone in my mission, I ended up not centering my mission of advancing women to the rooms where decisions are made

In short, I listened to others, put my fears of business security over my true desires and tried to be everything to everyone. Oops… I did the things I tell my clients not to do. It's exactly how you attempt to climb the ladder of success but find yourself against the wrong building. I am human after all, you can pull me off a pedestal :)

If you've read this far, this brings me to the point of my email this week, I leave you with just one self-coaching question today to courageously consider:

Where is your body signaling to you that you are one degree off? 

• What symptoms won't go away? When did they show up?

• What nudge keeps coming up that you're ignoring?

• What is yours to do, even if it means you need to take a leap of faith and potentially let someone down?

🔥 Data is very important in making decisions, and coupled with the power of your intuition, it is your competitive advantage as a leader. You have a powerful tool inside your body that knows what’s right for YOU. The right decision always feels of peace, not dread.

Kelli Thompson is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive coach who specializes in helping high achievers advance to influential leaders in their organizations. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Closing The Confidence Gap: Boost Your Peace, Your Potential & Your Paycheck.

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