What I’m Choosing These Days

When we first started Collabic, I reached out to Alyene Schneidewind, the Chief Performance Officer at LogicMonitor.

I did it nervously, something along the lines of “I don’t know if you remember me from years ago…” based on our time at Salesforce. She not only remembered me immediately, she said yes to a meeting. And then, in that conversation and the ones that followed, she said yes again, this time to an idea we started shaping together. It reminded me that so much can open up when you take the chance, even before you feel fully ready. We had both seen what great leadership development could look like, and she asked us at Collabic to build something like that with her at LogicMonitor. She took a chance on us in a way I will never forget, and I’m deeply grateful for it.

That turned into a partnership that’s now almost two years in. It also led to Dominique Lenferink and me building LogicMonitor’s flagship leadership development program together, a six-month cohort experience that blends in-person and virtual learning and is deeply focused on embedding learning in the flow of work for this leadership team.

Last week, we kicked off our second cohort in Austin.

Seventeen leaders flew in from across the world, across functions, across roles, all coming together around a shared responsibility to lead LogicMonitor forward. We spent two and a half days focusing on leading with clarity in a world of work that is constantly changing, intentionally designing for cross-functional collaboration, and moving from a functional to an enterprise mindset.

We had them working on their 2027 strategy, clarifying priorities, naming tradeoffs, and thinking more expansively about what it means to lead at an enterprise level. Members of the executive team made appearances throughout the experience, grounding the work even further in where LogicMonitor is headed.

This kind of experience only happens because of the people behind it. To the team who put an incredible amount of thought and care into making it what it was, thank you. And to folks from our first cohort, who were kind enough to come back and share their wisdom and experiences with this group, it meant more than you probably know. And to the cohort itself for showing up so fully, engaged, present, and willing to do the work in a real way, thank you.

There was one moment I can’t stop thinking about.

We were working through a core shift from Essentialism: moving from “I have to” to “I choose to.” One leader really grabbed onto it. He kept coming back to the idea that he gets to choose how he shows up, what he prioritizes, and how he leads his team. You could feel something shift for him in real time, not just intellectually, but in how he was talking about his work and his role.

It landed for others in the room, too, but that moment has stayed with me most.

I’ve been thinking about it in my own life since, especially in a season where I’m balancing being a mom, building a business, and everything that comes with both. “I have to” is such an easy default. But “I choose to” creates a different relationship to the exact same set of responsibilities. It brings a sense of ownership and agency that can be easy to forget when things feel full or overwhelming. It’s also been a reminder that I get to choose to be bolder, to take chances on myself, and to move forward even when I’m not fully sure.

Our leadership development programs focus on what leaders should do differently, but I often forget about my own shifts: that I still have a choice, even in a world that is constantly changing and shifting around us.

What would shift for you if you moved from “I have to” to “I choose to”?