I'm a leadership coach and writer. I support women, people of color, and immigrants in tech. In my first career, I was a design leader at design firms, startups, and large companies including Disney and Facebook. I write for Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, and Fast Company and my book Make Space to Lead shows high achievers how to reframe our relationship to work. This newsletter shares updates on my newest book Hardworking Rebels: How to Lead and Succeed as Asian American Women and leadership articles & inspiration every 2-4 weeks.
🗒️ Fieldnotes on Leadership: Retreat Space & Setting Your Seasonal Goals 🗒️
​
Hi Reader,
I didn’t know what to expect when I headed to a retreat with the poet David Whyte this past Easter weekend. I I often take time away for productive things like a business visioning retreat to plan my next quarter or a hot springs / yoga retreat for enforced rest for my body. This one felt particularly frivolous — to simply immerse myself with poetry and the creative process.
It was so needed.
I spent three days filled with human emotion — weeping while simultaneously feeling full of joy, surfing on the Asilomar reef break with the moon in the sky while watching the sun rise, being with a community of elders where the average age was 68, engulfed in the beautiful Julia Morgan buildings, and realizing how deeply poetry and music focused on the human condition could touch my soul.
It was the perfect time to be at Asilomar, a retreat space on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. This pre-Christian Easter period is after the first full moon following the spring Equinox. It's a celebration of the turning of the seasons and an entry into spring (in the Northern hemisphere).
It gave me renewed inspiration for this next season as encapsulated in this stanza of a David Whyte poem:
Remember the way you are possibilities
you can see and how you live best
as an appreciator of horizons,
whether you reach them or not.​
—David Whyte, Mameen
It helped me to reset what matters the most of this next season… and you can read how to do so in my Fast Company article below. It also gave me the inspiration of being in community with fellow seekers. If you’re yearning for time away to remember what’s most important, consider joining us at the Heroine’s Journey Retreat.
Onwards!
​
My Writing in Fast Company: 4 Great Ways to Measure Career and Personal Success
We use earnings and other metrics to measure business success all the time. But by what metrics do we judge ourselves? I share four strategies for how to measure what matters for your next season of the year.
- Measure your values
- Prioritize long-term sustainability
- Find your counter metrics
- Think in waves
​Read the full article for more.
​
The Heroine’s Journey Retreat is Open for Registration
One of my best friends, Irene Salter, and I are running our third women’s leadership retreat in Northern California on Sept 29 – Oct 2nd. Leadership can often feel lonely, weighty, and overwhelming. Instead, we offer the perspective of retreat space to take a group of like-minded women on a journey to slow down and fall in love with your work all over again. We use creative dreaming, neuroscience, and experiential co-learning set amidst the backdrop of redwoods and ocean. Join us on the heroine’s journey and emerge with inspiration and greater clarity about your future. Simply reply to this email if you'd like more info.
​
Wishing you space,
Tutti
 |
​Website | LinkedIn | Instagram​
Feeling overwhelmed by busyness? Check out my book Make Space to Lead
I share this newsletter every 2-4 weeks. It serves as an extension of the leadership & growth conversations I’ve had with many of you. Please unsubscribe below if they're extra spam in your overstuffed inbox. If you’ve gotten this email forwarded to you and want to receive regular updates, you can check out the archives or subscribe.​
Hey it's me, Tutti
I'm a leadership coach and writer. I support women, people of color, and immigrants in tech. In my first career, I was a design leader at design firms, startups, and large companies including Disney and Facebook. I write for Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, and Fast Company and my book Make Space to Lead shows high achievers how to reframe our relationship to work. This newsletter shares updates on my newest book Hardworking Rebels: How to Lead and Succeed as Asian American Women and leadership articles & inspiration every 2-4 weeks.
Hi Reader, Happy solstice! It's the longest night and shortest day of the year here in San Francisco. As a pragmatic optimist, I love looking forward to the coming days which only get more light with each passing day. Today, Irene Salter and I held our workshop on Creating Your 2024 Intention. We deliberately spent the first hour teaching actionable techniques that invoke introspection for 2023 as well as looking forward to 2024, including a mixture of neuroscience of goal-setting,...
Hi Reader, WTF, you might be thinking. Why is she already rushing us onto 2024? When I’m struggling right now and trying to simply get through the hecticness of December and crawl to the finish line of 2023. Or perhaps that’s my own inner critic talking? Wherever the voice comes from, I choose to embrace intention setting as a form of investing in my future self. And to respect calendars, I’m sending out this early invitation to join me and Irene Salter on December 21st so we can collectively...
Hi Reader, People often ask me how I transitioned my career out of design leadership into coaching. I tell them this story of working with my very first executive coach. About ten years ago, I was on the leadership team of a consulting company and the CEO gave me a harsh piece of feedback. We had high trust, so his message (eventually) resonated with me even as I felt the immediate sting of his words: “You’re smart, passionate and clients love you co-creating visions for their products. Yet...