Newsflash! That was your moment to ask more questions! But nobody probably taught you that it’s ok to listen and ask more questions, right?

You would have caught that — if you had stopped talking long enough to hear it.

The close was right there. And you talked right past it. I know, I know, I’ve done it myself. When I felt insecure about…whatever…noise.

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The Hack Nobody Told You About Relationships Either

You’ve done it in your personal life too. Come one, this is a safe space.

Someone opened up to you — like really opened up — and instead of sitting in that moment, you jumped to fix it. To share a related story. To offer advice they didn’t ask for. (For the love of everything holy…don’t try to fix things unless asked in the future.)

You turned their moment into your moment.

And the connection that could have deepened? It quietly closed.

Because people don’t fall in love with — or trust — people who can’t stop performing.

They fall in love with people who make them feel seen, heard, and understood.

And you cannot make someone feel seen while you’re too busy being “blah, blah, blah, and this one time…blah, blah, blah…let me you tell you another story. (that’s not a cute look for long term longevity btw).

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What Listening Actually Looks Like:

Listening is not silence. It’s presence.

It sounds like:

Could you expand more about that?

What does that look like for you right now?

So if I’m hearing you what you said…

This isn’t rocket science. Though it does feel like a lost art these days. An acknowledgment that isn’t like dart eye contact. A pause that doesn’t panic. The confidence to let silence breathe because you’re not afraid of what you’ll hear next.

It feels like a conversation where the other person walks away thinking: *“I don’t know what it is about her — she just gets it.”*

That’s the algorithm. That’s the close. That’s the relationship.

Presence. Over. Performance.

Not performative.

Just… reverence.

And, I didn’t always understand that. In fact, I still struggle with this often.

For a long time, I thought honoring a day like today had to look a certain way. Structured. External. Ceremonial for sure though in a way that felt distant from my actual life.

The old me would have needed to be out on a boat to be seen or hosting a BBQ to be with community.

But, today felt different.

I spent the afternoon by the pool, book in hand, sun resting gently on my skin.
No urgency. No noise. No need to be anywhere else.

I read slowly.
I journaled honestly.
I let myself be.

And somewhere in that stillness, I realized—
reverence isn’t loud.

Sometimes it just presence.

We honor those who came before us—
those who sacrificed, those who carried weight we will likely never understand.

But there’s another layer to this.
One we don’t always talk about.

The responsibility of being here.

Of being alive.
Of having the space, the breath, the choice to slow down.

To reflect.
To feel.
To actually witness your own life as it’s happening.

Today, reverence looked like honoring that.

Honoring the version of me that keeps going.
That rebuilds.
That chooses again.

Not in a dramatic, “look at me” kind of way though in the quiet, honest recognition that being present with yourself is a form of respect.

It’s a form of gratitude.

There was a moment

A subtle shift when I found myself at peace.

There was no fear of missing out and no anxiety about the weeks ahead.

Just the awareness that I’m fully here in my own life.

And I can choose how I want this day to be.

Because it’s reverent.

So today, I didn’t rush to fill the space.

I let it stretch.

I let it breathe.

I let it mean something.

Maybe that’s what reverence actually is:

Not only honoring what’s been lost—
but also deeply, intentionally honoring what still remains.

At least, that’s what “the guru’s” say.

But it feels different when it’s actually happening for you in the moment.

So, anyhow, in 2024 I went from being Rep of the Year and earning President’s Club
to having one of the worst years of my professional career in 2025.

So what happened?

On paper, it made sense.

I had done everything I set out to do in that previous role.
I hit the numbers. I built the relationships. I proved to myself I could perform at a high level.

So I made a move.

Not a step back. Not a step up.
A strategic lateral move.

I told myself it was for growth.
A new environment. A new challenge. A new ceiling.

It felt like the right kind of risk I was willing to take.

Turns out— it actually wasn’t.

And I’ve sat with that long enough now to say it clean:

Sometimes the move you think is expansion…
is actually misalignment.

Not because you’re incapable.
Not because you suddenly lost your edge.

But because you moved without fully understanding why you were moving.

That part matters more than we like to admit.

It reminds me of my time dancing for the Sacramento Kings.

Four years on that court.
High energy. High visibility. A rhythm you get used to.

And then in 2002.

Game 7 against the Lakers. Yes, I’m dating myself now, but hey, those who remember - you know what I’m actually talking about.

That loss that didn’t just hit the team—
it hit the entire city.

Sacramento felt it.

And I remember what came after.

That quiet question:

Do I stay… or do I go?

I loved my City. I loved my team. I loved my family. Yet, I chose to go.

I thought the next opportunity would be bigger. Better. Brighter.
That leaving meant elevation.

But sometimes—

the grass isn’t greener.

It’s just different.

And different doesn’t always mean aligned.

2025 didn’t just challenge me professionally.

It stripped a few things down at the same time.

People I thought would be in my life long-term—gone.
Friendships that spanned over a decade—shifted or ended.
Colleagues that felt like family—no longer in the picture.

And maybe the most unexpected loss — an older version of me.

The one who knew how to keep everything balanced by keeping everyone else stayed comfortable.

That version doesn’t survive a season like this.

There’s not enough space for high-performance and truth at the same time.

So somethings had to go.

And in my case, I had to do both. At some point balancing it all became unsustainable.

What’s interesting is, in the middle of all of this…

I had a former employer reach out.

Asking if I’d consider coming back.

A year ago, that would have felt like validation.
Proof that I was still valuable. Still wanted. Still irreplaceable.

This time, it felt different.

Not bad. Not good.

Just… clarifying.

Because the question wasn’t:

“Can I go back?”

It was:

“Do I actually want to?”

And that’s a harder question to answer when you’re in the middle of a season that doesn’t look like a win.

Losing … and I mean epically shedding a version of yourself has a way of doing that.

It removes the noise.
The titles.
The external markers that make decisions easier.

And you’re left with something quieter.

More honest and well, less convenient.

So, was, 2025 a mistake?

Perhaps it was. Though, I’ve also made many decisions over the course of my lifetime that felt like a set back during the storm. Only to realize later on it led me on a path.

Here’s the difference.

One is about judgment.

The other is about awareness.

And I’m paying closer attention now. I hope you do too.

This is why I move. It’s genuinely… to be in my own body.
To know what it actually feels like to be aligned… before I label it as “growth”.

Here’s what I learned: not every change is an upgrade.

And not every loss is a failure.

Some of them are just the moment you stop performing long enough to see clearly.

And once you see it you don’t move the same again.

I knew that then. I know it now.

There were reps who could run a discovery call way cleaner than me. Top Reps who knew the product better, who could handle objections more smoothly, who had more polished presentations.

Some of them had a great year. Some of them didn’t. Was I just lucky?

And I kept thinking about why.

The honest answer took me a while to land on, because it wasn’t the answer I expected.

It wasn’t about working harder. I worked hard, but so did everyone else who cared.

At times it was absolutely about being more strategic. I had a plan, always, and guess what? Those plans would change by Tuesday morning.

What actually made the difference was something quieter than that.

Somewhere between the dance floor and the field, I had learned how to not let a bad day become a bad month.

That sounds simple. It isn’t.

There’s a pattern I’ve watched play out in sales more times than I can count.

Something goes sideways. A deal falls through at the last minute. A prospect ghosts you after three months of conversations. Your numbers come in lower than expected.

And, then, your best rep carries that doubt into the next call.

Nobody decides to show up distracted. Though, the energy is different. The confidence is a little thinner. They are trying harder, which somehow makes the whole situation worse.

One bad outcome starts bleeding into the next one.

I did this too. Early on, I did this often.

So, what changed? Not having setbacks? Nope. I had plenty of them that year. Trust me. What changed was how quickly I could put them down.

I think about many specific weeks that year. I had lost many conversions back to back. Ones I thought would definitely close. The kind of losses where you replay the conversation over and over again wondering what went wrong.

Old me would have spent a few days in that replay loop. Overthinking, second-guessing, quietly questioning whether my approach was off. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”

I had those conversations. Many times. Then, I also did something different. Something I’d been practicing in a completely different context. I just didn’t realize it back then.

I just…stopped.

I did not give up. I stopped analyzing. Stopped trying to figure out what went wrong. Stopped carrying the weight of it into the next conversation.

I had learned that skill from early days of performance. When you’re about to go on that stage, in front of a captivated audience, you don’t have the luxury of still being in your head about the last performance. The moment requires you right now. You either show up or you falter.

Sales is the same. The next prospect doesn’t know about your last call. They just know whether you’re present or not.

The technical skills matter. I’m not saying they don’t.

But skills are table stakes. Most people at a certain level have them. What separates consistent performance from inconsistent performance is almost never the skills gap.

It’s the recovery time.

How long does it take you to get back to neutral after something goes wrong? How many calls are you half-present for because you’re still processing something that already happened?

That’s the real number. And almost nobody tracks it.

The other thing about winning rep of the year taught me, and this one is harder to say out loud, is that a lot of what I thought was strategy was actually just confidence moving through me. Trust me on this one y’all…I had no clue what I was actually doing when I first started. I just stuck with it.

When I was clear and steady, I made better decisions in the moment. I asked better questions. I listened differently. I let things land instead of rushing past them.

Same skills. Completely different results.

That’s when I understood what people mean when they talk about peak performance. It’s not about doing more. It’s about having access to what you already know when it actually matters.

I finished that year having learned more about myself than about sales.

I learned that I could recover faster than I thought. That presence is a skill you can actually build. That the mental and emotional side of performance isn’t soft. It’s the whole game at a certain level.

Nobody trained me on any of that.

I pieced it together from dance, from coaching, from a lot of quiet observation about what actually separated the people who stayed consistent from the ones who didn’t.

That’s what I keep coming back to when I work with sales teams now.

Not what they know. Not even how they execute.

Whether they can get back to themselves fast enough to use any of it.

I remember that feeling from performing in front of thousands of fans as an NBA dancer. You literally cannot “think” you’re way through it. You either trust what you’ve practiced or you hesitate. You hesitate, even more a moment, it shows.

I wasn’t expecting that same feeling to show up in corporate sales. Though it did. Especially for top performers.

The Problem ———

They knew what they were doing. They usually know exactly what to say and how to run the conversation. This was never the issue.

It was what happened in the moment.

You see it in small ways. A deal that should have been pretty straightforward drag on and on. A conversation left where something felt slightly off. Nothing major, nothing to immediately flag, though, effect enough to affect the outcome.

It doesn’t happen all the time. That’s what makes it confusing.

Most companies try to fix this by adding more training or pushing harder on performance. More coaching, more frameworks, more “strategy calls”. That typically does not help the problem.

What Actually Happens ———

There’s a difference between understanding what to do and being able to do it in a live, high stakes moment. Anyone who’s been in sales long enough knows that feeling. You’re engaged in the conversation, and something shifts. Maybe the energy changes, make the stakes just got higher — and suddenly you’re not as clear as you were five minutes ago.

That’s when the deal is won…or lost.

Most reps feel that shift and attempt to overcompensate. They talk faster and explain more than they need to. They try to gain back control of the conversation. That’s usually when things slip.

The Real Fix ———

The reps who stay consistent are not always better trained. They are more stable in the process. They don’t rush, they don’t disappear and they definitely don’t chase. They stay with it.

That kind of consistency isn’t random. In most high-stakes environments, you train for these moments. The best reps do not assume people will rise to the occaions just because they know what to do. They build the ability to actually execute under pressure.

Most sales organizations under value this. They focus on what people should say, what the process looks like, how performance is measured. All valid. Yet, it skips over the part that actually determines whether any of that shows up when it counts.

So, then what? A lot of reps are left to figure it out on their own. Some do, over time. They learn to “keep it cool” on the weekly sales calls. They start noticing when something feels off instead of pushing past it. They get comfortable not having the right answers. They start going throught the motions.

They Takeaway ———

You end up with strong reps who look good on paper, who understand the work, though, still have dips that don’t quite make sense. It’s not a mystery. It’s just something most teams are not trained for and/or companies are not willing to invest in.

If the real goal is consistent performance then training must go way beyond information. It needs to account for how people show up in real time.

At a certain level, it’s not just about who you know, or who knows more. It’s about who can stay steady enough to use what they know.

This is the work that gives me passion across both sales and performance environments. It’s not just about helping people improve, it’s also about helping achieve sustainability.