From Coma to conscious leadership
June 1, 2013.
I was 42 years old, a competitive cyclist (ranked #2 in the United States) at peak strength, three laps from the podium.
I told myself: I’m going to win.
Seconds later, I was slammed into a curb at full speed.
My skull cracked.
My brain was severely injured.
My ribs were crushed.
My lung was punctured.
“She’s not going to make it,” the doctors told my friends.
I spent a month in the hospital and seven months learning to walk, talk, and cut my own food again.
But the accident didn’t just change my body.
It changed how I saw my life.
Fighting for my life after the cycling accident.
The Coma that woke me up
I was placed into a medically induced coma because my brain needed to rest.
The doctors said the only hope for my survival was simple:
“Shut down her brain.”
No talking.
No stimulation.
Isolation.
Silence.
Stillness.
I was bleeding on the brain.
Convulsing.
Fighting for my life.
If my brain didn’t rest in those critical moments, I would not be here today.
A coma allows the body to heal without the stress of conscious activity.
My brain had to go quiet so my ribs could be plated, my lung could heal, and my body could recover.
Nothing to do… but be still.
The Question That
Changed Everything
At some point in that forced stillness, a question surfaced that changed my life.
Was that the first coma I had ever been in?
Physically - yes.
Spiritually and emotionally - no.
Before the accident, I was living in a different kind of coma.
Always thinking.
Always doing.
Always winning.
I believed achievement made me worthy.
That success would earn love, approval, and belonging.
So I kept running…
Next goal.
Next win.
Next recognition.
No rest.
No peace.
No listening to my soul.
The induced coma saved my life.
But it also woke me up.
The Truth I Finally Saw
Flat on my back, with nothing to achieve and nowhere to go, I finally saw what I had been running from my entire life.
I had been trying to prove I was enough by winning.
By achieving.
By being the best.
And that belief — that I wasn’t enough without the wins — was running everything.
My business.
My relationships.
My health.
My peace.
The accident didn’t teach me to slow down.
It taught me something deeper:
I am not my achievements.
And neither are you.
Why I Do This Work
I share this because I know what it’s like to be successful on paper and exhausted in your soul.
To have built something impressive and still feel like you’re never done, never enough, never able to rest.
Many CEOs and leaders live in a similar kind of invisible pressure.
They carry the weight of results.
The responsibility for teams.
The belief that they must always push harder.
But leadership doesn’t have to come from pressure and proving.
There is another way to lead.
Another way to live.
The Work Today
Today I help CEOs and executive teams uncover the invisible leadership patterns that shape their decisions, their cultures, and their results.
These patterns influence everything:
Trust
Ownership
Innovation
Execution
Revenue velocity
Through the Invisible Wins Framework, leaders learn how to move from unconscious patterns into conscious leadership.
Not by working harder.
But by seeing clearly.
Because the most powerful transformation doesn’t start with strategy.
It starts with awareness.
When leaders change the invisible patterns driving their behavior, everything shifts.
Culture changes.
Teams rise into ownership.
Innovation expands.
And organizations grow in healthier, more sustainable ways.
What Being Fully Alive Means Now
Being fully alive means:
Trusting my heart before my fear.
Letting go of patterns that no longer serve me.
Choosing presence over pressure.
And knowing I am worthy — even when I am still.
My life was spared for a reason.
If I can impact even one life today, it is worth it.
I am no longer fighting for survival.
I am living consciously.
And I invite others to wake up from their own invisible comas.
Because the most powerful win is mastering the Invisible Wins within