I became a coach because while I love the startup world, it also nearly broke me. The high points of my career—founding a startup, shaping product at Slack—were also deeply painful as I struggled to ask for what I wanted effectively.

Yet with each success and each failure, I understood myself and my impact ever more deeply. I stopped pretending I was OK with the status quo and started to dream bigger. I began asking for what I wanted instead of fleeing what I feared. Suddenly my dreams seemed much clearer and closer. My awakening had begun.