Hi everyone,

I thought I would switch things up today and share a bit of a business update. We’re stepping into a new chapter at Cohd, and I want to bring you all along.

Q1 was a big quarter. Not just in the sense that things were busy or full, but as I step back and reflect, it’s a moment where the business itself has shifted.

We refreshed our brand identity.
We launched our new website.
We established our training tier on Substack.

The fundamentals of our work haven’t changed. From the very beginning, Cohd has been about creating cultures of human development. What feels distinct is our ability to communicate that clearly and execute it on a larger scale.

Since the inception of Cohd, our work has lived inside our cohorts. And there is something created in those spaces that can’t be replicated. But over the last year, it’s become increasingly clear that the impact of what we’re up to shouldn’t be limited to the people who can sit in those spaces.

So we set out to expand and launched The Practice Plan (our training tier here on Substack). It’s an important step toward making this work more accessible to individuals and organizations who believe in it.

What exactly is The Practice Plan?

The Practice Plan is our way of sharing the Cohd toolkit beyond the Elevate Program. It’s our way of training the tools, bringing in new voices, and, as always, anchoring the work in practice.

Every Monday, inside each edition of The Practice Plan, you’ll get:

• A conversation about a Cohd tool. I chat with fellow Cohd coaches and Elevate alumni about one of our tools and how folks are applying them in real leadership situations

• A clear written breakdown of that tool. So you understand the structure behind it

• Individual reflection questions. To help you think about how the concept shows up in your own leadership world

• Team discussion prompts. Which you can bring into meetings, coaching conversations, or development sessions

There are also a few things we’re especially excited about, including team discounts and a 50-week workbook that accompanies the weekly posts, so you and your team can take this work out of your inbox and into your day-to-day.

This is a way for alumni to stay connected to the work. For individuals to access the tools even if they haven’t participated in our Elevate Program. And it’s a way for us to start building a broader community of people who care about this kind of growth.

If we’ve piqued your interest and you’d like to know more, you can read all about The Practice Plan, here.

To celebrate the launch, we’re offering 30 days free for anyone who wants to explore. Just follow the link below. And, if you know someone in your network who might find it valuable, feel free to pass the link along.

Join The Practice Plan Free to 30 Days

And while this is a new phase in the business, it also represents a shift for me. For the majority of the past 4 years and 8 months, I was pretty committed to keeping this small. There was a simplicity, but also a comfort in that.

And, with that comfort comes a limit to the impact that can be made.

Over time, it’s been the participants’ responses (their growth, their feedback, the way they take this work and run with it) that have made it harder and harder to justify keeping it contained.

Hear from some of our amazing participants:

When it comes to this work, I’ve always felt the most energized after leaving a team practice. But embarking on the new challenge of communicating what we’re building, and making the toolkit accessible at a larger scale, is energizing me in a similar way.

Because of that, I couldn’t share this update without expressing my incredible gratitude to everyone who has supported Cohd in getting to this point.

To every leader who took a chance and introduced this work to this team. Every participant who showed up with an open mind. To every person who has shared Cohd’s work. And to our amazing Cohd coaches who are making it possible for things to become both bigger and better.

Thanks to everyone.

As we head into Q2, I have a sense that we’re just getting started.

And of course, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about bringing The Practice Plan to your organization.

Want more? Check out the latest from Home of Elevaters:

There’s a difference between a smart team and a healthy team.

And most organizations spend an extraordinary amount of energy optimizing for the first while quietly assuming the second will take care of itself.

You can assemble ten incredibly intelligent people in a room. People with deep expertise, impressive credentials, strong opinions, and sharp instincts. People who know how to build models, design strategy, spot market opportunities, and solve complex problems. On paper, it looks like a dream team.

And yet, those teams don’t always perform.

Not because they aren’t capable. Not because they lack ideas. But because intelligence alone does not create alignment, and it certainly doesn’t create trust.

If the people in that room don’t know how to admit when they’re wrong, ask for help without feeling exposed, challenge an idea without attacking the person behind it, or separate their ego from the outcome of the work, then it doesn’t really matter how smart they are. If they don’t know how to have hard conversations, how to say “that bothered me” without it turning into a rupture, how to hold each other to high standards without defensiveness creeping in, then the collective intelligence in the room stays locked up.

It’s remarkably easy to find smart people. It is far rarer to find a group of smart people who know how to operate in a healthy way together.

The Assumption We Make at Work

I was in a team practice a month or so ago when someone made an observation that has stuck with me ever since. She said, “It’s funny how much time and energy we put into how we engage with our spouses or our families… and then we show up to work and don’t really think about it at all.”

She was right.

Think about the level of intentionality most of us bring to our closest relationships outside of work. We reflect on our tone. We learn what triggers the other person. We try to repair quickly when we’ve hurt someone. We negotiate differences. We read books, listen to podcasts, go to therapy, have long conversations about how to communicate better. We understand, instinctively, that relationships require effort.

And yet at work — where we spend eight to ten hours a day, often under pressure, with people who have different communication styles, different stress responses, different backgrounds, and different ambitions — we somehow assume that things should just function.

We assume that because we are professionals, because we are smart, because we are adults, the relational side of the equation will run smoothly without much attention. And when it doesn’t, we are surprised.

But why would work be the one relational environment that doesn’t require maintenance? Why would a group of high-achieving, opinionated, driven humans under stress magically operate in harmony without tools, language, or structure?

That assumption is not only unrealistic; it is one of the quiet reasons so many teams underperform.

Strategy Is Not Enough

Strategy matters. Of course it does. You cannot build a strong organization without clarity of direction and good thinking. But there is a subtle overconfidence in many workplaces that if we just get the strategy right, everything else will fall into place. If we just hire the smartest people. If we just design the perfect plan. If we just make the “right” decision.

What often goes unexamined is that the quality of our decisions is directly influenced by the health of the environment in which they’re made.

If people are withholding concerns because they don’t want to be perceived as difficult, if they are protecting their territory rather than focusing on what is best for the team, if they are silently frustrated but unwilling to speak up, or if they are afraid that vulnerability will be used against them later, then even the most elegant strategy will struggle in execution. The cracks show up in subtle ways first — delayed decisions, passive resistance, misalignment — and eventually they compound.

Healthy teams do not eliminate conflict. They create a structure for navigating it productively. They don’t avoid hard conversations; they build the muscle to have them earlier and more directly. They don’t pretend ego doesn’t exist; they learn how to notice it and move past it in service of something larger than any one person.

And none of that happens by accident.

Health Is Built, Not Assumed

There is a pervasive belief that healthy dynamics are something you either have or you don’t. That some teams just “click.” But in my experience, that clicking is almost always the result of intentional effort. It comes from shared language. From agreed-upon norms. From practicing feedback. From leaders modeling vulnerability and repair. From making space to talk not just about what we are working on, but about how we are working together.

It doesn’t make a team weak to need those structures. It makes them human.

Under stress, every single one of us reverts to habit. We become more defensive, more certain, more reactive, or more withdrawn. We misinterpret tone. We assume intent. We carry our history into the room. The question is not whether those dynamics will appear; they will. The question is whether the team has the awareness and the tools to navigate them without derailing performance.

When you take a group of smart people and teach them how to function as a healthy team, something shifts that feels almost disproportionate to the effort. Meetings become more efficient not because people are quieter, but because they are clearer. Decisions get made faster because dissent happens early rather than festering underneath the surface. Standards rise because accountability is no longer personal; it’s shared. Energy that once went toward politics or avoidance gets redirected toward progress.

The magic is not in finding smarter people. Most organizations already have plenty of intelligence. The unlocking move is helping those smart people work well together.

Smart teams can design a plan.

Healthy teams can carry it through.

And if you want sustained performance rather than sporadic brilliance, you need both.

Searching for more?

I’ve been working with one of our clients on what the “next level” version of the Elevate Program looks like for alumni.

Going into those conversations, I realized I was carrying a pretty strong assumption.

In my head, the natural next step was: Great, now let’s really focus on using these tools inside your direct teams. Manager with their team. Peers with their peers. Day-to-day, real-time application. It made sense to me. If the tools are meant to help you navigate real work, then surely the best place to practice is right there, with the people you work with every day.

So I asked the alumni for feedback.

And the response was… basically unanimous.

They don’t want that.

They want the practice space to stay cross-functional.

They want it to stay a space where their boss isn’t in the room. Where their direct reports aren’t in the room. Where they can show up without having it all figured out.

I’m so glad I asked. Because what they helped me see feels really important.

1. We don’t outgrow practice. And practice spaces work because they’re safe.

One of the things I love most about the Elevate Program is that it’s not a performance space. You don’t show up because you already have the answer. You show up with the tension. The messy situation. The thing you’re not sure how to handle.

You get perspective. You get coached. You try on tools. You hear how other people think about it. And ideally, you walk away with something clearer, more grounded, and more usable than what you walked in with.

What the alumni reflected back to me is this: that kind of space doesn’t stop being useful just because you’ve “graduated.”

Having the tools doesn’t mean you no longer need a place to prepare to use them.

In fact, most of the time, the stress or tension we’re dealing with comes from the people we work most closely with. Our peers. Our boss. Our team. And when you’re in the middle of that system, it’s hard to both be in it and think clearly about it at the same time.

A cross-functional space gives you a little distance.

You’re not posturing. You’re not managing optics. You’re not trying to lead and process at the same time. You can just show up and say, “Here’s what I’m dealing with. I don’t know the answer yet.”

That’s not something you “outgrow.” That’s a practice you keep.

It actually made me think about athletics.

When I played in college, every single practice—and every single game—we did our “dailies”. For outfielders, that meant the same fundamentals over and over: practicing our do-or-die footwork and glovework with a motionless ball, tossing balls in the air to ourselves and catching them on the correct shoulder. Stuff you could easily think, We’re playing at a high level. We’ve been doing this forever. Why are we still doing this?

But that’s the point. You never get too many reps. Professional athletes don’t stop practicing because they’re “good enough.” They practice because fundamentals are what hold up under pressure.

Leadership is the same. You don’t graduate out of needing a practice space. If anything, the more responsibility you carry, the more valuable that space becomes.

2. Cross-functionality fights silos (and builds empathy)

The second thing this really clarified for me is how important cross-functional spaces are as organizations grow.

As companies get bigger, it’s almost inevitable: you get more siloed. You talk to the same people every day. Other teams make decisions that affect your work—but you don’t always have context, or relationships, or an easy way to understand the “why” behind those decisions.

So what happens?

“It’s accounting.”
“It’s logistics.”
“It’s marketing.”

We start talking about functions instead of people.

But when you’re in a cross-functional practice space, something different happens.

You bring in a situation that’s stressing you out. Maybe it does involve another department. And suddenly, someone from that world is in the room. You get their perspective. You can ask the question. You can see the fuller picture of what’s actually going on.

And just like that, things get more human.

Names and faces replace labels. Context replaces assumptions.

Over time, that does something really important: it builds trust and empathy across the organization.

It builds our emotional bank account. When that account is full, we’re more generous in our interpretations. More curious. More willing to assume positive intent. Less likely to climb our ladder and get defensive.

When that account is empty, we do the opposite.

Cross-functional practice spaces quietly keep that account funded.

The surprising (and beautiful) side effect

What struck me most in these conversations is that this wasn’t just about skill-building.

Yes, these spaces help people sharpen how they think, how they communicate, how they use the tools.

But they also make the business better in a really human way.

They reduce silos.
They increase empathy.
They create shared language and shared understanding.
They give people a place to think before they have to act.

And maybe most importantly, they preserve something rare at work: a place where you don’t have to have it all figured out yet.

I went into this thinking the “next level” was about pushing practice deeper into existing teams.

What I’m leaving with is something different, and honestly, something better:

Sometimes the most advanced move is protecting the practice space itself.
Keeping it cross-functional.
Keeping it human.
Keeping it safe enough to not know… yet.

And trusting that when people have that kind of space, everything else gets better too.

Searching for more?

The Moment It Clicked

Last November, I had an honest moment with myself.

It had finally dawned on me that my screen time had gotten out of control. I was averaging over six hours a day on my phone, and I remember thinking, how is this even happening?

It wasn’t intentional. It just crept. A little more here, a little more there. And then, all of a sudden, I paused—this is not thoughtful, and it’s definitely not sustainable.

I don’t think this is a groundbreaking realization. Phones just suck you in. They trap you. Half the time you don’t even realize it’s happening.

For me, this started as a productivity decision. I have a lot I’m trying to get accomplished. I have a lot of work I want to do. And spending over six hours a day on my phone just didn’t align with that.

So I started making changes.

What Changed

I didn’t do one dramatic thing. I did a lot of small, practical things.

I rewired parts of my day. I built new habits. I conditioned myself to stay off my phone instead of defaulting to it.

Last week, my average screen time was one hour and one minute a day.

I’m genuinely proud of that. And it’s not surprising to me that January felt like one of my most productive months in a long time. I’m getting a lot done. The productivity payoff has been real.

But what surprised me is that productivity hasn’t been the biggest benefit.

The Bigger Payoff: Awareness

The biggest payoff has been awareness.

I talk a lot in the Elevate program about mindfulness versus mindlessness. And when I say mindfulness, I don’t mean sitting cross-legged for twenty minutes every morning if that’s not realistic for you.

Meditations are great. They’ve worked for me, and I love them. But to me, mindfulness is about practicality.

It’s about:

• how I’m showing up in my day

• whether I’m aware of how I’m thinking and feeling

• whether I’m choosing my responses or just reacting

Mindlessness is going through the motions without being present.

Looking back, unconsciously picking up my phone and scrolling was the clearest example of that for me. I wasn’t choosing it. I wasn’t enjoying it. It was just… happening.

Being more analog has given me white space. And that white space has changed how conscious I am of myself.

What That Looks Like In Real Life

Last Friday, I wrote about catching myself in “problem mode” and walking myself out of it.

What I didn’t fully spell out is that this whole internal conversation happened while I was walking in the park.

Normally, I would’ve thrown on a podcast and kept moving. I actually did at first. Then I caught myself and switched to a guided meditation instead.

On the back end of that meditation, I started reflecting. Coaching myself. Shifting my energy.

I ended that walk more aligned, more energized, and clearer than when I started.

That shift happened because I didn’t immediately fill the space.

If I had stayed plugged in — if I had just kept consuming — I don’t think I would’ve had access to the tools. The white space is what created room for awareness.

This feels like a perfect example of what it looks like to bring mindfulness into my day. At the same time, I’ve also put some very real strategies in place to bring my screen time down and my awareness up.

What I Actually Did to Reduce My Screen Time

A few people have asked how I did this, so here’s what worked for me:

• Turned Do Not Disturb on almost all the time
  I don’t need notifications constantly pulling my attention. If something’s urgent, the people in my life know they need to call twice to get through. For everything else, I’ll see it when I see it. Most things are really not that urgent.

• A real clock in my living room
  My apartment is shockingly void of clocks. Not a single one on any kitchen appliance. Which means, I was grabbing my phone just to check the time— and then getting pulled into everything else. One large digital clock purchase later and I solved for that.

• A Physical Kitchen Timer
  For cooking, using the Pomodoro technique, anything. One less reason to pick up my phone.

• My Phone Lives in the Kitchen at Night
  Around 8–8:30 p.m., it’s plugged in and done for the day. I have an alarm clock in my bedroom, so really, there’s no reason to have my phone bedside.

• A Fitness Tracker Instead of My Phone
  I’m no longer tethered to my phone just to track activity.

• Hard limits on Instagram
  Instagram was my biggest time suck. It was so easy to go on my phone for any of the above reasons and then end up on Instagram. So, I instituted an app blocker. I can’t go on for more than 10 minutes at a time. And at this point, I’m down to checking it once a day with intentionality. I watch the latest videos of my nephew, check my messages from friends and then I’m out. Usually, I don’t even make it 10 minutes.

None of this is about rejecting technology. It’s about not letting it run me.

The Punchline

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology lately — how it fits into our lives, our work, and how what we’re doing at Cohd is more relevant than ever because of technology. (There’s more I’ll be writing about on that front.)

But at a very personal level, this is what being more analog has taught me:

I want technology to be something I use on purpose, not something I default to unconsciously.

Used mindfully, technology is an incredible tool.
Used mindlessly, it quietly erodes our attention, awareness, and presence.

This shift hasn’t been about less technology.
It’s been about more intention.

And that — more than anything — has changed how I move through my days and show up for myself.

Miss our latest posts? Check them out:

One of our core values at Cohd is growth in community. Not because you cannot grow on your own, but because the ceiling on your growth is meaningfully higher when you are doing the work alongside other people.

You can absolutely sit with yourself, reflect, journal, read, learn, and make progress. These are all skills and principles we build into the Elevate Program.

What I see again and again, though, is that people grow faster, more sustainably, and with a lot less unnecessary pressure when they are not doing it alone.

That belief sits at the center of why we use a cohort model.

You Are Not Going to Do This Perfectly

Yesterday, in a team practice, we were discussing fixed versus growth mindsets. As often happens, the conversation drifted toward a familiar question:

If we care about learning and improvement, doesn’t that mean we’re growth-minded?

What I offered in response was this: it is not a question of whether we are growth-minded or fixed-minded. We are all going to be both.

That is not a failure of mindset. That is called being a human being.

It is easy to turn this work into a binary. This is how I want to be. This is how I do not want to be. Having ideals matters, and intention matters. Of course, we want to operate from a growth mindset most of the time.

But the idea that we will never slip back into a fixed mindset again is unrealistic.

You will feel defensive when you get tough feedback.
You will feel challenged when something you care about does not go the way you hoped.
You will hit moments of self-doubt, limiting beliefs, or old internal narratives.
You will sometimes rely too heavily on past expertise and resist a new way of thinking.

That does not mean you are doing the work wrong. It means you are under pressure, stretched, or human.

The goal is not to eliminate a fixed mindset entirely. The goal is to recognize it faster and pivot more intentionally.

That is the unlocking move.

Growth is not about never slipping into old patterns. It is about shortening the amount of time it takes to notice what is happening and choose a different response.

And when we try to do all of that alone, the bar quietly becomes really daunting. If we expect ourselves to be endlessly self-aware, perfectly objective, and consistently regulated… that’s a lot to carry by ourselves.

This is where community starts to matter in a very real, very practical way.

Shared Language Changes the Equation

When a group of people works with the same language and tools, personal growth stops being a solo pursuit.

Other people can notice patterns you miss.
They can reflect things back to you more quickly.
They can help interrupt cycles before they become deeply entrenched.

The onus is no longer on you to create self-awareness in a vacuum. Instead, you are surrounded by people who understand how you are trying to grow and who have the language to support that process.

This does not remove accountability. It distributes it in a way that is more realistic and far more effective.

Progress accelerates when you are not relying solely on your perspective to guide you.

Your Team Is Part of the Toolkit

Last week, in a team practice, a participant said, “One of the tools I am appreciating the most right now is the team.”

That landed because it is exactly right.

Your team can be a tool.

When people share a common vision for how they want to work together, and when they have clear language for how to give feedback and support growth, they become part of the practice itself.

There is also something important about being on the other side of that equation.

Supporting someone else’s growth feels good. It builds trust. It strengthens relationships. It creates cultures where people are invested not just in outcomes, but in how those outcomes are achieved.

When there is a shared toolkit, helping one another becomes easier and cleaner. Feedback feels less personal. Conversations become more productive. The work feels more human.

Reflection Needs Perspective

Self-reflection is an important part of growth, but it is not sufficient on its own.

You can spend hours thinking about how you are showing up and still miss key pieces of the picture. The people around you, especially the people who feel the impact of your behavior, hold information you simply cannot access alone.

Community adds perspective.

Not because you cannot grow without it, but because it expands what is possible when you are willing to learn with and from others.

That is why we care so deeply about doing this work in community. Not as an abstract ideal, but as a practical approach to growth that actually works.

Growth is a practice. Practices are easier to sustain, refine, and deepen when you are not doing them in isolation.

Miss our latest posts? Check them out:

I’ve been teaching and using the Elevate toolkit for almost a decade now. And there’s one thing I will never stop saying—mostly because I keep needing to hear it myself:

Information alone has never been the hard part. Practice is.

One of the biggest blessings of my job is that I’m sitting in these tools all day, every day. I’m teaching them. I’m training them. I’m reminding other people how and why they work. And because of that, I get constantly reminded of the practices that help me show up in the best way.

And still, I don’t use them perfectly.
I don’t use them all the time.
I’m not “done.”

Which feels important to say, because if after ten years of doing this work I still need reminders, still slip, still have to recalibrate… that’s not a failure of the tools. That’s just being human.

What it does remind me of, over and over again, is how valuable it is to keep this stuff front of mind. To stay sharp. To return to the basics.

Because the gap between knowing and doing doesn’t magically disappear with experience. If anything, it just gets sneakier.

January has been a blur.

I cannot believe it’s already the 27th. January is usually slow and stretchy and quiet. This one? It moved fast. And I came into the year with a lot of new things on my plate—new priorities, new responsibilities, more people depending on me than even a few months ago.

Different season. Same human.

And what I’ve been reminded of recently is this: when things speed up, when complexity increases, when your world expands—the answer for me is almost never to add more tools. It’s to go back to first principles.

Not reinventing the wheel.
Just returning to what already works.

Last week, I had what feels like a very small win, but it felt enormous.

On my weekly call with my coaches, I realized it was the first week where I had actually delivered everything I said I would deliver, when I said I would deliver it.

That sounds… painfully basic. Almost embarrassing to write.

But it mattered.

For a few weeks before that, I had been trying to “get it right.” Playing with my schedule. Blocking time. Underestimating how long things actually took. Overcommitting. Adjusting. Missing. Adjusting again.

And then last week, something clicked.

I finally found the time block that was realistic. Sustainable. The one I could actually protect every week. I figured out how much time I truly needed—not the aspirational version, the real one.

And the difference was immediate.

I felt lighter.
Clearer.
More grounded.

There was no static in the background of my brain. No low-grade anxiety about the things I knew I owed people. No feeling like I was quietly letting someone down.

I was on my front foot.

And honestly? That feeling was exhilarating.

I think it’s easy to dismiss moments like that as “low-hanging fruit.” Of course you should do the things you say you’re going to do. Of course you should be reliable. Of course.

But here’s the thing: simple doesn’t mean easy.

Even when you’ve been doing this work for years.
Even when you know the tools.
Even when you understand the theory.

It still takes trial and error.
It still takes adjustment.
It still takes grace.

The first couple weeks of January weren’t perfect. I planned. I missed. I didn’t leave enough time. I wasn’t efficient in the way I approached things. And instead of making that mean something about me, I tried to stay curious.

What’s the delta?
What can I learn?
What do I do differently next week?

That mindset—that willingness to adjust instead of judge—is everything.

Something I see a lot (and feel myself, too) is this quiet pressure to do all the things. Especially if you’ve been exposed to a lot of tools, frameworks, and practices.

It can start to feel like growth means doing everything at once.

It doesn’t.

In my experience, you will always get more benefit from choosing one thing and committing to it fully than trying to half-do ten things at the same time.

One tool.
One focus.
One experiment.

Not forever. Just for now.

And letting yourself be imperfect as you figure it out.

What I don’t think we talk about enough is the trust you build with yourself when you start showing up the way you said you would.

That trust compounds.

It makes you more confident as a teammate.
More reliable as a leader.
Kinder to yourself as a human.

And it makes everything feel lighter.

Last week wasn’t about perfection. It was about alignment. It was about finding a rhythm that allowed me to show up for my team, for my coaches, and for myself—all at the same time.

This week, I’m holding onto that feeling.

Not because I expect it to look exactly the same.
But because I know what’s possible when I return to the fundamentals, stay growth-minded, and let the tools meet me where I actually am.

The circumstances will keep changing.
The tools will keep becoming relevant in new ways.
And the work—human development—will never be about perfection.

It’s about reflection.
Adjustment.
Trust.
And continuing to elevate: one intentional choice at a time.

Miss our latest posts? Check them out:

We’ve got a lot going on over here.

It feels like we ran straight into 2026 at full speed, and honestly? Things are feeling very fun.

The Brand Refresh I’ve Been Dreaming Of

First and foremost, we’re currently in the mindset of a Cohd brand refresh, and this excites me on so many levels… some I expected, some that have taken me by surprise.

Fundamentally, I’m a sucker for aesthetics. And in the four and a half years of Cohd’s existence, I’ve been responsible for pulling together the look and feel. It’s gotten us here, and it's time for the brand to get some love and attention from professionals who do this for a living.

I’m beyond excited to share the new branding and updated look in the coming months.

What’s surprised me, though, is how much more grounded and clear I feel when putting into words everything we do at Cohd.

Last week, I sat down to rewrite the homepage copy for cohd.co 2.0 (more like 4.0 actually, but I digress). The pillars are the same. We’re running the same business. The results and impact we see each week continue to hold true and inspire me constantly.

But the language that poured out of me as I set out to write the story in web-copy form feels so much more confident. More vivid. The ability to convey what we’re up to, why we do it, and why it matters feels more assertive, human, and real than what has existed up to this point.

Part of that analysis might be projection, because I personally feel all of those things. But how I felt after seeing the new copy I wrote was an unexpected delight. It gave me a moment to pause and recognize how far the company has matured.

Don’t Take My Word For It

And in many ways, other people will always be able to tell the story better than I can. In week one of 2026, I traveled to Kansas City to film testimonials, which you’ll see on the website soon enough.

Hearing so many folks talk about the Elevate Program and the impact of this work so eloquently will be one of the core memories I carry with me as it relates to Cohd.

I believe in what we’re doing so deeply, and I will never stop being touched by our participants— by their willingness to lean in, their vulnerability, their eagerness to keep growing, and their desire to support both Cohd and me along the way.

There is something so powerful about people authentically sharing their own experience. Sitting down to film those testimonials and hear directly from people who’ve graduated from the program was truly a highlight of my career.

Back Home, Full Speed Ahead

But now, we’re back in Brooklyn. Back in our rhythms and team practices.

I’m sitting at my desk looking at a mountain of books that need to be shipped out for all of the new cohorts kicking off. We have new clients starting in January, and we had a record-breaking number of cohorts begin in December.

And somehow I’ve made it this far without mentioning one of the biggest milestones yet.

Cohd’s Growth Spurt

We’ve officially onboarded four new Cohd coaches and facilitators, all of whom are jumping into cohorts and leading classes for the first time— and doing it beautifully, I might add.

This feels like a real marker of growth.

For a long time, I held onto some very real limiting beliefs about expanding beyond doing everything myself. In hindsight, that approach was absolutely right for the season we were in: one of learning, refining, and building.

But seeing this work grow beyond me, watching other coaches carry it forward with so much care and skill, has been incredibly special.

I’ll share more about our coaches and this next phase of Cohd in future notes, but all to say: we’ve got a lot of new folks in the Elevater pipeline, and 2026 is shaping up to be a very fun year.

Thank you all for the support.

I’m excited to keep growing, learning, and getting better in 2026.

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Every Elevate participant gets a box — a few physical materials we’ll reference throughout the program.

One participant recently said, “It felt like getting PR.”
Which I love.

While of our tools live in Cohd’s learning portal, some things deserve to exist on paper. There’s not always a replacement for a physical book that we can see and pick up and dog ear.

The through line between all the books we share in our Elevate box is that they give us language. They help us step back, see what’s happening from a 10,000 foot view, and take a more elevated approach.

Here’s a look at what we include and why. Consider it an invitation to explore the same ideas our Elevaters are working through.

1. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Patrick Lencioni

Most people can tell when something feels off in a team, but can’t always name it.
Lencioni’s framework gives us the language to do that. It unpacks how trust fuels conflict, which shapes commitment, which underpins accountability, which drives results.

Inside the book is a short team assessment — a quick gut check that highlights where things are strong and where they’re wobbly. I’ve never seen a team “green” across the board. Even the best have edges to smooth.

This model helps us zoom out and see the system. Once you can name what’s happening, you can start to make thoughtful, meaningful changes to strengthen the team dynamic.

2. Dare to Lead

Brené Brown

It probably won’t surprise anyone that Brené made the cut. Her work lives where science, story, and humanity meet.

Early in the book, she writes that aside from parenting, leading others might be the greatest test of self-awareness. She’s right. Leadership asks for courage, empathy, and honesty about who we are.

“Dare to Lead” gives language to those invisible moments — when we feel uncertain, protective, or vulnerable. It names what’s under the surface so we can move from reactivity to intention. She speaks about leadership on a personal level, and addresses the challenges we face leading others.

We can’t always control what happens, but we can always choose how we show up. That’s what it means to lead from a higher perspective.

3. The Power of TED (The Empowerment Dynamic)

David Emerald

This one’s deceptively simple — a short read that quietly changes how you see yourself and others.

Emerald outlines two systems we move through: the Drama Triangle and the Empowerment Dynamic. One drains our energy — rooted in blame, rescue, and victimhood. The other restores it — rooted in ownership, support, and creation.

The framework helps us step back and see our own operating system. Once you can name the dynamic, you can shift it. It’s a map for moving from “what’s happening to me?” to “what’s possible here?”

We spend almost two months in the program unpacking it — spotting the patterns, shifting them, and helping others do the same. Alumni often call this book the one that changed how they show up.

Each of these books helps us see more clearly — to name the unseen, understand our own patterns, and hold a broader perspective. Together, they give us the vocabulary and vantage point to move through work and life with more awareness, more intention, and more elevation.

If you’ve ever wondered what kind of learning happens inside the Elevate Program, this is a glimpse. Reflection and real-world practice, anchored in language that helps us see differently.

And if you want to start your own version of the work, these three books are a solid place to begin.

.Want more behind-the-scenes from our founder? Check out the latest from our ––HH section:

• In Development, By Design

• I Created The Word Elevater

Our In Practice section is where we share ideas and takeaways from the team practices Cohd runs every week with leaders and team members across industries. If you want to learn from those sessions, explore our latest In Practice posts:

• Stop Asking “Do You Need Anything?”—Ask This Instead

• The Skill of Naming Our Tensions

• Three Great Questions I’ve Been Asked About Feedback Recently

📬 Home of Elevaters publishes every Tuesday and Friday. Friday notes arrive directly in your inbox, while Tuesday posts live online.

👉 Stay connected with Haley on Instagram and LinkedIn, and follow Cohd on Instagram and LinkedIn for more behind-the-scenes, stories, tools, and reflections on Elevaters, teams, and trust in action.

In most organizations, learning and development shows up in one of two ways:

1. coaching and individualized attention for executives and senior leaders, or

2. one-off company-wide speakers and workshops.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with either. But both leave a lot of impact on the table.

Executive coaching often happens in a vacuum. A leader is growing, reflecting, experimenting—but the team around them isn’t part of the same learning process. The language, tools, and accountability aren’t shared. Which means the change stops with the individual.

Company-wide workshops, on the other hand, create exposure without follow-through. They can spark curiosity but rarely create the structure or repetition needed to turn insight into action.

When I started Cohd, I was intentional about building something different. I didn’t want surface-level work. I wanted meaningful work that led to real behavior change—for individuals and for the systems they’re part of.

That’s what gets me excited every day.

What It Looks Like When Development Isn’t in Isolation

I’ve done plenty of speaking engagements. They have a place. Exposure to new ideas matters. But what’s powerful is what happens when people are in practice—learning, reflecting, and getting feedback together.

In just the past week:

• A participant called and said it was terrifying to recognize how much he’s changed over the course of the program.

• In one team practice, someone shared that the content we’re covering helped him realize he’s been bringing drama into the team dynamic—something he hadn’t seen before.

• A woman opened up that she’s reliable to others, but she lets herself down; that’s where she needs to start to build self-trust.

• An almost-graduate talked about how he thinks about his Personal Development Practice nearly every day, and how it’s helping him put himself in uncomfortable situations so he can grow professionally.

• An executive spoke in depth about how grateful he was for his team holding up a mirror and showing him how he was negatively impacting those around him; his team, in turn, thanked him for his openness, receptivity, and commitment to growth.

This is what development looks like when it’s shared, not siloed. It’s not an overnight fix. It takes time, precision, and collective effort.

And it matters—because when development becomes a team practice, everything strengthens. Communication gets cleaner. Decisions get faster. Trust deepens. The culture shifts from individual improvement to collective elevation.

Where Real Change Lives

Cohd’s approach has two key impacts: it transforms and elevates participants on a personal level, and it transforms teams on a cultural level.

When we democratize this kind of development—when we do transformational, deep work not just with executives, but with everyone—you elevate your whole office. You create trust and excitement. Fulfillment and camaraderie. People feel cared for and supported.

The status quo in L&D is too often exclusive or shallow.
It’s time to change that.

If you want your leaders to grow, bring their teams along for the journey.
Because development done in isolation can be insightful—
but development done together is transformative.

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Want more behind-the-scenes from our founder? Check out the latest from our ––HH section:

• In Development, By Design

• I Created The Word Elevater

Our In Practice section is where we share ideas and takeaways from the team practices Cohd runs every week with leaders and team members across industries. If you want to learn from those sessions, explore our latest In Practice posts:

• Anonymous Feedback

• The Skill of Naming Our Tensions

• Three Great Questions I’ve Been Asked About Feedback Recently

📬 Home of Elevaters publishes every Tuesday and Friday. Friday notes arrive directly in your inbox, while Tuesday posts live online.

👉 Stay connected with Haley on Instagram and LinkedIn, and follow Cohd on Instagram and LinkedIn for more behind-the-scenes, stories, tools, and reflections on Elevaters, teams, and trust in action.

One truth I’ve realized: most leaders don’t have anywhere to put the mess.

They’ve got peers they can vent to. They’ve got side conversations after the meeting. But when it comes to taking those tensions up the chain? The instinct is hesitation.

“I don’t want to look like I’m complaining.”

So instead, leaders hold it all. The frustrations. The competing priorities. The unsaid stuff. And they try to just…manage it.

The problem is, when there’s no outlet, the weight piles up.

A missing middle ground

We need a landing spot. A middle ground between “griping at the water cooler” and “making the formal case to your boss.”

That’s why our Elevate program works. It creates a container where leaders can walk in without answers. Bring the thing that feels raw, half-formed, or unresolved. Put it on the table.

It’s not about venting for the sake of venting. It’s about reframing tension into something useful. You don’t have to be polished. You don’t even have to know what the real problem is yet. That’s what the space is for—figuring it out together.

And there’s a bonus: when one person is willing to bring their tension, everyone learns. If you haven’t faced it yet, you will. So the shared practice pays off in compound interest.

Practice, not performance

Think of it like sports. Nobody shows up to practice with the expectation of being flawless. The expectation is: this is where you run the reps. This is where you try things, screw up, adjust, and build muscle memory.

In leadership, though? We’ve normalized being “in the game” 24/7. You’re always on. Always expected to perform. No wonder so many leaders feel like they’re underwater.

What’s missing is practice. An intentional environment where the goal isn’t perfection, it’s progress.

Why it matters

Because without it, tension doesn’t disappear. It leaks. Into back-channel conversations. Into cynicism. Into unproductive complaints that go nowhere.

But when the space is framed for growth, it changes everything. You can walk in with the messy middle and walk out with clarity, perspective, and a next step that actually moves the ball forward.

The bottom line

Leaders need a place to get messy. To test, to practice, to stumble, to build.

That’s not weakness. That’s the work.

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Our In Practice section is where we share ideas and takeaways from the team practices Cohd runs every week with leaders and team members across industries. If you want to learn from those sessions, explore our latest In Practice posts:

• Three Great Questions I’ve Been Asked About Feedback Recently

• Pull Back the Curtain

Want more behind-the-scenes from our founder? Check out the latest from our ––HH section:

• In Development, By Design

• I Created The Word Elevater

📬 Home of Elevaters publishes every Tuesday and Friday. Friday notes arrive directly in your inbox, while Tuesday posts live online.

👉 Stay connected with Haley on Instagram and LinkedIn, and follow Cohd on Instagram and LinkedIn for more behind-the-scenes, stories, tools, and reflections on Elevaters, teams, and trust in action.

And right now, I have seven or eight different modules (out of the 25 we cover in our Elevate Program) actively on my docket for updates. In real time.

That might sound overwhelming. It is, a little bit. But it’s also energizing.

Why “done” is not the goal

If our curriculum ever felt complete—if it felt static—that would run counter to everything we espouse. Leadership development is about growth. It’s about evolution. If I ever took the stance that our content was perfect or untouchable, I’d be embodying the very fixed mindset we caution people against.

Yes, our tools are tried and true. They work. They’re tangible. They’ll always be the backbone of Cohd’s curriculum. But the way we frame them, the narratives we weave around them, and the ways we make the ideas stick? Those are always ripe for refinement.

Collaboration is the fuel

Bringing more coaches into the fold has given me something I didn’t realize I’d been missing until I had it: collaboration.

Explaining the bird’s-eye view of the curriculum, catching the gaps I’d been unconsciously filling, hearing fresh ideas from other talented and thoughtful people—it’s been incredibly refreshing. This work is bigger and better when it’s not just my perspective. Cohd will always get stronger as more people lean in with curiosity, care, and creativity.

Growth mindset in action

So right now, I’m refining frameworks. I’m tightening slides and strengthening narratives. I’m weaving in new books, new ideas, new ways to make things sticky. And I’m constantly asking myself:

• What should never change?

• Where are we open to making it better?

That balance—the stability of what works, plus the humility to know there’s always a better way—that’s where the magic happens.

A promise

Ultimately, this is what excites me most: the promise that anyone who works with me, or with Cohd, can trust that the curriculum is alive. It’s not frozen in time. It’s always becoming stronger, sharper, more resonant.

That’s growth.
That’s alignment.

And that’s what I want to pour into every Elevater who joins us.

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Like following the stories of founders building businesses and reflecting on the journey? Read more in the -HH section, where founder Haley shares her takes on what she’s seeing and building.

✨ Recent article: I Created the Word Elevater

👉 Follow Haley on Instagram and LinkedIn for more.

Home of Elevaters publishes every Tuesday + Friday. Friday notes land straight in your inbox—follow here on Substack and on social to stay up to date with Tuesday drops.

The next morning, I was standing in the conference room, arming myself with coffee, when one of the team members came up to me. He had that unmistakable look—the kind that says, something shifted.

“What we talked about yesterday completely changed how I spoke with my daughter last night,” he said.

He told me about his five-year-old, who had gotten in trouble at school. Normally, he admitted, he would have gone straight into “parenting mode”—the lecture, the correction, the lesson. But this time, he paused.

Instead of talking at her, he asked what had happened. And then—softly—if she was ready to talk about it.

Her answer: “Not yet.”

Two words. But they rearranged everything.

He didn’t let his daughter off the hook. Instead, they made an agreement to talk about it when he got home from his trip the following evening. That gave her agency, and it gave him space to be thoughtful about how he wanted to approach the conversation.

He was grateful for new tools and the shift in perspective that allowed him to show up as a better father. He knew that when they did talk about what happened it would be more productive and she would be more engaged.

I’m not sharing this to give parenting advice. I’m sharing it because it’s the heartbeat of why the word elevater matters to me.

We use the word elevater deliberately. It’s not just another way of saying “leader.”

An elevater is someone who steps into any space—work, home, community—with the intention and skills to grow both themselves and the people around them. It isn’t confined to a title or workplace. Yes, it makes you a sharper leader on a team. And yes, companies don’t invest just for warm feelings—there’s measurable business impact.

But that’s not the whole story.

The tools elevaters practice spill beyond the walls of a conference room. They show up at the dinner table, in the carpool lane, on late-night phone calls with friends. They ripple through marriages, families, friendships—and yes, through teams.

That’s the work. That’s the why.

We aren’t running a leadership training program. We’re doing human development at work. Because when people grow, everything around them does, too.