Guest Post by Cathy Laffan

Christopher Avery here. With pleasure I welcome Cathy Laffan to this blog. Cathy is an innovative executive with a global financial services firm. She shares a love for responsible leadership. Read more about Cathy at the end of her post. Enjoy

I found The Leadership Gift™ Program at a time when I was experiencing a difficult professional situation and looking for a path forward.

Through my participation and practice, I have peeled away the layers of hurt, Denial, Lay Blame, Shame, Justify, and Obligation to find my way back to the real me.

Looking back, I can now see how my unwillingness to confront my situation as my own led me up to the threshold of ‘Quit.’ I was on the verge of walking away from a successful 24 year career.

Not confronting this situation almost lead me to quitting.

Over the course of a year or more, there had been many upsets, which created opportunities for me to confront things that felt unacceptable. But I didn’t.

Instead I got caught up in repeating a pattern of feeling wronged, assessing what happened, seeking validation that I was wronged from others, and then being on high alert for the next unacceptable situation to occur.

This cycle of what I now realize is a form of self-abuse was sucking the very soul right out of me.

Through my practice of The Leadership Gift, I came to the disturbing realization that I had allowed all of this to occur, and then reinforced it.

This realization was an awakening of sorts from which I have found a path forward. And this path led me to review and recommit to my core values, demands, wants, and needs.

One morning, a few weeks ago, I sat down at my desk to start my work day and a feeling came over me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was the feeling of me being myself again, instead of carrying a heavy burden that comes from living below the line of Responsibility.

It was in this moment that I finally realized the feeling that goes with Christopher Avery wishing that each member of The Leadership Gift community would experience being “free, powerful, and at choice” – ahh what a feeling!

What aren’t you confronting? What are the consequences for not confronting?

“When you know better you do better.” ~ Maya Angelou

Cathy Laffan

Cathy Laffan is a member of  The Leadership Gift™ Program and recently accredited as The Leadership Gift Practitioner. She is a Managing Director with 24 years of experience working for a leading global financial services firm. She has 20 years of experience in the project management field and is certified as a Project Management Professional.

A champion of flexible work arrangements, Cathy has been working remotely full-time for 4 years. Cathy is also a Toastmaster and has earned the Competent Communicator and Competent Leader designations from Toastmasters International.

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