Red Alder Leadership

"I want to grow here, but how do I find the time? There’s always another fire to put out, another sprint, another deadline. Is it even possible to carve out space for my own development?”

I hear this from clients in fast-paced startups all the time. Even when growth is a company value, it’s easy for personal development to get lost in the daily whirlwind. 🔄

I’ve been there. When everyone’s juggling multiple roles, it can feel like you have to choose between getting things done and investing in yourself.

You MUST be your own advocate. 🏗️

Here are a few ways to take charge of your growth, even when things are hectic:

• Volunteer for stretch projects or cross-functional teams
• Start a conversation with your manager or a mentor about your goals
• Propose a side project that excites you
• Block 15 minutes a week for learning or reflection
• Ask for feedback and act on it

Growth often comes from the risks you take and the conversations you start. The first step is giving yourself permission to prioritize your path-even when things are busy.

What’s one small way you could advocate for your growth this week? 🌱

If you’re feeling stuck in the startup rush, you’re not alone. Let’s brainstorm together-sometimes all it takes is a nudge to get started. 🔥

Mondays are for 🌟 GRATITUDE 🌟

Following the advice of Amit Sood, MD in his book Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living, I'm adding a daily wellness theme to my routine.

Research shows practicing gratitude can transform your life by:

✅ Helping you bounce back from setbacks faster
✅ Increasing your earnings
✅ Improving your sleep and recovery from illness
✅ Strengthening your social connections
✅ Boosting your energy and mood

It's been a great balance between structure and variety over the last two months and I'm grateful beyond words for all of the friends and colleagues who have supported my journey over the years.

Thank you to Paul N Larsen, MA, CPPC, Larry Seal, Marc Manley, Patrick Cahill, Michael Buchalter, Kyle Ruxton, Nathan (Nate) Forster, Andi Vanetta Smith, Kylin Ellison, Leticia Montana, MSOD, ACC, CLDP, Steven Nash, MSOD, Eric Burns, Robert Collings, Trevon Clow, Alan Mitchell, John Lundquist, David Gibson, Mahantesh Hiremath, and Jordan Burcham (in no particular order!)

💡 What are you grateful for right now? Who or what has positively impacted your journey this week?

Share your thoughts below or tag someone you’re grateful for! Share the power! 🙏✨

✨ Book Recommendation for Managing Stress ✨

Balancing a successful career with managing stress and finding traditional meditation methods aren't quite working for you? I highly recommend The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living by Dr. Amit Sood.

This game-changing book offers practical, science-based strategies that can make a huge difference in your day-to-day life. It’s a refreshing, actionable approach to stress management—truly a game-changer! 💡

Check it out here: The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Justin Livingston

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Mayo_Clinic_Guide_to_Stress_Free_Liv/aSuFAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

https://books.google.com/books?id=aSuFAAAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&hl=en

Another big win to celebrate this Friday 🌟 - props and a massive shout out 📣 to Halle Sobczak who leveled-up her career this month by stepping into her new role as Senior Manager of Influencer Marketing at Grüns, based out of Stanford, CA! 🚀

Halle's success is a great example of how maintaining focus on 🎯, and the motivation to pursue it 🏃‍♀️ truly does lead to the greatest accomplishments: a rewarding role with the opportunity to keep learning 📚 and growing 🌱 on a great new team. So happy for you, Halle! 🎉

A huge congratulations and shout out to 🌟 Diana Duri 🌟 for being selected to step up to the Strategic Customer Success team at Handshake! 🎉

She has executive poise, empathy and incredible strategic instincts that will make an impact on this new team. Her resilience and commitment to learning and growth have led directly to this accomplishment and I can't wait to see what's around the next bend. 🚀 Way to go Diana!!! 👏✨🌟

Another huge accomplishment from my community today - I am phenomenally impressed with Kyle Ruxton who was promoted to Senior Privacy Counsel at NAVEX in Lake Oswego, OR! 🏅💼

Kyle's ability to see opportunities, creative solutions, and clarity among all the competing priorities are absolutely inspirational. 🧠✨ By setting his sights high and bringing steady focus every step of the journey, he's set himself up for significant and meaningful accomplishments, just like this one. 🛤️🏆 His approach to career growth is exactly why Kyle has become such a stand-out executive in his field. 🔍📈

Working together over the last few years has been an honor, and I look forward to the accolades and growth to come! 🌟🔝

Overjoyed to share another incredible accomplishment from my community this sunny Friday – a huuuuge congratulations to Elliot Gluck for joining Productsup as an Enterprise Account Executive!

Elliot work and prep for this role have been exemplary, from business due diligence to doing the deep personal work to find full alignment with the product, opportunity and culture. PATIENCE, POISE AND PROFESSIONALISM.

You deserve this Elliot - can't wait to see your wins roll out this year!

Celebrating Kelsey Hough on this wonderful Friday for stepping into her brand new role as Director of Partner Activation at the Portland Trail Blazers!

This is a truly incredible life and career milestone, in addition to being one of the most legitimately cool jobs out there. Kelsey brings that incredible balance of strategy, empathy and executive poise that lets us all know we are in the presence of a real leader.

I'm so impressed and excited for this next step. Kelsey, you've earned it, you deserve it – you're evidence that hard work and perseverance pay off.

Another incredible 🌟 life-altering career victory 🌟 to share with everyone this beautiful Thursday. A huge congratulations and shoutout 📣 to Salazar 🎉 who's joined Coveo's new Enterprise Account Management team!

German has an incredible depth of knowledge intelligent search-as-a-service, but that's not all. He the spent time required to find the right team, with the right product, where he could truly contribute value and grow himself. He conducted his search like a complete professional, doing all the research and due diligence required, but most importantly, he remained patient and kept standards high.

German you are an example to us all 💪 - clear goals, diligence, professionalism and the wisdom to celebrate 🏆 the win when it comes. So impressed with this new chapter you've begun!

The future starts now!

Celebrating a HUGE win for **Jordan Burcham** at Summit Bank who is now his team's youngest Vice President and has been tapped to support growth into a new market. I'm so excited for you!

Through the last year+ Jordan brought incredible focus and tenacity to his development and has been an absolute champion of growth mindset - where constant learning is the highest form of success.

In our current mixed economy it's difficult for many of us to know which way to lean, who to promote ourselves to, or even to be sure which next career step would be best.

It's easy to start coasting. If that's you this summer - enjoy it for a few weeks, then let's kick this thing back into high gear.

If you need a jump start, check out this TedTalk by Carol Dweck and let's all take a moment and learn from the OG of Growth.

The power of believing that you can improve Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solv...

Exceptional standout day today - five (5!) of the ambitious people I work with are being promoted, stepping into new dream jobs and accepting major career achievement awards. This is what I live for and THE reason I do this work!

It’s not just that these are often tied to raises, but because they will be able to live their authentic personal goals. Being who they want to be - living yesterday’s dream as today’s reality. Their lives are changed, and their experiences will transform because of it.

These aren’t small steps either - most have been years in the making, and I believe will represent a "season of acceleration" that defines a truly successful career. More simply, when the graph started going waaaay up and to the right.

So what were these wins? Let’s count ’em off. I'll share one now, and another each week going forward.

Congratulations Michael Buchalter on your 40 under 40 award and your work spearheading new market intelligence research to expand your offering. You're tenacity and focus are so inspiring!

How did this happen though? In my experience, personal and career growth have an incredibly linear element to them. It can feel like a sequence.

– Master tactical tasks and show promise —> move on to team leadership

– Master team leadership and show promise —> move on to lead the biggest teams and accounts

– Master the biggest teams and accounts and show promise —> move on to authoring culture, developing people and creating the vision.

Which stage do you feel you’re in right now? Which are you aspiring to? How bad do you want to win, to grow, to change, to transform? Are you willing to be uncomfortable to get it?

I have had the honor of working with the above mentioned five ambitious, resilient, confident, empathetic, humble, authentic professionals ranging from just four months to four years. I can not be more impressed with the rewards each is earning this month for their hard work and growth mindset. Built piece by piece, week after week, month after month. Even in the face of setbacks.

The hardest part for each of us is often the beginning - when we define that personally electrifying North Star on the horizon.

Is yours clear? What is it? Let's make a plan to get you there sooner than you think is possible.