Amanda Zahringer’s Post

You’re not just doing the work. You’re deciding the same things over and over again This is something I keep noticing with founders and coaches. It’s not that they don’t know what to do. It’s that every time they come back to something… they have to think through it again. “What was I doing here?” “What’s the next step?” “Where did I stop?” So even simple tasks take longer. Not because they’re hard. But because the decision-making keeps repeating. Same questions. Different day. That’s what makes things feel heavier than they should. So instead of trying to “stay organised” the focus shifts to this: Remove the need to decide things twice. When something is already clear once, it shouldn’t need to be figured out again. That’s where things start to feel lighter. How often do you find yourself rethinking something you already figured out before?

Here’s Your Weekly Tip from Your Coach! This is week two in my six-part series on self-leadership strategies for early career professionals. Follow along for practical approaches to transform stress into success. This week, we’re focused on getting crystal clear about expectations. If you missed last week’s post, you can find it here: https://lnkd.in/exgp2Bkc A recent survey of new lawyers revealed unclear expectations as the most common stressor. Comments like “I tend to get stressed when I feel as though I do not receive clear directions, when information is missing, or when I am not provided the full picture” appeared repeatedly. You cannot excel when you don’t fully understand what success looks like. Before starting an assignment, confirm the following: 1. What is the deliverable? 2. When it is due? 3. What level of detail is expected? 4. Are there examples of similar work I can review? 5. How does this assignment fit into the client’s goals or our strategy? More senior colleagues would rather answer clarifying questions upfront than receive work that misses the mark. Either during your initial conversation or after you’ve had a couple of days (not any longer) to review the assignment and list your questions, review your understanding of the issue at hand, client concerns, deadlines, and other relevant details. Then obtain confirmation by using questions such as, “Just to make sure I understand, you’d like me to…? Remember, confirming and asking intelligent questions demonstrates engagement and commitment to excellence, not incompetence. #Self-Leadership

I used to roll my eyes at “positive thinking.” It felt woo-woo. Until it helped me through a job loss and in building a business. I found that while cynicism 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 intelligent. Optimism actually 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘴 things. It could well be the most underrated business skill. Shawn Achor's 𝘏𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘈𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦 reveals the science behind positive thinking. ✅ Lower stress → better decisions ✅ 31% boost in creative problem-solving ✅ Faster recovery from setbacks Real optimism isn’t toxic positivity. It’s not pretending everything’s fine. It’s approaching obstacles with curiosity instead of defeat. How to build resilient optimism 👇 1️⃣ Start your day with progress Spend 5 minutes journaling wins before tackling your to-do list. 2️⃣ Reframe obstacles as feedback “This didn’t work” becomes “This showed me what my clients actually need.” 3️⃣ Use the power of 𝘺𝘦𝘵 “I haven’t found the right business model... 𝘺𝘦𝘵.” 4️⃣ Ask better questions Swap “Why is this happening?” for “What am I learning?” Believing things will work out isn’t naïve - it’s strategic. When you expect solutions, you keep looking until you find them. 💭 How do you stay positive? ♻️ Share this to spread positive thinking without the woo-woo. 🔔 Follow Tonya frameworks that turn mindset into momentum.

***Lesson 20 of 23: Not every sign deserves your trust *** 23 years taught me this: Just because everyone is following a direction doesn’t mean it’s the right one. One car accidentally hit an exit sign and turned it the wrong way. The next driver trusted the sign without questioning it… …and followed directly behind. That’s such a simple moment. But honestly, life works like that more often than people realize. In business: Companies copy competitors because “everyone is doing it.” In careers: People follow paths they never actually chose for themselves. In leadership: Teams continue broken systems simply because nobody questions them anymore. And online? Millions of people repeat opinions they never stopped to examine. The dangerous part about following the crowd is this: The crowd often feels safe. When many people move in the same direction, the brain assumes: “This must be correct.” But volume is not proof. Popularity is not wisdom. Movement is not direction. Some of the worst decisions in life happen quietly… when people stop thinking independently. That doesn’t mean ignore advice. It means: pause long enough to ask yourself: “Does this actually make sense?” Because sometimes one wrong signal… one loud voice… one bad example… can send thousands of people the wrong way. Critical thinking is becoming one of the rarest skills in modern life. And the people who protect it will make better decisions than those who blindly follow noise. Not every sign deserves your trust. Lesson 20 of 23. #Leadership #Mindset #CriticalThinking #Growth #Success #SelfDevelopment #DecisionMaking #GennadiyVaksman #GV #MrG #Gennadiy Video credits to the respective owner. DM for credit. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ✅️ I share content that I find unique, inventive, and distinctively cool. ✅️ Follow me for more updates: Gennadiy Vaksman ✅️ Stay tuned for my latest content by ringing the bell icon (🔔) at the top right corner of my profile. -----------------------------------------------------------------------

Your boss has a terrible idea. They are all excited about it and are about to kick off a workstream for it. You see some major flaws. 9 out of 10 people will fumble this situation in one of two ways. The first way is that they will say nothing. Afraid to confront their boss, many people will say nothing and let the bad idea proceed and gain traction while the flaws remain. The project then struggles, meaning you and your career struggle and slow down with it. The second way people fumble this situation is by calling out their boss directly, saying, “Here’s why the idea won’t work…” This kind of outright challenge forces their boss into a defensive position. They push their project through in order to not appear weak, so you end up working on the bad project anyway AND you have just made an enemy out of your boss. Not good. So, how should you go about raising your concerns in this situation? You need to challenge the idea, but you also need to be respectful and effective in your communication. I got a question on exactly how to do this in a coaching session, and I want to share my answer with you all. The question was, “When you’re challenging senior leaders (SVP and VP) or surfacing an uncomfortable truth, how do you balance that impact with respect?” You can read my answer in this week’s newsletter: https://buff.ly/Us5Wnls I go over how (and when) to challenge your leaders in a way that moves the best ideas forward and builds your reputation rather than destroying it. Readers - Let me know in the comments how you handle these situations.

Most people don’t realize they’re operating from a fixed mindset… because fixed mindset rarely sounds negative. It sounds like: “I’m just being realistic.” “This process already works.” “That’s just my style.” “I’ve been doing this for years.” That was one of the biggest realizations from Royal Blue Services April BHX Book Club on Mindset by Carol Dweck. This month’s discussion challenged us to look beyond talent and experience and focus on how we respond to feedback, failure, change, and growth. What made this workshop powerful was the honesty from our team. We talked openly about defensiveness, ego, fear of looking wrong, protecting processes we’ve built, and how often we answer questions based on who we aspire to be instead of who we are in the moment. A few reminders that stuck with us: • Feedback is data — not a verdict on your worth • “I can’t do this” becomes “I can’t do this yet” • Growth starts when we ask: What am I protecting right now? • Being technically right doesn’t always mean we achieved the outcome • The people who grow the fastest are usually the ones willing to look uncomfortable while learning One line from the workshop captured it perfectly: “The fixed mindset isn’t your enemy. It’s your teacher.” Our mission is to Empower the Ambitious to Rise, and that takes humility, ownership, curiosity, and a mindset focused on growth. Proud of our team for the vulnerability and reflection during this month’s session. 💙 #bookclub #professionaldevelopment #growthmindset #mindset

I spent an entire week questioning every decision I've ever made. Because one "calculated" choice didn't work out the way I planned. And instead of learning from it, I did what most people do — spiralled.Blamed myself. Doubted my judgment. Questioned my entire process. Then it hit me: The mistake wasn't the decision. The mistake was thinking every decision needs to work out perfectly. Here's what I learned about handling decisions that go sideways: Step 1: Accept the Reality Not every decision will work the way you calculated it. Markets change. People surprise you. Timing is unpredictable. The variables are endless. Instead of fighting this truth, adapt to what's actually happening — not what you hoped would happen. Step 2: Analyze, Don't Spiral Don't just blame yourself. Sit down. Write it down. Ask yourself: Where exactly did the decision break? Was it a lack of information? Was it timing? Did I ignore a red flag? Was I too optimistic? The answer matters because it shapes your next move. Step 3: Extract the Learning This is the part most people skip. Every wrong decision is a tuition fee for a lesson you won't forget. So ask: What did this teach me about myself, about risk, about people, about timing? How could I have done this better? What will I do differently next time? Don't waste the pain — convert it into insight. Step 4: Move Forward Once you've learned, let it go. Don't carry the guilt. Don't replay it endlessly. You've extracted the value. Now use that knowledge in your next decision. That's the entire point. Here's the truth: Bad decisions don't mean you're bad at deciding. They mean you're in the arena. You're making moves. You're testing ideas. You're growing. The people who never make mistakes? They're the ones not deciding anything. Every decision — even the ones that fail — gives you something valuable. Your job is to take it and move forward. — What's a decision that looked perfect but went wrong? How did you recover? Drop your story below — I'd love to hear how you handled it. #DecisionMaking #PersonalGrowth #Learning #MindsetMatters #Resilience #Leadership #SelfAwareness #GrowthMindset

Something I’ve been sitting with as we grow and wanted to bring it here. If you’re a COO, CPO, CTO, or other key leader… and you keep finding yourself being the “bad guy” or the “hero” who steps in to course-correct or protect projects and people — that feeling is worth paying attention to. I classify these as what I call “fixer feelings”. For a long time I read that feeling as a periodically inevitable and unfortunate part of the job. In the last year or so, I’ve come to understand it better as flashing sign pointing toward a gap to solve. More often than not — it means your leads or directors are still operating as strong contributors with influence instead of as leaders with real direction and vision. Those are genuinely different skills, and one doesn’t quietly turn into the other just because someone got promoted. The fixer feelings aren’t evidence that reached your ceiling… or a character flaw in you or the team. It’s gap in the leadership tier underneath you, asking to be built. The fix isn’t just stepping in less and hoping it works out. It’s investing in the leads so stepping in stops being the only way the work gets saved. Easier said than done — I know. Something I’ve started doing is that everytime I step in, I pair what I’m doing with the person that should be doing it. We learn a lot together and usually they can take it over sooner. It helps break down pillars of knowledge I don’t always realize I hold, and creates a relationship through a tough moment. Another thing we’ve started doing this week is classifying different problems based on their blast radius (impact and effort to solve) and giving different levels of ownership for course-correcting based on how the specific problem classifies. Still a work in progress, but showing some promising signs. Interested in how others work to build the next tiers of talent.

Uncertainty is part of almost every role. At university, I had a course called “Decision-making under risk and uncertainty.” We worked with financial models, probabilities, expected outcomes . How to make rational decisions on paper. But no one really teaches you the psychological side of uncertainty. Because as you grow, the job is less about having answers and more about how you behave when you don’t have them. And throughout my career, I’ve noticed how differently that lands with people. For some, it feels natural. For others, it’s deeply uncomfortable. It’s not just personality, it’s often cultural too. If you’re used to stability, structure, defined roles, uncertainty can feel like a lack of direction. That’s something I learned to navigate in a team I worked in, where one of the mottos was: be comfortable not being in control. When priorities weren’t aligned or information was incomplete, I rely on a few things: - Taking action without waiting for perfect clarity, rather than freezing. - Staying as objective as possible. - Thinking in scenarios but not trying to control all of them. - Continuing to communicate, especially cross-functionally. - Not spiraling into worst-case thinking, but asking: what can I influence or mitigate already, and what can I let go of. Because in the end, uncertainty isn’t the problem. It’s how you respond to it. #LeadershipLessons

How to Set Goals in 2026: A Professional Framework Most people fail goals not from lack of effort, but from using only one method. For 2026, integrate four evidence‑based frameworks: 1️⃣ SMART Goals (Operational clarity) Specific · Measurable · Achievable · Relevant · Time‑bound → Use for KPIs, deadlines, and trackable outcomes. 2️⃣ DUMB Goals (Intrinsic drive) Dream‑driven · Uplifting · Method‑friendly · Behavior‑triggered → Use for passion projects and habit‑based growth. Avoids external pressure burnout. 3️⃣ HARD Goals (Commitment & stretch) Heartfelt · Accountable · Required · Difficult → Use for non‑negotiable breakthroughs. Links emotion to accountability. 4️⃣ WOOP Goals (Implementation science) Wish · Outcome · Obstacle · Plan → Mental contrasting + if‑then planning. Turns intention into automatic action. 🔁 The 2026 Sequence: Dream (DUMB) → Harden (HARD) → Structure (SMART) → WOOP Example: · DUMB: “Become a confident public speaker” · HARD: “Speak at a 200+ person industry event” · SMART: “Complete 3 Toastmasters speeches by June 30, 2026” · WOOP: “If nervous, then I will practice 5 min breathing before stage.” Stop mixing only SMART with vague hopes. Combine structure, emotion, accountability, and obstacle planning. 2026 isn’t about more goals. It’s about better goal systems. Which framework do you neglect most? #GoalSetting2026 #SMARTGoals #WOOP #HARDGoals #DUMBGoals #PerformancePsychology #Leadership