Founder. Coach. Misfit. Dawn is a coach, counselor, and speaker who supports individuals through life's major transition points. She offers a quick, solutions-based approach for couples in crisis, professionals navigating major career shifts, and executives ready to make real impact.
"Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else's mind and heart. " – Body Keeps the Score
Synergistic connection is my fuel. When I feel empty, detached from meaningful engagement, the feeling is visceral; a feeling like metal on metal, like an empty tank scraping the ground.
(Side note: Those of us with ADHD often feel things so intensely, that emotions that are mental to others, can feel viscerally, even physically painful to us) . When I am full from that type of expansive, sparked connection, I am charged, expanded, and anything is possible.
If you’ve been actively trying to grow your following, but keep seeing people, ads, and feeds that don’t feel relevant (or worse, make you wonder who the hell they think you are? (I get a lot of ads of teenage girls rolling marble tools on their cheeks, millennial men selling me get rich quick courses, and silver-haired men suggesting I subscribe to a dating app with more older men) I feel your pain. It can be isolating and discouraging to try to connect in what can sometimes feel like a digital vacuum of spandex, face creams, rainbow pop colors, and commercialism.
This week, I had a consultation call to help determine if I’d like to join a year-long business accelerator program. The coordinator walked me through some basic math to see how reaching 2024 expansion goals would affect my bottom line. “And what would that income mean for your lifestyle?”, she asked. I paused. In fact, I paused for so long that she may have repeated the question. My now-disrupted ADHD brain didn’t know how to compute the question. “Well,” I stammered, “I guess I could take my boys on more trips? And sure, the extra security would be nice. And it would allow me more to give to the organizations I care about”
But that is not how I think about success.
I measure success through impact.
How do you define and measure success? Like really, truly, actually define it. How will you know when you’re reached “success”, not just a next rung on the ladder of income or title.
As a coach, I support individuals through life’s biggest transitions: Executives navigating burnout ready for high-level impact, established Professionals ready for a major career pivot, and couples in relationship crisis inflection points, and one thing I’d love to encourage all of us as we move through a pivot is this: Celebrate small victories—know what the milestones are for you, not the destination, but the points along the way of success.
Here are a few suggestions
Define your metrics of success
Yes, the ‘ultimate’ destination, but what are concrete, granular steps along the way? Once you’ve defined what success will look like, see if you can define the next S.M.A.R.T. milestone or two along the way. For example, if a bucket list item is to publish a book, honor when you’ve cultivated a week or sticking to ritual of writing, then coming up with a title, then an outline, then a draft, then a response from an editor, publisher or friend, even if that is a ‘rejection’ because you did what you committed to do.
Honor and celebrate the milestones
We are wired for negativity bias. It’s too easy to get lost in the ‘what ifs’ of possible failures along the way. Recognizing milestones and rewarding them not only shifts the focus to the positive, thus cultivating a new habit of noticing small wins, but rewires the brain.
Build intentional community
Spend time sharing and serving others with whom you feel real synergy in the way that matters, who are supportive of your goals. “Belonging”, “Purpose” and “Right Tribe” make up THREE of the 9 common traits of the Blue Zones, the areas of the world’s “longest-lived and happiest populations”. Once someone accepts my connection, I realized I still needed to push myself to take the next step, the one to actually begin building community—by reading more on that person’s feed, commenting on their posts, and messaging them to find a time to actually listen and build.
Ask for advice
Offer help, too, but know that often, those who you admire and are inspired by are more than happy to share their wisdom and support and are often grateful to be asked. Here, I’ll start. If you know of creative, visionary entrepreneurs who give a damn about equity, impact, social justice, and building systems that work, please connect us. Coffee on me.
Go on and take one small action right now. Maybe hit “Connect” on someone new on LinkedIn. Maybe decide on the next small milestone you will celebrate and write it down. Maybe decide how you will ask for help this week. Or schedule a time for us to chat. The first three to mention “Brainz” on a consultation by July 4th will receive $250 off any Relationship Coaching, Career Transition, or Executive Impact package or program. We got this.
Dawn Smith, Relationship Coach
Dawn is a relationship coach for couples in crisis, a career transition coach, and an executive coach for philanthropic and other purpose-driven leaders ready to get out of overwhelm and make high-level change. She writes and speaks on dismantling "best practice" myths about ideal relationships and careers, and on achieving monumental transitions in minutes a day. Her speaking clients include VISTAGE, Intrepid Health, Team Rubicon, the National Association of Catering Executives, WeddingWire, UCLA, USC, Creative Mornings, and UNICEF. She wakes up every day grateful to do what she loves.
