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Tracy Lawrence

@coachtracylawrence

I help entrepreneurs and leaders find simplicity and joy at work through mindful, emotional intelligence, and culture hacks. Use techniques I've trained top CEOs to do in the amount of time it takes to order a coffee ⭐️ Exited Founder turned Executive Coach 📈 Raised $40M and managed 100s of employees 🧘‍♀️

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Featured Post

An Honest Look at Founder Failure

When I sold my company, I felt like a failure. My initial efforts to build my company came from a desire to support local restaurants and a love of sharing meals with other people. But as the company grew, my own erroneous expectations for success warped my desires into shame. Shame that we couldn’t raise our Series C. Shame that I couldn’t make my employees rich. Shame that I couldn’t pay my investors back. My misinformed expectations muddied my motivation. I believe my journey could’ve been...

14 days ago • 4 min read

At dinner with my friend Maria last week, her husband Gary asked a profound question, “Who is your wild one? Where do you allow your wild one to show up and where do you suppress it?” Oddly that very morning, my coach helped me meet my wild one. She came up as a visual. She looks like Neytiri from Avatar. Credit: Loren Groves & AI She’s feline, a hunter, and very wild. Looking at her felt exhilarating but also a little scary. What the heck do I do with her? The Origins of the Wild One The...

21 days ago • 3 min read

Let’s step backwards in time 7 years. News had broken out about a few famous VCs who were accused of sexually harassing several female founders. Needless to say, the environment was tense. I’m at a friend’s house for brunch where she gathered 25 female founders. A smaller group was huddled conspiratorially around a table. I overheard one of them say, “Let’s out every male VC who’s a jerk. Now’s the time, we should publish their names.” I remember feeling both the desire for justice but also a...

28 days ago • 3 min read

This is not a paid endorsement, rather I want to share a community that deeply served me as a founder. When I started Chewse, I was a classic people-pleaser. I had been trained young to read the room and walk on eggshells to ensure other people would feel good. Often at my expense. This carried over into my leadership. I would spend hours preparing negative feedback for someone. And when it came time to deliver it, I would blunt it so much that it barely came off as feedback. Because I was...

about 1 month ago • 4 min read

I realize this newsletter has changed alongside my journey of change. Thanks for being here with me as I figure out what’s next. I value you not as a subscriber but as a co-conspirator in whatever my next evolution is ❤️ For the last 4 years since I sold my company, I’ve tried to kill my ambition (I get weird looks when I say this out loud, so I figure it’s worth writing about). I tried to kill it because my ambition nearly killed me. In my desire to make an impact, I gave so much of my...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read

Confession: I take 1 week off work every month. Maybe that sounds like a humble brag but sometimes it eats me up. It feels so indulgent compared to my workload as a founder. Honestly, I love taking 1 week off each month. I sometimes spend it playing and sometimes I spend it “working” but differently. I’ll attend amazing founder events or consciousness retreats. It feels aligned with my growth trajectory which is 3 steps forward, 1 step still. Being still helps me integrate all my forward...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read

First off, thank you for the warm responses to my last post about owning my role as a coach. It makes me feel so happy I can share something that tender with y’all! Ever since I got Long COVID, I’ve found a freaky ability to tune into energy states. It’s like I can monitor emotional broadcasts from others. I can find them and feel them in my body. I’m learning that being in the right energy, great things will come. And my coaching clients are experiencing it too. One of my clients wanted to...

about 2 months ago • 3 min read

Old and new friends at the Female Founder Circles Retreat I just re-discovered something I didn’t know I had lost: the feeling of belonging in the tech industry. Last week I had the opportunity to facilitate a female founder retreat for Pear VC. The incredible Mar Hershenson, Mada Seghete, and Vivien Ho gathered 90 women in the desert of Palm Springs for 3 days of connection, vulnerability, and more than a sprinkle of magic. But arriving at the retreat, I felt like a poser. A washed-up...

2 months ago • 3 min read

Traveling is often rigged with anxiety traps for founders. Their rituals are messed up, beds aren’t comfortable, and they miss their dogs and partners. I’m 2 weeks into a 3-week work trip away from my own darling dog. I’ve been to Esalen, Pacifica, San Francisco, and tomorrow I head to LA, then finally I end at Palm Springs at the Female Founder Retreat with Pear VC. Needless to say my rituals could easily be thrown off, let alone the stuff I still need to get done. My friend Felicia and I at...

2 months ago • 2 min read

My patio at Esalen On the dance floor at Esalen, with my hair tumbling down my face, I decided to let go of something big. I took a workshop last week in a conscious dance practice called Open Floor with the incredible instructor, Andrea Juhan. It’s in the family of Ecstatic Dance and uses movement as a tool for self exploration and transformation. By the end of the 5-day workshop, I found myself giving my body priority of expression over my mind. That’s when I realized I was dancing like a...

3 months ago • 2 min read
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