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09/10/2026

This week's action challenge is to find one piece of feedback you gave or received recently that named a trait instead of a behaviour.

Was it intense? perfectionist? too much? abrasive? emotional?

Run it through the checklist:

✅️ is it clear and direct?
✅️ growth-oriented?
✅️ relevant?
✅️ actionable?
✅️ does it say what you want more or less of?

If it fails, rewrite it with one specific example and one specific ask.

And if you'd like to share, comment and tell me what you found.

09/10/2026

For years, I kept getting the same note in different rooms and different roles:

"You're intense. You're a perfectionist. You'd go further if you loosened up a little."

I believed it for a long time.

Then I realized it was a personality judgment disguised as feedback.

This issue is about the cost of being both highly competent and easy to like.

The full issue is here⬇️

📖 Read it: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/09/09/too-intense-to-be-liked/
🙉 Listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2aibiB3s6EDdHbGphxGHGS

Already a subscriber? It's in your inbox now.

Not yet? Both links are open to everyone. Subscribe below to get every issue delivered directly to you.

Subscribe: www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

09/08/2026

For a full year, I did two jobs.

I had a new team member everyone was excited about who tried hard. He talked a lot about what he wanted to create but he just never created it.

Every time his work missed the mark, I quietly fixed it myself the night before the client meeting and called it "smoothing things over".

When I finally addresssed it, I got told my standards were too high. So I lowered my voice about it instead of the standard, and kept doing his job on top of mine.

A year later, we finally agreed the role wasn't working. That was a year I can't get back where I spent time teaching him the wrong lesson: that trying hard was enough because it wasn't enough.

Have you been quietly doing someone else's job and calling it help? If so, we should talk.

09/07/2026

If you've been leading with "we're a family here," here's the simplest way to start shifting it, without blowing up the culture you've built.

Pick one standard you've been letting slide because enforcing it felt "unkind." It might be a deadline, a quality measure that needs to be reinforced, or a boundary around your time.

Next time it's missed, name the standard, name the gap, and ask what needs to change to get it to where it needs to be.

Don't soften it with love-language. Add the warmth after, not before.

Remember that the standard has to apply to everyone, including the people closest to you. Otherwise it's a preference rather than a standard.

Do this with one person this week and just notice what happens when the conversation stays clear and direct instead of getting tangled in guilt.

You can do this🙌

09/03/2026

Yesterday, a community of women who lead learned the question I use now before I let something sit on my plate too long.

What would happen if I got hit by a bus tomorrow and physically could not do this? If the honest answer is "someone would figure it out," that's my cue to delegate the thing.

I still catch the pull of feeling needed. I don't think that instinct ever fully disappears.

The difference now is I notice it when I'm about to tackle a task I liken to doing a hundred hour jigsaw puzzle yet another time, not years later, so I can make a choice to delegate it this time.

Missed the written issue? Grab it here: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/09/02/what-a-bridal-shower-taught-me-about-letting-go/

Prefer to listen? The podcast episode is live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms. Search: The Compassionate Leader School.

What's the hundred-hour puzzle you're still building alone?

09/02/2026

I told myself I had a superpower. In reality, it was just my ego talking, and it kept me from delegating a task that ran me ragged for years.

This week's issue is about the years I spent building a college class schedule myself, close to 100 hours a shot, three times a year, and the night I chose finishing it over showing up for someone who was important to me.

I explore why capable women confuse being needed with being necessary, offer a simple tool for deciding how much to hand off and to whom, and share my client Nicki's story of what changed once she let go of eight years of doing inventory herself.

Read it: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/09/02/what-a-bridal-shower-taught-me-about-letting-go/
Listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3KMHy6rzZabISTISPQfKA5

Already a subscriber? It's in your inbox now.

Not yet? Both links are open to everyone. Subscribe below to get every issue delivered directly to you.

Subscribe: www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

08/31/2026

I am a people pleaser in recovery, and I want to tell you about a Christmas trunk.

My boss asked me to hand-paint the lid of a huge memory trunk for her sister's daughter. A Christmas scene with a big bow. I said I had a lot on my plate. She said she'd just have it delivered to my house so I could take a look.

You know what happens next. It landed in the middle of my living room. Night after night, into the early hours of the morning, on top of one of the busiest stretches of my year, I painted it.

When her sister came to see it, she looked at the bow and asked if I could maybe make it bigger.

I painted the bow again. I was tired, cranky, and resentful the entire way through, and there was no joy in any of it.

My boss had positional power over me, sure. But I was in a leadership role. I could have said no. The only person I blame for that whole month is me.

What's the trunk sitting in your living room right now, the thing you already said yes to and are already resenting?

If this resonated, Issue #23 of The Permission Slip covers the full picture: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/08/26/the-bow-wasnt-big-enough/

Not yet a subscriber? www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

08/28/2026

I want to tell you about a leader I worked with recently.

For two years, she’d been the most dependable senior leader in her company.
She was organized, proactive, and the person her boss barely had to think about.

Then, over six weeks, she started missing deadlines. Small mistakes crept in and she seemed scattered and forgetful.

Her boss’s first reaction was to think she’d gotten complacent or was checked out.

They tried addressing it directly, twice, and nothing changed until her boss asked a different question: “Is something happening that’s affecting your bandwidth?”

What her boss learned was that this team member's son had just been diagnosed with autism. The same week, her mother fell and broke her hip. She was averaging four hours of sleep a night and having panic attacks in her car before walking into the building.

She hadn’t lost her skill or her drive. Her nervous system was in crisis mode, and no amount of accountability was going to reach her there.

Without a high level of capacity for whatever you're doing, nothing works.

If this resonated, Issue #17 of The Permission Slip goes further.

08/27/2026

Yesterday I shared the sequence I use now before I say yes to anything, and the story of the Christmas I really wish I'd used it.

The question I ask myself out loud before I answer: do I really, really want to do this?

If the honest answer is no, I say no. No six reasons attached to it and no over-apologizing. It's a clean no, said with warmth, that does far less damage to a relationship than a resentful yes ever does.

Missed the written issue? Grab it here: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/08/26/the-bow-wasnt-big-enough/

Prefer to listen? The podcast episode is live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms. Search: The Compassionate Leader School.

What's the trunk sitting in your living room right now, the yes you're already resenting?

08/26/2026

My boss told me there wasn't anyone else she could ask. That line did more work on me than the actual request.

This week's issue is about the December I spent hand-painting a 4-foot Christmas trunk for my boss's sister, on top of one of the busiest stretches of our year. I said yes in about 30 seconds and resented every hour of it. And when the bow wasn't big enough, I painted a second one.

Inside I explore why capable women who people please default to yes very quickly, the five-step sequence that turns a reflex yes into a thoughtful decision, and a client's story of saying no to a friend without losing her.

Read it: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/08/26/the-bow-wasnt-big-enough/
Listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7lduk1l4nY17w6Iw8dOJHM

Already a subscriber? It's in your inbox now.

Not yet? Both links are open to everyone. Subscribe below to get every issue delivered directly to you.

Subscribe: www.debbielawrence.ca/signup

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Truro, NS

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(902) 895-6987

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