Going Further: The Coaching Newsletter

🗣 Laurence‑ism: Thank You Moms.

This one's personal.

Actually, they're all personal. But this one? This one I feel in my chest.

I was raised by a woman who did something I still don't fully have the words for. My mom raised three kids. On her own. With everything stacked against her and very little margin for error. She showed up anyway. Every single day. Not perfectly, and Lord knows not without cost. But she showed up. And she never made us feel the weight of what it took.

And she didn't do it alone either. My grandparents were there. My grandmother was there. The women in my life formed a kind of architecture around me that I didn't always recognize while I was standing inside it. You rarely do. You only see the structure once you've stepped back far enough.

None of us got here alone. Not one of us.

This truth is something I proudly and empathically carry into every room I coach in. Because when I show up for a team, for a leader, for someone trying to figure out who they are and how to lead...I'm not just showing up as Laurence. I'm showing up carrying every woman who loved me, pushed me, held me, and refused to let me settle. That's not hyperbole. That's just the truth.

I coach because I want to give something back. Because women poured into me before I had the awareness to receive it gracefully. And I want to honor that.

I'm not perfect at any of this. I've made mistakes. I'll make more. But I know where my foundation was built and whose hands built it.

For a long time, I carried something I didn't talk about much. A fear of losing the people I love. Specifically, of losing my mother. Of losing the women who had shaped me. In fact, I would often cry as a child when she left for fear my anchor would be gone. Fear is a powerful and potentially paralyzing tool. That fear was quiet at times, loud at other, but regardless it was heavy. And then I lost my grandmother.

And something truly shifted.

To you reading this…this is what grief will teach you if you let it: the people who truly love us, who raise us, who give themselves to us, don't actually leave. Not really. They live in the way we carry ourselves. In the instinct to apologize when we're wrong. In the decision to show up even when we're tired. In the ability to love someone without needing them to be perfect.

My grandmother is in me. My mother is in me. Every woman who said "you can do this" when I wasn't sure I could...is in me.

And I believe that's true for you too.

So today, I just want to say thank you. All of you.

To the moms who stayed. To the moms who sacrificed things they never mentioned. To the grandmothers who filled in the gaps. To the women who loved children who didn't come from them. To the women who have lost their moms or hold grief in various ways. To every woman who played a role, large or small, seen or unseen.

You didn't just raise us.

You remain in us.

Happy Mother's Day! 💛

Go Further. 🚀

🧰 Tools to Go Further: How to Say the Thing…

"I didn't know what to write."

I hear this constantly. From executives who can command a boardroom, but somehow freeze in front of a blank card. From grown children who truly, madly, deeply love their mothers and somehow end up writing "Hope you have a great day!" and signing their name.

We live in a world where communication has never been easier, and saying something meaningful has never felt harder. Texts. Reacts. Voice memos. And yet…what happens? The card sits on the counter, unsigned, because we don't know where to start.

Here's the thing: you don't need to be a writer. You just need to be honest. And because I live for this…I'm going to give you three steps to do exactly that! Weee!

Step 1: Name the Specific Person, Not the General Role.

Don't write to "Mom." Write to her. The woman who drove you to practice at 6am without being asked twice. The one who cried at your graduation before you did. The one who answered the phone every single time for breakups, celebrations, promotions, and all.

One specific memory beats a thousand adjectives. Always.

Step 2: Tell Them What They Gave You (That They Don't Know They Gave You).

This is the one people skip. And it's the most powerful thing you can put on paper. Not "thank you for everything you do." But: "Because of you, I know how to show up when it's hard. I learned that from watching you."

That lands. That stays. That gets folded up and kept in a drawer for twenty years.

Step 3: Say it Like You Only Had One Chance.

My friends…here's the truth none of us wants to sit with: one day, you will wish you had said it. So say it now, while they're here, while the card is in your hand and the person is on the other side of a phone call or a drive or a front door.

I promise you, you don't need perfect words. You just really need your words.

Three steps. One card. One phone call. One beautiful conversation that actually says the thing.

Say it. Send it. Show up.

Go Further. 🚀

Go Further 🚀