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What happens when life throws not one, but two devastating curveballs and your career suddenly no longer fits who you are?
Petra Kolber could have stopped at survivor. She didn’t.
A two-time cancer survivor, former fitness icon, and now VP of Mindset at the Daisie Foundation, Petra joined me on The Enlightened Executive to share how facing mortality twice reshaped her life, her career, and her message for every leader hitting the reset button in midlife.
“I knew I couldn’t go back to life as usual. It wasn’t just about surviving. I had to remix my life.”
Why This Matters for Leaders
Too often, we equate leadership with control, polish, and forward momentum. But what if the greatest leadership moments come not from relentless striving, but from surrender, reinvention, and self-trust?
Petra’s story is a powerful reminder that resilience isn’t about bouncing back. It’s about bouncing forward, with purpose.
She calls it “midlife remix,” and it’s a leadership lesson we rarely talk about:
- Letting go of identities that no longer serve us
- Choosing presence over perfection
- Trading the old hustle for meaningful impact
In midlife, especially for high achievers, it’s easy to feel stuck between what was and what’s next. Petra’s journey is a permission slip to break that loop.
The Science Behind the Shift
Petra’s insights align with what neuroscience and positive psychology tell us about growth:
- Post-traumatic growth is real. When we choose to reflect, reframe, and re-engage after adversity, we build stronger neural pathways for resilience.
- Purpose isn’t a luxury; it’s a neurological anchor. Studies show that having a sense of meaning improves motivation, cognitive function, and overall wellbeing.
- Neuroplasticity peaks again in midlife, if we leverage it. Reinventing how we lead (and live) requires disrupting the habits that no longer serve us.
“I used to think the goal was perfection. Now I know it’s authenticity with impact.”
Action Steps You Can Take This Week
Whether you’re facing a personal pivot or simply sensing it’s time for a reset, here’s how to lead your own remix:
- Name what no longer fits. What identity, role, or narrative are you clinging to out of fear?
- Audit your energy. Where are you forcing vs. flowing? Midlife leadership requires energy alignment, not just effort.
- Rewrite your metrics. What does success now mean to you? Ditch outdated yardsticks.
- Find your joy edge. As Petra did with DJing; find what makes you light up, even if it seems unrelated to “work.”
- Lead out loud. Vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s the foundation of influence in this new era of leadership.
Closing Thought
The leaders who shape the future aren’t the ones clinging to past identities. They’re the ones bold enough to remix their lives, and invite others to do the same.
Because in midlife, you don’t need to start over. You need to start real.
For deeper insight on rewiring your leadership story, subscribe to The Enlightened Executive!
Episode Transcript
Susan Drumm: They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But what if life gives you cancer twice? Today’s guest didn’t just survive — she remixed her entire life. From best-selling author to DJ to VP of mindset, she’s redefining what midlife looks like and what’s possible when you stop waiting and start living.
Hi, I’m Susan Drumm, and this is The Enlightened Executive, where your personal evolution sparks your leadership evolution. Each week we spotlight cutting-edge strategies to help leaders and entrepreneurs grow in leadership and life. Today we’re talking about how to turn life’s hardest moments into powerful new beginnings.
My guest is Petra Kolber, author of The Perfection Detox, a keynote speaker, and a positive psychology coach who has spent over 30 years helping people move past self-doubt and into joy. A two-time cancer survivor, Petra has reinvented herself again and again — from fitness icon to DJ to mindset leader — and now helps ambitious achievers in midlife rewrite their next chapter with confidence and purpose. Petra, welcome to the show.
Petra Kolber: Thank you, Susan. It is so good to be here with you.
Susan Drumm: Wow, what a journey you have had. Can you just rewind? Take us back. Tell us a little bit about how you’ve been able to reinvent yourself so many times.
Petra Kolber: Well, how long do we have? So I’ll see how far I go back. I think, you know, for me, Susan, the interesting thing is sometimes reinvention comes out of choice, and sometimes it gets thrown at you out of necessity. So much of my early years I was in the fitness world, known as an expert, a thought leader. I traveled all around the world, was so blessed, had an incredible career — an unusual career — to be able to make really good income doing something you loved. It was the heyday of fitness. So that was my foundation, and the reason I bring that up is because during that time I was so successful, and I suffered so badly from anxiety and panic attacks, never feeling like I measured up. That was an ongoing journey that came with me into my next pivot.
As with anything, with any company — I worked with Reebok for many years, and, you know, new faces come in. I had a great career with them for like ten years, but one of the best pieces of advice, Susan, I got was don’t ever give up your own name for the sake of a brand. So I knew early enough, when I was doing all these conferences — when Reebok brought me in, I did a Reebok sponsored session — I would also ask the conference, could I do one under my own name? And they’re like, “Yeah, but we’re not going to pay you, because Reebok’s paying you.” I said, “Fine, not a worry.” So I knew early enough to keep my own name. So when Reebok disappeared, enough people knew of Petra, not Reebok featuring Petra. I was able to parlay that ten-year foundation into my own fitness career for another decade.
Susan Drumm: Wow.
Petra Kolber: Long story short, that was super successful. And part of that pivot was — when I was growing up in the fitness world, it was all about dance choreography and just having fun, which I truly loved. It was in alignment with what I love to teach. Then it started moving into the HIIT and high-intensity stuff, and I just didn’t like it. So what I did — I learned early — I tried to teach and lead in a way that I thought the audience wanted.
Susan Drumm: Okay.
Petra Kolber: That did not end well, because there were people who could do that so much better than me and enjoyed it. So I was showing up, kind of forcing myself to be a leader, a teacher, an authority on something I didn’t even really believe in. That was a bit of a lesson.
Anyway, fast forward — I then met what I thought was going to be my forever relationship. This was a life pivot that was thrown at me. I moved, and I literally gave up my career, because this person had a beautiful child, and of course I wanted to be a perfect stepmom, and all my work was on the weekend. So I literally gave up my career. Well, that suddenly ended five years later — the forever wasn’t quite as forever in his memory. So I ended up back in New York, single, without a career.
When I had left my career, I was making a very good income. When I moved back to New York, in my bank account that year, Susan, I had made $10,000. I had gone from making a quarter of a million when I left the industry to $10,000. So I’m like, okay, I need to reinvent. I had a choice: do I go back to an industry that knows me and loves me, but I’m now 50, or do I do something new?
I thought, okay, I have enough runway, I have enough finances. So I went back to school for positive psychology. Gamechanging. Changed my life. Because all of a sudden I realized I’d been studying the neck down for 30 years, but really, what matters is what goes on between the ears.
Susan Drumm: Right. Right.
Petra Kolber: You can have the best body, the best workout, but if you’re not enjoying yourself or loving yourself, or if you’re beating yourself up, what’s the point? So from that pivot, I decided to give up sweating for a living and move into speaking for a living. I got really lucky — through the breakup, I did get a great book agent. So I started just reinventing myself. I’m like, okay, I want to write, I want to speak, it’s being creative in a different way. That moved me into the world of solo entrepreneurship without the foundation of 30 years of fitness. Again, another leap forward.
COVID happened. Everything shut down in New York, and I thought, you know, I’ve had this hankering to go to Europe. So I sold everything, moved to Europe for ten months. And this is where things get interesting. If you’re listening right now and you’re like, “I’ve got all these different parts of my life and I feel like I want to reinvent myself, but none of it makes sense” — I guarantee you all the strengths that you have from your past will somehow come together, where you are the only person who is right for this position.
And it so happened, Susan, a friend of mine said, “Hey, I’m with this big fitness company. We’re rebranding the entire company. We’re moving out of trying to sell a six-pack into something they were calling health esteem at the time. And because you wrote the book The Perfection Detox, because you had 30 years of experience in fitness, because you’ve moved into speaking, because you’ve done your own programs — I just want you to come onto the call and have our CEO basically pick your brain for 30 minutes.” I’m like, okay, you need to pay me for this, but let’s see how much information he picks out of my brain, and then we can decide a number.
So I got on the call, no makeup, just like, “Hey, what do you need to know?” And at the end of that call, Susan, they had created a VP title for me, offering me a huge salary with benefits, and I ended up going into corporate for the first time at 59.
Susan Drumm: Wow. Oh my god.
Petra Kolber: And if you had said, “Petra, you’re going to go into corporate at 59,” I would have said, “You’re out of your mind, I have no experience in that world.” But I had the right experience for that particular opportunity.
Susan Drumm: Yeah. What a beautiful story of pulling all these pieces together. We share some things in common — more of mine happened early in my career, where I was bouncing around. I went to law school, but that wasn’t quite the fit. Then I went into consulting, and I liked consulting for the variety, but I didn’t like the type of consulting I was doing, which was just pure strategy work. Then I went into business development and marketing at NBC television, thinking, “Oh, well, if I’m in an entertainment company, that’ll be interesting and glamorous” — but then I found that wasn’t the right fit either. Then I went and got a master’s in acting.
Petra Kolber: Of course you did.
Susan Drumm: Five years after law school, and people are like, “What are you doing?” And I’m like, I don’t know, but I am just burnt out after five years of working, and I don’t find the passion in what I’m doing, so I just need to reignite. Well, after that, I kept thinking there’s got to be a way what I’m learning in acting could bring back to business — right, things like how to be authentic, how to show up really powerfully, dealing with that inner critic inside your head, all the things actors need to work with. This was 25 years ago. And when I realized that, I got into consulting, but in leadership development. That started my whole career, which I’ve been doing for almost 25 years now. All those things I did match perfectly with the type of work I do today.
Petra Kolber: And that is just an amazing story, to follow your intuition and your gut on that. Yeah, and I think, Susan, for so many people, if they’re wanting to reinvent themselves, they think they’re starting from scratch, and they underestimate all the strengths and skills they’ve learned in all these other areas of their life. Because they think they’re starting something new, we get overwhelmed. The inner critic steps up. We’re like, “Oh, I’m too old to start this, or who am I?” When in reality, you’re not starting from scratch — you’re probably like 20% away from everything you need for this next idea.
And the idea that you said, Susan, “I don’t know” — I think we misinterpret what “I don’t know” means. I think when we say I don’t know what to do next, or I feel so overwhelmed, we take that as a signal that we should stop, that we’re not in the right place, that this isn’t for me, this is too big of a dream. When in reality, “I don’t know” is such a great place, if you can bring the acting skills to it — right, the improv, I say “yes, and,” and then we’ll figure it out. So for me especially, I’m in my 60s now and I’m just getting started, but if you put a number on it, only you get to decide if you’re too old or it’s too late.
And I think we often misinterpret the signals, like feeling like an impostor, feeling like a fraud. Of course you’re going to feel like a fraud and an impostor, because you’ve never done this thing before. I’d be worried if you didn’t feel like an impostor — that means, “Okay, we got narcissist incoming.” It’s this idea that so many of us don’t know, and I love this conversation we’re having, but we don’t talk about the not knowing. We show up when we feel like we’ve got it all figured out, but nothing good happens when everything’s perfect. No interesting story comes from the perfect moments.
Susan Drumm: No, no, for sure. And also this thing around you’re never too old to reinvent yourself — like I love, you know, in your career you’re continuing to do that. I always tell the story when people say, “Well, it’s too late for me.” I said, my mother, who wanted to get a college degree but ended up, back in the day, getting maybe a year’s worth and then went and raised kids — well, she went back to school. I think it was around 56, and graduated with her degree at 60, and then started a career in journalism. So why not, right?
Um, so tell me a little bit about how the cancer factored into some of these twists and turns in your life, and how you navigated that.
Petra Kolber: Oh, good. It’s so interesting you ask about that, because it feels like almost another lifetime — and that’s a shame, because I just had a good friend of mine unfortunately diagnosed with a very aggressive type of cancer. And it’s interesting, because the first cancer I had — I guess I’m a perfectionist, I’m an overachiever, I had to get two. The first one I had was a melanoma, which was on my foot, which was highly unusual, and it was at the height of my fitness career. Anywhere else you could have it maybe just cut out, but they had to go an inch into my foot, so I was out of commission. I was lucky in that I had a great Reebok contract. It made a good story for them — you know, they weren’t going to let me go.
So that was one thing — you have it, we know what to do with it. That was the first one, and they cut it out. It made me pause for a little bit, because I was taking my fitness for granted. I was young, I was all over the place, and all of a sudden I couldn’t work.
The second cancer I had was Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The reason I share the first one is because I was feeling super tired and I had this lump on my neck. So they did a biopsy, and I really wasn’t thinking anything of it. And the concern was, the biopsy came back like, “Yes, you have cancer, but we’re not quite sure what it is. We hope it’s Hodgkin’s lymphoma” — because their fear was that the melanoma had traveled.
Susan Drumm: Oh wow.
Petra Kolber: Well, we had two different situations there, right? And for two weeks I did not know which scenario it was. The reason I share this is because I remember vividly — I need to bring this into a talk sometime, because you just reminded me — I remember vividly when we got the news that we didn’t know what it was.
Susan Drumm: Mhm.
Petra Kolber: Not once was I worrying about my size, or my accolades, or what I had. This thing came into my head, my voice. It said, I just want to live long enough to know I could love in the way I know I have the capacity to love. Don’t know where that came from, but anyway, it was Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Barely got any sympathy from my doctors — like, “We got the treatment, you’re going to be fine.” I was like, wait a minute, I want a little bit of sympathy. But I think what happened during that time — I lost all my hair, I was at the height of my fitness career. Reebok was very gracious. I did photo shoots with a wig. It was part of the story.
I did some of my best living during that time. I was fearless, because I had just faced the worst-case scenario. I might not have been here. So I had a bald head, and I was a badass. I mean, I had suffered with chronic anxiety and panic attacks, and I remember during that time — gone. They came back, but during that time, gone, because what did I have to be anxious about? And I wish, listening and speaking to everyone now, I wish I could have kept that fearlessness. Is that a word? The further I got away from my cancer diagnosis — you really embrace life, and you hold on to it, and you just go for everything.
Susan Drumm: Fascinating.
Petra Kolber: But then, like, five years out, ten years out or so, then you kind of forget about it.
Susan Drumm: What? So what brought you — so one would think that going through cancer, that’s when the height of the anxiety and fear would be the most. Why was it the opposite for you, and why did it come back?
Petra Kolber: Oh, that’s — you’re the first person to ever ask that. I think during my treatments, I never questioned that I wasn’t going to be okay. Never questioned it. Once I knew what it was, and we knew I had a high prognosis — you can’t say you’re going to be fine, but I was like, I’m going to be fine, I’m not a statistic. I didn’t go on any of the message boards. I went to a couple of the cancer support groups, and I’m like, “Oh, this is not for me.” This is not to judge anyone, but I was not defined by my cancer. I was actually emboldened by it.
It sucked. Yeah, I had nausea, but I was still presenting, I was still teaching, I think, because I knew I was going to be okay. I had a strong support group, and I think I didn’t feel like I had to prove anything. It was like there was a year there — I don’t have to prove my worth. I’ve got cancer, I’m showing up, this is — that’s good enough, right?
Susan Drumm: Good enough. Yeah.
Petra Kolber: I’m showing up for the conferences. And I think — this is going to sound weird, I hope it’s not taken the wrong way — there was this strange admiration for how I was showing up. So I almost felt like I could be a role model in a really positive way. Not from an egoic place, but from a really authentic way that had nothing to do with what I looked like, or how perfect I was on stage, or whether I said the right things. All of a sudden I’m like, I just need to show up and be proof that you can have a hard time and still show up. And then, as I kind of went back to normal —
Susan Drumm: Yeah.
Petra Kolber: — all the doubts started to creep back in, like, oh, am I looking good enough, am I saying the right things. This is before I went back to positive psychology, and I never had an understanding of the power of my thoughts or the old stories. I had been in therapy for seven years, this is postcancer — maybe like ten years postcancer — trying to unravel this: why am I turning down work, because I don’t think I’m perfect enough? I’m just getting ready for a talk right now, and the whole opening is me turning down CBS, The View, The Today Show, because I thought — this is ridiculous — I turned it down because I didn’t think I was perfect enough. And in therapy, not once was I asked about my strengths. It was like, so what’s broken, let’s fix it. And then when I went back to school for positive psychology, I recognized the power of our thoughts, and also the power we have to reframe the stories we tell ourselves. That was gamechanging for me. So, yeah, that was a really great question.
Susan Drumm: And here’s what I heard in your story that’s really powerful — the shift that occurred when you were emboldened during your cancer. You know what I heard in that? You really were admiring yourself for what you were doing. And as you got further and further away from the cancer, my sense is you started looking externally for that admiration again. So there’s just something — what you’re looking for externally, you’ve got to give to you.
Petra Kolber: I just feel like I had a therapy session with you. That’s powerful. Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. And one of the questions I offer to people — it’s so interesting you said that, Susan, I might have to pull you into my talk next week — I ask them to go back to their past and think of a situation they feel proud of. I often bring up my cancer story, but never really tied in that I was really proud of myself, and I gave myself that self-acceptance — not, as you said, looking for the external approval.
Susan Drumm: Yeah, you’re like, I know I’ve got cancer and I’m still doing this, like I’m a rock star, right? And there was no question.
Petra Kolber: Yeah.
Susan Drumm: And then those doubts came in later on. So interesting, just a fascinating journey you’ve been on. So tell us a little bit about what you sort of teach now, right? What is most important?
Petra Kolber: Well, I’m actually speaking to a group of leaders in about two months. For me, it’s really all about — it’s like what you’d call conscious leadership. We’re not there to prove ourselves, we’re there to bring the best out in others. How can we be leaders — whether you’re leading yourself, your children, your family, a team of five, or a team of 500? And especially — this is changing for me too — what I’m going to be teaching, especially with everything happening in the AI world, we can’t ignore that, it’s just ramping up faster and faster. People are afraid of losing their jobs, and I have no control over that. But I think the thing that will make you a really conscious leader these days is bringing your complete presence into every situation. Every time you’re in front of someone, trying to inspire them to be the best version of themselves, it cannot be about us — it has to be about the people we want to uplift, whether it’s our team delivering the best work for the company, or ourselves.
So for me, I always teach the principles I learned from positive psychology. There’s an acronym called PERMA: P stands for positive emotion, E is engagement, R is for relationships, M is for meaning, and A is for accomplishment. And then there’s a silent H for health, because if you don’t have your health, you have nothing.
Susan Drumm: Oh yes.
Petra Kolber: So I really build on those pillars. If you can create an environment for the team around you to flourish and thrive in these five areas, you’re going to be an incredibly conscious leader — one that leads to help others be their best. It cannot be from control, it cannot be about perfectionism, it cannot be “it’s my way or the highway.” It’s: how can we — and this is where self-leadership comes in — because if I don’t trust myself, if I’m always looking for external validation that I’m the perfect leader or the good leader, we’re going to always be working from fear-based leadership, waiting to be found out. So when we can come from a heart sense — it sounds cliché, but it’s so true — when you can lead from your heart versus your mind. Your mind is the decision maker, very important in a lot of situations, but your heart can be the catalyst to hold that space without control. Of course, you need parameters and boundaries to get the job across the finish line.
But I think what I’m going to be leaning heavily into right now is this idea of complete presence, and bringing the humanity into leadership, because that is being stripped away — and also being a leader people can trust 100% of the time, because this world is so unsteady. The more the whirlwind happens around us, the more of an anchor I think leaders are going to be required to be — an anchor of presence, of connection, of empathy. Really creating a space for people to be human, to bring the humanity into work, because I think people are questioning themselves — you can’t compete with the machine. So I’m kind of struggling a little bit, because every time I have a conversation about that, it’s changed — somebody tells you something today different from two weeks ago, and I’m like, “Wow.”
Susan Drumm: Well, and the way leaders used to lead, they could do forward planning, thinking things through, right? How do you do that when things change so rapidly?
Petra Kolber: Yeah, and so looking at some of these key pieces of what leadership truly is — it’s creating the capacity to produce the outcomes you want through others, not yourself, through others. So if you don’t have that other-centric viewpoint about how you can catalyze the best out of this team, and instead you need it for yourself to look good, well — then you’re stuck in individual-contributor land, and not really catalyzing the team to produce the most incredible results.
Susan Drumm: I wanted to go back though to the acronym. Tell me, can you say a little bit about each of these elements and what you think is important for leaders to know?
Petra Kolber: Yeah, absolutely. So this is work by Martin Seligman, who I consider the godfather of positive psychology. For people that don’t know what it is, it’s really about what we need to build upon to create a place where we can flourish and thrive versus just surviving. The difference is that with positive psychology, like with anything, the pendulum can swing too far — this is not about rose-colored glasses, but about working from a foundation of what is working in your life. So if you’re listening right now, acknowledge all that is good. That doesn’t mean there isn’t work to do and things you want to strengthen.
So the P is for positive emotion. How can you create an environment that allows people — and it’s not “are you happy or sad,” it’s not “are they fully engaged or completely disengaged” — what environment can you create for your team where they’re 1% more joyful, 1% more engaged, in small doses? A lot of that is also developing our critical eye and our critical ability — not to ignore what needs to be strengthened, absolutely, but to seek more of what is working in your team, and call it out. Don’t be afraid to call out all the good in your team versus trying to poke holes — of course there are going to be things to fix, but when you work from people’s strengths, they’re going to be much more likely to take risks, to show up, to ask questions, because they’re bringing their best self to work, not just what they think you want. So that’s P, positive emotion — how can you create more of it?
E is for engagement. My goodness, getting off your phone — how engaged is your team? As we know, a disengaged team costs billions of dollars. So, not just showing up, but showing up with your heart, being fully present as a leader, going into meetings without your phone. If you’re talking to someone face to face, not having your phone in your hand, not even having it turned upside down on your desk — get it out of sight, so the people in front of you feel that you are engaged with them, that there’s nothing more important. Being engaged in your own life as a leader, doing the work, finding things that excite you, that love of curiosity — being fully engaged versus scrolling on our screens, right?
Susan Drumm: Yeah. Yes.
Petra Kolber: And that kind of flows into our relationships — the relationships you have with your team, the relationships you have with your family. I often say the most important relationship you’ll ever have is the one you have with yourself, because if you don’t like yourself —
Susan Drumm: We just talked about that with you. [laughter]
Petra Kolber: But truly, we as leaders sometimes feel like we have to fix everything else, and the last person we look at is ourselves — but that’s the only point of control we truly have.
Susan Drumm: I know, I know. [laughter] I know.
Petra Kolber: So that’s the R. You’ve got positive emotion, engagement, relationships. M is for meaning — you know, maybe you’ve heard of job crafting. Some of us have a job, a career, or a calling. I think you and I are lucky — we have a career that’s turned into a calling.
Susan Drumm: I’ve never had — oh, actually, I have had a job once. I was opening up a gym. That was a job for me — I thought it was going to be a career, a calling. It was a nightmare. It was a job. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Petra Kolber: But it’s finding meaning. Not all of us are blessed to have a job we love, and we can still find meaning — how can we craft it? Because if you’re at work eight hours a day, how can you craft more meaning into the work environment? How can you, as a leader, align people’s values, what’s important to them, with the work you’re delegating to them? Maybe for some of them it is just a job, but how can you make it more meaningful to them — sometimes it takes sitting down and asking people, because that’s the other thing with leadership, especially now: I think the biggest mistake we make is thinking we have to know everything.
Can you create an environment where people feel safe saying, “Hey, I’m doing this, but I don’t feel it’s the best use of my skill set,” and just have an open dialogue? You’re not going to be able to have that conversation about motivation without asking: what motivates you, what drives you? What’s making you want to jump out of bed in the morning for the work you’re doing, and what’s making you want to press the snooze button? So kind of think about — well, what do I need to do as a leader to adjust that?
Susan Drumm: And just in that one question, you’ve now brought in connection, empathy, engagement, and relationships — you’re tying it all together, that you care, that you’re a conscious leader. And then the last one is accomplishment, which you brought up.
Petra Kolber: Right — I think we can’t reward everybody for everything, but it’s like really celebrating people in the moment, and then celebrating the group as a whole, and allowing people to sit and savor the wins. Pride is a really positive emotion, and I think especially as women — well, and I grew up in England, where pride was frowned upon. You’d better not say you have big dreams or think you did well — people are literally horrified. But having a sense of pride, often when you go through hard times, whether it’s a cancer diagnosis or the loss of a job — we grow through the hard times, and we should feel pride. So it’s also creating and savoring those moments in our past, and hopefully in our future too, that make us feel alive and like we really showed up.
Susan Drumm: Yeah. And I almost wonder — we do this on my team — take some time in your next team meeting: who’d like to give someone a shout-out? And just give people time to acknowledge each other. It’s amazing, there’s stuff going on I didn’t know about, and it’s amazing that someone else wants to, you know, tell Corey about how amazing she’s been in this way, right?
Petra Kolber: Yes.
Susan Drumm: I think that is so powerful. Well, tell us — what’s one thing that you would suggest leaders do tomorrow?
Petra Kolber: I think, wherever we can — we’re human, it’s not always possible — but don’t drag your past into what’s in front of you right now. So for me, it comes back down to presence, having the presence of mind. Whether your meetings are happening on Zoom or in real life, can you take a minute and connect with your breath? I love this thing called birthday cake breathing — I’m teaching it in a week — where you just breathe in through your nose and blow out through your mouth like you’re blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Can you do more resets in your day so you’re not dragging what happened in the last meeting into this new meeting, or worrying in this meeting about what’s happening in the next one? Can you bring more presence? Because sometimes we feel like we have to be all things to everybody, and so we end up bringing only a little bit of ourselves.
I think for leaders, as much as you can, bring your full self — and it’s exhausting, it is not easy. You will be exhausted at the end of your day, and your team won’t notice you “bringing them more presence” exactly — they won’t be able to put their finger on it — but they will feel it. They’ll feel like something’s different, they’ll feel more respected, they’ll feel like they matter. Having your full attention on the person in front of you is going to be gamechanging.
Susan Drumm: Yes. I know one of the best connectors in the world, and that is his skill set — making you feel like you are the most important person in the world when he’s talking to you. Such a powerful leader, and I think we can all learn from that. Well, Petra, where can people learn more about you and your work?
Petra Kolber: Probably the best way — because it’s always changing, I’m pivoting and turning — probably my website, petrakolber.com. And I’m really not on social media these days, but I pop onto Instagram every so often, so Petra Kolber on Instagram if you want to connect there.
Susan Drumm: Awesome. Thank you so much. And if you like this episode, you’re not going to want to miss my interview with Dr. Alan Barnard, the renowned decision scientist and expert in theory of constraints, who teaches us to make better decisions, quicker and smarter, with fewer regrets. But if you’ve ever paused and thought, “How did this go wrong?” — you’re not alone. Even the most capable executives fall into invisible traps that stall progress and sabotage results. Let’s all lead the way. Thank you, Petra.
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