When we talk about leadership, we usually talk about leading teams, managing people, making decisions, and building culture. But there's another form of leadership that doesn't get nearly enough attention.

Leading UP.

I'm talking about learning how to gain alignment with your direct boss, understanding what matters most to them, and making sure the work you're doing is moving in the same direction.

Sounds simple, right? Well, not necessarily.

Six years ago today, Monday, October 12, 2020, I woke up and decided to take a 30-day break from alcohol.

Six years. Same date. Same day of the week. VERY different woman.

I did not wake up that Monday morning in 2020 declaring I would never drink again. Quite the opposite. My plan was to take 30 days off, prove to myself that I could control alcohol, and then return to being a more moderate version of Toni Party Time.

My mom died from Alzheimer’s disease on February 9, 2025.  To say this disease is horrific feels like an understatement.  Two years before my mom died, her identical twin sister, my aunt, died from the same disease.  Identical twins. Same disease. Very different experiences.

My mom became more childlike as Alzheimer’s progressed. My aunt became angry. Watching both of them lose pieces of themselves in completely different ways was heartbreaking, terrifying and impossible to witness without wondering:

Could this happen to me?

I’m a coach, so saying “I think everyone should have a coach” sounds a little like a dentist telling you everyone should get their teeth cleaned.

Fair.  But I believed in coaching long before I became a coach.

When I trained for both Ironmans I completed, I hired coaches. When I needed to learn how to swim in open water without completely freaking out, I had a coach. I have a business coach. When I decided to change my relationship with alcohol and ultimately stop drinking, I had a coach.

Why? Because there are things I simply cannot see from inside my own life.

Neither can you.

I read my age every year.

It started as a personal challenge and has become one of my favorite traditions. The number keeps getting bigger, which is mildly inconvenient , but I keep doing it because reading is one of the ways I learn, grow, challenge my own thinking and discover ideas I can use in my life, leadership and coaching.

There’s a moment that can feel surprisingly intimidating when you’re changing your relationship with alcohol.

It’s not necessarily Friday night at home. It’s not dinner with your family. It’s walking into a professional networking event where seemingly everyone has a glass of wine in their hand and thinking:

What the hell am I supposed to do now?

I used to affectionately call myself “Tubby Toni.”

Yep. That was me.

My relationship with fitness has never been a straight line. I was an athlete growing up, and then life happened. Career. Marriage. Babies. I gained 50 pounds during my first pregnancy, and afterward I found my way back to fitness and nutrition. Eventually I became a group fitness instructor and certified personal trainer.

Then I discovered endurance sports.

I've been asked a lot lately what it feels like to be a published author.  Funny, it's hard to find the words considering I am, you know, an author.

Maybe it's because it's much different to be IN an experience than it is to revisit something later with the benefit of hindsight. And I am very much still in this experience.

So far, being a published author feels surreal, fun, exciting, humbling, exhausting, joyful, liberating, and, if I'm being completely truthful, sometimes disappointing.

I'm learning that writing a book and getting a book into the world are two very different things.

For years, we’ve been telling women they need to be more confident.

Speak up. Raise your hand. Negotiate harder. Take up space. Believe in yourself.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that advice. Confidence matters. But after more than a decade leading in professional hockey, an industry where very few people in positions like mine are women, I think we’re missing a big part of the conversation.

A statistic stopped me in my tracks recently.

Gallup reported that only 54% of Americans now drink alcohol, tying the lowest percentage the organization has recorded in decades. At the same time, Gen Z is drinking significantly less than previous generations, and the phrase sober curious has quietly worked its way into our everyday vocabulary. Restaurants now feature mocktail menus alongside wine lists. Alcohol-free beer sits next to the IPAs. What once felt unusual has become increasingly...normal.

There is something magical about holding a book in your hands.

Whether it's a novel that transports you somewhere you've never been, a memoir that reminds you you're not alone, or a business book that changes the trajectory of your career, books have an incredible ability to shape the way we think. I've loved reading since I was a little girl, and now, just days away from publishing Rebellious Success, I have an even greater appreciation for every author whose name appears on a cover.

Because now I know what it took to get there.

I didn't sit down one day and decide to write a book about success. If anything, I wrote this book because I realized I had been asking the wrong questions for most of my adult life.

Like many people, I believed success had a fairly straightforward formula. Work hard. Earn the promotion. Make more money. Buy the house. Build the career. Stay busy. Keep climbing. If you accomplished enough of those things, happiness and fulfillment were supposed to naturally follow.

The interesting thing is that, for a while, they did.

There is one question I ask every coaching client during our first conversation.

"On a scale of one to ten, how motivated are you today?"

I've heard every answer imaginable. Some people enthusiastically tell me they're at a ten because they're finally ready to make a change. Others quietly admit they're sitting at a two, exhausted from trying and failing so many times that they no longer trust themselves. Most fall somewhere in the middle.

When people ask me where my Six Toni Truths came from, they usually assume I spent months researching leadership theories, attended conferences, or hired an executive coach to help me develop a framework.

The truth is much less glamorous. They were born out of complete ignorance.

If you've spent any time on social media this month, you've probably seen people talking about Dry July. Every July, thousands of people decide to take a 31-day break from alcohol. Some are hoping to sleep better. Others want to lose a few pounds, save money, or simply prove to themselves that they can go a month without drinking. Whatever the motivation, I find myself cheering them on because I believe curiosity is one of the greatest catalysts for change.

"Is drinking every night bad?" "Is two glasses of wine every night considered alcoholism?" "Am I an alcoholic if I drink every day?"

These are some of the most searched questions on the internet when it comes to alcohol. And I understand why. I asked versions of these questions myself for years.

Because if you're asking the question, there's a good chance you're not actually concerned about the quantity of alcohol. You're concerned about what your relationship with alcohol means. You want to know if you have a problem. You want to know if you should be worried. You want someone to tell you where the line is.

Unfortunately, there isn't a magic number that determines whether you're "fine" or whether you have a problem. In my experience as an alcohol-free coach for women, there is a much more useful question to ask.

There are moments in your career when you become acutely aware that you're different.

Maybe you're the only woman in the meeting. The only woman on the leadership team. The only woman at the conference table. You look around the room and realize there isn't anyone who looks quite like you or has walked the same path.

I've spent much of my career in those rooms.

Professional hockey is one of them.

Last week, I wrote about Alcohol-Free Leadership and the response was overwhelming.

What struck me most wasn't how many people reached out publicly. It was how many reached out privately.

The messages sounded something like this:

"I've been thinking about my relationship with alcohol."

"I don't have a problem, but I don't know if it's serving me anymore."

"I've wondered what would happen if I stopped drinking, but I'm worried about how it would impact my career."

If that's you, you're not alone.

In fact, you're part of a growing movement.

For a long time, alcohol was deeply woven into leadership culture.

Deals over drinks.
Networking happy hours.
Celebration dinners.
Wine on planes.
Cocktails at conferences.
Beer at sporting events.

In many industries, drinking isn’t just normalized. It’s expected.

I bought into that culture too.

As a professional sports executive leading in a male-dominated industry, alcohol was everywhere socially, professionally, and culturally. It was part of relationship building, stress management, celebration, and sometimes simply survival in high-pressure environments.

What I didn’t realize at the time was how much mental energy, emotional bandwidth, physical recovery, and TIME alcohol was quietly taking from me.

Now, nearly six years alcohol-free, I can confidently say this:
Removing alcohol didn’t make me less successful socially or professionally. It made me significantly sharper as a leader.

The Virtual Meeting Debate Nobody Agrees On

I had a sales meeting recently with a potential vendor. I was on camera. He was not.

Before we started, he asked if I had any questions and I said,
“Yeah actually… is this meeting on camera or off camera?”

He responded that he’s “an off-camera guy.”

And honestly? I found the entire interaction fascinating. Not wrong. Not offensive. Just… interesting.

Because if you would have asked this question five years ago, the answer probably would have been obvious. Now? It has somehow become one of the most polarizing workplace debates out there.