A Note from LaTonya

This isn't my usual send day, but Telluride stayed with me in a way I wasn't expecting, and I wanted to share it while it was still fresh.

I spent Labor Day weekend at the 53rd Annual Telluride Film Festival supporting my partner, whose documentary Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon made its US debut there. The film focuses on ICE detainments in Chicago and was part of a program called Stories of Resilience — alongside two other viscerally emotional shorts. Sarah Gavron's A Dance Through Time followed a young girl's journey from Nazi Germany to the UK alone, without her parents. Wafa Katafa and Waad Al-Kateab's Maybe Tomorrow documented a family's years of separation from a father arrested by Assad's regime in Syria in 2013, never seen again. Together the three films carried a weight that stuck with me.

The festival had its share of unexpected moments too. We shared a theater with Bill Gates. I ran into Rami Malek four times on the street, and made sure to tell him he played Freddie Mercury very well. He appreciated that.

While on the panel, my partner said something afterward that has stayed with me: we all have to choose how we show up in these times. I think that's true for all of us: as leaders, as coaches, as humans.

The festival also gave me three leadership lessons I didn't expect. They aren't new, but they're the kind we forget to practice. I needed the reminder. I think you might too.

Read the issue and then hit reply. I'd love to know which lesson sat with you the most.

You can watch Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon for free. [Link here.]
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And, P.S. I'm very excited to announce that the September cohort of Leading Below the Surface: Relational Coach Training (also known as Coaching Below the Surface, or CBTS) is nearly full. It's such a diverse group of mostly leaders, and a coach or two. If something has been pulling at you, now is the time. Email info@changecoaches.io or hit reply.

— LaTonya

This Issue's Reflection

Three Lessons from the Telluride Film Festival

I spent my Labor Day weekend at the 53rd Annual Telluride Film Festival.

I have to admit that I almost didn’t go. I just returned from a two-week trip in Spain + France. I’m still recovering from that trip. But, my partner’s film she produced, Sawyer Avenue, Sunday Afternoon made its debut in the US. In the end, I decided to go support her.

I’m really glad I went! I love films and have watched countless ones that premiered at Telluride. Our itinerary included a 2-3 films/day, some hiking, and openness to the unexpected, celebrity sightings and interactions (we shared a theater with Bill Gates), and hearing from the director of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, one of the most important and poignant movies I’ve seen. It was remastered.

On the way back, I realized how inspired I felt. There are three lessons that floated to the top at the end of the week through my interactions with myself and others. Here they are:

1) Speak your goals into existence over and over again.

This one feels cliché but I’ll take the classic one a step further. Putting words behind your goals is not enough. You have to actually believe them in your bones. I can tell within a few minutes whether someone really believes it.

And, this person did.

She modeled it so nicely.

The festival is full of friendly and interesting people and I was in conversation with someone new before every screening. In one, someone asked what brought me to that specific movie. I shared about my curiosity about the topic and returned the question. Her answer was speaking her goals into existence:

“I’m on the path to an Oscar and I want to see my competition.” She then proceeded to tell me about another film she had just directed.

While I made a mental note about watching her film, I was more moved by her confidence. It was almost like she was manifesting what was next. She spoke her goal into existence. To strangers. That’s exactly how you do it.

Do you have a goal? Do you believe it in your bones? Where can you take the opportunity to speak it into existence?
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2) Believe in yourself enough to invest in yourself.

The second lesson came from my own decision to go to Telluride in the first place. I hesitated. I had just returned from two weeks in Spain and France. It felt like too much. And yet, something in me kept saying go.

That tension between what feels responsible and what feels right, is exactly where belief in yourself lives.

And here’s what I’ve noticed after years of coaching: the people who don’t believe in themselves are almost always the last ones to invest in themselves. Read that again. Believing in yourself isn’t naïve. But not believing in yourself has real consequences. It shows up as constantly bracing for the worst. It shows up as staying somewhere long past the expiration date because the alternative feels too risky. And it shows up most clearly when an opportunity to invest in yourself arrives and every reason not to comes flooding in.

I used to do this very thing. Then in 2023, I invested $30K in a coach. It didn’t pay back in all of the ways I expected. It actually paid back in new ways. Ways I couldn’t have imagined because I had unknowingly plateaued.

This was one of those things. It was hard to justify on paper but, in my gut, I knew it was the right thing to do.

Do you resist investing in yourself? And more importantly: do you believe in yourself enough to stop?
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3) Creativity is the antidote to chaos.

I’m a big fan of the book “The Artist’s Way” and one of the concepts I really believe in are Artist’s dates, or the notion to have a date with yourself focusing on some form of creativity. The premise around artist’s dates is that seeing and interacting with something creative makes us more creative. This could be as simple as hearing novel music or even viewing ingenious art at a museum.

From concerts to museums, I regularly take myself on artist’s dates. A film festival is the ultimate artist dates. Not only did I see creativity expressed differently across all films, but I also spent time in nature, talked to a bunch of creatives and even attended some panels.

One of my favorite presentations was from the folks from the Center for Humane Technology. It was a multi-media and modal performance including instrumental music, visuals, and singing.

Afterwards, someone said “it’s very hard to have hope right now. But coming here really changed that.” I left that room feeling the same way. The artist’s date came through again.

Which lesson resonates with you the most? Leave a comment and let me know.

And if something in this issue is pulling at you, the group forming for our next cohort of Leading Below the Surface: Relational Coach Training (also known as Coaching Below the Surface, or CBTS) is turning out to be another special one. Leaders and internal coaches from tech, healthcare, and beyond.

We kick off next week.

I have a couple of seats not officially claimed yet. If this is something that has been pulling at you, let’s connect. You can DM me or email info@changecoaches.io to learn more. And if you’re not already subscribed to my biweekly newsletter, Leading Below the Surface with LaTonya, this issue goes deeper there tomorrow. Subscribe here — it’s free.
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Before You Go — Recent Leading Below the Surface Podcast Episodes Worth Your Time

Shaylee Robanske | On the Other Side​
What happens when the life you've carefully built gets interrupted by something you never saw coming? Shaylee, an operations division manager for the City of Portland and a Coaching Below the Surface alumna, talks about her breast cancer diagnosis, how she led herself through it, and what she now calls "Shaylee 2.0." This one is for those of us navigating unexpected experiences in life.
[Listen here]
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Artimisha Curl | Human Connection is Broken. Here's What Actually Works.​
Artimisha, Head of IDEB at El Camino Health and a Change Coaches client, built a mentoring program grounded in psychological safety that became one of the highest-ROI moves in her organization. LaTonya talks with her about why most mentoring programs fail, and how this one is reshaping culture. This one is for organizational leaders who are looking for different ways to engage their people.
[Listen here]
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Katherine Lord | Is Organizational Coaching Actually Working?​
A candid conversation with Katherine Lord, MSW, LSW, Director of Organizational Member Experience at ICF Coaching in Organizations, about what coaching actually does and doesn't do, why ROI is the wrong lens, and how organizations use coaching to avoid holding up the mirror to themselves. If you are a coach and want to understand how organizations evaluate you or a leader who is looking into hiring a coach, this is a must listen.
[Listen here]

LaTonya
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