Author Archive: Shelly Lefkoe

I got an email a few years ago inviting me to appear on a podcast. The name of the show was "But First She Failed." The premise was simple: every guest came on to talk about a time they had failed. I was flattered. I sat down to prepare, and then I got into the shower and realized I had a problem. I couldn't think of a single time I had truly failed. Not because I was somehow beyond failure. It was because I had always, quietly, stayed in the lane where I already knew I was good. Anything [...]

Morty walked into the kitchen and said three words. “There are no bananas?” I screamed at him. “Bananas! I had sessions all day, then the kids came home, I had to answer calls, make dinner, and you want bananas?” He stood there quietly. No raised voice. No anger. He was simply disappointed about the bananas. But I didn’t hear disappointment about the bananas. I heard: You’re a terrible wife. Strange, isn’t it? If anyone else had said the same three words in the same tone, I would have laughed. Or not thought about it at all. But Morty said [...]

I’ve done a birthday exercise with my close friends for many years. We go around the room and each person shares one thing they love about the person whose birthday it is. I’ve seen people cry during it. I’ve cried during it myself. But I’ve also watched something else happen, especially with people I’ve met through my work. I’ll say something genuine. “You handled that beautifully.” “That took real courage.” And they’ll smile, nod, look away. Or say “Oh, it was nothing” or “Anyone would have done the same.” The words land somewhere outside of them. Like they bounced [...]

Meryl Streep has been nominated for an Academy Award 21 times. Twenty-one. She has won three of them. She recently starred in The Devil Wears Prada 2, which earned more than half a billion dollars in its first three weeks. And in a 2002 interview, she said this: “You think, ‘Why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don’t know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this?’” Read that again. The woman with more Oscar nominations than anyone who has ever lived said, out loud, that she doesn’t know how to [...]

I was sitting across from Morty at our kitchen table. He had just said something I can still hear, word for word, decades later. “I never want you to sacrifice for me. Because with sacrifice comes resentment.” At the time, I thought I understood what he meant. I didn’t, not fully. It took years of working with people in relationships (watching resentment build in couples who genuinely loved each other) to understand what he was actually pointing at. In today’s article, I’m unpacking the distinction Morty drew: the difference between compromise and sacrifice, and the belief that causes one of [...]

A client named Karen came to me having spent years jumping from business course to business course without implementing a single one. Her income showed it. She was absorbing everything. She just couldn’t act on any of it. Underneath the pattern was a belief she had been carrying for decades: “No matter what I do, it’s never good enough.” That belief made every new course feel like a potential answer, and every attempt at implementation feel beside the point. Behavior management couldn’t touch it. The belief kept generating the same pattern. She wasn’t the only one. The same structure [...]

My friend Anne was visiting one evening, years ago, when she overheard me yelling at Morty. She marched downstairs and said something that knocked me off my feet. “Who said that you can talk to your beloved that way?” I had grown up in a loving, warm family. We laughed together, supported each other, and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. But when something went wrong, we yelled. It was simply what we did. It never once occurred to me that it wasn’t okay. We’ve been told to let it out The advice has been everywhere for decades. When you’re [...]

I started taking Latin dance lessons at 56. I walked in thinking I had a head start. I'd won mambo contests when I was younger. I had natural rhythm, I knew how to move, and I figured it would come easily. What I discovered instead was that I had learned almost everything wrong. I was moving my hips instead of shifting my weight to move my hips. Every distinction my teacher showed me was completely new. And I loved it. I didn't beat myself up. I didn't feel embarrassed. I begged for feedback and reveled in every nuance. At [...]