EQ > IQ. Leading With Heart, Humor, and a Little Hellfire

There’s a moment every leader hits where you realize intellect can only take you so far. You can have the credentials, the strategy, the airtight logic and still lose the room in six seconds flat.

Ask me how I know.

I once walked into a boardroom armed with data, confidence, and the kind of righteous certainty only an overprepared woman can bring. I won the argument. Brilliantly. Cleanly. Thoroughly.

And the room died.
Silent. Resentful. Done.

That’s when I learned something they don’t put in leadership textbooks: IQ gives you the microphone. EQ decides whether anyone stays long enough to listen.

No MBA teaches you how to feel the temperature drop when someone shuts down. No certification covers what to do when someone’s two seconds from tears or rage or both. No course teaches you how to read the room from the inside out.

That part, the emotional part, is learned in private moments where you realize you weren’t wrong… you were abrasive. Or detached. Or too sharp for the moment.

I’ve cried after meetings. Not out of failure, but out of clarity.
I nailed the facts and fumbled the humanity.
I’ve rewritten emails fourteen times to avoid sounding like a passive-aggressive threat with mascara.
Sometimes I still sounded like one.

That’s when EQ became my real leadership muscle.
Checking ego before stepping into a room.
Pausing instead of popping off.
Choosing curiosity over assuming I have everyone figured out.
Asking “How’s your heart?” instead of “What’s wrong with you?”

One unlocks a person.
The other shuts them down.

This isn’t a sermon. It’s a confession.
People aren’t projects.
Teams aren’t machinery.
Trust isn’t automatic.
Emotions don’t disappear because you pretend you don’t have any.

The bravest leaders aren’t the ones who know the most.
They’re the ones who can hold space when everything feels like it's about to blow.
They’re the ones who can say “I was wrong” without swallowing their pride whole.
They’re the ones who understand that levity can save a room faster than logic ever could.

I once watched a team member cry during a performance review. Not because she was failing, but because she’d gone a year without feeling seen.
A year.
Do you know how much damage can hide inside a year?
That moment rewired me.
It reminded me that emotional intelligence isn’t soft. It’s sharp. It’s the quiet blade that cuts through ego and reveals the truth underneath.

EQ looks like knowing when to speak and when to breathe.
Knowing when to push and when to pause.
Knowing when humor will break the tension and when it will break someone’s trust.

Strategy matters. Intelligence matters.
But emotional intelligence?
That’s the flex.

And if you can do all that while wearing great lipstick?
Congratulations. You’re dangerous.

Your grit is gorgeous.
— The Maven

Pack Loyalty. Rottweiler’s and Real Leadership.

There’s a particular kind of truth that lives in a Rottweiler’s gaze. Not the loud kind. Not the showy kind. The grounded kind. The kind that sees straight through you and quietly decides whether you’re someone worth following.

People’s faces when I say we own Rottweilers are always a mix of admiration and mild panic. I get it. They look like they could drag a truck across a field and still have energy left to judge your life choices. But strength isn’t their headline. Presence is. Intention is. And intention is something I’ve had to learn the hard way, both in leadership and in life.

I didn’t choose this breed to prove anything. I chose them because I recognized something familiar in their eyes. A quiet authority I hadn’t claimed yet. A kind of strength that never needs to yell. A confidence that doesn’t posture. A loyalty that doesn’t bend for convenience. They mirrored a version of me I hadn’t met yet.

Raising Rottweilers teaches you something leadership seminars never touch. You cannot fake presence with a dog who reads your energy before you open your mouth. You can’t be inconsistent, frantic, or unclear. You can’t rely on tone to make up for lack of conviction. They won’t respect noise. They respect truth.

I learned that the hard way during one training session. I was frustrated. Unfocused. More reactive than intentional. I wanted compliance without having built connection. My Rotties stared at me with a look that translated perfectly into, get your shit together. It was humbling. It was deserved, and it shifted everything.

From that moment forward, I stopped trying to lead from performance. I started leading from presence. I started noticing how my energy walked into rooms before I did. I started paying attention to the tone beneath my words, not just the words. I treated leadership like a relationship instead of a role, and everything changed.

Rottweilers will show you every inconsistency you think you’ve hidden. They feel the crack before anyone hears it. They sense hesitation like scent. They know when your boundaries are firm and when they’re performative. They know if your authority is rooted or brittle. And the truth is, most leaders crumble under the same scrutiny.

A Rottie doesn’t follow commands.
They follow clarity.
They follow intention.
They follow the energy that makes them feel safe.
and they’ll walk away from anything that feels unsteady.

The more time I spent with them, the more I realized how many teams operate the same way. People don’t commit to titles. They commit to trust. They commit to consistency. They commit to leaders who understand the weight of influence and the responsibility that comes with it.

When I walk into boardrooms now, I think of that gaze. Not because I’m afraid of it, but because it keeps me honest. Am I grounded or leaking nerves? Am I leading from truth or from fear? Am I asking for loyalty I haven’t earned? It’s a check-in with the version of me who refuses to lead from ego.

These dogs have reshaped me. They’ve sharpened my intuition. They’ve humbled my assumptions. They’ve taught me that boundaries aren’t barriers, they’re offerings. That calm is a higher form of power than volume. That leadership is never about control, but about trust earned through consistency.

The woman I am now walks differently because of them.
Straighter.
Quieter.
More deliberate.
More aligned.
More protective of my energy and more intentional with my influence.

If you want to know what kind of leader you are, don’t ask your title. Ask your presence. Ask your energy. Ask yourself whether someone who senses everything would trust you enough to follow.

Rottweilers don’t lie.
They don’t flatter.
They don’t tolerate instability.
They reveal the truth you carry.
and they demand you rise into the version of yourself that can lead without noise.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re leading from fear or from grounded authority, ask yourself one question:

Would a Rottweiler follow you?

Your grit is gorgeous.

— Maven

Riding High. Lessons from the open road.

There’s a certain kind of clarity you only earn at 60 mph with nothing but wind, instinct, and whatever truth you’ve been avoiding.

Some people meditate.
Some people journal.
I go to the garage.

There’s a stillness that lives inside the roar of a motorcycle , a holy kind of contradiction. The second I throw my leg over the bike, the noise in my head goes quiet. It’s just me, the road, my playlist, and whatever lesson life is about to carve into me.

I didn’t start riding to chase adrenaline.
I started because I needed connection …. to my husband, to myself, to freedom.
But I stay riding because the road is the only place I can’t lie to myself.

On two wheels, you can’t perform.
You can’t posture.
You can’t hide behind roles or titles or the version of you other people need.

It’s just truth.
Raw. Immediate. Unavoidable.

I’ve cried inside and out of my helmet more times than I’ll ever admit. Tears have pooled, blurred, dried, and restarted… and every one of them has washed off a layer of pressure I didn’t realize I was carrying.

The road doesn’t care about your bravado.
It reads your fear like a pulse.
It knows when you’re gripping too tight.
It knows when you’re pretending you’re fine.

It teaches you … quickly, brutally, beautifully , that control is an illusion and presence is survival.

There was one ride that split something open in me.

I was exhausted. Burnt out. Past burnt out, honestly … already ashes pretending to be a flame. I didn’t have a destination; I just needed a direction. Somewhere around mile 37, something shifted. My shoulders dropped. My breath synced with the rhythm of the road. My mind stopped sprinting.

And the truth hit me in one clean strike:
Sometimes you don’t need to control the ride , you just need to stay upright.

That day the sky snapped open and it poured — a straight baptism.

No helmet.
No jacket.
Just me in a soaked shirt, soaked jeans, soaked everything, getting pelted by needles of rain at 60+ mph.

It stung like hell.
And still, I rode.

I could’ve pulled over.
Sat on the roadside.
Wallowed.
Waited.
Broken.

But no.
I took every drop Mother Nature hurled at me and kept moving because stopping felt more dangerous than the storm.

And when I finally made it home shivering, drenched, laughing like a feral woman — I realized something:

I wasn’t running from anything.
I was riding through it.

That ride taught me more about emotional intelligence than any leadership book ever could.

It taught me to:

Respect the rhythm of the moment
Respond instead of react
Breathe instead of spiral
Embrace discomfort as data
Trust my instinct over my fear

The bike has become my mirror.
It shows me where I’m forcing.
Where I’m avoiding.
Where I’m out of alignment.
Where I’m holding on too tight.

Riding isn’t therapy.
It’s transformation — with windburn.

And I’ll keep sharing these stories because the road has a way of speaking to women like us. The kind who lead. The kind who feel deeply. The kind who carry more than they admit. The kind who don’t crumble — we recalibrate.

So here’s to the rides that break us open
and the ones that stitch us back together.

Kickstand up.
Playlist set.
Soul ready.

Your grit is gorgeous.

— Maven

The Glow-up is only half the story…

There’s a moment right before the lights hit your face that tells the truth. Not the polished kind. The real kind. The kind where your eyeliner is already smudged, your coffee tastes like defeat, and your pulse is doing that cocktail of exhaustion and adrenaline no one admits to.

No applause in sight. Just you and the grind. That’s where the magic actually happens. The mirror was cracked. The lighting was an insult. The lipstick was too bold for the room and perfect for my mood. I put it on anyway—not to impress, but to anchor. A reminder. A warning. A quiet declaration that even in the wreckage, I still know exactly who I am.

That’s the moment The Maven Chronicles was born. Not in a studio. Not in a brainstorm. In the chaos. In mascara streaks and underestimated glances and nights where instinct was the only tool I had left. Maven is for the women who fix their eyeliner in rearview mirrors before walking into rooms that weren’t built for them. For the ones who don’t wait to be invited. For the ones who know resilience isn’t graceful—but it damn sure is gorgeous.

If you’re soft, good.

If you’re sharp, even better.

If you’re both, you’re dangerous—and I want you here.

Beauty isn’t being put together. Beauty is showing up when everything is falling apart. Showing up when your voice shakes. Showing up when your boots are muddy. Showing up when no one even knows you’re fighting.

My mission is simple: pull back the curtain. Show the real work. The quiet doubts. The instinctive choices that saved us. The judgment we feel before anyone speaks. The thoughts we carry while still walking into the room like we own the place.

I built this because I needed a space where ambition and vulnerability don’t fight for the same seat. A place where women can fall apart and rise in the same breath. A place where mistakes get recycled into leadership.

I’ve stood on plenty of stages. Some had lights. Most didn’t. The important ones are always the ones no one sees. And that’s what you’ll find here: Motorcycles and meaning. Rottweilers and relationships. Lipstick and leadership. Raw reflection and the kind of honesty that ruins your excuses.

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t fit the mold, congratulations.

You’re mine.

You’re Maven.

I’ll show up as I am.

I’ll tell the truth even when it’s messy.

I’ll ask you to do the same.

You belong here.

Your grit is gorgeous.

— Maven