I'm Ashira. I've been coaching leaders since 2011, and running my own practice since 2021. Before that, I started in management information systems right out of high school, a practical choice that looked good on paper. I was good at those early roles and kept getting promoted for it, but none of it ever fulfilled me or felt like a viable long-term path. It took years, and a stretch of roles that got closer but never quite fit, before the pandemic finally gave me room to admit the obvious and go out on my own.

About two years ago I picked watercolor back up as a hobby. I expected a way to unwind. What I got was a mirror. Not every session went the same way, but many sessions went like this... I'd make a plan, the water would ignore it, and I'd watch myself react. Grip tighter. Rush. Start over. The same moves I'd spent years helping leaders notice in themselves, showing up in my own hands.

Around the same time, a leadership development pilot program I'd spent a year building with a colleague didn't fill. It never launched. I tell you that on purpose: recovering from a plan that broke is the exact thing I now teach, and I learned more from that empty room than a full one would have taught me. Lead Anyway came out of sitting with why.