I help leaders maximize talent.

Bold thinker. Bolder doer.  Achiever of what others think is impossible through others.

I am an executive coach and business performance consultant who helps leaders scale their business. I have helped some of the best teams at powerhouses like Nike and Verizon perform even better. When leaders want to create more value faster, I help them find their way.

Experience and expertise: executive coaching, P & L experience, leadership and team development, business strategy and performance consulting, sales and operations leadership, facilitation, change management, project management, public speaking, performance management

Strengths: Learner  Responsibility  Strategic  Relator  Arranger

I'd love to hear about your bold goals and the challenges you are experiencing on your way. Feel free to connect here: sue@boldtrek.com

Not crossable.

A reckless act burned a forest and a bridge

that safely connected sides of a 150ft deep gorge

on a popular, beloved trail in Oregon in 2017.

This bridge is about 4 miles up from the trail head.

It took a decent effort to hike up this far

only to find that there was no way to cross the canyon.

Before an expensive helicopter-assisted  bridge replacement,

this burned bridge ended any chance for advancement

for everyone.

That sucks.

You have likely come across a few burned bridges yourself.

Not in the forest.

Back and work and life where the humans are.

Perhaps you have even set one or two ablaze

in a moment where emotions got the best of you.

< guilty >

Thing is...

no one can advance without the bridge.

Our disagreements, our differences, our disappointments

require a bridge.

You don't have to cross it,

you don't have to even do that hike for a while.

But don't burn the bridge.

Some day you just may want to explore

what is on the other side.

Sue Melone

I help leaders and teams maximize talent. Leader. Coach. Veteran. Entrepreneur.

When someone tells a great story,

they bring people with them.

When someone talks to just to hear themselves,

they throw words at people.

Let's face it.

There are 1,734,931 things 

competing for our time and attention.

We don't want your "at" motion.

We don't want a conversation done "to" us. 

We want to engage with our humanness.

We want a micro journey in the moment.

We want to go "with".

It is time to go up.

Zoom out.

This end of the year "crunch time" way of being

has a way of burying us in the weeds

and crushing our spirit along the way.

Nope. 

Don't let it be so.

Get away from your desk.

Go outside for an 11 minute walk.

Take these 3 questions with you: 

Where is this thing that I am doing going?

What have I learned that is rocket fuel for 2026?

What should I be doing now that will matter on February 17th?

There is an amazing universe of possibilities out there.

You'll never see it looking down at your desk.

Get up.

Zoom out.

One minute it is a beautiful journey.

The next minute it...well... isn't.

We've all been there.

Weekly.

Daily.

Hourly.

You might be there now.

Obstacles invade the best of days.

Rude.

You don't have to put up with that.

In the moment, try a four letter word.

< yes, I am a fan of 4 letter words > 

Nope. 

This one: COOL!

When you meet an obstacle

say "COOL!" 

It is a nano second mindset shift

that gets you in a positive, problem solving mode

now. 

COOL! 

It's time to use that untapped talent

to find a way around, over, through.

As I say often,

a four letter word can change everything.

COOL!

Don't have time to connect?

So busy you have to multitask?

Sound familiar?

Danger.

One of the biggest black holes in business today

is clarity.

Lack of clear goals.

Lack of alignment.

Lack of "what is next?"

We assume everyone knows.

Check it.

They don't.

When you connect with the team / customer / colleague

be there and be no where else.

Not in your email.

Not in slack.

Not in your presentation that is due in 13 mins.

We assume 27% of our attention is enough.

Check it.

It isn't.

Take 3 pure minutes.

Connect.

Focus.

Clarify.

Trust, anything else

takes much longer.

It is right in front of you.

Clear as day.

You can see the way forward

You are certain of it.

But somehow you are stuck.

There is friction from others.

Movement feels like riding 1st gear 

and the emergency brake concurrently.

From your seat you see no other options.

Yes, you can bull rush ahead 

stubbornly determined

to do it your way

or you can simply, calmly

change your seat.

Sit and take 2 minutes to experience another view.

No doubt options will emerge.

It might be the best move you have ever made.

Possibilities come from questions. Knowledge is a starter tool for how.

Stanford Adjunct Professor of AI & Design Thinking | Keynote on AI, Innovation, and Creativity | Co-Host of "Beyond the Prompt" a Top 1% AI Podcast | Co-Author of "Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters"

A surprising pattern has emerged in my work:
The people who get the most extraordinary results from AI are almost never the ones with technical backgrounds.

They’re the people who’ve spent their lives coaching others.

Teachers.
Mentors.
Managers.
People skilled at unlocking potential in someone else.

It makes perfect sense when you see it up close.

A brilliant engineer may understand how the model works.
But a brilliant coach understands how to work with the model.

How to guide it.
Stretch it.
Challenge it.
Shape its output into something useful.

And that changes the ceiling for what AI can do.

Because here’s the real bottleneck:
AI isn’t limited by processing power.
It’s limited by the questions we ask.

Thomas Schelling put it perfectly:
“No matter how heroic a man’s imagination, he could never think of that which would not occur to him.”

Which means the future of AI isn’t waiting on algorithms.
It’s waiting on imagination.

Every new kind of thinker who steps into the arena expands the edges of what’s possible.

Not because the tech evolved.
But because we did.

It is 1 December.

The most stressful 4 weeks of the year are ahead.

And it is not like 2025 has been a cake walk.

There are a thousand things to do, buy, communicate, finish.

Needs from your team, family, business, community are abundant.

Time, cash, and energy are not.

Doing more and doing it all

seem like ill-advised choices.

There are other choices...

Like using 80/20 for your to-do lists.

Work the 20% that will deliver 80% of the good stuff. 

Leave the rest.

Like time constraints.

Set a 15 minute limit on a one hour task. Go!

Ship it. Repeat.

Like short, focused connection time with colleagues, friends, customers.

Being 100% present for someone in a brief conversation 

is gold in this loud, crazy world.

December will take all of you and then some

if you let it.

Choose less.

Less will bring out the best of you.

It is not going to happen there

where you are standing.

It is going to happen

out there.

In the scary space.

Where few go.

Ever. 

If you want to deliver on your unique genius,

go out there.

Get your grass stains,

your "hell, nos",

your roller coaster days,

your mental and physical repetitions.

Go up, over, around and through,

every obstacle you encounter.

Go all in.

Yes, it is exhausting.

But you weren't made for standing still.

taplio

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