What Story Are You Telling Yourself? (And What Is It Costing You?)
I am still amazed by how often the things we assume are common knowledge are anything but common.
After spending 42 years working in government contracting, much of that time supporting the United States Army, I sometimes catch myself assuming that leaders and organizations understand how to do business with the federal government. Then I begin talking with them.
The questions come quickly.
Where do we begin? What does the government really expect from us? How do we understand the Federal Acquisition Regulation? What changed? What does this requirement actually mean for our company? How do we prepare our people to work successfully in this environment?
And perhaps most importantly: How do we keep up?
The Federal Acquisition Regulation—the FAR—continues to evolve, and the environment surrounding government contracting evolves with it. That is precisely why experience alone is not enough. You have to continue learning, continue watching, and continue translating those changes into information that leaders and their teams can actually use.
That has become one of the strengths of my work through Adina Inc. Consulting.
My years in government gave me the foundation. Staying current allows me to continue using that foundation to help organizations today.
I can work with an organization that wants to better understand the government marketplace. I can provide briefings for senior leadership. I can develop classes for teams that need a stronger understanding of the FAR and the federal acquisition process. And rather than offering a one-size-fits-all program, I can build training around the specific needs, questions, challenges, and level of experience within an organization.
For me, training has never been simply about standing in front of a room and presenting information.
It is about making the information useful.
Long before I retired, I had the opportunity to work and train on a global scale through my Army career. I traveled internationally, taught quality assurance, consulted with leadership, and conducted negotiation training. I worked with people in different environments, cultures, missions, and levels of leadership.
Those experiences taught me something that continues to shape my consulting today: organizations may look very different from the outside, but people often struggle with remarkably similar challenges.
Sometimes the challenge is technical.
Sometimes it is leadership.
And sometimes the greatest obstacle is the story we have been telling ourselves.
That last area has become an increasingly important part of the work I do.
Leaders carry enormous responsibility. But leaders also carry assumptions, experiences, fears, habits, and beliefs. Over time, some of those beliefs become stories:
“We have always done it this way.”
“My people will never change.”
“That opportunity isn't available to us.” “I am not ready.”“We tried that before.”
“This is just the way our organization works.”The danger is that when leaders repeat those stories often enough, they can become part of the culture. A leader's internal limitation can quietly become an organization's limitation.
One of the questions I now challenge leaders to ask is simple What story are you telling yourself—and what is that story costing you?
My leadership workshops create an opportunity to examine those stories, identify the obstacles beneath them, and move toward greater self-awareness and self-actualization. The objective is not merely to make someone feel better for an afternoon. It is to help leaders understand themselves more clearly so they can lead others more effectively.
That work is deeply personal to me. After the death of my son, I had to examine my own life in a way I never could have anticipated. I had to learn what resilience truly meant—not as a leadership concept or a word in a presentation, but as something I had to live.
Surviving that loss changed me.
It led me to create my nonprofit, but it also expanded the way I understand leadership, people, purpose, and resilience. I learned that sometimes moving forward requires more than acquiring another skill. It requires examining what we believe, what we have survived, what we are carrying, and what we are willing to change.
Today, I bring all of those experiences together.
Government contracting. Federal acquisition. Quality assurance. Leadership development. Organizational training. Negotiation. Resilience. Self-awareness.
Negotiation, in particular, is a skill I believe every leader needs. I have been trained and certified to teach negotiation, and throughout my career I have seen the difference it can make. Negotiation is not simply about winning a contract or getting the best price. It is about understanding interests, listening carefully, communicating effectively, recognizing what matters to the people across from you, and navigating critical conversations.
Those abilities matter in the boardroom, across the negotiating table, inside an organization, and in our personal lives.
That is why the work of Adina Inc. Consulting is intentionally flexible.
One organization may need a focused briefing for its chief executive or senior leadership team. Another may need customized FAR or government-contracting training. Another may need negotiation training for employees. A leadership group may benefit from a workshop that challenges the stories and assumptions affecting its culture. And sometimes a leader simply needs an experienced consultant who can listen, identify the real obstacle, and help determine the next step.
I have traveled the world, worked with leaders across cultures, served throughout a 42-year government career, and rebuilt my own life after unimaginable loss.
What excites me now is being able to bring those experiences together on an entirely different plane—not simply to explain processes, but to help people and organizations move forward.
As we prepare for the Leadership Experience Tour in March, I am looking forward to meeting leaders who are asking new questions about their organizations, their opportunities, and themselves.
Maybe your question involves doing business with the federal government.
Maybe your organization needs training designed specifically for its people.
Maybe your team needs to become stronger negotiators.
Or maybe the biggest obstacle has nothing to do with a regulation or a contract.
Maybe it is time to examine the story that has been keeping you—or your organization—stuck.
Whatever the challenge, I look forward to the conversations we will have.
If you would like to connect before the Leadership Experience Tour or discuss how Adina Inc. Consulting can support your organization, feel free to reach out to me directly or connect with me on LinkedIn.