They Used to Call Me “The Chameleon”

Years ago, during my corporate career, they used to call me “the chameleon.”

• It wasn’t because I changed who I was depending on the room I walked into.
• It was because somehow, wherever I went, I could become part of the environment.

At the time, I worked from U.S. headquarters at the executive level, and much of my work took me into markets throughout Latin America and exposed me to different countries, cultures, teams, and ways of doing business.

I was often able to accomplish things that had been difficult to achieve from the corporate level. Looking back, I understand why.

I Had to Leave Headquarters to Understand What Was Really Happening

There is something very different about looking at a process from a conference room and experiencing that same process alongside the people who actually perform it every day.

So I went into their world.

• I sat beside people doing the work.
• I worked hand in hand with individuals across functions, roles, and organizational levels.
• I asked questions.
• I observed.
• I followed processes from beginning to end.

I wanted to understand not only what people were doing, but why they were doing it that way.

Sometimes the reality I discovered in the market was very different from the process we believed existed at headquarters. And that was precisely why being there mattered.

Titles Became Less Important

One of the greatest gifts of those experiences was learning to move comfortably between worlds.

I could sit in an executive meeting discussing strategy and governance, and later be beside someone performing the day-to-day work necessary to make that strategy possible.

• Both perspectives mattered.
• The executive could tell me what the organization intended to happen.
• The person doing the work could show me what was actually happening.
• I needed both.

Perhaps that was part of what made me a “chameleon.”

• I wasn’t interested in protecting the distance that sometimes comes with a title.
• If I needed to sit beside someone for hours to understand their job, I did it.
• If I needed to experience a process myself, I did it.
• If something didn’t make sense, I kept asking questions until it did.

And the more willing I was to enter their environment, the more people were willing to let me into their world.

Culture Wasn’t a Barrier. It Was Part of the Answer.

Every country taught me something.

• Different cultures communicate differently.
• They build relationships differently.
• They approach authority differently.
• They solve problems differently.
• They experience work, family, food, community, health, and life through different lenses.

Instead of seeing those differences as obstacles to overcome, I became fascinated by them.

• I learned to listen differently.
• I learned to observe before assuming.
• I learned that what works beautifully in one environment may need to be approached completely differently in another.

And most importantly, I learned that people want to know that you respect their reality before they will trust you enough to help change it.

They Taught Me. I Taught Them.

This was never a one-way exchange.

I wasn’t the executive coming from headquarters with all the answers.

I brought knowledge, structure, strategy, and experience. They brought knowledge I didn’t have — the lived reality of their market, their customers, their processes, their people, and their culture.

• I learned from them.
• They learned from me.
• And together, we built better solutions.

Those experiences became some of the most meaningful of my professional life.

At the time, I thought I was learning how to implement systems, improve processes, manage organizational change, and bring different markets together.

I didn’t realize I was learning something much bigger.

I was learning how to understand people.

The Chameleon Never Really Left

My career eventually took me far beyond corporate technology.

• I became an entrepreneur.
• A restaurateur and executive chef.
• An artist.
• A herbalist.
• A nutritionist.
• A wellness and transformational coach.

And today, I am building an ecosystem that brings together wellness, transformation, education, creativity, food, leadership, and human experience.

For a long time, those chapters of my life seemed unrelated. Today, I see them differently.

Everything was training.

• Corporate life taught me to understand systems.
• International experience taught me to understand people within those systems.
• Different cultures taught me perspective.
• Hospitality taught me connection.
• Food taught me nourishment.
• Wellness taught me about the body.
• Coaching taught me about transformation.
• Art taught me expression.

And life taught me that none of those things exist independently from one another.

The Same Lesson, A Different World

Today, when someone comes to me seeking transformation, I find myself doing many of the same things I did all those years ago.

I don’t want to begin by telling someone what they should do. I want to understand.

Because a protocol can tell us what should work. But the person standing in front of us tells us what we actually need to understand.

That is why one principle has quietly followed me through every chapter of my life: enter their world before you try to change it.

• Observe.
• Listen.
• Understand.
• Then build.

Whether we are transforming an organization, a process, a team, a business, or ourselves, sustainable change rarely happens because someone arrives with all the answers. It happens when we are willing to understand the whole picture first.

Maybe being called “the chameleon” all those years ago was more meaningful than I realized.

The ability to walk into another person’s world without losing myself — and to genuinely understand what I found there — didn’t just make me better at my job. It became part of the woman I am today. And ultimately, part of the philosophy behind everything I am now creating.