Sonya Choi La Rosa Coaching

22/06/2026

A client of mine opened her wardrobe one morning and realised nothing in it felt like her anymore. The clothes were not wrong, the woman wearing them had changed, and the wardrobe had not caught up.

I'm calling it the Blackberry Effect. Full article below ↓

A few months ago I finally watched the Blackberry movie.

17/06/2026

Volume and influence have very little to do with each other. The leaders who actually move the needle, who attract resources and respect, rarely get there by being the loudest voice in the room.

This week, I'm writing about what I call the Visibility Equation, why most visibility advice misses what's actually going on, and what the women who get heard in the rooms that matter have figured out.

I was in a boardroom last month when one of the executives made a completely unremarkable comment.

16/06/2026

The words people use about you when you're not in the room are usually generous and still somehow wrong. Reliable, delivers every time, a safe pair of hands. All true, all said with warmth, and all describing someone valued for getting it done rather than for deciding what gets done.

The full piece is on Substack this week 👇

Most leaders are too deep in the doing to notice the gap between who they've become and how they're being experienced. Here's the pause that closes it.

15/06/2026

Early in my career, I remember standing in front of my wardrobe one morning, pulling outfit after outfit and watching them pile up on the floor. The clothes were fine. None of them felt like mine anymore. Read more in the article this week. ↓

I was standing in front of my wardrobe one morning, pulling out outfit after outfit, watching them pile up on the floor.

15/06/2026

A client told me she knew exactly how to dress for a a an important meeting. The problem was everything else. Curious? Read more on Substack, DM or comment CODE for details.

A client sat across from me recently and said something I hear more often than you’d think: “I know how to dress for the boardroom meeting.

10/06/2026

This shows up in almost every coaching conversation I have.

She has the body of evidence a long career builds. She picks up on tone shifts in a meeting before anyone has finished speaking. She knows, before she can articulate it, that the brief she's been handed isn't quite right, that the dynamic in the room has changed, that the person across the table isn't actually with her. Then she watches herself reason her way past it.

The label we typically attach to this disconnect is confidence, the advice is always to develop more of it, to assume the issue is internal doubt or lack of capability. After watching a lot of leaders move through these moments, I'd say the ones who look genuinely solid aren't the ones without self-doubt, they're the ones who've learned to read their body's signal as information rather than as something to manage around.

I was in a first conversation with someone who seemed genuinely aligned.

05/06/2026

Early in my career, I was standing in front of my wardrobe one morning, pulling outfit after outfit and watching them pile up on the floor. The clothes were fine. None of them felt like mine anymore. That moment was the first time I could physically feel the gap between who I had become and how I was still being read.

I was standing in front of my wardrobe one morning, pulling out outfit after outfit, watching them pile up on the floor.

05/06/2026

A client messaged me last week getting ready for a school function. She said she wanted to feel like her, but right for the environment.

This is the difference between code-switching and frequency tuning across the rooms in a working week.

Read more on Substack, DM or comment CODE for details.

03/06/2026

A client messaged me last week getting ready for a school function. She said she wanted to feel like her, but right for the environment. The difference between code-switching and frequency tuning across the rooms in a working week.

Most senior women have their boardroom presence dialled. What about every other room? On frequency tuning and the presence skill that actually changes things.

11/05/2026

This shows up in almost every coaching conversation I have.

She has the body of evidence a long career builds. She picks up on tone shifts in a meeting before anyone has finished speaking. She knows, before she can articulate it, that the brief she’s been handed isn’t quite right, that the dynamic in the room has changed, that the person across the table isn’t actually with her. Then she watches herself reason her way past it.
 
The label we typically attach to this disconnect is confidence, the advice is always to develop more of it, to assume the issue is internal doubt or lack of capability. After watching a lot of leaders move through these moments, I’d say the ones who look genuinely solid aren’t the ones without self-doubt, they’re the ones who’ve learned to read their body’s signal as information rather than as something to manage around.
 
Many leadership conversations about decision-making work at the wrong altitude. We talk about frameworks, pros and cons, sleeping on it, asking trusted advisors. All of that has a place, all of it sits on top of a more foundational layer that most women in leadership have been trained, often without realising it, to override.
 
I’ve spent eighteen months of my own career paying tuition on this lesson, in a misaligned collaboration I should have walked away from in the first conversation. What I learned wasn’t really about the collaboration itself, it was what it actually costs to keep saying yes when your whole system is saying no.
 
The full article is on Substack this week, including what I see now in nearly every leader I work with, and why working with both your body and your brain instead of forcing them to compete is one of the most underrated leadership skills there is.
 
Read the full article on Substack → https://lnkd.in/gnsYWzAc