‘Shed your shoulds,’ life coach Regan Walsh says
Shares insight into why women aren’t promoted
Regan Walsh once quit a job after four days. Assigned to a women’s haircare client at a Columbus-based digital advertising agency, she felt uninspired and stifled. During those few days, something spoke to her — and it wasn’t the shampoo. It was her intuition.
“I knew there was something bigger for me in my life,” she said. “I’m not going to use social media to engage with shampoos and conditioners, that’s not my style. I wanted to go big on something that would have an impact for the community.”
She left the company, owning her new nickname, “One-week Walsh,” and walked into a dirty warehouse, counting parts in shipping and receiving for her family’s business. Dirty hands were better than marketing clean hair.
She was 38 when she decided her calling was to become a life coach. At the time, another coach told her that she wouldn’t be taken seriously until she was 40.
“I had worked for a family business, a startup, a coaching company, and I had seen a lot,” Walsh said. “At that moment, I felt doubt, but I was able to recognize that my experience would get me where I was trying to go.
“If you’re passionate about your path, you know you’re on the right track. It’s gut instinct. You have to be strong enough to follow your gut and put one foot in front of the other. My instincts have never steered me wrong.”
The owner of Regan Walsh LLC, she is a regular keynote speaker and seminar leader. She’s spoken to companies from Nike to Nationwide Insurance, Quickbooks to Scotts Miracle-gro, for audiences ranging from 50 to 500.
A contributor to Forbes and Harvard Business Review, her new book, Heart Boss, has earned praise from New York Times bestseller Amy Jo Martin, host of the “Why Not Now?” podcast, among others.
The book is a memoir and self-help guide helping others discover what matters most, something Walsh has done, in one form or another, her whole life.
Taking out the head trash
In the summer of 2019, Megan Shroy was exhausted. The founder and president of Worthington-based Approach Marketing had dedicated years to her business, often at the expense of other areas of her life, like family and health.
She had been buried by what Walsh calls “the invisible load,” something Walsh says affects women more than men: Packing lunches, managing kids’ sports schedules — all of the things women, most often, absorb in addition to work and family commitments.
“It didn’t matter how much help I had, I still couldn’t keep up,” Shroy said. “I was running, and I was still behind.”
She hired Walsh for a one-on-one coaching session. For three months, she met with Walsh biweekly for virtual sessions on balance, priorities, and taking out what Walsh calls “head trash” — self-doubt and “shoulds.”
By centering on the eight elements of the “life wheel” — family, social life, career, financial stability, health, mind, time, personality — “She really helped me identify where I wanted to focus,” Shroy said. “But she also gave me accountability and practical steps on how to achieve that.”
One simple fix came when she began using her work calendar for personal priorities. “That’s how I run my workday,” Shroy said. “I could schedule a walk in the middle of the day with my husband, or pick up my daughter from school because I wasn’t going to book over it. It sounds so simple, but it helped me so much.”
The disease to please
Shroy is one of many clients, mostly women, whom Walsh has helped to find balance and reconnect with their passions.
One part therapist, Walsh encounters a few consistent barriers to success and balance that are specific to women: perfectionism and what she calls “the disease to please.”
“These are the women who not only know they will do things right, but they say yes to everything because they don’t want to disappoint anyone,” she said.
One client, a female executive who was working 60 to 70 hours a week, admitted to staying up late, eyeing Pinterest for the perfect cupcakes to bake for her child’s classroom. “I told her, the kids don’t care if your cupcakes look like spiders or if you just give them a Hoho,” Walsh said.
Asking for help is a key component of Walsh’s strategy for women. She suggests easy fixes, such as getting childcare or cleaning services when feeling overloaded.
“We have all the tools, but if we just ask for help, we could get so much more done,” Walsh said.
She notes that many women, afraid to share their successes or ask for what they want, get passed over for opportunities.
“You have to raise your hand and ask for what you want,” she said. “Be confident in sharing your wins. It’s not arrogant to celebrate your wins.”
Virginia Brown is a freelance writer.