We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Becky Thalmann a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Becky, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

One trend I see is that there are disparate options that often just don’t work.

If leaders want solutions, the cultural norm is to ask for advice or follow a one-size-fits-all approach.
If they want growth, they turn to learning and training programs.
If they want coaching, they get situational support—helping them act, but not necessarily rethink how they operate.
But real leaders don’t need more generic advice—they need a structured way to solve the challenges unique to their businesses, teams, and lives.

What I do differently is integrate mindset, strategy, and execution into a single approach. Too often, coaching stays in the realm of insight—helping leaders reflect but not necessarily move forward. On the flip side, consulting is often too prescriptive, offering solutions without addressing the internal barriers that keep leaders from acting on them.

My work bridges that gap. I help leaders identify the real friction points—whether it’s mindset, team dynamics, or structural inefficiencies—then build the strategies and systems to create sustained momentum. It’s about unlocking the right shifts at the right time.

I also take a multi-modality approach—leveraging coaching, mindset work, leadership development, and business strategy. Instead of relying solely on past experience or best practices, I guide leaders through a process that helps them extract the best insights from themselves, pressure-test decisions, and implement systems that drive results.

The result? Leaders who not only gain clarity but take bold, confident action—without the burnout, overthinking, or forced hustle that holds so many back.

Story: The Founder Who Didn’t Need More Advice—They Needed the Right Shift

A founder I worked with had a big vision but was drowning in advice. They were constantly asking mentors, reading business books, and attending leadership programs—yet they still felt stuck. Every new insight made them question their decisions rather than move forward.

When they sought coaching, they were given situational support—advice on what action to take next—but it never addressed the deeper issue: the way they were thinking about leadership, risk, and decision-making.

That’s where my approach came in.

Instead of handing them another blueprint or a list of tasks, I helped them identify the real friction point—which wasn’t a lack of strategy but a mindset stuck in overthinking and validation-seeking. They didn’t need more information; they needed a system to cut through noise, trust their instincts, and act with confidence.

We worked through three core areas:

Mindset – Shifting from “What’s the right answer?” to “What’s the best decision for my business right now?”
Strategy – Building a decision-making framework to evaluate advice instead of reacting to it.
Execution – Developing systems that created momentum without burnout or second-guessing.
The result? They stopped spinning and started scaling. They made clearer, faster decisions, stopped feeling paralyzed by conflicting advice, and actually built the company they wanted—not the one they thought they should build based on external input.

Becky, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I help modern leaders, founders, and leadership teams solve the real challenges that hold them back—whether that’s misalignment, overthinking, burnout, or decision paralysis. My approach blends coaching, leadership development, and business strategy to create results that aren’t just theoretical—they’re deeply actionable, sustainable, and transformational.

How I Got Here
I’ve spent over 20 years working in business and leadership, including nearly a decade at Google. But my real turning point came at 36 years old, when I was diagnosed with cancer while raising two young kids. That moment shattered my perspective on work, leadership, and how I spent my time and energy.

I realized that so many leaders—despite their success—are white-knuckling through their days, carrying the weight of their teams, their businesses, and their families on their shoulders. They’re driven, ambitious, and deeply responsible, but they’re also stretched thin, stuck in cycles of overthinking, or operating in ways that no longer serve them.

That realization drove me to build Vivica Partners, where I don’t just help leaders perform—we empower real-deal leaders to drive change, freedom, and impact. We partner with them to change how they think, work, and live.

What I Do
I partner with leaders, founders, and companies to solve the biggest leadership and organizational challenges through:

– 1:1 Executive Coaching – Helping leaders move past overwork, overthinking, and friction to create systems for clarity, decision-making, and sustainable momentum.

– Leadership Team Coaching & Workshops – Aligning teams, solving dysfunction, and creating high-performance cultures that move fast with purpose.

– Business Coaching for Founders & Startups – Helping modern founders build companies where people actually want to work and drive success.

– Speaking & Podcast Guest – Bringing bold, fresh perspectives to leadership, decision-making, and high-impact performance.

What Sets Me Apart?
The leadership industry is full of disparate solutions—you go to one place for advice, another for learning, and another for coaching. But real leaders don’t work in silos. They need an integrated approach that helps them solve challenges at the mindset, strategy, and execution levels.

That’s my specialty. I help leaders not just learn or reflect—but take bold, confident action. My approach isn’t about generic frameworks or templated solutions. It’s about identifying the real friction points, creating the right shifts at the right time, and building systems that create lasting impact.

What I’m Most Proud Of
I’m proud of the leaders and founders I’ve helped break through the noise, make bold decisions, and create businesses and leadership styles that truly align with who they are.

I’m also proud of my work in launching the Glenview Incubator, helping new businesses take shape, and driving change in leadership teams across industries.

But most of all, I’m proud that my work makes a tangible difference—leaders don’t just leave with insights; they leave feeling relief, clarity, confidence, and momentum.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Resilience Isn’t Just About Pushing Through—It’s About Choosing How to Move Forward
At 36 years old, I was diagnosed with cancer. At the time, I was balancing a high-performance leadership career, raising two young kids, and doing what so many driven leaders do—pushing through, taking on more, and always finding a way to make it work.

But that moment forced me to rethink everything. Not just about my health, but about how I was leading, making decisions, and spending my time. It shattered the illusion that I could just keep grinding and that resilience meant tolerating more, handling more, and muscling through challenges.

Real resilience, I realized, isn’t about endurance. It’s about choice.

It’s about asking: What actually matters? What do I want to build? How do I want to lead?

That shift changed my entire approach—not just to life, but to leadership. It’s why I built Vivica Partners and why I coach the way I do. Too many leaders think resilience means dealing with more stress, pushing harder, or carrying the weight of everyone around them. But resilience isn’t about tolerating—it’s about making bold, intentional choices that align with the leader you want to be.

That’s what I help my clients do. I don’t just help them manage stress or navigate challenges—I help them shift the way they think, lead, and operate so they can create momentum without burning out.

Because resilience isn’t just about surviving. It’s about designing a life, career, and leadership style that actually works for you.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I love the concept of unlearning so I am sharing two lessons.

The Two Biggest Lessons I Had to Unlearn
I grew up with a hardworking immigrant father who built a life from nothing through grit, responsibility, and relentless effort. In our family, hard work wasn’t just a value—it was a way of life. If something needed to be done, you did it. If there was a challenge, you figured it out. If you had the ability to take something on, it wasn’t a question of if—you just did.

That mindset shaped me. It made me capable, independent, and driven. But as I advanced in leadership, built my career, and eventually started my own business, I realized that the very thing that made me successful was also holding me back.

I had internalized the belief that if I saw a solution, I was responsible for solving it. That every good idea needed to become an expectation. That if I could handle something, I should handle it.

But over time, I learned the hard way that more effort isn’t always the answer. I was taking on too much, saying yes too often, and running on responsibility autopilot. And at some point, it wasn’t about capability anymore—it was about choice.

Lesson #1: Ideas Don’t Need to Become Expectations.
For a long time, every idea automatically became an expectation I had of myself. If I could see a better way to do something—at work, in leadership, in life—then I felt an obligation to make it happen.

But I had to unlearn that not every idea is meant to be acted on. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s necessary. And just because I see ideas and solutions doesn’t mean they’re mine to solve.

Leaders, founders, and high-performers get caught in this trap. They see potential everywhere, and before they know it, every idea turns into an expectation—another thing to build, execute, or perfect.

What I’ve learned is that clarity isn’t about having more ideas—it’s about having a filtering system.

Lesson #2: Just Because I Can Doesn’t Mean I Should.
Like many capable leaders, I spent years believing that if I had the ability to take something on, I should. If I could handle it, if I could figure it out, if I could stretch a little more—I did.

The problem? That kind of thinking leads to overfunctioning, overwork, and ultimately, burnout.

I had to unlearn the idea that capability equals obligation. I had to start asking myself:

Do I actually want to do this?
Is this the best use of my time and energy?
Am I taking this on because I should, or because I truly choose to?
This shift changed everything—not just for me, but for the leaders I coach. High-performers don’t struggle because they lack capability—they struggle because they haven’t learned to filter what’s truly worth their energy.

Now, my work helps leaders unhook from unnecessary expectations and take bold, intentional action—not just more action.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vivicapartners.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vivicapartners/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vivicapartners
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vivicapartners/posts/?feedView=all

Image Credits

Photo 1 & 2: Amee McCaughan Photography
Photo 3 & 5: Nicole Thomas Photography