Moving From Overwhelm to Sustainable Impact with Tessa Bridge

Kim Allchurch Flick: Welcome everyone. This is Kim Allchurch Flick, willing welcoming you to today’s podcast. I’m with Tessa Bridge, who is a coach, facilitator, and founder of Tessa Bridge Coaching, where she helps social impact leaders manage the pressure to get it right so they can keep making an impact without burning out.

She brings 15 years of experience as a public education administrator, community organizer, organizational leader, political candidate, and consultant. After facing her own burnout in high stakes leadership roles, Tessa is now dedicated to ensuring other values driven leaders have the tools and support they need to create lasting change without sacrificing themselves.

Her work is grounded in the belief that sustainable impact starts with sustainable leadership. That’s just beautiful. I’m so glad you’re here. The title is Moving From Overwhelm to Sustainable Impact. So welcome Tess. It’s a delight to have you here and we met because of a mutual friend Pallavi Pande, who’s also on the podcast series.

So glad to have you here. 

Tessa Bridge: I’m really happy to be here. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: So we’ve spoken before and I am just so intrigued and for these times and others, what you’re doing. Seems profoundly important. And what has been your journey and your values from, in, from early childhood or wherever you wanna start to now? Yeah. What’s been your guiding force in Muse?

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. I think from a very young age, I’ve always been motivated to make the world a better place and I was very focused on fairness, even as a young kid. And so I always knew that I. Wanted to go into social justice, equity focused work. From the beginning of my career, that’s where I put my energy and I’ve always loved children and so I initially entered into this work from the education space and my undergraduate was in developmental psychology and I wanted to be in a practical, real world environment.

And so that’s how I ended up working in, in public education. And, as time unfolded and opportunities came and I learned more and more, I moved into a number of different roles. First in, in school districts, but also I did a lot of community organizing, electoral organizing in my community.

And, really came to see the power and the importance of community coming together to create change where you live. And from that I actually ended up running for a city council in the community where I lived at the time. And I also ended up getting much more involved in racial equity work.

In the public school space. And from there went on to found a company doing diversity, equity and inclusion consulting and coaching with two other women who I had worked with in a previous role. And for the last, I would say five plus years I have been in more of this coach consultant role helping organizations, helping, social impact leaders, both in for-profit and nonprofit spaces, figure out how to lead with their values and bring equity and inclusion into what they’re doing every day, both inside their work and in the way they work with their community. So for me, it’s really been a both a professional journey, but also a personal journey.

And Id say that in that process I’ve lived myself and also supported other leaders who have. Really sort of struggled with caring so much about what they do and seeing the importance of what they do and wanting to use the power they have to really make a profound difference in the world. And also feeling really like they have to get it right.

They can’t make a mistake. Like things are very high stakes and how exhausting that can be and how overwhelming that can be. And I’ve had my own journey with burnout. And really having to figure out how to really lean into my values in ways that feel aligned for me and do that publicly and also learn how to.

Set boundaries, protect myself and my peace and figure out what to say yes to and what to say no to. And I’ve worked with a lot of other folks who have sort of struggled to find that balance as well. About two years ago I founded Tessa Bridge Coaching and now I work with social impact leaders.

Who are in that dance of trying to figure out how do I live bravely, lead with my values really embody what I wanna see in the world and also create spaces for, ease, self care, community care and release some of that pressure because we can be very, very hard on ourselves. So that’s like a, just a little bit about my story and I’ll just say in terms of values, my core values are community, authenticity, and integrity. And community to me really means that we’re all tied up together, right? My wellbeing is tied with your wellbeing, and we show up for each other with our whole hearts.

It also means that. I ask for what I need and I honor what other people need. So it’s that clear communication piece and the authenticity and integrity is really like I do what I’ll say I do. I’ll, yeah, I do what I’ll say I’ll do. And I’m honoring what I believe and my true self in how I show up.

And so it’s like holding both of those pieces, like the community and the authenticity and integrity is I think, really central to how I see the world. And also how. I do my work in the world supporting other people. Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I really appreciate that. And it’s so beautifully put and it reminds me of conversation I had with someone who else, who just was talking about our brains and she said there’s some people who believe that, our brains are creative and we do things, we’re very much in our brains, but our brains are also receivers.

Yeah. Like receivers of, call it energy, call it intuition, call it whatever it might. Be, but the connectiveness in some cultures is much more understood and revered than in others. But that connectiveness is, it is really there and it’s really strong. And often we don’t utilize it as much as we should.

And when you were talking I was thinking about that. I also wish I’d known you a few years ago when I hit a corporate life, hit a huge wall. I went on a vacation, which I hadn’t had in a long time. ’cause usually there was so much work I felt I couldn’t even take a vacation. I took a vacation and I was so burnt out that I sat in a hotel balcony in I lot Israel, looking at ABA Jordan over the Red Sea.

I had books, I had postcards, I had everything. And I sat there and just looked. I didn’t even have the, it wasn’t lack of energy, it was. Bandwidth to the point where the hotel called me to ask if I was okay. ’cause all they did Oh wow. For two days was order, room, service and sit on the balcony. Yeah. But it kind of, I was like that and I realized that was a wall, but it was also a reset.

Yeah. I was like, I, my brain couldn’t, didn’t want more stuff. More inputs. Yeah. And then I started to relax and 

Tessa Bridge: yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I wish I’d known you then. So for anybody who feels like that, there’s somebody to call. And so this is January 20, 26. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And in the work you do and what we see and people doing beautiful work what is current for you?

Tessa Bridge: Yeah, it’s a really good question. I think. In some ways this is like a really particular and specific time to be doing this work. A lot of the folks I support are nonprofit leaders, the nonprofits. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Yes. 

Tessa Bridge: Industry has been really impacted by Trump’s budget cuts, organizations that we’re working with, very few resources to begin with are now having to make really impossible decisions at a time when the need is.

So high. And one of the things that we know leads to burnout is that sense of moral injury, right? Like I, I am unable to do what I think is moral and right, because of the system that I am within and so many. Nonprofit and social impact leaders, and really all of us are grappling with that.

So I would say that’s really specific to this moment and that a lot of what we are experiencing now is sort of a ratcheted up of things that have been true for a very long time. And part of what I see as possibility perhaps in this moment is. Perhaps this is our moment where we actually get to say like, okay, these strategies that have allowed us to get by, many of which are like, we’re gonna push through no matter what.

We’re gonna do more with less. We’re gonna be scrappy. These things that are come from a place of like deep care motivation and are good strategies, aren’t going to be the long term things that are gonna move us through this moment and into what comes next, which hopefully is, it’s brighter than where we are now.

So I think one of the things that I’m really working with folks on is like, how do you make really challenging choices and get really clear in your values and your options as you navigate that. How do you stay really grounded in. The midst of huge uncertainty, right? What are we doing to ground ourselves and our nervous systems every single day, particularly as leaders, because we are the barometer of our organization, right?

So when we are grounded, when we are clear, we can actually help those around us to be clear. And I think that modeling component is critical right now. And how can we actually, think differently as opposed to keep going back to the same things that maybe have gotten us through difficult things in the past, but just barely.

As you were describing, it’s so often we have to hit that wall, be in a complete state of burnout to say okay, I’m willing to try something different. Particularly for those of us, many leaders are really high achievers who’ve been really successful and have been able to just sort of power or muscle through.

Challenges in the past, and maybe now is the first time or one of the first times that they’re hitting that wall like you described. And it’s okay, so you know, you’ve got this great toolbox and there might be some things that aren’t in that toolbox that you can add, or some tools that you’ve used in the past that may not be serving you in this moment.

So I think those are a lot of the conversations that I’m having with my folks. And in some ways I feel like. I feel very grateful that I had my own burnout experience prior to this moment. It’s like everything happens for a reason. I do believe that. And so I feel like I have learned for myself and my own lived experience how to manage some of these challenges in a way that I’m really grateful to have that wisdom so that I can then share that with other people who are going through that right now.

And I’ll just say, I had a coach at that time. Which was transformational for me, so it, this idea of paying it forward of how do we show up with and for the people who are around us? Yeah, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That is so beautiful. And what are you seeing besides some of the seemingly obvious ones for these times, but what are some obstacles you, your clients, and your community are dealing with?

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. Funding is a really big one, as I said. And just generally like the violence that we are experiencing in our communities, particularly for folks who are doing frontline work, is really materially impacting people. And all of our nervous systems are activated by witnessing.

Or experiencing the violence that’s happening in our communities and rising authoritarianism in our communities. And so again, I just come back to that it’s hard. It’s hard in some ways to talk about burnout, to talk about slowing down, to talk about being creative in our leadership in a time of so much uncertainty.

But I really do believe that it’s actually an essential time to talk about it because we, when the way we treat ourselves and the way we treat each other is part of how we resist what’s happening in our country. And it’s like building in how do we do this amidst so much uncertainty. It’s like we’re just jumping right into the masterclass in a lot of ways.

But I’m experiencing like actually a lot of openness to that because I think people are in a place where they’re like, it’s very clear that we have to do something. D differently or in a different way. And I’d say that’s something that makes me feel really hopeful is the number of conversations I have with folks where they say this is so critical, I really need that.

And I think that openness, creates like a huge amount of opportunity. Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I love that quote. We’re just jumping into the masterclass and we’re open to it. Yeah, just dive right in. 

Tessa Bridge: That’s right. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Necessity is a form of invention, right? 

Tessa Bridge: That’s 

Kim Allchurch Flick: right. 

Tessa Bridge: Exactly. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And what are you sharing with people that they can do, and what are you seeing that people are doing and that listeners could take away is, especially when we’re feeling.

Overwhelm is kind of an overused word, but it’s more than that now. There’s, 

Tessa Bridge: yeah, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: definitely life issues. And then there’s current issues when they’re feeling like they don’t know where they can capture an action or a point of resistance or resolve that they feel good about what? What do you think are some things people can actually do for themselves or with you?

Yeah. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. So one of the things I work a lot with clients on is defining goals and then really making choices about time, attention, and resources. Because although we would all love to have infinite resources, we do not. And for big hearted social impact folks, I’m one of them too, right?

We can want to solve every problem and we can feel really responsible for solving every problem and. In fact, if we each do our part and get really clear on what that is and really move the balls that are ours forward, trusting that other people are gonna do their parts too, we can have much more impact than if we are bouncing around between so many things.

That’s when you lose a lot of energy. So one of the things I really work with folks on is like getting very clear about your goals, like really specific, and then each thing that comes across your desk. Measuring, does this move me closer towards my goal? Is this something I wanna say yes to? And even building in that pause to say, this might be important, like this is likely a good thing, but is it aligned with what I have set as my priorities or my organization’s priorities?

Creating that breathing space to set, to make that as an act of conscious choice. Helps you to stay more focused and creates a feeling of agency versus these things are happening to me. So really seeing where there is choice is something that I really work on. And then really celebrating when you are moving those things forward, right?

It, when there’s always so much more to do, we kind of just jump to the next thing. But if we set these goals and we took the actions we said we would take towards the goals, right? Actually, like closing that loop is incredibly important and being like, here’s what I did, right? I did what I said I would do, I followed through and here’s the impact of that.

Now I’m gonna move on to the next thing. Really taking that time, just like slowing down our process to have that celebration. And I would encourage leaders to do that with their teams also, because that sense of franticness I can’t really sustain in that for a long time. So that’s one big piece.

Yeah. That I think is really, really critical and helps organizations as a whole to feel like, okay, we are wrapping our arms around something and we are moving forward this constant pivoting. Sometimes it’s necessary to pivot, but the constantly pivoting and leaving, things have done all the time.

It may it doesn’t contribute to a feeling of having agency and having power. And that can be very demoralizing. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That’s why I really enjoy talking with you too, because, I, myself and some of it is cultures and paradigms where you feel like you’re working in a pinball machine or something.

Yes. It’s just all about speed and, but also hearing quotes, things like a good, healthy business is a form of resistance. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And rest is a form of resistance. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And I, myself, looking back at myself, thought I can never slow down. 

Tessa Bridge: Right. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And then, hence hit a wall. But that was what was expected a lot of times.

And 

Tessa Bridge: yes, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: so breaking some of the moles of expectation and all these things that you said about taking a pause. I also think through time people are learning more and more that values are more than a list of words. 

Tessa Bridge: Yes, definitely. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And sometimes, particularly if money is needed, there’s a sense of, well, we could compromise on this to get this client, but it’s not perfect, but we need the money to stopping that thought process and sitting as a team and saying, okay, these are our values, does everything about what we are about to do.

Reflect well on these and use the values as the primary decision matrix. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: To actually talk through them. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And I, I love how you phrase doing that and taking that pause, but a pause also gives us strength. 

Tessa Bridge: Yes. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: We breathe, breathe in and breathe out every day. And the breathe out part can’t live without it.

So we can, yeah. We can think of that in the other forms of work as well. Yeah, 

Tessa Bridge: definitely. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: What, what in this makes you optimistic? 

Tessa Bridge: I get, I partially, I just really believe that another world is possible. Like I believe that in an embodied way, right? So I think each step that we’re taking is moving us closer to a more just world. The line is not straight. It isn’t gonna happen without our effort for sure. And I see the ways that we are shifting to, to bring that world into being right.

I, and that I choose to put a lot of my energy and attention in that place. And that does make me hopeful. I think also I love Adrian Marie Brown’s work on fractals, and I think a lot about. What happens at the small is reflected at the large. And my background is in movement work, right?

So I do think on systems level changes and I think when we do this work internally with ourselves. It creates ripples that are critical to create the bigger ripples. So like when I, or a client of mine works on my sense of perfectionism that everything has to be done just right, that taking a risk is too scary because I might mess it up and what would that say about me?

And I, actually do some work around releasing on that and not holding so tightly. And then I’m able to, think more creatively, try new things. Allow someone on my team to take a risk because I am trusting, like maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t, but we can handle and figure out what comes next.

That then ripples out into how does my organization function? What are we willing to try, which then ripples out into our community, which then ripples out into our broader community, into our movements into the world. I think so often we are unintentionally holding so tightly. To the way we’ve always done things because it’s scary to try something different and that inadvertently is keeping us stuck in a lot of these patterns.

So the coaching work 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Indeed yes. 

Tessa Bridge: Where I’m, doing that work and creating that space for people to, in many ways, like crack open and take risks in that way. I think that is part of how we get to the. The better world because if we’re holding tightly, then we’re gonna stand still. And that’s not working.

So I feel very hopeful the more I do this work about the possibility that comes from that and the gentleness that comes from that. That there is a gentle way to seek justice. I mean rigorous and active. And also gentle, right? Like that we can combine these pieces. Yeah. I see a lot of hope.

I see a lot of hope there. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That is so beautiful. I’m listening to you. I wrote down a couple of quotes Yeah. With the one about holding tightly that, that really resonates because we do tend to. Hold each other tightly and sometimes that can be too much. Letting go and having more loose connection is more emotion, but also holding tightly to belief.

Yeah, holding tightly to paradigms. Holding tightly to perhaps rituals and how we think, I’m not talking religiously, but things about how we form our own patterns sometimes and don’t recognize them. And patterns can be wonderful and they can also sometimes need to be broken. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And you mentioned one of my favorite words, fractals.

How did that book in inspire you and what is 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: what does that mean? 

Tessa Bridge: I’ll say, when I read that book emergent Strategy, it was the first time I had actually heard the word facilitator as a job or as a role. And I was like, oh my God, that’s me. Like, I like, so that one’s just like pretty transformational for me just to be like, this is a real.

Community role to play, to be facilitator. So I think that in and of itself, for me was really powerful. And I think the connection of the big and the small is so critical because I think I’ll just speak for myself. Like I sometimes feel like, okay, I’m gonna, yes, I know I should do this and I know I should do that, but the mission me is worth it.

So I’m going to, move fast and power through and do all these things and overwork myself and whatever the thing is take because the mission is worth it. And I think the logic of fractals, where it’s like the way we move is what we are creating doesn’t mean we never, ever move fast, right?

But just to bring the mindfulness and the in intentional intentionality to like, these are mirrors of each other. I really think about that, I would say on an almost daily basis because it can feel indulgent. To pay attention to yourself and to focus on these small pieces when there are so many big things happening.

But they are intricately connected and so the way we treat ourselves, the way we treat our neighbors, the way we are in community with other people. The way we support our team is not separate from like our bigger vision of what we’re trying to build or create. It’s actually a part of it.

And so I try to make that explicit as much as possible. Yeah. And her writing around that has been really like, key for me. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Thank you that inspires and that word is so beautiful and it also reminds me in conversations with others that. There are people that I’ve spoken with, the one who lives in an apartment building and it dawned on that person that they don’t know their neighbors.

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And there’s something about these times that it inspired to say, bake some cookies and knock on a door and say, Hey, are you okay? 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And hand ’em over a few seconds of connection. And I also love what you said about facilitation. And I think in these times what we also see is some spontaneous facilitation.

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And somebody’s out there doing something individual, indivisible in a big way is doing a lot of fa facilitating. But even locally on a street, people facilitating something. Or sometimes we’ve seen when there’s an accident, somebody will set up something, somebody else will make a call, somebody else will direct traffic.

It’s within us. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That facilitation. And what is it that inspires you about that word and how do you actually facilitate, because your work is a lot of coaching, which is a form of facilitation. Yeah. What other types of facilitation do you see 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. In 

Kim Allchurch Flick: your world? 

Tessa Bridge: So I do, team coaching, and I also do trainings and workshops, so that is like directly facilitating groups which I really love to do. It facilitation is a little bit of a dance of like creating the space and bringing in whatever the content is, but then allowing the group to fill that space. And you’re creating like just enough structure and safety for folks to be able to take risks and be vulnerable in there.

But allowing the flexibility for the group to go where it needs to go. And I really love that. And that’s a skill I’ve like very intentionally worked on myself to be able to hold that space in that way. And I think, as you’re saying, sometimes it’s not like I’m like capital F facilitating. I think it’s just when somebody is new to your community, how do you welcome them in? When somebody has something or needs something and you know somebody else has it, how do you connect them? Just how do you bring people together? And I think so many of us lead such siloed and individualistic lives, and I just really believe that coming together.

Fills us up and makes us stronger and builds connections right where we are. It’s part of why I got into local organizing, right? It’s just like I wanna be a part of and have impact in the community where I live, right? It’s the federal government so far feel so far away and so challenging to influence or impact no matter what the administration sometimes, and.

But here in our local communities, we can make a really big difference with our voices, with our energy, with our votes, with our organizing. 

And that is really powerful to make the community into something where everyone belongs and has what they need. I think that’s like the driving force for me of a lot of what I do.

And yeah, like bringing people together. Not being afraid of disagreement or differences of opinion, right? Creating space where we can have co, have things in common and maybe have some things not in common, right? We don’t have to agree on everything, but where we are collectively working.

Towards building towards like a community and a future for everyone. And I think that is a thing that makes me really optimistic. Like these smaller examples of community and community care and neighborliness and knowing each other. I think that’s part of what gets us where we need to go.

Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That makes me optimistic as well. And to that point, there’s a couple things. I know there’s other studies, but there have been a couple of interesting thought experiments through Great Britain where they did that on purpose. And one was just putting two people together that they know were politically on different.

Different pathways and they said, whatever you do, don’t talk about politics. But they put people together and say, have lunch. And what came out of it was they discovered what they had in common. How many kids they have, how many if they do or don’t, what what movies they like. Oh, these things that melt some of the tension and bring it back to, we all wanna keep.

Our family’s safe. We want a community where we feel safe, we wanna go to movies, we wanna buy food, we all these things that are so common. And yeah, I was thinking about that when you were talking about that. And I’m also wondering how and congratulations on your, I look at it as a brave thing ’cause I’m such an introvert and I’m a backstage player, but how was your experience running for city council and what do you learn about community?

And policy, which some people, yeah, and I’m one of them sometimes that feel like policy makers and legislations are a different world than community. Yeah. But they shouldn’t be. Yeah. They should be. So intersected. What are some things that you can share about that experience and what can we, as people do to help get our voices across to legislators and policy makers?

Tessa Bridge: Yeah, that’s a great question. There were many things that were really amazing about running, running. I didn’t win. So there’s that. That’s okay. There were many things, but you ran 

Kim Allchurch Flick: and 

Tessa Bridge: that’s, but I did, I ran and I ran because I was asked to run by my community. And I think for me that was critically important, like that I felt I had been doing organizing work and, people who I trusted, who knew me, encouraged me to do it. And so like that service orientation I think for me was really important. So I was rooted in the community when I did it, so that matters. And that really was my orientation. And I was living in a progressive community that had a fair amount of resources.

And so I really ran a campaign that was sort of like. Let’s do the things that we need to do, right? Let’s say like we are going to build more housing. We are going to come up with 

Creative solutions to supporting folks’ mental health. Like we are going to run a campaign based on like, how do you actually create dignity or treat people with dignity?

And we can do that. We can do that here and we can then be a model for how to do that. And that was my approach. And I mean it’s a massive learning curve. Like it’s one thing to have worked on political campaigns, but to be the candidate is a massive learning curve. I had to learn how to get very clear on what I was articulating, both in a one-on-one conversation like this, like when I’m knocking the door, but also in a debate and also in an op-ed, and, just like, how am I gonna really clearly say what I wanna say again and again, I had to really learn.

How to take criticism and figure out like what is criticism that’s like constructive and I wanna take this on board, which of course there was. And what is criticism that’s like, fair enough, but that isn’t going to penetrate to me. Like I’m, this is just not something that actually is helpful or that I want to let in.

You have to learn how to have a thick skin. Interesting. And. Mostly, I just talked to so many people. Like I, I talked to so many people and that was like a real joy and a real honor to be, people open their doors and you’d stand there. And you talk and you ask what’s going on in your life?

What do you need? Here are some things that I think, what do you think about that? Some of those conversations are very feel good. Some of those conversations are challenging, but I think just. Being willing to have those conversations. I made a commitment that in my race I was gonna really put energy and time into canvassing folks who are less politically engaged.

So we had a lot of renters in our community who don’t tend to vote as much in local elections. So I put a lot of energy towards that. Bringing people into the political process. Like this is what a local election is like, are you registered? Like how, inviting folks into that. And that was really important to me.

So I really try to live out my values in that campaign. And I think you asked me something else about policy. What was the other part of your question about policy? 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh, it’s about. That policy and legislation can seem distant. 

Tessa Bridge: Yes. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: And how to make it tangible and also to be able to share a voice that can help support or at least question or move those heavy hitters that are 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah.

Kim Allchurch Flick: Making those decisions. 

Tessa Bridge: I think it goes back to what the example you gave about when you have to make hard decisions. And there are a lot of variables out there, right? Like you gave the example of we need the money. Do we take this contract? Centering the values in that if you are clear on your values and you have been transparent with your constituents about your values and you are making a vote or bringing forth legislation, I would say you should be able to articulate the ties between those things.

It sometimes gets opaque and wordy and that is true, like writing legislation is a specific skill. And it’s not gonna necessarily make everyone happy all the time. And I think that’s another thing I really learned in this is the tendency we have to put our leaders on a pedestal and create that distance and almost like a lack of humanity with folks who are sometimes in leadership.

Because leaders are gonna make mistakes, they’re gonna learn. And if we think it’s supportive of where we wanna go. Supporting them in that journey and staying with them through that journey. I think rather than, treating folks as expendable is important and we need, do, need to hold our leaders accountable, right?

So it’s like a both and but I think just like tying to the values and being able to tell the story in a way that makes sense to. Everyday people who put you where you are. I think that is something that sometimes gets lost in our political system, or you can tell which you can tell which politicians are doing that and which aren’t.

So I, I think that like really trying to this is what we believe as a community, and either what you’re doing is supporting that or it isn’t it doesn’t have to be that much more complicated than that. And I think that’s part of what we’re seeing. It’s like when the value. When there’s that values disconnect, we know what that feels like.

And so in some ways, it’s like really trusting ourselves and our intuition around what is okay and what isn’t. And that we as the community have the right and the wisdom to hold our leaders accountable to do that 

Kim Allchurch Flick: we have the right and the wisdom. I love that. Thank you. And thank you for running it.

It matters. It counts it all, it really does matter. Action matters. What is, what more would you like to share before we start to get into our closing questions? 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah, I I’d like to share that I’m writing a book. It’s, it, I hoped that it’ll be ready by now, but it’s not quite. But it will be coming out at some point this year.

And that is about a lot of the things that we’ve talked about here. Like how do we, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: excellent. 

Tessa Bridge: Creates just sustainability in the way we lead while being relentlessly focused on values and on justice. How do we hold both those things and some of the beliefs that are so deeply entrenched for so many of us but maybe keeping us stuck in doing things in the same way so.

Keep an eye out for that. And the other thing I guess I’d like to say is just that people don’t have to figure this out alone. I feel like particularly when we are in leadership roles, it can feel really scary to admit like, I don’t know what I’m doing, or I feel really bad all the time, or I have lost the spark that I once had for this.

Or, I thought I was prepared, but. Now I’m feeling woefully unprepared. Can I even do this? All these thoughts that kind of keep us awake at three in the morning. And there’s really no reason to do it alone because, I have the privilege of seeing across people and across organizations and so many folks are struggling with the same thing.

So just whether that’s finding a coach who you can have a judgment free space with to like actually unpack where you might be stuck and begin to make those changes. Whether that’s really opening up with other leaders and creating community around the challenges that we are facing in this moment, I just think.

The more we are able to be open and honest about that, the more we’re gonna be able to build a different way to move forward. And I think leaders deserve that gentleness and that care. And people deserve leaders who have that, who have done that work, right? Because it will make us. Better what we do.

So just you don’t have to do it by yourself. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Oh, that is so profound. People deserve leaders who have done that work and I think many of us who’ve had managers know the difference. Yes. And that team work is also when it’s team care and team involvement and team engagement. 

Tessa Bridge: Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: That it builds such a.

It’s so much stronger than isolation and just doing work because for the paycheck, but doing work for the joy and collaboration is a whole different feeling. Thank, yeah. People want their 

Tessa Bridge: humanity. Humanity to be part of their work where we spend most of our days, you know? 

Kim Allchurch Flick: In indeed. And this will be in the show notes along with connections for purchasing the book.

How can people reach you? 

Tessa Bridge: You can find me on LinkedIn if you just look for Tessa Bridge and you can also go to my website, which is tessa bridge coaching.com. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: Perfect. And the final question is, if you could have dinner with anyone living or dead up to a table of four that includes you, who would that person or person be and why?

Tessa Bridge: Yeah, I had fun thinking about this question. So the first one is my best friend, her name is Rose. She lives in Boston, which is where I used to live. I miss her very much, and we talk on the phone all the time, but if I could have dinner with someone, I would love to have dinner with her.

And the Y is just, there are those people, we all have them in our lives who just lift our spirit and are like the touch people, touchstone people who we can be fully ourselves with. Who we leave those connection points like more energized than when we came together. And I just think. We need to spend as much time with those people as we can.

And Rose is one of those people for me. And then on a different level. I would love to invite a OC to dinner. I really admire her. We both entered politics around the same time, although obviously our trajectories were different, we’re similar ages. And I would just love to learn from her how she is able to.

Stay focused, how she takes care of herself. And how she’s navigated the spotlight she’s been under while doing so many powerful and important things that really make a material difference in people’s lives. So 

Kim Allchurch Flick: indeed, 

Tessa Bridge: yeah, she’s somebody who really inspires me. And then the third person I thought of was my grandmother who passed away.

When I was a teenager, but she’s the one who taught me when I was a kid that slower is faster. That was one of her sayings and I think of her all the time, and that’s one of those seeds of wisdom that I heard one way as a child, but that has come back around for me in so many different ways.

Throughout my own journey, and I would love to sit down and have dinner with her as an adult and be able to really hear her wisdom at this stage of my life. Because even that gem, has traveled with me and so shaped the way that I see the world. And I think the three of them would be one hell of a dinner party.

So

Yeah. 

Kim Allchurch Flick: I wish we lived in the same city because I would love to have dinner with you. I think that would 

Tessa Bridge: yeah, 

Kim Allchurch Flick: be the beginning of one of my tables. Wonderful. I appreciate you so much. Thank you. Tessa Bridge of Tessa Bridge Coaching for this conversation in January, 2026. And this is Kim lik signing off, which you all have.

Very good day. Take care. 

Tessa Bridge: Bye.