Why Braveminds?

Most of our days at idealis are spent working with leaders at the top of large organizations. With over twenty years inside those organizations — as a chief human resources officer, as an executive coach to CEOs, and in boardrooms advising companies — there is a pattern I see consistently across industries and geographies. Smart, capable, accomplished adults who cannot do the thing that I see my kids still do instinctively. They struggle to say I don’t know. They are reluctant to admit I got that wrong. They fear speaking up in a room full of people to say something here doesn’t feel right to me. They learned, somewhere along the way, that those things were not safe to do. And so they stopped.
‍

That is why I am committed to building BraveMinds. A program for student leaders to prepare them for a world that they will soon enter.
‍

We aren’t building BraveMinds because children need to be fixed. We are building the program because they don’t — yet. We have worked with too many adults in leadership roles who have spent decades unlearning the very things that we know make a great leader: a high level of honesty, a ravenous degree of curiosity, a humble willingness to be wrong in front of others and to learn. By the time we work with these adults, the mindsets are fixed. It can take years to unwind. Some never get there. BraveMinds is the intervention I wish had existed for them, earlier in their lives.
‍

It is built from everything we know as psychologists, educators and parents — from coaching executives who struggle to tell hard truths, from building cultures inside companies where bravery is scarce and fear quietly runs the show, and from watching our own children navigate a world that is harder and less forgiving of imperfection than the one we grew up in. The premise is simple though the work is not: bravery is a skill to build, not a trait we are born with. It can be taught. And it is best taught at an early age alongside other brave leaders who can, over time, be a collective force of bravery in the world.

“Bravery is a skill to build, not a trait we are born with. It can be taught.”

The program builds confidence from within, and sets the stage for conditions that enable a brave mind to endure. Brave Minded students have the capacity to stay honest and grounded under pressure, to act from values rather than fear, to stay true to who they are and remain open to others at the same time. These are the things companies spend millions trying to develop in their senior leaders. They are what children, given the right environment, are still naturally inclined toward.

I am a parent first. I feel the same pull you may feel — to protect, to smooth the path, to make it easier on my kids when possible. But I know the cost of relying on others and not building resilience from within. I’ve seen it in some of the world’s most powerful leaders who are re-learning this later in life. The world does not get easier. It gets more complex, more ambiguous, and more demanding of exactly the capacities we are tempted to shield our children from developing. Speaking up when it’s hard. Trying when it seems impossible. Being a force for good when you may feel alone. Standing up for values in moments that test them. Being there for others when it’s easier to dismiss. Asking for help when it’s all too much.

The leaders the world needs right now — people who can navigate uncertainty without losing themselves, who can lead with courage and care in the same breath — are sitting in classrooms today. They are your children. They are mine.
‍

What we do with this moment matters. We hope you and your family will join us in building a world of leaders who are brave enough to be human.