Episode Details

Theresa Lynn spent 17 years climbing the ranks at TELUS, from field manager to GM Alberta South to strategic programs director. Then in 2022, a mysterious illness took her out of the corporate world entirely. Kari and Theresa talk about the messy middle of that transition - the shower floor, the fights with a husband who wanted to help, the guilt of relying on someone else's paycheque - before getting into how that unraveling led Theresa to Oxford, to a new industry, and eventually to founding Clarity at Work, an HR and AI governance practice serving business owners across Western Canada. The conversation then turns practical: what AI governance actually means for a small or mid-sized business, why most AI implementations fail, and how to give a team permission to innovate instead of just handing them a list of rules.

Key Topics Discussed:

• The slow roll to sickness - a summer of cardiac scans, MRIs, and a bone marrow biopsy that led nowhere
• The moment Theresa's doctor told her she wasn't letting anyone down but herself
• Why Theresa decided she wasn't going back to her old role, and the three-week Caribbean cruise that became her unofficial exit from TELUS
• The hardest part of the transition -  accepting financial support from her husband, and the guilt of going from a six-figure career to "honey, I'm broke"
• Turning 50 and buying a plane ticket to Oxford before telling anyone
• The exercise, inside a 29-person cohort from around the world, that gave Theresa the language for her purpose, and where the name "Clarity at Work" actually came from
• Why 80% of AI implementations fail, and what most organizations get wrong from the start
• The bowling alley theory of AI governance - why the goal isn't more rules, it's clear gutters and permission to knock the pins down in between
• Shadow AI, the risk hiding in plain sight when employees quietly use tools nobody's signed off on
• Theresa's framework for treating AI like a new intern instead of an expert
• Why business owners starting over in midlife aren't starting from zero, and what changes when you're at the peak of your career instead of the beginning of it
• What "anchored" means for Theresa, and the one non-negotiable she built into her business from day one

Theresa's story is a reminder that the low points don't disqualify you from the next chapter,  they're often what make you good at it. She didn't get to Clarity at Work in spite of the shower floor and the summer of unanswered tests. She got there because of what those months taught her about setting expectations, asking for help, and protecting what matters. Whether it's a health crisis, a career pivot, or just the quiet realization that your business needs clearer gutters, the throughline is the same: define your non-negotiables, get honest about what you actually need, and trust that the mess is part of the story, not a detour from it.

That's the practice at the centre of Anchored Leadership, staying regulated and clear-headed enough, even mid-crisis, to lead yourself and everyone counting on you.

If this episode had you thinking about the "gutters" in your own business, where you actually need rules versus where your team just needs permission, that's exactly the work we do inside the Anchored Leadership Academy. The next cohort of the Anchored Leadership Academy opens this fall.

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