Laurie Drummond
Founder of Sisterhood Collective
Strength is usually built inside systems that demand it.
For Laurie Drummond, that system was the military. Thirteen years in intelligence roles, including time in Iraq, shaped how she operated under pressure. Calm. Disciplined. Composed. In that world, structure was clear, and expectations were defined. You knew what excellence looked like, and you knew where you stood.
What worked there did not automatically work later.
This episode explores what happens when the system that formed you no longer fits the life you want to build.
→ Listen to the full podcast conversation
The Green Pill Moment
Laurie’s Green Pill moment was not a dramatic collapse. It was quieter than that. It was the decision to leave the army and choose a path that felt aligned with who she was becoming, rather than who she had been trained to be.
Inside the military, identity is reinforced daily. Rank, responsibility, hierarchy. Outside of it, those things disappear. There is no uniform to signal competence. No structure to lean on. Leaving meant stepping into uncertainty without the familiar markers of success.
The realization was unsettling. The strength that served her in one environment did not automatically translate into fulfillment in another.
The Real Tension Beneath the Story
Founders often build their companies the same way Laurie built her early career. Through resilience. Through compartmentalization. Through the ability to endure discomfort without complaint.
In the beginning, those traits are assets. They help you survive. They help you push through when others stop.
Over time, they can quietly become something else.
Compartmentalization can become emotional distance. Endurance can become staying too long in environments that no longer fit. The very discipline that once built momentum can make it harder to admit misalignment.
Laurie speaks about the importance of the “right room.” Not as a slogan, but as a lived reality. The people around you shape what you tolerate, what you aspire to, and how honestly you show up. When the room no longer reflects who you are becoming, staying is still a choice.
Her transition into building Sisterhood Collective did not begin with a grand strategy. It started with small gatherings. Conversations. Safe spaces. What emerged was not just community, but a different operating environment, built intentionally rather than inherited.
What This Changes for Leaders
Pay attention to the system shaping you: The culture around you influences more than performance. It shapes identity. If your environment consistently pulls you away from your values, that tension will eventually surface somewhere else.
Reconsider resilience: Endurance is not always growth. Sometimes strength looks like stepping away rather than pushing through.
Be deliberate about the rooms you choose: The conversations you participate in, the peers you confide in, and the spaces you create will determine what feels possible. The environment is not the background. It is leverage.
Remember that staying is a decision: It is easy to frame change as risky. Remaining in misalignment carries its own cost, even if it is less visible.
The Question to Sit With
Where in your leadership are you holding onto a system that once shaped you, but no longer reflects who you are becoming?
Not because it is right. Because it is familiar.
Listen for the Full Context
→ Listen to the full podcast conversation
This executive perspective captures the structural tension within the conversation. The episode follows Laurie’s transition from military life to entrepreneurship, the creation of Sisterhood Collective, and the role of community in conscious decision-making.
For leaders navigating reinvention, this conversation offers something steady rather than dramatic. Growth is not always about accelerating. Sometimes it begins with stepping out of the system that built you.
