Executive coaching and keynote speaking for women 45 and up. New York, Westchester, Long Island, Northern New Jersey, and Fairfield County.
The mask was fitted a long time ago. You are allowed to take it off.
Dr. Cheryl Burton is a psychotherapist of forty years who works with accomplished women in transition. The ones who look fine. The ones who have been fine for a very long time.
40 years in private practice · Doctorate in Social Welfare · Executive Director, The John Maxwell Team · Certified DISC Consultant · Clients in three countries
You are cold in a house full of people who love you.
On the best day. The day the deal closes, the day you get the standing ovation, the day the client tells you that you changed her life. You go home. And there is a moment in the kitchen, or the car, or the bathroom, when you take a breath and notice something.
You are cold at a table where you have never gone hungry. You are cold in a marriage that is real, in a career that is real, in a legacy your grandmother would have crossed an ocean to have.
You are cold anyway.
There is a reason for that, and it is not a character flaw. A mask does one thing well. It keeps other people out. And when you wear it long enough, it also keeps you in.
Still on the board
It may be checked. But it is never checkmate.
Who you would be working with
I have sat with more women than I can count. I have watched the same thing happen every time.
A woman who looks fine on the outside walks into my office. Twenty minutes into our first session she starts to cry, and she tells me she has never said out loud to anyone what she just said to me. Not to her husband. Not to her mother. Not to her sister. Not to her pastor. Not to her best friend of thirty years.
To me. A stranger. Because someone finally asked her the right question at the right time.
I want to be that question for you.
I am not going to ask you to trust a stranger. I am going to ask you to trust a sojourner. Someone who has walked the road you are walking, who has made decisions she could not talk about, who has carried things in silence for decades. I have carried mine. I know exactly what it costs.
Dr. Cheryl Burton, LCSW, DSW
How this works
Three steps. That is the whole thing.
One
Book a call.
Thirty minutes, no charge. You do not need to explain yourself well. You do not need to have language for it yet. You just have to show up.
Two
Find out what you have been carrying.
We map it together. Where the mask was fitted, what the armor is made of, and what it has been costing you. You will never be asked to relive anything to get there.
Three
Set it down and lead from underneath it.
Coaching, a room, or a retreat, depending on what you need. The destination is the same. You walk into rooms without protection, and the rooms hold.
Ways to work together
Four doors. Same house.
Private Executive Coaching
For the woman who needs one room where she does not have to be impressive. One on one, in Manhattan and Westchester or by video anywhere in the world. Six month engagements.
Keynote Speaking
Fifteen to forty minutes that changes what a room is willing to say out loud. Women's leadership conferences, faith-rooted gatherings, corporate summits, association events.
Events and Retreats
LEAD(her)ship gatherings, in person and virtual. Small rooms. Real work. Women who stop pretending in front of each other and find out the ceiling does not fall in.
Corporate and DISC Consulting
Communication assessments, leadership and mindset workshops, and inclusive culture design for organizations that want their people to stop managing each other and start understanding each other.
What women say afterward
The room is different when someone finally says it.
TK — a corporate event organizer, on what the room was like afterward
TK — a private coaching client, on what changed at home, not at work
TK — a woman from a retreat, on the thing she can now say out loud
Start where you are
Check, Not Checkmate. A seven day practice.
Check means your king is still standing. It means you are still on the board and it is still your move. Checkmate means no move exists.
Most women who come to me have confused the two for about thirty years.
This is the practice I teach. One page a day for seven days, with a breath practice you can do in a parked car before you walk into the building. Free.
No sales sequence. One email a day for seven days, then you decide.
You have done enough. You have earned enough. You have loved enough. To put it down.
Whether you are booking a speaker for a conference in New York, looking for private coaching, or looking for one room where you can stop performing, the next step is the same conversation.
Wounded. Not broken.