LaRae Quy was an undercover and counterintelligence FBI agent for 25 years. She exposed foreign spies and recruited them to work for the U.S. Government. As an FBI agent, she learned about surviving in an environment of risk, uncertainty, and deception. Faced with stressful and fast-moving situations, she needed to move through barriers if she was to succeed.

LaRae believes that barriers come in all shapes and forms. For some, it is a self-limiting belief; for others, it is a glass ceiling. We need to develop a strong mind so we can break through them and keep moving forward.

A Strong Mind is the birthplace of personal leadership development. It is the ability for each person to look inward and find solid ground when the going gets tough. Strong minds identify productive patterns of behavior so they can become successful in areas that are important to them. Once individuals understand their behavioral patterns, they can choose to respond from a place of strength when confronted with risk and uncertainty in unpredictable situations.

LaRae’s work will help you can excavate the significance of your own stories and experiences to probe beneath the surface and peel back the layers of truth about yourself. True personal leadership is humble about strengths and honest about weaknesses. LaRae believes in embracing the person you were meant to be—the culmination of your desires, gifts, talents, and life experiences. This will enable you to create the awareness needed to make decisions that reflect your values and mission in life.

LaRae is an investigator by training, and one of the first things she learned as an FBI agent is that, while theories are nice, data is better. She will show you how to do your own sleuthing to help you find out what works for you.

During her four months of training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, LaRae was ensconced in a culture that valued physical strength. Surrounded by athletes and former police officers, she found herself in a hostile environment that openly questioned her qualifications to become an FBI agent, even though she had scored exceptionally high on cognitive and personality tests. She was perceived as being both female and powerless.

Feeling defeated, criticized, and beaten down, LaRae refused to let the way that others defined her at the FBI Academy change the way she defined herself. Instead of being intimidated, their criticism only fueled her determination. She developed the mental toughness to break through the barriers that stood between her and the goal of becoming an FBI agent. She knew she needed to find a way to signal to herself, and others around who were skeptical of her abilities, that she was leadership material.

LaRae can show you how to do the same thing in your life. Her work will show you that whether it is a new relationship, a personal loss, or a new job, the way in which we engage the obstacles that meet us in life is determined by our willingness to break through barriers.