Skip to content
Gretchen Hydo International

Menu

  • Services
    • Break Free to BOLD
      • Break Free to BOLD 8-Month Intensive
      • BOLD AF! (Activated & Free) Workshop
      • Emotion Cycle Resource
    • Coaching for Coaches
      • ACTivate Coaches Library
      • Individual Coaching
      • The Round Table
      • Stairway to Six Accelerator
      • ST6 Accelerator – Business Building Workshop
      • Connection Call Scripts
    • Business Coaching
    • Corporate Coaching
    • Self-Leadership Coaching
    • VIP Experience
  • Speaking & Events
  • Blog
  • About
    • Press
  • The Book
  • Contact
    • New Clients – Request a Consult
    • Current Clients Contact
    • Life Purpose Institute
    • Coaching Intake Form
    • Business and Marketing Strategy Questions
    • Session Prep Form
  • Shop
  • Services
    • Break Free to BOLD
      • Break Free to BOLD 8-Month Intensive
      • BOLD AF! (Activated & Free) Workshop
      • Emotion Cycle Resource
    • Coaching for Coaches
      • ACTivate Coaches Library
      • Individual Coaching
      • The Round Table
      • Stairway to Six Accelerator
      • ST6 Accelerator – Business Building Workshop
      • Connection Call Scripts
    • Business Coaching
    • Corporate Coaching
    • Self-Leadership Coaching
    • VIP Experience
  • Speaking & Events
  • Blog
  • About
    • Press
  • The Book
  • Contact
    • New Clients – Request a Consult
    • Current Clients Contact
    • Life Purpose Institute
    • Coaching Intake Form
    • Business and Marketing Strategy Questions
    • Session Prep Form
  • Shop
  • Free to Lead
  • Gift bundle of the book, "Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets: A New You in 10 Secret-Breaking Stages" and the companion workbook, both autographed and including free shipping.
    Books

    Ultimate Transformation Bundle: “Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets” Book and Companion Workbook

    $50.00 Add to cart
  • Autographed companion workbook to "Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets: A New You in 10 Secret-Breaking Stages."
    Books

    Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets: A New You in 10 Secret-Breaking Stages (Companion Workbook)

    $27.00 Add to cart
  • Autographed Softcover book: "Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets" by Gretchen Hydo.
    Books

    Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets: A New You in 10 Secret-Breaking Stages (softcover)

    $25.00 Add to cart
  • Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets: A New You in 10 Secret-Breaking Stages (hardcover)
    Books

    Break Free from Your Dirty Little Secrets: A New You in 10 Secret-Breaking Stages (hardcover)

    $30.00 Add to cart
  • You Got This - Your Ultimate Guide to Creating Good Habits - 2020 version
    eBooks

    eBook – You Got This: Your Ultimate Guide to Creating Good Habits (2020 version)

    $9.95 Add to cart
  • 6 Tips to Building Trust In the Workplace
    Worksheets

    6 Tips to Building Trust In the Workplace

    $5.95 Add to cart
  • 9 Tips For Professional Communication
    Worksheets

    9 Tips For Professional Communication

    $5.95 Add to cart
  • Confidence: Stepping Into Your Authentic Self
    Worksheets

    Confidence: Stepping Into Your Authentic Self

    $5.95 Add to cart
  • How to Lead Like a Woman in a Man’s World: 7 Steps to Your Success
    Worksheets

    How to Lead Like a Woman in a Man’s World: 7 Steps to Your Success

    $5.95 Add to cart
  • What’s Your Freak Factor? 6 Steps to Define Your Personal Brand
    Worksheets

    What’s Your Freak Factor? 6 Steps to Define Your Personal Brand

    $5.95 Add to cart
  • Navigating Challenging Conversations: 9 Tips for Success
    Worksheets

    Navigating Challenging Conversations: 9 Tips for Success

    $5.95 Add to cart
  • Sale! Live By Design Rather Than Default: 5 Tips to Reach Your Goals
    Worksheets

    Live By Design Rather Than Default: 5 Tips to Reach Your Goals

    $5.95 Original price was: $5.95.$0.00Current price is: $0.00. Add to cart

As Featured In

Join Gretchen's Communities
For Coaches
Coaching for Coaches with Gretchen Hydo
Join Us
For Women
Bold AF! Activated & Free
Join Us

A lot of people come to me wanting to talk about leaving.

Their job. Their relationship. Their current version of life.

And sometimes leaving is the right answer. But a lot of the time, what people actually want isn`t to leave. It`s to stop repeating the same cycle in a new location.

Here`s what I know: we don`t outrun our patterns. We carry them with us. Into the next job, the next relationship, the next chapter. Until we actually stop and look at them.

My husband and I almost didn`t make it. Not because we were wrong for each other, but because we were both running old programming that had nothing to do with us and everything to do with where we came from. When we finally got honest about who we were, what we wanted, and what we needed to let go of, everything changed.

That is the work. Not breaking up with your life. Breaking free from the cycles that have been quietly running it.

Real freedom doesn`t come from changing your circumstances. It comes from changing what`s driving your decisions.

That`s exactly what we do inside Free to Lead on July 24.

July 24 | Live on Zoom | 10am to 12:30pm PT | $149

Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #freedom #coachapproach #shefirstworkshop

1 1
Open post by gretchenhydo with ID 18149439586503674
A lot of people come to me wanting to talk about leaving.

Their job. Their relationship. Their current version of life.

And sometimes leaving is the right answer. But a lot of the time, what people actually want isn't to leave. It's to stop repeating the same cycle in a new location.

Here's what I know: we don't outrun our patterns. We carry them with us. Into the next job, the next relationship, the next chapter. Until we actually stop and look at them.

My husband and I almost didn't make it. Not because we were wrong for each other, but because we were both running old programming that had nothing to do with us and everything to do with where we came from. When we finally got honest about who we were, what we wanted, and what we needed to let go of, everything changed.

That is the work. Not breaking up with your life. Breaking free from the cycles that have been quietly running it.

Real freedom doesn't come from changing your circumstances. It comes from changing what's driving your decisions.

That's exactly what we do inside Free to Lead on July 24.

July 24 | Live on Zoom | 10am to 12:30pm PT | $149

Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #freedom #coachapproach #shefirstworkshop

This weekend a lot of us will be celebrating the 4th of July with BBQs, get-to-gethers and fireworks.

I’ve been thinking a lof about this holiday and the word that we are celebrating. Freedom.

And here’s what I know, there are so many things to keep us from being free. Our ideas that no longer serve us but we keep them because we don’t have anything else to replace them with.

Thinking that we know best for someone else or that we have all of the answers.

Closing ourselves off from an open-mind because we are scared of change.

All of us these things become a cage that we create to feel safe, to be right, and to make sense of the world. But that is not freedom.

Independence come from looking in and letting go of what is no longer true.

This weekend while you are celebrating, ask yourself one question: Where are my thoughts keeping me from experiencing freedom spiritually, mentally, physically, or emotionally?

That is the question Free to Lead was built around. On July 24 we go into that room together and we decide what actually gets to stay.

July 24. Live on Zoom. 10am to 12:30pm PT. Investment $149.

Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #independence #freedom #shefirstworkshop

4 1
Open post by gretchenhydo with ID 18182139169405094
This weekend a lot of us will be celebrating the 4th of July with BBQs, get-to-gethers and fireworks. 

I’ve been thinking a lof about this holiday and the word that we are celebrating. Freedom. 

And here’s what I know, there are so many things to keep us from being free. Our ideas that no longer serve us but we keep them because we don’t have anything else to replace them with.

Thinking that we know best for someone else or that we have all of the answers.

Closing ourselves off from an open-mind because we are scared of change.

All of us these things become a cage that we create to feel safe, to be right, and to make sense of the world. But that is not freedom. 

Independence come from looking in and letting go of what is no longer true. 

This weekend while you are celebrating, ask yourself one question: Where are my thoughts keeping me from experiencing freedom spiritually, mentally, physically, or emotionally?

That is the question Free to Lead was built around. On July 24 we go into that room together and we decide what actually gets to stay.

July 24. Live on Zoom. 10am to 12:30pm PT. Investment $149.

Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #independence #freedom #shefirstworkshop

My mother is seventy years old. She left Hungary as a baby and had never been back.

Last month I took her.

My cousin drove us along the same seven mile route her family walked the night they fled in 1956. The same ground. And she sat in that jeep and cried.

She had carried a quiet question for most of her life. Was what her parents did brave or was it negligent? Was taking four children across a border in the middle of the night an act of courage or recklessness?

I watched her face in Hungary when she finally got her answer.

She met cousins she had shared a crib with and never known. She sat with her godmother, now elderly, who told her stories about what she was like as a baby. She was surrounded by a whole branch of her life that had existed without her, that had wondered about her, that had kept a place for her across seventy years and an ocean.

And I watched her understand something for the first time. I had a life here. And I had a life there. And my parents gave me the chance to choose.

That is not negligence. That is the most ferocious kind of love.

I have been thinking about that a lot this week as we head into the Fourth of July. What does it actually mean to choose your life? Not the circumstances you were handed. The version of yourself you are willing to walk toward.

That is the heart of Free to Lead on July 24. Link in the comments if it is landing.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #legacy #independence #shefirstworkshop

3 1
Open post by gretchenhydo with ID 18130172674618629
My mother is seventy years old. She left Hungary as a baby and had never been back.

Last month I took her.

My cousin drove us along the same seven mile route her family walked the night they fled in 1956. The same ground. And she sat in that jeep and cried.

She had carried a quiet question for most of her life. Was what her parents did brave or was it negligent? Was taking four children across a border in the middle of the night an act of courage or recklessness?

I watched her face in Hungary when she finally got her answer.

She met cousins she had shared a crib with and never known. She sat with her godmother, now elderly, who told her stories about what she was like as a baby. She was surrounded by a whole branch of her life that had existed without her, that had wondered about her, that had kept a place for her across seventy years and an ocean.

And I watched her understand something for the first time. I had a life here. And I had a life there. And my parents gave me the chance to choose.

That is not negligence. That is the most ferocious kind of love.

I have been thinking about that a lot this week as we head into the Fourth of July. What does it actually mean to choose your life? Not the circumstances you were handed. The version of yourself you are willing to walk toward.

That is the heart of Free to Lead on July 24. Link in the comments if it is landing.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #legacy #independence #shefirstworkshop

Most of the women I work with are capable, driven, and accomplished. And at a certain point they start asking a deeper question. One that looks less at their goals and more at their soul.

The question shows up in various ways. It might sound like:
Who am I underneath all of the doing?
When is this ever going to stop?
What about me?
What do I want…..to feel, experience, have?
Who do I want to be today and in my next chapter?

These are the questions Free to Lead was built around.

We take a look at your current operating system - the one that has created all of the success. We look at the beliefs you’ve inherited about being a woman as well as the labels that have shaped you. We examine the internal narratives that have been informing your decisions since long before you had any say in them. And we decide which old ideas no longer serve you and what you want to create inside yourself so that you can be Free to Lead. Because what holds us back usually has so little to do with our ability or knowledge base and has everything to do with how we view ourselves inside the world.

This is the work that changes how you lead yourself and others. What you let go of, and what you keep. And we do this by getting clear on who you are today and what your current operating systems consists of.

Friday, July 24
10:00 AM to 12:30 PM PT
Live on Zoom
Investment: $149

If this is your season to get honest about what you are carrying and choose what comes next, I want you in this room.

Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #coachapproachtoleadership #shefirstworkshop

2 1
Open post by gretchenhydo with ID 18100149667903057
Most of the women I work with are capable, driven, and accomplished. And at a certain point they start asking a deeper question. One that looks less at their goals and more at their soul.

The question shows up in various ways. It might sound like:
Who am I underneath all of the doing?
When is this ever going to stop?
What about me?
What do I want…..to feel, experience, have?
Who do I want to be today and in my next chapter?

These are the questions Free to Lead was built around.

We take a look at your current operating system - the one that has created all of the success. We look at the beliefs you’ve inherited about being a woman as well as the labels that have shaped you. We examine the internal narratives that have been informing your decisions since long before you had any say in them. And we decide which old ideas no longer serve you and what you want to create inside yourself so that you can be Free to Lead. Because what holds us back usually has so little to do with our ability or knowledge base and has everything to do with how we view ourselves inside the world. 

This is the work that changes how you lead yourself and others. What you let go of, and what you keep. And we do this by getting clear on who you are today and what your current operating systems consists of. 

Friday, July 24
10:00 AM to 12:30 PM PT
Live on Zoom
Investment: $149

If this is your season to get honest about what you are carrying and choose what comes next, I want you in this room.

Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #freetolead #personalgrowth #coachapproachtoleadership #shefirstworkshop

He told me I had beautiful eyes.

I told him I got them from my mother, slid my sunglasses back on, and kept looking at the view.

I was alone in the back of an Uber in Lake Como. My husband was getting ready for a wedding where he was the best man. The driver pulled over to take a photo. And then he tried to kiss me on a cliff in a foreign country.

I stepped back. I said stop. And then I got back in the car.

I had my phone in my hand. My husband would have answered. He would have come.

I did not call him because a rule older than my marriage told me not to. Do not be inconvenient. Do not be dramatic. Handle it. You are capable.

So I handled it. And I spent the whole drive back coaching myself back to regulated so I could show up for the wedding.

Here is what I know now. The repression was the event. Every time I have made myself manageable so someone else could stay comfortable, that was something happening. That was the cost.

Those rules were brilliant once. They helped me navigate impossible situations. And they followed me all the way to a cliff in Italy, running so quietly I did not even clock them in real time.

This is the work we went into inside Free to Lead. Looking at the rules that were written for a version of us that no longer exists and deciding which ones we actually want to keep.

This month in SheFirst I write the full story. Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #personalgrowth #coachapproach #boundaries

7 3
Open post by gretchenhydo with ID 17919274296180702
He told me I had beautiful eyes.

I told him I got them from my mother, slid my sunglasses back on, and kept looking at the view.

I was alone in the back of an Uber in Lake Como. My husband was getting ready for a wedding where he was the best man. The driver pulled over to take a photo. And then he tried to kiss me on a cliff in a foreign country.

I stepped back. I said stop. And then I got back in the car.

I had my phone in my hand. My husband would have answered. He would have come.

I did not call him because a rule older than my marriage told me not to. Do not be inconvenient. Do not be dramatic. Handle it. You are capable.

So I handled it. And I spent the whole drive back coaching myself back to regulated so I could show up for the wedding.

Here is what I know now. The repression was the event. Every time I have made myself manageable so someone else could stay comfortable, that was something happening. That was the cost.

Those rules were brilliant once. They helped me navigate impossible situations. And they followed me all the way to a cliff in Italy, running so quietly I did not even clock them in real time.

This is the work we went into inside Free to Lead. Looking at the rules that were written for a version of us that no longer exists and deciding which ones we actually want to keep.

This month in SheFirst I write the full story. Link in the comments.

#shefirst #womeninleadership #selfleadership #personalgrowth #coachapproach #boundaries
Follow Gretchen On Instagram
Letters from Gretchen
enter your email for inspiration
09_Footer_CreateGreat.png

©2026 Gretchen Hydo International. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Disclaimer
  • Cookie Policy
Privacy Settings
Cleantalk Pixel
✕