About – Your Leadership Recipe

Your Leadership Recipe isn’t about US. It’s about YOU and YOUR movement.

Our participants are movers, shakers, and movement makers.

Mid-career professionals. Entrepreneurs. Moms. Sisters. Friends. Corporate executives. Teachers. Non-profit mavens. Gender non-conforming humans. Movement leaders. Folx who long to lead. Women who already ARE leading. These are our people.

We’ve had so many different types of people benefit from the frameworks we teach at Your Leadership Recipe including graduate students, multi-six figure entrepreneurs, single parents, black women struggling to claim space in primarily white offices, queer humans looking to find their space in a mostly cis world, a CFO of a large community non-profit in a national growth phase, coaches, consultants, film producers, artists, energy healers, and so much more.

But they are all LEADERS.

They are all deeply integrous (or striving to be) human beings with a deep longing to expand their success while making the world a better place–either for individuals, the communities they lead or exist in, and/or globally. And they are hell-bent on doing so without doing harm to themselves, the well-being of their circles of influence, and the world at large.

(*When I say women we mean ALL women AND gender non-conforming folx who have experienced oppression due to femininity and/or woman-hood. Gender and identity-at-large are sticky things. People on our team have wrestled with finding peace in identities including being the least harmful white person possible in a world of white supremacy, gender non-conformity, claiming space as a black woman in a world that wants you both more white and more black at the same time, owning feminism and releasing white-only feminism. Think of this event as centered around women, and women identified folks. So that being said, any self-identified woman or gender non-conforming/trans-feminine/has-experienced-life-as-a-woman-at-some-point-in-time-and-still-living-in-it human is welcome.)

And yet, they’ve struggled with the HOW…Are you struggling with that too?

HOW can you expand your capacity for leadership within your communities and circles of influence OR globally, without saying the wrong thing, sacrificing intimacy, or losing integrity?

You want to grow — financially and otherwise, but you also care deeply about how your expansion will be perceived, who it will affect directly, and how your messaging may or may not be global.

Sound like you? You’re in the right place. That’s where we come in.

Spoiler: We’re the best-kept, top-secret ingredient behind our clients doing good work without harming themselves or others in the process.

Working with us, our clients experience…

Increased revenues (without fear of how it will be perceived) by two, three, five, and ten fold within days, weeks, and months of start,
A deep sense of peace, an inner knowing that a new way of being allows them to step into their fullest, most potent leadership role,
A complete and utter revelation that they are meant for bigger, better, world-changing things, and that it is in their best interest to release parts of their career that have held them back,
The unveiling of a new with self that was made possible only by allowing themselves to crack open inside a container made specifically for them to do so (hint: our team created that container),
Breaking from notion that the “norm” in their industry isn’t good enough, and that they are the exact person to lead the change.

If you can take the heat, get into the kitchen…

We support our clients and participants to become the leaders they truly dream of being, without overstepping boundaries, minimizing potential harm, or accidentally excluding people in need of their help.

Here’s Our Recipe For Equitable Leadership

Inclusion, Diversity and Intersectionality aren’t about ratios and ‘being a good person’.

They matter because if you claim to want to change ’the world’, you best mean impacting as much of that world as humanly possible. We are about doing no harm, stopping the history of marginalization, and elevating people with voices that matter. Not just white, straight voices that matter.

'Give Back’ Campaigns shouldn’t be used as marketing tactics. Full stop.

Especially if said give back campaign focuses your money overseas, in communities you have limited knowledge of. Non-Profits frequently perpetuate colonialism, and unless you absolutely know a longitudinal study of impact? Often do more harm than good.

Get to know what you know AND what you don't

Your Leadership Recipe allows you to work on your personal, community, and global leadership while also clearly identifying where your current hidden spots are that stop you from making the kind of missteps that do harm to others with identities other than yours.

Your Recipe is the Only One That Matters

Sure the greats are worth listening to. But ultimately? You have to (and must) learn to trust your own tastes, desires, and needs. And also, listen to how your community longs to be served.

Leadership is NEVER one size fits all (or even most)

Your Leadership Recipe is a methodology crafted over more than a decade of leadership development and research. It works for teams, corporations, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, musicians, and more. How is that possible? Because it isn’t a formula, it isn’t about following steps a-z, or building 12 habits. It’s about diving to the core of your desires, and cultivating how you want to show up in this world.

Being a Leader isn’t only about ‘making money’

Leading a charge, and creating change cannot only be about bringing home the cheddar. It also has to be about how you create and leverage impact. Case in point? There are plenty of billionaires doing interesting work, but how many of them are actually leading? Leadership isn’t about building castles in the sky, it’s about creating change, utilizing your skillsets, and doing good work that minimizes harm for yourself, the earth, or others.

The Founder’s Recipe

Start with a vintage, enameled cast iron Dutch Oven (teal is her favorite).

Then sauté a mirepoix of business acumen, marketing, and strategy; pour in a good bottle of Integral Coaching methodology; add a cup of movement and spirituality; and a hearty handful of feminist theory. Whisk gently. Follow with a sprinkle each of intuition, wry comedy, and truth talking; and finally a dash of Tibetan theories of Emptiness. Place in the shade for two hours on a bright sunshine-y day and VOILA! You’d have Makenna Held.

Makenna is the founder of the Your Leadership Recipe methodology, REAL Marketing, the Courageous Cooking ™ school, and an author, speaker, coach, and consultant. With experience spanning from Academia to Marketing to Non-Profit Work to Entrepreneurship, Makenna is uniquely positioned to support business leaders in carving their unique success path.

Makenna has led classrooms as a favorite professor for multiple years, directed the world’s largest (and most lucrative) online advertising funnel, founded a non-profit in rural Kenya that shattered ideas of how ‘development’ work could be done, and now operates as the CEO of over four different businesses. Really. She’s got a record label, a cooking school, this here leadership training company, in addition to a few other top secret projects brewing.

In addition to an obsession with cooking and world-changing entrepreneurship, Makenna Held holds a master’s degree from NYU in private sector development, and is a PhD candidate in Critical Theory with a ragtag bunch of theorists in Switzerland (her research is on the gendering of food and leadership #pushesupnerdglasses).

She’s been featured in Food & Wine, YFS Magazine, MindBodyGreen, CondeNast Traveler, Vogue Online, and much more.

In 2015 she followed the wild hair of her intuition and managed to purchase (with the help of investors) La Pitchoune, Julia Child’s Former summer home in France. Since then, she has created The Courageous Cooking School at La Pitchoune; The HeartFirst Method–a movement and coaching methodology for leaders based on Integral Coaching methods; and has published her first book The Intention Generation (Which now you can only get by being in her programs).

Makenna uses coaching, live events, speaking, and writing to unpack how we’ve been trained to discredit women leaders (especially those of color) and focus our ‘leadership’ interests on under-qualified, white men in suits who claim false authority as their leadership methodology rather than showing us their capacity to actually lead. Hint: She thinks this is highly problematic.

Makenna splits her time between on the road in the United States in Vera, her VW Bus and of course…La Pitchoune in the South of France. Her traveling companions include her husband — a rock and roll librarian named Chris and her daughter Magnolia.

Curious how we can help you expand your leadership, revenue, and impact?

Apply here & let’s talk

Andréa Ranae Johnson

Co-Founder, Coach, Facilitator, Teacher

Andréa Ranae’s work offers practical tools, resources and wisdom that supports people with a vision for change to show up with integrity, own their power and practice radical service. She is deeply committed to doing her part in cultivating a world that works for everyone and does so by placing her work at the intersections of personal growth and social justice. Thrugh her Liberatory Leadership framework she’ll teach the praxis within Your Leadership Recipe and help you get free of the barriers keeping you from making your unique impact.

Monica Prince

Co-Founder, Writer, Educator, Facilitator

Monica Prince is a writer, teacher, and choreopoet. Within leadership recipe she facilitates transformational writing opportunities to unlock hidden things we’ve been avoiding. She teaches activist and performance writing at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, and she acts as managing editor of the Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly. She’s the author of Instructions for Temporary Survival (Red Mountain Press, 2019), winner of the 2018 Discovery Award, and Letters from the Other Woman (Grey Book Press, 2018). Her choreopoem, How to Exterminate the Black Woman, which premiered to sold-out audiences at Susquehanna University in 2018, will be published by [PANK] in spring 2020. Her poetry, essays, interviews and literary tattoos can be found in numerous online and print publications, including MadCap Review, december, The Rumpus, Fourth & Sycamore, TRACK//FOUR, and elsewhere.

Erin P.S. Zimmerman

Visibility Guide + Strategist

Erin P.S. Zimmerman is the owner of EZ Visibility, where she serves as the Visibility Guide, helping marginalized voices create fun, sustainable action plans to grow their brands and make a name for themselves with ease.

Erin has helped her clients create courses, write books, start podcasts, and even leave their 9-5 jobs. She currently resides in Kansas City, Missouri with her husband.

Applause, Impact, and What They Say ::

— Sarah Silvas, sarahsilvas.com
“Working with Makenna has been a big game changer for me, both personally and professionally. Although I was experiencing a lot of success in my business, something was off and I was struggling to feel ease and joy in my work like I once did. I knew I needed to make some changes, but I was paralyzed by fear and self-doubt. Makenna is the no bullshit coach and that I needed. She firmly (but lovingly) pushed me to face those fears and move through the self-doubt.

As a result, I’ve changed the way I work with clients, discovered a new market that’s perfect for my future plans, and have the confidence to accomplish all of my goals – not to mention the strategy I need to actually make it happen! Our weekly coaching sessions provide the accountability, strategy, and support I was missing.

AND the in-person retreat? LIFE CHANGING! Not only did I make new friends, I experienced MASSIVE personal growth during my time at La Peetch. I can’t wait to spend another week with this magical unicorn of a woman!”
— Rachel Barbic – Rachel Barbic, LLC
As small business people–artists with our own gallery celebrating 20 years–we are enjoying and managing a national/international trajectory. We have a lovely brain trust; a variety of folks we routinely talk with about direction, priorities, and marketing. Makenna Johnston’s ability to drill down on clear ideas that bring results is an important and effective arrow in our quiver. As we field her recommendations through the rest of the brain trust, especially the collectors and museum people, we consistently find her strategies are right on point and confirmed whole-heartedly. Grateful for her large and loving brain. Our advise is…listen to her.
— Sandra Martinez, The Martinez Studio
“Working with Makenna is like working with an exceptional teacher or personal trainer. The work is hard, and you’re expected to bring your A game, but no matter how tiring, challenging, or scary-icky-feels you have to go through…you do it because you’ve just had your inner light mirrored back to you in a way that helps you rise to the occasion with the fullness of your being,

Makenna serves from such an egoless place. What she does and how she supports is SO effortless and it’s breathtakingly beautiful to watch from both the outside looking in, and from someone who got to engage with that on a personal level.”
— Alexis Morgan, Alexis P. Morgan
“Hire Makenna because she’ll bring truth, inspiration and energy into the space, and she’ll activate your audience to ask themselves deeper questions they wouldn’t have thought of to consider.”
— Ana Kinkela, anikinkela.com
“She’ll light your audience on fire and inspire them to go out and spark change. She’s passionate, engaging and deeply thoughtful about making the world around her and her audience, a better place.”
— Ellen Ercolini, thefrequencymethod.com
“I was intrigued by Makenna’s energy on Facebook. I kept sensing a force pulling me towards learning more about her work and offerings. I immediately loved the way she merged food and creating recipes and ingredients. I was drawn to the ways she spoke about leadership and women. She seemed to have a sense of shifting things, of pushing people to find/expect more nourishment as well as personal growth.”
— Tracy Brooks, soulbeckons.com
“Makenna’s ease and grace while broaching integral, hot topics, translates to the audience’s ease in soaking in the information and readiness to participate. She’s dynamic, engaging, and thought-provoking!”
— Sarah Silvas, sarahsilvas.com
“Her personality, especially when she is in her zone presenting, is magnetic and you just want to listen.”
— Melissa Gerrior
“I had been following her for over a year before actually ever reaching out, but once I did, she lit my world on fire! What I love about Mak Jo is that she is both woo and action-oriented. She doesn’t support you in waiting for things to happen, but instead encourages you to get shit done using very practical steps AND believing in the power of magic.

I came to Mak with a very limited viewpoint on where I could go. I was tired of hearing what I should do. She asked what I wanted to do. It was such a relief to hear a coach not give me the 6-figure, get-rich-quick talk. She really supported me in seeing the infinite possibilities that lay before me. I immediately found so much resonating with me and actually WORKING. I saw RESULTS. She gets you to where you want to be by asking the right questions, supporting you in formulating an action plan, and continuing to be there as you go out and create the life you want (with the flexibility to change it whenever you want).”
— Sarina Harz, Creative Harz
“My session with Makenna was incredibly insightful. I came into the call having no idea what to expect. Within minutes, Makenna gleaned the necessary info to get me on the right path. Within a few weeks after our call, I launched my first book on Amazon and to rave reviews.

Makenna helped me see that I did in fact have the capacity to realize my vision, and with her support, I was able to access the confidence and clarity to step fully into my power.”
— Caitlin Padgett, caitlinpadgett.com