Cydnee DeToy is a Career Coach and Speaker for ambitious millennial women. Cydnee equips clients with the mindsets and strategies to create and thrive in the career they want. She believes our lives should feel as good as our resumes look.
As a coach since 2019, Cydnee has helped over 100 women reimagine their lives. She has worked with clients at Meta, Tiktok, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, PwC, Mayer Brown, Goodwin, Wayfair, and numerous start-ups and social impact organizations.
She speaks about sustaining high-performance and has presented to The Forte Foundation, Old Girls Club, Talea, The Matriarch, Moms Who Health Tech, Wellable and charity:water. Her work has been featured in Slate, Entrepreneur and on various podcasts.
Cydnee left her executive-level role to follow her calling and scale her coaching business in 2023. She is a former strategy consultant, head of people + culture, chief of staff and executive leader.
She draws on her training in business, coaching and yoga in her work with clients. Cydnee has an MBA from NYU Stern, BA from George Washington University and is certified by the Co-Active Training Institute.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
I use my mornings to power the rest of my day. I wake up at 5:30am and either walk my dog or start working (whichever is feeling most urgent). I am my most focused and productive before 9am. Sometimes I wish I was disciplined enough to go to bed earlier because I can do anything – truly anything! – between 5 – 7am.
I time-block my meetings, so I only take partner and client calls on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. This gives me plenty of time and space the rest of the week to work on my business. I’ll write, source partner and speaking opportunities or build client programming.
I slot in workouts depending when and I what I feel drawn towards, and end almost every day at 5pm with a hard stop to walk my dog, which she holds me to! One of the unexpected benefits of being an entrepreneur has been the freedom to shift my work day earlier, which allows me to make the most of my most productive hours.
How do you bring ideas to life?
Oh gosh, I have a bias towards action and am sometimes too quick to and adept at bringing ideas to life. In my former life as a consultant and chief of staff, I mastered work-planning. So once I have the idea, I’ll draft a quick workplan, assign various pieces to my assistant and then we start marching from there. It’s funny, once I get into execution mode, I don’t refer back to the workplan much but it’s critical for me to get all of the interconnected pieces and timelines down on paper.
What’s one trend that excites you?
More and more women reimagining their ambition – and therefore what their professional and personal lives look and feel like. I work with so many women who have been chasing a very linear definition of success – get into a brand name company post-business school and advance as quickly as possible – only to discover that isn’t making them feel happy or fulfilled.
Instead, I’m working with women who are brave enough to say “hey, this isn’t working” and “I want more for my life” and doing deep exploration into their values, priorities and strengths to create a vision for their career (and life) that feels true to who they are and the future they want to build. And then making bold, brave moves to make it happen!
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
As Clifton Strengths Achiever and Human Design Manifesting Generator, I have a pretty steady hum of self-directed output. However, when that drive is flagging – because I’m tired or feel resistant to a task – I’ll set a timer for 30 – 45 minutes and challenge myself to get as much done as possible within that block without checking email or looking at my phone. Inevitably, when my timer goes off, I’m in the flow of the task and will keep going.
I got this hack from Charles Duhigg’s “Smarter, Faster, Better” book which I read ages ago, and its’ kept me plugging away through various chapters of my career.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Give yourself permission to evolve. You’re going to feel called to do things professionally (i.e., become a coach, start your own business) that you could have never imagined coming out of business school ten years ago. Rather than feeling like you’re off track, moving away from your plan or wasting time, trust that you’re evolving. You’re getting to know yourself – what you’re good at, how you want to spend your time, what matters to you – more deeply and making changes accordingly.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you.
Oo, this is a tough one! If I’m being truly honest, perhaps it’s time to rethink America as a single federation of 50 states. We have so many different regions of the countries with divergent norms and beliefs; instead of forcing them to fit together, why not let the regions self-govern?
Similar to my core coaching philosophy of helping clients flourish as they are – not fit into a paradigm someone else made for them – each of these regions could do they same. My hope is that these autonomous regions would collaborate and it’d save everyone – elected leaders and constituents – a lot of stress and heartache.
As a proud native New Englander, I’ve advocated for the country of New England at many a family dinner, only to be met with eye rolls and the litany of reasons it could never happen.
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
Give your mind (and intuition!) time and space to wander. I take at least one-hour long, mostly phone-free walk per day (it’s helpful to have a dog) and try to take a week or a few days of solitude about every six months. Our lives are so noisy that it’s hard to hear ourselves think or feel.
I sometimes feel pressure to optimize my walks – I could be listening to a podcast! learning! growing! – but remind myself that the quiet time is actually strategic. I need that time to process what’s going on in my business and get creative about client needs. I can’t count how many business-shifting sparks of inspiration I’ve gotten on those walks.
Similarly, I’ve found the bi-annual time away to be so important to reset everything – my mind, nervous system and business. I seek out experiences that demand solitude – a few days at a yoga school or a week-long hike – so I am forced to put my phone away. It helps me reset my phone habits and really deeply reflect on what’s working or not.
This will look and feel differently for everyone, depending on their family commitments, work structure, flexibility, etc. So don’t put pressure on yourself to have a perfect solo retreat, but do find your own way to have consistent moments of peace.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
I do one of two things and sometimes both. I’ll redo my to-do list and deprioritize or reschedule as much as possible so I can focus on getting the “big rocks” done. Or I’ll take a walk to get an iced coffee and force myself to take several deep breaths and remind myself “I’ll get it all done” as I’m walking. Without fail, I feel calmer and more clear by the time I get back to my desk.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
It’s fascinating – and took me a while to realize – but what helped accelerate my career is not what’s useful to grow my business.
When I was working for my first consulting promotion out of business school, I hustled. I worked harder than I ever had in my life, making sure everything I delivered was high-quality, taking on extra credit firm citizenship activities and business development proposals.
It worked, and going above and beyond continued to fuel my advancement to the C-Suite.
Now, building a coaching and speaking business, I’ve learned that my energy is the number one driver of success. I have to show up fully present, rested and fueled to give my clients what they need. I have to feel grounded and creative to write a compelling newsletter that connects with readers.
Attuning my energy requires rest, spaciousness and calm, and I’m constantly having to remind myself that.
So hustle for my career and managing my energy for my business.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
There have been several moments in my career when I got to the finish line of a major career-changing opportunity and didn’t get the opportunity.
Short listed for a research Fulbright in my early 20s – didn’t get it. Final round for BCG (three times, actually!) – didn’t get it. Final round for my dream role at a coaching start-up that went on to become a unicorn – didn’t get it.
Instead of allowing myself to create a narrative of “I’m not good enough,” I’ve realized that in every single instance, I was being pointed towards an opportunity that was a better fit for me. I’ve learned to trust that if I keep showing up and going after the opportunities I want, I won’t get them all, but I’ll get the right one for me.
What is one business idea you’re willing to give away to our readers?
I would love for someone to optimize small business tech. There is a huge and growing market of solopreneurs or micro-businesses building service-based businesses. We’re all piecing (hacking) together tech stacks with limited functionality, either because the tools have been built by other small businesses or built for much larger enterprises.
There’s significant opportunity to create a single integrated platform that ties together everything from front-end business development to client and project management to book-keeping and invoicing. Oh, and please include pre-configured, AI Agent assistants and affordable healthcare!
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
Haven just gotten on my soap box about the limitations of small business tech, I love Zapier, the automation and AI Agent platform. There’s a decent learning curve, but once we got the hang of it, my assistant and I have used it to connect as much of my back-end systems together as possible. It frees up so much time and brain space from moving client information from one system to another and tracking other small, menial details. I’ve just started to dabble with Zapier’s AI Agents and am excited by the potential to automate even more.
What is the best $100 you recently spent?
I’ve had a few really special dinners with my dearest friends recently, including a couple of friends who were in from out of town. For better or worst, dinners in NYC these days run about $100 per meal, yet this is $100 that I’ll happily spend over and over again. Nothing beats being with my people.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast from which you’ve received much value?
“We Should All Be Millionaires: A Woman’s Guide to Earning More, Building Wealth, and Gaining Economic Power” by Rachel Rodgers. The title says it all!
Rodgers lays out a manifesto for women owning their worth and building seven-figure businesses. I read it a few months after going full-time in my business and it was such a helpful reframe for me to realize that I wasn’t starting my business from scratch. I was building something on top of 15 years of impressive and valuable leadership experience.
I’ve dog-earred several pages that I go back to frequently and am due for a full reread soon.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
Can I swap this for a book? I’m an endless advocate for reading for pleasure, in addition to watching movies and TV. I find it to be such a wonderful escape – so different from how business-focused the rest of my mental energy is – and relaxing for my mind. Bonus points because I can’t scroll or multi-task as I’m reading!
I read “One Golden Summer” by Carley Fortune last month and am already ready to read it again. Fortune is my favorite author and when reading her books, I feel transported to an idyllic Canadian lake and get so invested in the love story between the two main characters.
I love any book that sucks me in, makes me feel and has a happy ending!
Key learnings:
- Ambition evolves. I’ve learned—alongside my clients—that what once felt like the “right” path can shift. The best thing you can do is get to know who you are today, let yourself grow and make changes accordingly.
- Energy is everything. My business runs on me being clear, grounded, and creative. Rest and spaciousness aren’t luxuries—they’re how I lead and serve well.
- Solitude is strategic. Time with my thoughts or deep in a book helps me reset habits, reflect deeply, and reconnect with what matters.
- Structure supports flow. I organize my schedule around when I’m most energized and use lightweight planning to turn ideas into action—without getting stuck in perfectionism.