the courage to ask for a new position 
at work. She now serves as the chief 
people officer and lead coach at Law­
line. Richman also started her own 
coaching practice, Michele Richman 
Coaching, to help women navigate 
major life and career transitions. 
And she is no longer terrified when 
she has to speak at large conferences, 
although she admits to butterflies.  
But butterflies are natural. “That 
was such a key point when my coach 
had said to me, ‘Your fear is not going 
to go away,’ ” Richman says. “ ‘You 
just have to push past it .… We’re al­
ways going to feel our anxiety, but it 
doesn’t mean it has to control us. You 
just have to acknowledge it.’ ” 
Richman hopes her example of 
turning fear into action inspires her 
readers and her sons to do the same. 
After all, she found the courage to 
write and promote a book. And now 
she’s thinking about a new one: The 
Stories We Almost Don’t Tell About 
Growing a Business, focused on what 
it took to make Lawline successful.
To learn more about The Stories 
We Almost Don’t Tell: Finding the 
Courage to Tell Yours, go to michel­
erichman.com. The book is available 
at Words Bookstore and amazon.
com. 
Ellen Donker found that the book re­
minded her of the many untold stories 
she can mine for her Heart of the Mat­
ter column.
months of writing under her belt. It 
seemed impossible. But three years 
later, Richman was ready. 
At Joselow’s recommendation, she 
drafted friend and neighbor Heather 
Kovall to act as editor. Together they 
laid printouts of every essay on Rich­
man’s dining room table, organizing 
and culling the pieces to include in 
the book before sending them to 
Richman’s professional editor.
The result is what Richman de­
scribes as an anthology of stories 
from her first 50 years. Writing with 
humor and honesty, she includes 
topics she had kept hidden away, 
some for decades: being made to feel 
different in grade school; facing bul­
lies at summer camp; accepting help 
from friends during a triathlon com­
petition; advocating for her special 
needs son; grieving the death of her 
beloved mother and performing at 
Listen to Your Mother after avoiding 
the stage for 40 years. 
“There’s so many things people 
can relate to,” Richman says, “wheth­
er it’s struggling as a woman, balanc­
ing parenting, being a professional in 
the workforce, having special needs 
kids, having to advocate for them, 
dealing with grief.” 
Writing and living out the insights 
Richman gleaned from her coach en­
abled her to start asking for what she 
wanted and embrace new opportuni­
ties, even if they made her feel un­
comfortable. It’s how she summoned 
feature story / 27
Michele Richman with (L to R) Eli, husband David and Max. Photo by Joy Yagid.
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