All gas, no brake

GREENSBORO – She’s a down-to-earth maverick forging a unique path to help people become “the best version of themselves. “And with her offbeat sense of humor, drive to succeed and irreverent style, she’s garnering a following far beyond Caroline County.

Marnie Stockman of Greensboro has managed to direct her experiences as an avid student, athlete, educator and administrator, entrepreneur, public speaker, writer, wife and mom towards her role as a highly successful career coach.

To say she’s driven to succeed is an understatement. Her motto is “all gas, no brake.”

Stockman, 54, wowed graduates and their families at North Caroline High School’s commencement ceremony on May 29, 2025, as she forecasted the subject of her new book with co-author Nick Coniglio, “Blue: The Business of You,” a “story-driven guide to leading your life, not just your work.”

“We consider ourselves leadership geeks, not gurus,” Stockman told the grads in her 10-minute speech. With her self-deprecating wit, she warmed to her Caroline audience by introducing herself as an Easton High School graduate, “so I recognize that’s a strike against me right away, but … I taught math here. I married a North Caroline alum, and I can always hear the Bulldog band in my backyard in Greensboro on Friday night. So hopefully you’ll let me stay.”

From her home office overlooking the Choptank River, Stockman is busy writing her next book following the success of “Lead It Like Lasso: A Leadership Book for Life. Your Life,” she co-authored with her Atlanta-based business partner Nick Coniglio.

The highly rated book on Amazon and Good Reads helped launch Stockman and Coniglio’s podcast, in which they “dig into each episode of 'Ted Lasso' with the lens of leadership.”

The hilarious series on Apple TV+ follows the career of Ted Lasso, an American football coach hired to manage a struggling English Premier League soccer team.

So why was Stockman, an Easton High Warrior and co-author of a leadership book about a fictional TV character, asked to give the commencement address to North Caroline grads? “Here's the quick version: In less time than it took you all to get through high school, my business partner and I started, scaled and sold a software company,” Stockman told the North Caroline audience.

“People kept asking us how a team of seven people and no budget turned an idea into a multimillion-dollar company in only three years,” she said. “Here's the answer: We helped others become the best version of themselves, just like Ted Lasso. That's it. So, we wrote the book, “Lead It Like Lasso,” and started traveling around the country, talking to schools, companies and teams about the importance of character and leadership.”

While Ted Lasso’s acerbic character Roy Kent’s imaginary but characteristic spicy parlance in the book’s forward may be a bit off-putting – Stockman avoids cussing as a matter of principle in her own life – she and Coniglio offer a “PG version” of the book for younger readers.

Who is Marnie Stockman?

The self-described “grownup tomboy” bounds out of bed at 5 a.m., “which surprises zero people,” Stockman said.

“I've got projects everywhere, but I do a good job of tucking them away,” said Stockman, who at one time owned a knitting shop in Easton. Her home office overlooks the Choptank – “the view does not stink for Zoom calls” – and is super-organized. Even the books on the shelves are arranged in rainbow-colors order, a theme that dots her home décor. “I like bold and bright,” she said.

A large whiteboard occupies a wall in her office. “Every now and then on LinkedIn, I'll do a video where I'm talking on the whiteboard,” she said. “I project teacher vibe like nobody's business.”

“I bought the longest rising desk that you could,” she said. “If I can keep my space clean, then my brain can go everywhere. That's one reason I think I like to take walks too – it gets you in a different space. If you ask the neighbors, they'd be like, ‘Oh, she's the one that knits and walks, or reads and walks, or writes and walks. She never just walks.’”

Stockman, who earned her doctorate in educational leadership in 2016, is quick to credit others with helping her on her journey to success, including her high school math teacher Peg Hannah, educators Caroll Visintainer and Jim Orr, her former boss Elizabeth Kinney, who owned a knitting shop where Stockman worked for five years, and “clearly the clever comedy writers” of Ted Lasso.

But her sister’s and her original mentors were their parents, Willie and John DiLaura, who moved to Easton when Stockman was in sixth grade. Her dad was an engineer for the former Black and Decker plant in Easton, and her mom taught at Easton Middle School where one of her students was Caroline County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Derek Simmons.

Like Ted Lasso, “just being kind can work for everybody,” she said.

She followed in her mother’s footsteps, becoming a teacher, with her first job teaching math at North Caroline High School when she was 21 years old. “So the kids were not much younger than I was,” she said. “And so your choice is to be a bitch or to be funny, and at 21 I did my best to be both because you can't smile.”

“I felt like what Derek Simmons said about my mom was also the truth, like, you can be kind and still strict,” Stockman said. “The only poster I had in my class was Lucy from Charlie Brown. It said, ‘Save time. See things my way.’ And at some point the kids would say, why didn't you just put your picture up there? I said, because then it's scary instead of just comically true.”

“’Kill ’em with kindness,’ Mom taught me. Dad taught me, ‘Don’t be sorry. Be right,’” she said.

She has been married for 30 years to Frank Stockman – “my biggest fan and harshest critic – you need that person” – and they have two grown children, Josie and David, who also chose careers in education.

As busy and driven as she is, she makes time for exercise and fun team sports, especially pickleball and volleyball in Denton. She cheers on the Orioles and Ravens and works on knitting projects.

The power of ‘small community”

Being from Caroline County is actually a “superpower,” Stockman said.

“I think one thing that people don't realize when you're from a small county is you literally know everyone, or you know someone, and networks are so important,” she said.

In a more densely populated area, a person’s associates tend to be more “siloed in one particular field because that's the circle you revolve in, whereas here you know somebody from every (field),” she said. “Can you name a farmer and a lawyer and an accountant and someone that works at the grocery store? I can, but my business partner (who lives outside Atlanta) cannot.”

In “Lead It Like Lasso,” it’s not just what and who you know, “it's who knows you,” Stockman said. “So, on LinkedIn, there are plenty of opportunities to connect with people. I mean, I have 45,000 of my not-closest friends that am I connected to. … But in a small town, there's a much better likelihood that someone knows you or your family, that you can get the connection that you need.”

“That’s the power of the small community,” she said. “I think that surprises people, and I don’t know that people think about how to use their network, There’s a lot of knowledge that folks don’t think of as useful.”

“Blue: The Business of You” and its app is Stockman and Coniglio’s current project. It’s a business fable, helpful for adults as well as students in understanding “how to turn your natural curiosity into influence, connection, and opportunity,” Stockman posted on LinkedIn. “In a world of automation and digital everything and AI, the only thing that makes you stand out is the human element: your character skills,” Stockman said.

The co-creators’ newest project, “Work in ProgMess,” is “a satirical newsletter about all the weird, wonderful, cringey parts of growth,” said Stockman, who bills herself the newsletter’s co-conspirator. “It’s ‘The Onion’ meets career coach,” she said.

Taking her cue from Ted Lasso, Stockman thanks podcast guests (and even pesky reporters) by giving them delicious, homemade shortbread biscuits she tucks into small, pink pastry boxes – just one more way Marnie Stockman leads it like Lasso.