11 Women Share What It Takes to Stop Living by Should in The Rise of the Self-Led Woman, Volume 2
Knowing something needs to change is one thing. Actually living differently is another. The second volume of an international bestselling series brings together 11 women who did the harder part, including author and speaker Diane Lauer, whose chapter asks what our everyday "shoulds" are really costing us.
What is a Self-Led Woman?
Many capable women become the ones everyone else turns to. They hold things together, solve the problem, and keep moving. Somewhere along the way, their own needs get harder to hear.
The Rise of the Self-Led Woman series, created by Kassandra Hamilton, MSc, founder of Ready Set Realign and publisher at Align & Amplify Press, gives language to that experience. In the series, self-leadership means understanding yourself, taking responsibility for the choices within your control, and moving through life with greater awareness and intention. It is a quiet kind of leadership, practiced first in your own life.
From awareness to action
The first volume, Stories of Resilience, Realignment & Rising, asked what happens when outward success and inner fulfillment no longer align. Readers recognized themselves on the page, shared chapters with sisters and friends, and said, in effect, "This is me."
Volume 2, Stories of Courage, Clarity, & Claiming More, picks up where that recognition leaves off. As Hamilton writes in the prologue, "Awareness can be incredibly powerful, but living differently takes practice." The book explores what happens when women begin to act on what they want and need, even when those choices touch their careers, their relationships, and the roles they have played for years.
The chapters were developed from conversations on the podcast Milestone Moments in Business & Leadership, then shaped into book form and reviewed by each contributor. Readers who want to hear the stories in the authors' own voices can find the original episodes on all major podcast platforms.
11 women, 11 turning points
The coauthors come from very different lives, yet each chapter centers on a moment that might look ordinary from the outside and changed everything from the inside.
Pam Fichtner, a registered massage therapist with nearly 30 years of experience in breast and chest care, writes about helping women build a trusting relationship with their own bodies, including before and after surgery.
Alice Cunningham, an attorney and mediator, shares how a stroke in her early thirties took her mobility and how she rebuilt her strength one step at a time.
Tonie Moore, a healthcare leader and founder of Believing in Her, tells the story of reclaiming the voice she held back for years.
Becky Kenrick, founder of Velvet Sovereign, moves from hiding her tears from her children to rebuilding her life with financial clarity and confidence.
Jillian Rutledge, a freediving instructor and performance coach, writes from 115 feet beneath the ocean about the difference between control and power.
Andrea Pomeroy, a registered nurse and wellness podcast host, explores the growth that happens when life becomes unfamiliar.
Rachel Yance, a nurse and grief facilitator in training, writes about returning to work three days after her father died and learning that grief is part of her story, not all of it.
Kristi Wray, founder of Steading Home, shares what it means to keep building a company through repeated failure.
Miranda Brooking, founder of Rest Uncovered, writes about burnout and the moment her whole body finally felt permission to rest.
Diane Lauer, MBA, PMP, founder of S.I.M.P.L.E. Systems for Thriving, writes about shedding the social shoulds that quietly drain our capacity.
Kassandra Hamilton, MSc, closes the book with The Stories We Carry Forward, an invitation to keep the conversation going.
Inside Shedding Social Shoulds by Diane Lauer
As a nonprofit executive and a mother of three teenagers, Diane Lauer spent years answering one question each day: what do we need to get done to get through today? Underneath ran an unwritten list. I should carry all of it. I should have the plan before anyone finishes explaining the problem. I should never let them see me struggle.
In her chapter, Lauer describes how those expectations slowly cut her off from the gifts she was proudest of, such as reading the room and finding the right words. Drawing on her background in nonprofit finance, she reframes the problem in terms any leader will understand. Each of us spends four resources every day: attention, energy, time, and money. Most of us track only the last one.
"Every should is a withdrawal," Lauer writes.
The chapter traces where her shoulds began, including a childhood afternoon spent trying to move a mountain of mulch with the wrong shovel, and how she learned to let them fall: through presence on a local trail, journaling, a short morning meditation, and finally letting a friend help carry a sectional sofa up a narrow staircase. Her practice is simple and repeatable. Notice the word should, replace it with choose, and ask one more question: what will this choice give back?
She closes with the line that gives the chapter its heart: "You get to choose again every day."
Building on an international bestseller
Volume 1 became an international Amazon bestseller, reaching #1 in Motivational Self-Help on the Kindle Store in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. It also reached #1 in Biographies & Memoirs of Women in the United States and Australia, #1 in Women's Biographies in Canada, and #1 in Personal Transformation in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Volume 2 continues that mission with a new circle of voices, published by Align & Amplify Press in paperback (ISBN 978-1-0677629-2-6) and ebook (ISBN 978-1-0677629-3-3).
Get your copy and join the conversation
The Rise of the Self-Led Woman, Volume 2: Stories of Courage, Clarity, & Claiming More is available on November 17, 2026, on Amazon at the Amazon Link. The Rise of the Self-Led Woman: Stories of Resilience, Realignment, & Rising is available on Amazon at the Amazon Link. If you are interested in sharing your story in Volume 3, join the movement: https://readysetrealign.ca/co-author-waitlist. Learn more about the series and future co-author opportunities at Ready Set Realign.
To go deeper into Diane Lauer's work on capacity and choice, subscribe to Abundance Capacity with Diane on Substack or visit S.I.M.P.L.E. Systems for Thriving. If a should has been running your days, this is your invitation to choose again.
About Diane Lauer
Diane Lauer, MBA, PMP, is an author, speaker, consultant, and founder of S.I.M.P.L.E. Systems for Thriving, where she invites people in midlife to approach their lives with a beginner's curiosity and choose, on purpose, the life they want to create. She is the author of Nurturing Wisdom with SIMPLE Systems and a contributing author to The Rise of the Self-Led Woman, Volume 1: Stories of Resilience, Realignment & Rising, an Amazon international bestseller. She writes the Substack newsletter Abundance Capacity with Diane.
