Most people plan a move around the major details: the truck, the moving date, and the boxes. Fewer people think about the smaller decisions that can create major delays. A missing inventory list, unclear coverage, or a truck that cannot access the property can quickly turn a well-organized move into a stressful one. These issues are easy to overlook because they often happen outside the actual packing process. Vladyslav Ladygin, owner of Spyder Moving and Storage, a moving company based in Oxford, Mississippi, works with families and businesses on relocations of all sizes. Through that experience, he has seen how much smoother a move can be when these details are addressed in advance. In his experience, moving problems are not always caused by the physical work of packing and transporting belongings. Often, they come from assuming that someone else has already handled an important part of the process. Underestimating the inventory list An inventory list may seem like simple paperwork, but it can become an important record if something is missing or damaged. Without one, resolving an issue can depend on memory rather than documentation. Ladygin encourages customers to take an active role in documenting their belongings before the move. A detailed inventory does not have to be complicated. It simply needs to identify important items, note any existing damage, and provide a clear record before everything is loaded onto the truck. What a useful inventory includes A practical inventory can be organized by room and should identify fragile, valuable, or particularly important belongings. Photos can also provide useful documentation, especially for furniture, electronics, and items that already have visible wear. Before moving day, homeowners can: Walk through each room and document fragile, valuable, or damaged items Photograph electronics, furniture, and other important belongings before they are wrapped Keep a copy of the inventory and confirm that the moving company has the necessary information Spending some time on this before the move creates a clear reference if questions arise later. It is a small step that can make resolving an issue much easier. The coverage gap few people notice Another detail customers sometimes overlook is how their belongings are covered during a move. Many people assume that their possessions are fully protected once they are in the hands of a moving company, but the valuation or coverage that applies can vary depending on the move and the terms of service. Ladygin recommends that customers ask specifically what coverage applies to their belongings rather than assuming the standard option provides the protection they need. A box of books and a box of electronics may weigh a similar amount while having very different values. For customers moving high-value belongings, understanding the available valuation options before moving day is especially important. Any additional coverage or arrangements should be discussed and documented in advance so there is no confusion about what applies if an item is damaged. Parking, access, and the clock A move can be carefully planned and still take longer than expected because of access issues. Narrow streets, restricted parking, shared driveways, apartment loading areas, and building rules can all affect how quickly a moving crew can work. Elevators and loading docks can create additional challenges. Some apartment buildings and commercial properties require customers to reserve specific time windows for moving trucks or freight elevators. Missing that window can delay the entire move. These situations are often preventable with a little preparation. Before moving day, customers should: Contact the building, property manager, or HOA to confirm parking and access requirements Reserve a loading dock, freight elevator, or elevator time slot when necessary Check doorways, hallways, stairways, and other access points for large furniture Confirm whether temporary parking arrangements or permits are required Taking care of these details ahead of time allows the moving crew to focus on the actual work instead of trying to solve access problems after they arrive. What to handle before the truck arrives The details that create the most trouble on moving day are rarely dramatic. More often, they are small issues that were never addressed beforehand. An inventory was not completed. Coverage was never discussed. A parking space was unavailable. An elevator reservation was missed. Ladygin's advice is to treat these details as part of the move itself rather than as administrative tasks that can be handled later. A few conversations and preparations before moving day can prevent problems once the truck arrives. A written inventory provides a record of important belongings. Confirming coverage helps customers understand their options. Checking access and parking requirements gives the moving crew a clear path to the property. None of these steps requires special equipment or extensive experience. They simply require planning ahead. For families and businesses preparing for a move, taking care of these details before moving day can help create a more organized and predictable experience from the moment the truck arrives.

Some careers follow a clear path from the beginning, while others take shape through a series of choices, challenges, and opportunities. For Feliciano Serrano, M.D., his career in medicine developed through both careful planning and a willingness to pursue new areas where he believed he could make a greater impact. The Los Angeles native has built his career around nephrology, vascular care, research, and interventional medicine. Along the way, he studied at several major institutions, contributed to medical research, worked with underserved communities, and explored new approaches to patient care. Throughout that journey, one principle has remained consistent: the health and wellbeing of patients come first. “People’s health and wellbeing take priority or precedence always,” Serrano says. “Everything else comes second.” How Feliciano Serrano’s Los Angeles roots shaped his career Serrano grew up in Los Angeles and has described economic hardship and a low socioeconomic background as some of the obstacles he had to overcome early in life. Those experiences also gave him a close understanding of the communities he would later serve. His parents were among his strongest influences. Serrano says they taught him to pay attention to people who were struggling and to help when possible. That principle followed him into medicine and eventually into years of pro bono work. He has received recognition from the City of Los Angeles for medical services provided to underserved and homeless populations. “Being able to change and improve people’s lives even in the face of personal adversity” is how Serrano defines success, and that idea has remained closely tied to the direction of his career. From USC to a career in kidney medicine Serrano’s education took him through several areas of science before his career became centred on kidney disease. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of Southern California and later completed graduate study in biological technology and genetics at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He ultimately earned his medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. After medical school, Serrano completed an internal medicine residency at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles. Even after reaching that point, he felt he needed additional tools to help some of the sickest patients in his community, which pushed him toward nephrology and later toward vascular and interventional procedures. Why research became an important part of his medical training Serrano’s path also included extensive research. At the University of Vermont School of Medicine, he completed a nephrology and hypertension fellowship as well as an NIH-supported research fellowship focused on thrombosis in kidney disease. During this period, he studied why patients with kidney disease often face higher mortality risks. His research included work involving platelet function, thrombosis, chronic renal failure, and hypertension. He also lectured and conducted research connected with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard. Earlier in his career, Serrano had already been exposed to research through projects involving cancer, neuroscience, oxidative stress, and the Human Genome Project. For him, research was not separate from patient care. It was another way to understand why existing treatments worked, where they fell short, and what might be improved. What led Serrano into interventional nephrology? After completing his kidney fellowship, Serrano entered an Interventional Nephrology and Vascular Procedures fellowship at the University of Arizona College of Medicine. He has described the programme as highly competitive, with only two physicians selected from an applicant pool of roughly 200. The training expanded his work beyond the medical management of kidney disease and into procedures involving veins, arteries, vascular access, stents, and other interventions. That combination of nephrology and vascular medicine became an important part of his career and reinforced a larger lesson he had already begun to learn: progress sometimes requires questioning how things have traditionally been done. Challenging the status quo in patient care One experience stands out when Serrano discusses setbacks and eventual progress. He recalls facing scrutiny after helping pioneer a different approach to dialysis. At the time, the idea was viewed with suspicion, but roughly a decade later, he says the methodology had become accepted as part of standard care. The experience shaped how he thinks about innovation. “Do what is right always even if the status quo, political or popular belief says the contrary,” he says. For Serrano, new ideas should not be pursued simply because they are new. They should be tested, refined, and improved with patient well-being as the priority. That is also why he focuses heavily on process. “You measure success by perfecting the mechanism and not by simply assessing outcomes,” he says. “If you do things right and improve on these methods, eventually you will achieve favorable outcomes.” What does long-term growth look like in medicine? Despite decades of education and specialised training, Serrano does not view medical learning as something that ends with a degree or fellowship. He points to collaboration with colleagues and community leaders as one way he continues to improve. “The goal of every day is to simply be better than yesterday,” he says. His broader career reflects that approach, with experience spanning clinical medicine, scientific research, teaching, philanthropy, publication, and specialised procedures. He is also bilingual in English and Spanish, which has helped him communicate with patients across Los Angeles communities. Through each stage, the common thread has been less about collecting titles and more about developing better ways to serve patients. For Serrano, bringing a big idea to life often starts with something much smaller: noticing what could work better, asking difficult questions, and being willing to improve the method until the results follow.

Clark Gallagher grew up in Oregon, where, like a lot of kids, he tried his hand at different sports. None of them really stuck. He was not the fastest or strongest athlete on the field, and eventually he found something that felt more natural to him. At 14, Gallagher started lifting weights. At first, there was no big plan behind it. He was simply interested in getting stronger and learning what his body could do. What started as something he did for himself gradually became a much bigger part of his life. Lifting eventually led to bodybuilding, bodybuilding led to sharing his progress online, and that online presence eventually developed into a career. Looking back, the path seems connected, but none of it was planned from the beginning. One interest simply led to another. Learning the body while working the land While Gallagher was developing his passion for training, he was also spending time helping his grandfather on the family farm. The two worlds might seem completely separate, but there were some similarities. Farm work requires patience, repetition, and a willingness to keep going even when the work is not particularly easy. There is no shortcut for simply putting in the hours. Those are lessons that can translate surprisingly well to fitness. Gallagher carried that same hands-on approach into his interest in training. He did not just want to lift weights. He wanted to understand how the body worked and why certain approaches produced different results. That interest eventually led him to study Kinesiology in college, giving him a stronger scientific foundation to go along with the years of practical experience he had already gained. Building an audience around the work College was also a time when Gallagher began taking his social media presence more seriously. He started sharing his training and progress online, giving people a chance to follow along with what he was already doing in the gym. At first, social media was simply another way to document his fitness journey. Over time, however, an audience began to develop around it. That audience eventually opened the door to something Gallagher had not necessarily set out to create when he first picked up a weight at 14. What started as a personal interest became an opportunity to build a career around fitness, content creation, and social media. The transition was gradual. There was no single moment when everything suddenly changed. His online presence grew alongside the work he was already putting in. From the gym floor to coaching Before social media became Gallagher's full-time focus, he spent about four years working at a gym. That experience gave him the opportunity to work directly with people and develop the coaching side of his career. There is a difference between talking about fitness online and actually working with someone in person. Coaching requires paying attention to the individual in front of you, understanding their goals, and recognizing that what works for one person may not work for another. That experience became another important part of Gallagher's background as his online presence continued to grow. Eventually, social media and content creation began taking up more of his time. He moved into working on those areas full time while continuing to help his grandfather on the farm part time. It was less of a dramatic career change and more of a gradual shift toward where his time and opportunities were taking him. A routine built around consistency Gallagher's current routine still reflects the discipline he developed when he first started training. Bodybuilding requires structure. His days revolve around training, eating multiple meals, creating content, and managing the work that comes with maintaining a growing online presence. He generally trains almost every day and follows a routine that has become part of his lifestyle rather than something he does only when motivation happens to be there. That consistency is important because fitness is rarely about one great workout or one perfect day. Progress tends to come from doing the basic things repeatedly over a long period of time. That is something Gallagher has experienced firsthand. Outside of fitness, he has interests that have little to do with the gym. He enjoys cars, traveling, gaming, and spending time helping on his grandfather's farm. Those interests give him a life outside of training and content creation, even though fitness remains a major part of his everyday routine. Turning personal experience into a brand Today, Gallagher's work brings together several things that developed at different points in his life: bodybuilding, coaching, social media, content creation, and personal branding. His social media presence under @clarkpb01 gives him a place to share training and dieting content while also showing people what goes into building a career around fitness and social media. What makes the story interesting is that the career did not begin with a business plan or a carefully developed personal brand. It started with a 14-year-old who wanted to get stronger. Years of training followed. Then came bodybuilding, Kinesiology, coaching, content creation, and eventually a full-time career built around his online presence. The path from a farm in Oregon to a career as a fitness model, coach, and social media creator was not something Gallagher could have mapped out at the beginning. Each stage grew out of the one before it. And in many ways, that is still the foundation of what he does today. He continues to train, learn, create, and build, just with a much larger audience watching than the one he had when he first walked into a gym at 14.

Written by Lisa Dunn and Lori Sherrington, Co-Founders of Inner Vision Healing & Wellness Lisa Dunn and Lori Sherrington are the Co-Founders of Inner Vision Healing & Wellness, a wellness practice focused on energy healing, frequency wellness, and holistic transformation. Together, they combine intuitive healing modalities with compassionate client care to support emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. Simple ways to reduce overwhelm, support nervous-system regulation, clear mental clutter, and stay connected as your family returns to routine. September often feels like a fresh start. New school year, new routines, new activities, and a return to structure after the freedom of summer. But it can also feel like someone suddenly turned the speed of life up several notches. Alarm clocks are going off earlier. Lunches need packing. Kids need to get out the door. Work schedules are back in full swing. Homework begins again. Sports and extracurricular activities fill the calendar. Somewhere in between, families are still supposed to eat dinner, do laundry, get enough sleep, and actually enjoy one another. It's a lot, and it isn't only parents who feel it. Children are adjusting to classrooms, teachers, expectations, friendships, homework, noise, and schedules. Parents are managing the logistics while also wondering how their children are coping. Sometimes we're all carrying more than we realize. Back-to-school nerves don't always look like nervousness A child may tell you they're nervous about school. But they may also become quieter, irritable, emotional, clingy, or resistant to getting ready. They may have trouble sleeping or simply seem unlike themselves. Not every child can easily explain what they're feeling. My business partner, Lori, has spent years working as an Educational Assistant with children with special needs, including children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Her experience has reinforced something we see again and again: sometimes we have to pay attention to what a child may be communicating beyond their words. For some children with ASD, changes in routine, unfamiliar classrooms, new teachers, increased noise and sensory stimulation, or simply not knowing exactly what to expect can be particularly challenging. When communicating feelings is difficult, “I'm nervous about school” may never be the sentence we hear. The communication may come through behaviour instead. This is personal for me too. I have grandchildren with ASD, and as a grandmother, I worry about them starting school. Are they nervous? Will they be comfortable in their new environment? Will someone recognize when they're becoming overwhelmed? Will they be able to communicate what they need? I know I'm not the only parent or grandparent asking those questions. Sometimes we're so busy preparing the backpacks, lunches, transportation, and schedules that we forget there's a little person trying to process a very big transition. Help kids decompress before asking for more Think about how much a child processes during a school day. They're listening, learning, following instructions, transitioning between activities, navigating friendships, and managing all kinds of emotions. Some children may hold themselves together throughout the school day and then fall apart when they get home. They may simply be exhausted and overwhelmed. Before going immediately from school to “Get your homework out,” consider allowing some decompression time. Have a snack. Drink some water. Go outside. Move their body. Put on calming music. Talk. Sit quietly. Some children may want to tell you everything the minute they walk through the door. Others may need space before they're ready. A few minutes of slow breathing can help too. With younger children, make it simple: slowly smell an imaginary flower and gently blow out an imaginary candle. We're not looking for perfect breathing technique. We're simply creating an opportunity to stop, centre and help the body settle toward a calmer, rest-and-digest state. Stop asking only, “How was your day?” Parents everywhere probably recognize this conversation: “How was school?” “Fine.” “What did you do?” “Nothing.” Apparently that concludes today's interview. Instead, try asking questions that show genuine interest in their world: What was the best part of today? Did anything funny happen? Which class did you like best? Who did you spend time with? Did you learn anything that surprised you? Did anything upset you today? Was anything too loud or uncomfortable? Did anything make you feel worried or left out? Specific questions can be easier to answer than one enormous question about an entire day. Some children may also communicate more comfortably while doing something else, drawing, playing, walking, having a snack, or riding in the car, rather than sitting face-to-face and feeling questioned. When they tell us something difficult, our first response doesn't always have to be a solution. Instead of immediately saying, “Here's what you should do tomorrow,” try, “That sounds like it was really hard. Do you want to tell me more?” Sometimes being heard is what they need first. Help them find the good without dismissing the hard We can also help children learn to recognize the good things that happen in their day without pretending the difficult things didn't happen. Both can be true. Math may have been frustrating, and something hilarious happened at lunch. They may have felt left out during recess and been proud of something they accomplished. They can be nervous about tomorrow and excited about seeing a friend. Try a simple family ritual at dinner or bedtime: everyone shares one good thing from the day. Parents participate too. It doesn't have to be profound. Someone made me laugh. I finished something I'd been putting off. I had a really good coffee. The dog did something ridiculous. We're not teaching children to ignore difficult emotions. We're helping them recognize that one difficult moment doesn't necessarily define an entire day. Parents need regulating too Here's the part we sometimes forget. While we're helping our children manage their stress, who is managing ours? Parents are remembering permission forms, lunches, appointments, homework, practices, groceries, and work deadlines while simultaneously trying to keep everybody else organized. When everything is circling around in our heads, everything can start to feel equally urgent. That's when I like one of the simplest tools of all: get it out of your head. Take ten minutes and write down everything occupying space in your mind. Don't organize it yet. Just empty the mental inbox. Then ask yourself: What genuinely needs my attention today? What can wait? What can I schedule? What can someone else do? What am I worrying about that doesn't require action right now? Then choose your top three priorities. Mental clutter can make twenty things feel urgent. Clarity helps us recognize what actually is. Regulate before you react This applies to adults just as much as children. When we're overwhelmed, our instinct is often to keep pushing. Just get through the morning. Just finish the homework. Just get everybody to practice. But sometimes two quiet minutes can change the next twenty. Put your feet on the floor. Drop your shoulders. Take a slow breath in, and let the exhale be a little longer. Go outside for five minutes. Stretch. Walk. Listen to music. Talk to someone. Remember, it's difficult to tell a dysregulated child to calm down when we're standing in front of them completely dysregulated ourselves. Yelling, “Everybody needs to calm down!” may not create quite the peaceful environment we had in mind. Instead, try, “We're both getting overwhelmed. Let's stop for a minute.” Regulate with your child rather than always asking your child to regulate alone. Create a family reset You don't need another complicated routine. Look for small pauses throughout the day. Maybe everyone takes a few slow breaths before homework. Maybe phones disappear during dinner. Maybe you take a ten-minute walk after dinner. Maybe bedtime includes talking about the best and hardest parts of everyone's day. Sometimes simply stopping, talking, and reconnecting is exactly what's needed. For some families, complementary wellness practices may also become part of their self-care. At Inner Vision Healing & Wellness, Lori and I work with adults and families using approaches such as Reiki, Biofield Tuning, and Harmonic Egg® sessions. Some of our wellness services can also be offered remotely. Remote sessions can be especially convenient for busy families because sometimes the last thing an overwhelmed parent needs is another appointment to drive to. Our intention with these practices is to provide an opportunity to slow down, relax, and support overall well-being. We believe holistic wellness and conventional healthcare can work alongside one another. If a child is experiencing persistent anxiety, physical symptoms, significant behavioural changes, or other ongoing concerns, we encourage parents to speak with their physician or another appropriate healthcare professional. Maybe September doesn't need to be perfect There will still be forgotten lunches. There will be mornings when somebody can't find a shoe. There will be homework nobody wants to do, traffic when you're already late, and nights when dinner looks suspiciously like whatever you can find in the refrigerator. That's family life. The goal isn't to eliminate every source of stress. It's learning to recognize when stress is beginning to take over and knowing how to interrupt it. Stop. Breathe. Reconnect. Clear some of the noise. Decide what actually needs your attention next. Perhaps most importantly, remember that our children don't only need us to organize their lives. They need us to be interested in them. Tonight, instead of only asking, “How was your day?” Try, “What was the best part?” “Did anything make you laugh?” Then, “Was there anything hard about today?” Put down the phone and really listen to the answer. Sometimes helping a child feel safe, seen, and heard begins with something that simple. Want to create more calm in your everyday life? At Inner Vision Healing & Wellness, we support individuals and families through in-person and remote wellness services designed to encourage relaxation, balance, and overall well-being. We also offer a free introductory guide to energy and frequency-based wellness for anyone curious about learning more. Learn more and download your free guide at Inner Vision Healing & Wellness. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Lisa Dunn and Lori Sherrington Lisa Dunn and Lori Sherrington, Co-Founders of Inner Vision Healing & Wellness Lisa Dunn and Lori Sherrington are the Co-Founders of Inner Vision Healing & Wellness, a wellness practice focused on energy healing, frequency wellness, holistic transformation, and autonomic nervous system reset. Both Lisa and Lori have experienced personal health challenges, which inspired their passion for holistic healing and for helping others reconnect with balance, clarity, and self-healing. Lisa brings more than 20 years of healthcare leadership experience and is a Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, Reiki Master, Harmonic Egg Guardian, and author. Lori specializes in Biofield Tuning and Reiki and also works closely with children with special needs as an Educational Assistant, with knowledge of American Sign Language (ASL).

Written by Laura Cole, Solution-Focused Coach, Speaker & Professor Laura Cole is a Solution-Focused practitioner who works with organizations to build resilient, empowered cultures during times of change. She founded Your Latitude and created innovative leadership tools, including Watson’s Rule: 3 Essentials to Empower Action. There is a critical moment in change management when all the strategy and decision-making culminates in the change initiative as the new software is launched or the department merger is implemented. It may have taken months of planning to reach this moment, and the strategy team may feel relief and exhaustion as the change initiative concludes. But we all know what often comes next: resistance and tension as the team struggles with the challenges of the new change. The Change Management Green Zone helps explain why this happens and offers a creative solution to create real collaboration. The misunderstood timeline Before understanding the Green Zone, let’s first revisit the scenario presented above. After months, or in some cases years, of planning and decision-making, the strategic team reaches a crucial moment with the software launch or the department merger, which signals to them the conclusion of the change initiative. Then what happens? The carefully crafted change is handed over to the teams responsible for implementing it, and in many cases, the participants in this second group were not involved in the communications, decision-making, or strategy that brought the change to this moment. Visualizing this scenario, we can see Strategy Group A handing over the change to Participant Group B. The challenge isn’t the handover, or even that Participant Group B wasn't involved in the strategy and decision-making. It is unreasonable to assume every member of an organization should be involved in strategy, and it is a myth that the only way to get buy-in is through direct involvement in planning and decision-making. The challenge is a misunderstood timeline, with Strategy Group A communicating what feels like an ending when Participant Group B is just now experiencing the beginning. The resistance and tension that take place between these two groups reflect the problematic timeline more than the actual change, with Strategy Group A saying, “What are you all complaining about? We spent months putting this together!” and Participant Group B saying, “All we see is your idea, and now we have to work with it, and we don’t see ourselves at all.” What if instead of looking at change as a linear handoff, we consider colour theory to provide us with a more meaningful visual of what real collaboration could practically look like? Real collaboration in the green zone As mentioned above, it is unreasonable to include every member of an organization in strategy and decision-making, and it is a myth that this is the only way to gain buy-in, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need collaboration. Consider Strategy Group A handing a change initiative over to Participant Group B, and this change initiative is a big yellow ball. Strategy Group A spent months, even years, putting together this big yellow ball, and they are proud and excited to present it to Participant Group B. Sounds the same as above? Not quite. In this scenario, Participant Group B is supported to interact with the big yellow ball to find strengths and new opportunities, and encouraged to find holes and weak spots. In this scenario, the final change will never look exactly like the big yellow ball. Instead, it will be a much stronger shade of green after this group adds their blue. Strategy Group A knows this, so they are not defensive when weak spots start to show on the yellow ball. Participant Group B knows this, so they can acknowledge the positive attributes while also feeling empowered to offer suggestions for improvement. Knowing this is part of the process also removes defensiveness from Participant Group B's communication, supporting them in discussing holes and weak spots in a collaborative, productive way. The Green Zone supports real collaboration by empowering action on both sides, giving a sense of direction and purpose. The final change will include some of both the yellow and blue, with each group seeing itself in the final green outcome. Creative communication in the green zone The Green Zone also provides opportunities for creative communication with lots of engaging ways to incorporate the colour metaphor into team check-ins. Knowing that the ultimate change initiative will include some yellow and blue, how does this influence how team check-ins are facilitated? What difference would this make to the types of questions being asked, and how they are being answered? One of the most common frustrations in change management is resistance. Strategy Group A interprets resistance as a signal that people don’t like change, or as complaints and procrastination about implementing the new initiative. Or worse, views it as intentional sabotage of the new strategy. Participant Group B often uses resistance to communicate a loss of control that they are unsure how to otherwise express. The Green Zone offers a unique metaphor to inspire shared language for creatively expressing feelings of resistance, tension, or uncertainty. Start here with a change management Green Zone mindset A Green Zone Mindset supports leaders and team members on all sides of the change by helping them visualize a healthy, collaborative relationship even while experiencing the challenges of change. To start cultivating a Green Zone Mindset, consider the following: The final change outcome cannot be purely yellow or blue, it is a measure of both: this visualization provides meaningful roles to everyone. Collaboration can happen at many different points in the change initiative: it is a myth that equal involvement in strategy and decision-making is the only way to gain buy-in. Resistance is a sign of hope, not defeat: it is an indication that one of the change members is looking for a deeper understanding of the colour equation. The Change Management Green Zone encourages real collaboration, giving all members of the change initiative meaningful direction and purpose. This mindset encourages dialogue with shared, creative language that helps to generate hope in times of change. What difference might the Change Management Green Zone make in your next change initiative? Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Laura Cole Laura Cole, Solution-Focused Coach, Speaker & Professor Laura Cole is a Solution-Focused leadership and communication coach, and the creator of tools and frameworks designed to empower action, transform conflict, and build collaboration in times of change. She created Watson’s Rule: 3 Essentials to Empower Action, an innovative leadership tool inspired by Equine Assisted Learning. Laura is a professor, facilitator, executive coach, and international keynote speaker with a degree in Communication and an MBA in Innovation.

Written by Judy Xu, Founder and CEO of Balance Group in Hong Kong Judy Xu is a Transformational Coach and Spiritual Mentor who helps leaders, entrepreneurs, and high achievers cultivate inner peace and wisdom, deepen self-awareness, and live, lead, and create with greater consciousness and alignment. Her work bridges Eastern wisdom with Western coaching, psychology and leadership development. We invest years developing the skills to lead, strategy, communication, influence, and decision-making. But what happens to those skills when we are under pressure, challenged or facing uncertainty? Perhaps one of the most important leadership capacities is one we have rarely been taught to develop, inner peace. As leaders become more senior, something interesting happens. Their responsibility grows, while their ability to control everything around them decreases. There are more stakeholders, more competing priorities, more uncertainty and complexity, and often no perfect answer. Yet many of the qualities that helped us become successful were built around doing the opposite, solving, anticipating, controlling, pushing, and making things happen. At some point, another capacity becomes increasingly important, "Can I remain grounded when the environment around me is not?" And perhaps even more importantly, "When there is more chaos around me, can I create enough stillness within myself to see clearly?" An unsettled mind meeting a chaotic situation often creates more chaos. When we are internally activated, we may react too quickly, defend a position too strongly, or rush towards an answer simply because uncertainty is uncomfortable. Inner peace creates space between what is happening and how we respond. For leaders, this goes beyond our own state. Our inner state also influences the space around us. I have seen this in leadership, coaching, and facilitation of offsites or retreats, when the person holding the space is grounded and present, others are often better able to think clearly, speak openly, and find their own ground. This is why I have come to see inner peace as much more than personal wellbeing. It is a leadership capacity. If you are curious about your own capacity for inner peace, I have developed an Inner Peace Capacity Assessment that offers a simple starting point for reflection. The state from which we lead Think of a senior leadership meeting where someone strongly challenges your proposal. On one day, you arrive already rushed, tired, and carrying tension. The challenge may immediately feel threatening. You become defensive, push harder, or stop truly listening because part of your attention is occupied with protecting your position. On another day, you are grounded and spacious. You may still disagree strongly. You may still need to hold your ground. But you are more able to listen, discern what is valuable in the other person's perspective, and integrate or leverage it without feeling that doing so diminishes your own authority. The situation has not changed. The state from which you lead has. This is why I often say: “The quality of your life depends less on what happens to you than on the state from which you meet it.” The same is true of leadership. Our inner state influences how clearly we think, how we make decisions, how we respond to conflict, how much we can genuinely listen, and what others experience in our presence. The more complexity and responsibility we carry, the less realistic it becomes to expect the environment around us to remain calm. Perhaps the greater the complexity outside, the more important it becomes to cultivate clarity and stillness inside. An ancient insight: Stillness before wise action This relationship between inner state and effective action is not a new idea. There is a beautiful passage in the ancient Chinese text The Great Learning (《大學》): 知止而后有定，定而后能靜，靜而后能安，安而后能慮，慮而后能得 There is great depth in these few words. What interests me here is the sequence. Very broadly, it describes a movement from awareness, to pause, to groundedness, to quiet, to a sense of inner ease and security, to deeper reflection, and finally to attainment. In contemporary leadership language, I would put it this way, when we feel inwardly grounded and at peace, a different quality of thinking becomes available. Attainment comes at the end of the sequence. Our modern tendency is often to reverse it. Under pressure, we do more, think faster, push harder, and try to gain more control. We assume that action will create certainty. Ancient wisdom points towards another possibility, cultivate the inner conditions of steadiness and quiet first, so that clearer reflection and wiser action can emerge. What if we treated peace as a leadership capacity? Inner peace is a leadership capacity, and I believe it is an increasingly important one. Leadership development often focuses on competencies we can see, strategic thinking, communication, influence, decision-making, and execution. Yet beneath these is another dimension that shapes how well we can access those skills when they matter most, our inner state. Elite athletes understand this well. At the highest level, physical ability and technical skill are not enough. Olympic champions and professional athletes deliberately train their mental and emotional state so they can stay focused, composed, and perform under intense pressure. Leadership is different, but the principle is relevant. It is relatively easy to listen when we agree. Can we still listen when our idea is being challenged? It is easy to appear confident when we know the answer. Can we remain grounded when we genuinely do not know? It is easy to speak about empowerment. Can we give others space when we are anxious about the outcome? If our inner state affects the quality of our leadership this much, we should not leave it to personality, circumstance, or chance. We need to consciously develop our inner capacity. And like physical fitness, this capacity takes time to build and has different dimensions. We may be calm under pressure yet struggle with uncertainty, or remain composed externally while finding it difficult to stay present with our own emotions. Through awareness, experience, and practice, we can strengthen these capacities over time and become increasingly able to meet complexity without losing our ground. Perhaps this inner dimension is still one of the underdeveloped areas of mainstream leadership training, we spend considerable time developing what leaders do, and less time developing the inner state from which they do it. This is where inner peace becomes much more than relaxation. It becomes part of how we develop great leadership. Four dimensions of peace capacity Through my work with clients, retreats, and leadership programs, as well as my own practice, I have come to understand Peace Capacity through four interconnected relationships. In my broader Inner Peace work, I call these The Four Paths to Inner Peace. For leaders, they raise four useful questions: Return to calm: Our relationship with this moment. Can I regulate my state and remain present enough to choose my response under pressure? Open to life: Our relationship with life. Can I meet uncertainty and change with openness, see possibilities within difficulty, and hold a clear intention without gripping the outcome? Stand in your wholeness: Our relationship with self. Can I lead from an inner sense of sufficiency, without needing to be right, recognised, or successful in every moment to protect my sense of worth? Expand into greater consciousness: Our relationship with consciousness. Can I become quiet enough to access a wider perspective and listen to wisdom beyond the constant activity of my thinking mind? These are not stages of leadership development. They are interconnected capacities, and different situations will call upon different aspects of them. Underneath them is a fundamental question, "What inner capacities allow us to hold greater complexity without becoming internally consumed by it?" What happens to your leadership when your peace is disturbed? Rather than asking only, “How can I become a better leader?”, I sometimes find another question more revealing, "What happens to the quality of my leadership when my inner peace is disturbed?" Do I become more controlling or impatient? Do I withdraw? Do I stop listening? Do I need to be right? Do I rush towards action because uncertainty feels uncomfortable? These moments show us where our inner capacity can continue to develop. The goal is not to become a leader who is never disturbed. It is to develop enough inner capacity that disturbance does not automatically determine how we lead. As responsibility grows, the world around us may become more complex, uncertain, and demanding. Our deeper work is to cultivate an inner ground spacious enough to hold that complexity, clear enough to see through it, and steady enough that others can find their own ground in our presence. Explore your own capacity for peace If this article raises questions about your own capacity for peace, I invite you to explore the Inner Peace Capacity Assessment. It is a reflective tool based on the Four Paths to Inner Peace, designed to help you see where your capacity is already strong and where there may be room to grow. Take the Inner Peace Capacity Assessment Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Judy Xu Judy Xu, Founder and CEO of Balance Group in Hong Kong Judy Xu is a Transformational Coach and Spiritual Mentor with more than 15 years of experience guiding leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals through deep inner transformation. A former Fortune 500 executive and successful entrepreneur, she understands both the drive for outer achievement and the search for deeper meaning, peace and alignment. Her work bridges Eastern wisdom and contemplative traditions with Western coaching, psychology, leadership development, and deep healing practices. Through her work, Judy helps people transform long-held patterns, reconnect with their inner wisdom, and live, lead, and create from a more conscious and authentic place. She is the Founder and CEO of Balance Group in Hong Kong.

Written by Dawn Sanders, Performance Coach Dawn Sanders, Director of WinWell, is a trusted and respected Performance lifestyle, wellbeing, career, and transition coach. She brings over 20 years of experience working in elite sport, supporting individuals through performance, personal growth, and career transitions. There is a pattern I have seen play out for over twenty years, firstly with inspiring and ambitious elite athletes who have represented their country at the peak of their performance, and now across boardrooms and leadership teams in business. The most capable people are always given the most, more responsibility, more problems to solve, more demands, more people relying on them in life and work. It happens because they have earned trust through what they can handle, the pressure they can absorb, and their dependability to perform. That trust in them and their abilities is a genuine strength worth recognising and embracing. What rarely gets talked about is the other side of that pattern. Somewhere between taking on more and holding everything together, it becomes hard to notice the shift from stretched to overwhelmed, or from resilient to running on empty. In elite sport, this is a hidden performance friction, sometimes expressed through illness, injury, or time lost to training at the highest level. In business, it usually just gets called Tuesday. What twenty years inside elite sport taught me about performance When I first started out on this journey to support high performers, there was no framework or textbook to guide me. So, I've learnt from experience and often learnt the hard way, from coaching others to help create more sustainable performance or acknowledging that I need to do it for myself. I have been in an honoured position to be let into people's lives, to see what happens behind the lens of a camera, learning it while sitting across from athletes who had just been told their Olympic or Paralympic cycle, and in some cases their entire athletic identity, was ending. The thing that had defined them since childhood stops, and they had to work out who they were without it. I've learnt it when things get tough and life impacts performance, and performance impacts life. I've seen it when VPs and leaders feel like they have nothing more to give or feel lost as a person beyond the noise of the organisation's key performance indicators (KPIs) or its transition to artificial intelligence driven practices. It's not always easy for people to sit in this space, but there is so much to learn from it about how, and how not, to create and maintain sustainable performance. The one thing all these people have in common? They wish they had done something sooner to seek support before something became a bigger issue. When work bleeds into life, and life bleeds into work One of the clearest patterns to come out of the work I do with senior leaders is how rarely performance friction stays where it starts. A punishing quarter at work does not stay neatly inside office hours. It shows up at home, in the parent who is technically present but mentally still in the meeting that overran, in the partner who has stopped being able to switch off, and in the low hum of guilt that follows someone even on the rare day they do leave on time. The reverse is just as true and far less talked about. What is happening in someone's personal life doesn't stay there either. A difficult summer at home juggling kids during school holidays and work, a health scare, or a relationship under strain shows up the next morning as shorter fuses, slower decisions, and a version of someone's leadership that is a step below their best, however hard they try to compartmentalise it. Asking someone to leave their life at the door before they walk physically or metaphorically into work has never once actually worked. It just teaches people to hide the cost instead of managing it. This is precisely why I am passionate about developing a sustainable performance tool to look at the whole person rather than a single measure of output. Presence at home, energy that is restored rather than just endured, and decision clarity under fatigue are not separate categories from performance. They are all performance related, whether in life or at work, and being able to see the impact one has on the other means people are far more likely to act. Performance and longevity are not competing priorities When I first started out in high performance, the narrative treated recovery, identity, and personal life as things to sacrifice in service of results. Push harder, sleep less, keep going, don't have any outside interests. It works for a while, which is exactly the problem. Short bursts of unsustainable output can look like success right up until the point they cost you the very capability that made you valuable in the first place. But sports science and sports medicine have taught us many things that explain why and how this narrative had to change, ensuring days aren't lost to injury or illness. The athletes and executives who sustain elite output over a career, not just a quarter, share a different pattern. They treat performance and longevity as the same project, not two competing ones. It is not about doing less or taking a holiday in the hope that it will fix the problem. It is about building the underlying architecture that meets the specific needs of that individual, allowing high output to continue without the person underneath it breaking down. Beyond the outcome: Building goals, identity and values that let you enjoy the journey Almost every high performer I have worked with can tell you their next performance target without pausing to think. A number, a title, a deadline, a medal, a milestone, a key performance indicator (KPI). Far fewer can tell you, with the same speed, who they are underneath that target, or what they actually value about themselves when nobody is measuring anything at all. This matters more than it sounds. When your goals are entirely outcome focused, tied to a bigger role, a bigger number, or a result other people can see and applaud, the satisfaction they bring is often temporary and always followed by the need for a slightly bigger goalpost. For some, that outcome isn’t achieved, and they question their whole self-worth. For others, the outcome does come, but what did they gain as a person? The sense of fulfilment they expected to arrive with it doesn't always last. The people who sustain both performance, a greater breadth of identity, and genuine wellbeing over the long run tend to hold a broader definition of success than the title or achievement offers. They know their process goals, the daily and weekly behaviours within their control, and the amazing things they bring to those process goals, not just the outcome sitting at the end of them. They have a sense of identity that exists independently of their job title or their last set of results, built from their own individual values and strengths that stay constant whether they win or lose, get promoted or don't. Critically, they have learned to find some genuine enjoyment in the process itself, not just relief when it's finally over, connecting to and valuing their individual human strengths that have enabled them to get to where they are at this stage in their own journey. Winning and losing doesn't define you, and neither does your KPI or your bonus. There is more to you than the external validation of your success, and building a clear sense of what that "more to me" actually consists of, your values, your strengths, your identity beyond the role, your self-care plan, your passions and interests, and your continual learning and development is not a soft add-on to performance. It is what allows someone to enjoy the climb, rather than only ever feeling relief at the summit before immediately looking for the next mountain. The four places potential friction hides Through the diagnostic work I have developed for executives, one truth keeps surfacing. When someone is struggling to sustain their performance, the friction is rarely just about workload. It tends to concentrate in four areas. Performance edge. Being able to have real clarity under fatigue, the ability to protect real deep work time, and the ability to motivate, care for, and lead others effectively. Life goals and vision. High performers often have absolute clarity on what their organisation needs next quarter, and very little clarity on where they personally want to be in three to five years. That gap can quietly drain motivation over time. Identity beyond the role. The more senior someone becomes, the more their sense of self can fuse with their job title. Losing the ability to define personal strengths or say "I don't know" or "I'm struggling" to anyone, because the mask must stay on, are some of the clearest early warning signs I see. Recovery integration. Time off that is technically taken but not actually restorative, because the mind never leaves the job, does not function as recovery. It functions as unpaid overtime with worse lighting. Most people can name which of these four areas is quietly costing them the most the moment they see the pattern laid out. That is usually the first useful coaching conversation, long before any conversation about workload or time management. Trust is the multiplier, not a soft add-on None of this happens in isolation. The teams and leaders that sustain performance well are almost always operating inside a high-trust environment. When a leader creates the conditions where someone can say there are challenges in life or at work without it being read as weakness, friction gets caught early. When they cannot, it gets buried until it becomes seen as a lack of motivation, a resignation, a health issue, or a very expensive mistake. Trust is not a wellbeing nicety sitting alongside performance. It is one of the load-bearing walls underneath it. I saw this play out constantly in elite sport, where the difference between a coaching environment athletes thrived in and one they quietly fell apart in rarely came down to the training programme. It came down to whether the athlete believed they could tell the truth about how they were really doing and wholeheartedly trust the people who were going to help them build their dreams. Leaders who notice, care for, and listen to the whole person, and who want to support their broader life and career goals, are the ones who will keep their top talent and enable them to thrive for years to come. What conversations on the Win Well Podcast keep revealing I started the Win Well Podcast because I want high performing people to share stories of how they win well and how they have created sustainable performance. Guests have ranged from athletes who have competed on the biggest stages in their sport to business leaders carrying enormous organisational responsibility, and the conversations keep circling back to the same handful of truths. The people who talk most openly about winning well, rather than just winning, are rarely the ones who describe an easy path. They tend to describe a specific turning point, a moment where continuing to perform the way they always had, for themselves or their team, stopped being sustainable, and they had to consciously redesign how they worked rather than simply trying harder with the same approach. It is rarely framed as a dramatic collapse. More often, it is described as a slow, quiet erosion they only recognised in hindsight, which is exactly why the four areas of friction above matter. They are early signals, not late stage diagnoses. What this looks like in practice I have built this sustainable performance thinking into a free diagnostic tool for senior leaders, one that deliberately avoids reducing someone's results to a single score out of a hundred. Instead, it maps where a person's strengths and friction points might sit across the four areas above, because a single number tells you almost nothing about where to act next, while a clearer picture does. The same thinking underpins a programme I am currently developing, built for people who do not want to choose between performing at the highest level and having a life that can sustain it for the next twenty years, not just the next twenty months. It draws directly on the lifestyle and transition frameworks I built for Olympic and Paralympic athletes, adapted for people whose arena is a boardroom rather than a stadium, but whose underlying need to sustain themselves and their performance is exactly the same. If you're a leader or manager and would like a copy of the free sustainable performance tool, for yourself or for your team, please email me here, and I'll send it straight over. The real question to ask If you are someone other people rely on precisely because you are capable, the question worth sitting with is not whether you can keep doing what you are doing. It's the questions underneath that. If you have or can sustain that performance, what strengths enable you to do this? How can you acknowledge, celebrate, and draw upon these strengths when you need them most, in life and in your career? And if the way you're working isn't sustainable, how long can it really last? What is it quietly costing you to keep doing it the way you are doing it now, and is that a cost you are willing to keep paying? And what do you want to do about it? The people who last longest at the top, whether in elite sport or in business, are rarely the ones who pushed hardest. They are the ones who built something sustainable underneath the push, who kept enough of themselves outside the role to enjoy the climb and not just the summit, and who had someone in their corner willing to tell them the truth, coaching and supporting them to train smarter, embrace their personal strengths and values, and connect with what they've learned about themselves along the journey. Which is always something you can do too. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Dawn Sanders Dawn Sanders, Performance Coach Dawn Sanders is a leader in coaching the lifestyle, wellbeing, career development, and transition needs of elite performers, having supported Great Britain's Olympic and Paralympic athletes for over 20 years. She is passionate about developing the person behind the performer to enable them to thrive in high-pressure, high-risk, high-reward environments.

Written by David Henzell, Sobriety Coach David Henzell is a qualified addiction therapist, accredited recovery coach, and founder of Phenomenal Sobriety, a transformative recovery programme built on his signature THRIVE Sobriety System. He brings eight years of personal sobriety and three decades of professional experience to everything he writes. Recently, my engineer asked me why anyone would use my AI sobriety app, Sol, instead of ChatGPT. I didn't have the perfect answer that night. So I went away and built one properly. It was the end of a long day of coding, the kind where you've been staring at the same broken thing for six hours and your patience has worn down to nothing. Adam, who builds Sol with me, looked up and asked the question flatly, without any diplomacy left in his voice. "Why would anyone use Sol anyway, when they can just use ChatGPT?” He wasn't being difficult. He was tired, and he was right to ask. If the person who builds the thing every day doesn't have a settled answer to that question, nobody else is going to find one either. I had the answer, but I knew it could be more robust. So I went away and built one properly and sent it to him. That felt, at the time, like solving a single awkward question from a colleague. It's taken me longer to admit it's actually the first of many questions I've had to sit with just as squarely. These are the ten questions that, if I answered them badly, would mean Sol shouldn't exist at all. This is me showing my working on all of them, starting with Adam's. Why not just use ChatGPT? The first reason is the one Adam handed me. The honest answer is that generality is the weakness here. ChatGPT will do anything you ask, which is exactly why it's the wrong tool for someone quietly wondering if they drink too much. Ask it, “Do I drink too much?” and it will either reassure you or lecture you, and either way, it loses the person in front of it. The clearest way I've found to explain the difference is a medical library versus a general practitioner (GP) who's known you for years. ChatGPT is the library: every paper, instantly, free, more information than any one person could hold. Sol is the GP. For many questions, the library wins. But when something's actually wrong, and you're frightened, and you're not even sure you want to know the answer, you don't want a library. You want the person who greets you by name, remembers your history, and knows that the gentle question works better on you than the hard fact. The library can't do the one thing that matters most in that moment. It can't meet you where you are. Sol carries a clinical architecture ChatGPT structurally cannot: Motivational Interviewing, FRAMES, Recovery Capital, a design built specifically for someone still ambivalent about their own drinking, who knows the worst move you can make with an ambivalent person is to push. And it carries things a general-purpose model was never built to hold: a UK governance wrapper, a safeguarding layer, memory of this particular person's journey, and no commercial incentive to maximise how long they stay talking. Sol isn't trying to keep anyone engaged. He's trying to help someone get somewhere. That's the real answer to Adam's question. But it opened a door I couldn't shut again, because if I was willing to interrogate that assumption properly, I owed the same rigour to everything else people might reasonably doubt about what I'm building. Is that down to my autism, or just a need to be incredibly clear, or both? Time will tell. The trust problem The second reason is trust. The polling everyone quotes at me says “only 6%” of UK adults would turn to an AI platform with a drinking concern. It's real data, and I take it seriously, but it asks whether people would confide in a generic tool like ChatGPT, not a purpose-built companion with no login wall and no clinical gatekeeping. The number that actually matters isn't how many people trust “AI” in the abstract. It's how many people currently tell no one at all, which is a much larger figure, and it's the entire reason Sol exists. Asking “would you trust AI” before someone has met a specific product is like asking “would you trust a website” before Google existed. The third reason is the harder version of that same doubt, and the one that troubles me most. I don't get to wave this one away with statistics: won't something this frictionless just become a hiding place, the new “no one,” with better manners? It would, if I built Sol to keep people. I've deliberately not. Sol is grounded in Motivational Interviewing, which means its instinct isn't to hold on, it's to help someone move, toward a meeting, a GP, a friend, a morning that looks different from the last one. Success isn't measured by how long someone stays in conversation with Sol. It's whether they walk away more able to face the people in their life, not less. The safety problem The fourth reason is safety. This is the one I'll least apologise for being strict about. Sol has a built-in risk framework and escalation logic, running from low-level concern through to hard-stop conditions where the conversation's normal shape ends entirely, and the person is pointed toward real, immediate human help. When professional support is needed, Sol says so plainly and then stays. The referral is a moment inside the conversation, not the end of it, because the standard pattern of detect the risk, refer on, then vanish is a liability response dressed up as care, and it's exactly what causes people to say “yes, I'll do that” and never follow through. Scope The fifth reason is scope, which is a discipline, not an afterthought. Sol is currently built for alcohol, and only alcohol. Every time I've been tempted to stretch it toward adjacent territory, into other substances, wider mental health, anything outside what the clinical architecture was actually built and tested for, the answer has stayed no, for now. That kind of expansion sits on the long-term roadmap, not the near one, and it stays there until there's a purpose-built framework and a formal clinical partnership behind it, built for that specific thing. I'd rather say that plainly than pretend it's further away than it is. The workforce problem The sixth reason is the workforce question. I've had this one asked directly, and it deserves a direct answer: “Is this just a cheaper substitute for key workers?” It isn't, and the reasoning matters more than the denial. Workforce strain, from caseload pressure to supervision gaps, is a named risk in the sector's own standards. Sol isn't pitched as replacing the people who carry that caseload. It's pitched as covering what an overstretched, capped workforce structurally cannot provide between sessions: the evenings and weekends, the gap between referral and first appointment, and the long quiet stretch after discharge when relapse risk is highest and formal contact has stopped. The seventh reason lives just beside that one, because it isn't a threat to the keyworker relationship at all. It's an honesty asymmetry. People often perform recovery for workers, they manage impressions, say what keeps them out of trouble. Sol has no power over anyone's prescription, referral, or housing, so there's nothing to perform for. That's not a replacement for the relationship a good keyworker builds over months. It's a different kind of honesty, available at a different hour. The proof problem, and the system problem The eighth reason is proof. Is there evidence this actually works? The honest position is this: digital brief intervention as a category is well-evidenced and already commissioned across the UK. Large language model delivery specifically is newer, early, not absent, moving fast, with peer-reviewed pilots landing within the last year. Sol's own testing framework exists to contribute real data to that evidence base rather than wait for someone else to build it. If pushed further, the right answer is to say so plainly, not to over-claim a settled evidence base that doesn't yet exist. The ninth reason is the one a busy service will ask. Why would an already-stretched, already-tooled-up service want another digital product at all? Because the category is already somewhat proven. DrinkCoach did that work, PHE-backed, with a real health economy outcome behind it, Sol isn't asking anyone to fund something unproven as a category. It's extending a category that already has commissioner trust into the part of the journey, before referral and after discharge, that most commissioned tools were never built to reach. The caveat I keep in my back pocket The tenth reason is the one I don't say often enough in public, and probably should. This entire argument, the clinical architecture, the governance wrapper, the safeguarding layer, everything that separates Sol from the ChatGPT window sitting open in another tab, holds only for as long as it's genuinely true. The moat isn't the underlying model. Sol is built on the same Claude models that power general-purpose AI tools, and that was a deliberate choice, not an accident. Anthropic's own approach to safety and its documented behaviour around sensitive, personal conversations made it the right foundation for something handling exactly this kind of disclosure. But the model was always the foundation. It was never the moat. The moat is everything built on top of it: the motivational interviewing framework, the safeguarding architecture, the pre-contemplation design, the years of testing against real scenarios and real people. The day any of that stops being real, Adam's question becomes fair again, and I won't have an answer. Which is precisely the argument for protecting all of it, properly, for as long as I'm building this at all. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from David Henzell David Henzell, Sobriety Coach David Henzell writes at the intersection of sobriety, identity, and personal transformation. With eight years of personal recovery and a professional background spanning addiction therapy, creative practice, and academia, he brings a rare combination of lived experience and clinical insight to his work. He is the founder of Phenomenal Sobriety, a premium recovery programme built on his signature THRIVE Sobriety System, combining evidence-based techniques, AI companion support, and genuine community. David's approach draws on meaning-centred psychology and a restless curiosity, resisting the dogma of traditional recovery culture. His mission is simple, to help people who don't fit the conventional recovery mould find their own way through.

Written by Chloe Redmond, Chopra Certified Healer & Intuitive Consulting Chloe Redmond is a leader in digital marketing, influencer partnerships, and social media management. A chance opportunity to work with Chopra Global (Deepak Chopra’s legacy company) in 2020 left her with the understanding of how mindfulness and marketing can co-exist. Harvest is one of the most celebrated times of year in wine country. It represents months of preparation, long hours in the vineyard and cellar, and the beginning of a transformation that ultimately brings people together around a bottle of wine. But behind the beauty and tradition of harvest is a physically demanding reality. For harvest workers and winemakers, long days of repetitive movement, lifting, carrying, bending, heat, fatigue, and limited recovery can place significant stress on the body. While the wine industry has increasingly embraced conversations around sustainability, quality, and innovation, the physical well-being and longevity of the people who make the industry possible deserve equal attention. Recognizing this opportunity, Annalise DuSell, a sports physical therapist, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS), and CrossFit Level 1 coach, created the Winery Wellness Program, an initiative designed specifically around the physical demands of the wine industry. The program centers on three foundational principles: education, preparation, and recovery, while also incorporating mindfulness, exercise, diet, and sleep. Its goal is not simply to respond to injuries, but to help workers build greater physical capacity, awareness, and resilience before and throughout harvest. In this conversation, DuSell shares what inspired her to develop the program, why injury prevention matters, how physical therapy can be integrated directly into harvest, and her vision for creating a healthier and more sustainable future for wine industry professionals. What inspired you to create the Winery Wellness Program for harvest workers and winemakers? I was inspired to create this program after I started working in a winery tasting room and saw how intense harvest can be. Combined with knowing that many small businesses can't afford to provide health care for their workers, or that the health care they do provide is limited by the places accepting it, I saw an opportunity. Seeing the impact of harvest over a few years on the harvest workers' and winemakers' bodies, I saw a place where I could make an impact on people's lives. Can you share your journey in sports therapy and how it led to this initiative? My journey in sports physical therapy has been a good mix. I've worked in multiple states and many different clinics and have seen a lot of variety in how people are treated, the pros and cons of taking insurance, and the differences in what people need and care about across different places in the country. Having this wide experience has helped teach me to look at everyone I work with – with open eyes, considering their lives and how I can impact them instead of just treating them as a body part or injury. This allowed me to see the piece that I believe is missing in winemaking to allow increased ease during harvest and the winemaking process for everyone's bodies. What are the core components of the Winery Wellness Program? The core components of this program are education, preparation, and recovery. Education: A short seminar about learning the importance of preparation and recovery, as well as what we can do to control what we can control during the uncontrollable harvest season. Preparation: Preparing the body physically for the labor-intensive season of harvest. The stronger we are moving into harvest, the lower the risk of injury and the more load the body can tolerate without being overextended. Recovery: Things are bound to happen during harvest that our bodies don't respond to as we wish. Having recovery sessions during harvest allows the body to recover more quickly and address irritations before they become bigger issues. How does the pre-harvest educational workshop prepare workers for the physical demands of the season? This workshop teaches the individual what is important to pay attention to. How to think about how the day is structured in regard to mindfulness, exercise, diet, and sleep. How can we control aspects of these around harvest when many aspects are uncontrollable? Why is injury prevention particularly important for harvest workers? Injury prevention is key to being able to keep up with the demands of harvest, as well as being able to return and work harvest every year. It also allows people to fully function and show up however they would like in their daily lives. What specific exercises and techniques do you recommend to minimize injury risks during harvest? The most important thing is preparing your body for the load and demand that will be placed on it during harvest. The way we do that is by increasing the strength of all our muscles and teaching our body how to move and lift heavy objects. The heavier weights we can move, the less maximal effort is needed for each movement. If we can lift heavier than we will during harvest, the demand during harvest is less on our bodies. How do mindfulness, diet, and sleep play a role in your program? These factors play a role in the education piece. These are factors we can control that affect pain and injury risk. By being mindful of our thoughts and what we tell ourselves, we can impact how our nervous system is functioning day to day. Diet and nutrition help us manage our cells' and bodies' needs for increased activity. We need to make sure we are eating enough of the right macronutrients daily so we can recover fully and support our bodies for what we are asking them to do. We also need to pay attention to micronutrients, electrolytes in particular, with the long working days in the sun and increased sweat loss. Sleep is when our bodies recover. Pain sensitivity starts after one week of getting less than eight hours of sleep. This means that pains you normally wouldn't notice are going to show up when there is continued sleep deprivation. Can you explain the M.E.D.S. framework you incorporate into the training? Everything above is taught and discussed in the workshop. We discuss how we can control some of this during the season. We aren't looking for perfection because it's not a reality, and we are looking at how we can keep these things in mind during this season. If we can't get eight hours of sleep because of the harvest schedule, can we dial in our nutrition 80% of the week? If we can't get any other exercise throughout harvest, can we take five to 10 minutes every evening for a walk, yoga session, or breathwork to settle our nervous system? There are options for everything, and I like to teach the big picture. How can we adapt these to best fit what is within your capacity during this chapter? How do one-on-one check-in sessions enhance the overall effectiveness of the program? The check-in sessions allow for real-time modifications to the workouts. Maybe someone doesn't have access to a piece of equipment that is written into the program, and during the check-in, we can figure out how to modify or substitute so they can still get the full benefit. It's also a great time for clients to ask questions about any of the exercises and to double-check their form if necessary. This is where we can troubleshoot compliance, as well as how the program is fitting into their lives. Do we need to shorten the workouts slightly? Are they too easy? Are they having pain with a certain movement? What do we need to modify? What can participants expect from their individual sessions during the second week of programming? They can expect individualization of the programs if needed and the full session time chatting with their strength coach or physical therapist. This is the time for any questions they have. How does the inclusion of physical therapy during harvest benefit workers? This offering helps mitigate the risk of injuries turning into bigger issues, as well as helping with their bodies' recovery. During these sessions, we can figure out if they need more bodywork, mobility work, or specific strengthening during harvest. It is also a great time for touchpoints again in regard to M.E.D.S. What types of injuries are most commonly addressed in these sessions? These can vary, but what I have seen the most so far are low back pain, sciatica-like symptoms, forearm tightness, wrist pain, and neck and shoulder pain. Have you seen any success stories or positive outcomes from participants in the program? Since we are in the beginning stages of launching this program, we missed the timeframe this year for the education and programming piece. We have had two recovery sessions with decreased symptoms the following day in the forearms, neck, and shoulders. During these sessions, we have been able to discuss ways to mitigate this throughout the rest of the week and how to manage it. We have had intermittent decreases in chronic low back symptoms and increased body awareness with another client. What are your long-term goals for the Winery Wellness Program? My long-term goal for the Winery Wellness Program is to bring more awareness to the pieces of wellness and longevity that we have control over, beginning in the Pacific Northwest. I would love to bring this program to at least 50% of the wineries in the Willamette Valley, if not more. Another goal is to see the acceptance of strength training and the importance of self-care brought into the wine world. Wine is a vessel to bring people together, so why not build stronger, more resilient, and healthier people who can continue to come together and share wine for longer? Building out this program will also allow more people who may not have access to this kind of health care to receive the access they all deserve. How do you envision expanding or evolving this initiative in the future? Expanding to more participating wineries would allow me to bring more physical therapists and strength coaches into this program to assist, as well as potentially expand to other big wine country areas. I don't know how this program will evolve, but I am staying open to seeing how it will. Feedback from wineries will be heard, so adjustments to make this work well for them can be made as well. The more people we are involved with, the more we will know how to evolve and continue making this impact. What advice would you give to harvest workers looking to prepare their bodies for the season? Start early and hire someone to help you learn functional movement patterns if you don't know them. Take advantage of the higher level of control and dial in your nutrition and sleep as much as you can before harvest starts and this becomes harder. How can vineyard owners support the well-being of their teams beyond your program? Bring in a nutritionist for an education moment. Share recipes that are high in protein. Share sleep and evening routines to help with sleep. Complete a workout together weekly. Create accountability with each other. Lead from the front and continue or begin your own journey. How can interested harvest workers or vineyard owners learn more about your program? Check out the website Email Annalise DuSell at e3physiopdx@gmail.com Call or text at 503-979-1647 Instagram: @e3physiopdx Facebook: E3 Physio PDX A new conversation for wine country The wine industry is built around connection to land, craft, community, tradition, and ultimately, to one another. As conversations around sustainability and longevity continue to evolve, perhaps one of the most important places to begin is with the people themselves. DuSell's Winery Wellness Program offers a practical approach to supporting the physical well-being of the people who make harvest possible. By combining education, preparation, strength, recovery, and individualized physical therapy, the program opens the door to a broader conversation about what it means to build a sustainable career in wine. The future of wine depends on more than healthy vineyards and successful vintages. It also depends on creating an industry where the people behind the work can remain strong, healthy, and engaged for years to come. As DuSell looks toward expanding the program throughout the Willamette Valley and beyond, her vision is ultimately about something larger than injury prevention. It is about longevity. It is about accessibility. And it is about recognizing that if wine is a vessel that brings people together, we should also invest in helping the people who create that connection thrive. Follow me on Instagram and visit my website for more info! Read more from Chloe Redmond Chloe Redmond, Chopra Certified Healer & Intuitive Consulting Chloe Redmond is a leader in digital marketing, influencer partnerships, and social media management. A chance opportunity to work with Chopra Global (Deepak Chopra’s legacy company) in 2020 left her with the understanding of how mindfulness and marketing can co-exist. She is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs reach their pure potential through intentional and intuitive marketing practices. Her mission: to teach others how to put their authentic self into play by targeting their niche and discovering creative partnerships.

Written by Bobby Goodman, Principal and CEO of Goodman Tolbert Running a small business often means being the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), marketer, accountant, and customer service team all at once. But trying to do everything alone can lead to burnout, stalled growth, and missed opportunities. Running a small business has always required adaptability. But one of the toughest challenges for any business owner is figuring out what to do when the cost of doing business keeps going up. Supplies cost more. Insurance increases. Vendors adjust their prices. Labor costs change. Rent, utilities, transportation, technology, and other expenses can slowly chip away at your bottom line. Meanwhile, your customers are watching their wallets, too. That puts business owners in a difficult position: How do you protect your profit without pricing away the very customers who keep you in business? Recent numbers show why this conversation matters. According to the September 2026 Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Index, average real monthly revenue for United States (U.S.) small businesses with one to nine employees was $49,850 in August, a 1.52% decrease from July. Revenue declined in nine of the 12 sectors tracked and in all eight U.S. regions. The Index adjusts revenue figures for inflation, which helps show changes in actual purchasing power rather than simply higher dollar amounts. For entrepreneurs, statistics like these are a reminder that protecting profitability isn't simply about selling more. Sometimes, it is about making smarter decisions with the revenue you already have. Before automatically raising your prices, here are five areas worth examining. 1. Know where you are actually losing money When costs rise, the natural reaction may be, “I need to raise my prices.” Maybe you do. But first, know your numbers.[1] Look at your products and services individually. Which ones have healthy margins? Which ones are barely profitable? Are certain customers, products, or services requiring considerably more time and resources than they did a year ago? A business owner who doesn't know the cost of delivering a product or service is essentially guessing when setting the price. Don't raise everything simply because some things cost more. Determine exactly where your margins are shrinking and make targeted adjustments. 2. Cut costs your customers won't miss There is a difference between cutting costs and cutting value. Your customers probably won't care that you renegotiated a vendor contract, canceled software you weren't using, reduced unnecessary subscriptions, consolidated purchases, or found a more efficient way to manage administrative tasks.[1] They will notice, however, if slower service, lower quality, fewer options, or an inferior customer experience becomes your cost-cutting strategy. Before taking something away from the customer, look behind the scenes. Go through your expenses line by line and ask a simple question: Does this expense help us make money, save time, serve our customers, or operate more effectively? If the answer is no, it deserves a second look. 3. Look for efficiency before looking for cuts Saving money doesn't always mean eliminating something. Sometimes it means doing it better. Small businesses should regularly examine where time is being wasted. Are employees manually performing tasks that could be automated? Are you entering the same information into multiple systems? Are invoices going out late? Are you spending hours on administrative work that could be simplified with technology? Even small improvements can add up. Saving 15 minutes doesn't sound significant. Saving 15 minutes on a task performed four times a day, five days a week, adds up to five hours every week. Efficiency creates capacity. Capacity can create profit. 4. How small businesses can increase value before increasing price Sometimes a price increase is necessary. Before making one, consider whether you can also increase the customer's perception of value. Could two services be bundled together? Could you offer different pricing levels? Could you add a convenience that costs your business very little but means a lot to the customer? Think beyond the price tag. Customers don't always choose the cheapest option. They choose the option they believe gives them the best value. That distinction matters. A business competing only on price will eventually meet someone willing to charge less. A business competing on value has more room to build loyalty, differentiate itself, and maintain healthier margins. 5. If you raise prices, communicate with confidence There comes a point when absorbing increased costs is no longer sustainable. When that happens, raising prices isn't necessarily a failure. It can be a responsible business decision. But how you communicate the increase matters. Your customers don't need a detailed explanation of every bill that has increased for your company. Instead, remind them of the value you provide. Be clear. Be reasonable. Give advance notice when possible. Most importantly, don't apologize for operating a profitable business. Profit isn't a dirty word. Profit allows you to employ people, invest in equipment, improve your services, support your community, prepare for emergencies, and remain in business long enough to serve customers tomorrow. Don't wait until the numbers force your hand One of the biggest mistakes an entrepreneur can make is waiting until cash gets tight before examining profitability. Make reviewing your numbers a regular business habit. Ask yourself: What costs have increased in the last six months? Which products or services are most profitable? Where are we wasting time or money? What do our customers value most? Perhaps the most important question: If our costs continue rising, what will we do differently? The QuickBooks numbers are worth paying attention to. When inflation-adjusted small-business revenue declines across most sectors and regions, it reinforces the importance of watching your own numbers closely. You cannot control every price that rises around your business. You can control how you respond. The businesses that navigate challenging economic conditions successfully won't necessarily be the ones that cut the most or raise their prices the fastest. They will be the ones that understand their numbers, protect what their customers value, eliminate what isn't working, and make decisions before circumstances make those decisions for them. That's not just surviving higher prices. That's running a smarter business. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Bobby Goodman Bobby Goodman, Principal and CEO of Goodman Tolbert Bobby Goodman is an entrepreneur and advocate for small business growth who understands the realities of business from the ground up. Through firsthand experience, he shares insights on leadership, burnout, and the importance of delegation in entrepreneurship. In Wearing Every Hat: Why Small Business Owners Can't Do It All, Goodman explores the challenges many business owners face while trying to balance every role on their own. Reference: [1] Business Leaks

Written by Taylor Han, Leadership and Communication Expert Taylor Han is the founder of True Voice Consulting, passionate about helping individuals and organizations build healthier leadership practices, stronger communication cultures, and more authentic ways of leading. Her work explores the intersection of leadership, relationships, culture, and human connection. Positivity is often treated as something you either naturally possess or simply don’t. What if positivity is less about disposition and more about development? Like any skill, our capacity to recognize what is good, find possibility in difficult circumstances, and intentionally shift our attention toward what is working can be strengthened with practice. This doesn’t mean ignoring hardship or forcing ourselves into optimism when life feels heavy. Instead, it means learning how to build the mental and emotional habits that allow us to access a more balanced perspective, even in challenging seasons. Below are 10 strategies to develop the capacity to notice that there may still be something worth holding onto, even when things don’t feel okay. The toxic positivity trap The recently coined concept of “toxic positivity” is something we all try our best to avoid, but too often, normal positive behavior gets lumped in as well. Toxic positivity could be described as the excessive and overgeneralized belief that, no matter how dire a situation is, you should remain in a relentlessly perky mindset. This is unrealistic, and there is something to be said for occasionally just acknowledging that you’ve had some tough luck. With that said, why do we find general positivity so off-putting? Unfortunately, it’s just much easier to be negative. It comes more naturally, and conveniently, we’re all very good at it. Toxic positivity says that our response should always be, “Everything is fine.” I would argue that healthy positivity, appropriately leveraged, would sound more like, “Everything is not fine, but I will find a way to move forward.” There shouldn’t be an expectation to ignore reality, minimize pain, or force optimism. Healthy positivity should tell the truth, acknowledge difficulty, and maintain a belief that progress is still possible. When misery loves company Complaining often produces bonding. This is especially true in work environments where stress is high, and morale is low. We all want someone who sympathizes with our woes and knows the context of our circumstances. It’s a primal human desire to find someone to help us in the trenches. We’re wired to avoid discomfort and disappointment, and so much of the time, that’s what we’re met with. Aiming high is both difficult to do and difficult to sustain. The power of a reframe If you think through your life’s hardest moments, most of us would say we eventually ran into someone who was simply the right kind of support. They gave us what we needed when we needed it most, whether it was words of encouragement, brainpower to think through an issue, or some other form of assistance. The end result is usually that, by leaning on their strength and helpful energy, you find a way through. That’s something you usually don’t receive from commiseration buddies. It’s much easier to pull someone down than to lift them up. One takes advantage of gravity, while the other requires brute strength. When someone can help reframe bad circumstances into silver linings, we see it as a gift. The reason it’s so precious is that it’s difficult to find someone who is able to do this, and the reason it’s so rare is that consistent, healthy positivity is a skill. Skills must be developed and reinforced. Positivity is a collection of six learned traits What you notice What you reinforce What follow-up questions you ask yourself How you interpret setbacks How quickly you recover Where you allow your attention to naturally rest The ability to look on the bright side of things is built through the repetition of habits. You don’t accidentally lift weights, for example. It’s an intentional decision each time it’s done. For some reason, we expect people to have emotional resilience without practice. Our thoughts are heavily dictated by emotion, and emotion is heavily dictated by a delicate balance of internal and external conditions. If we’re too hungry, too tired, too hot, etc., the world tilts off kilter. How can we expect, without intentionally training our thoughts, to end up as anything other than emotionally held hostage by our brains? Positivity in leadership In the workplace, teams subconsciously rely on leaders for emotional direction. If the boss is excited, the team is inclined toward excitement. If the boss is beaten down, the team gives up before they start. As information filters through leaders, teams can’t be expected to immediately separate how they should feel about something from the emotional presentation that’s offered to them. If they have to provide the pep, they’re really the ones leading. Great leadership requires realism and hope at the same time. Like negativity, positivity can also be contagious. If someone smiles at you, you’re likely to unconsciously smile back. If people in a room are laughing, you’re more prone to laughter. It’s why stand-up comedy is always funnier in person! If everyone around you can find the silver lining, you’ll want to see it too, and the same is true in reverse. If you have a silver lining, you’ll want to share it with someone who would benefit. 10 exercises to mentally frame for positivity Change your inner dialogue: When a disappointing or frustrating situation presents itself, don’t default to complaining. Instead, ask yourself, “What can I learn from this?” Celebrate progress before perfection: Most people wait until the finish line to acknowledge success. Get in the game early by acknowledging momentum. Name three wins every day: Not because life is perfect, but because your brain won’t naturally notice them. Challenge yourself to find three good things, even if they’re small. This habit will likely be your biggest accelerator. Catch yourself catastrophizing: Change “This always happens” to “This happened today.” Small language shifts can create major emotional shifts. Be intentional with encouragement: It isn’t fluff. It’s fuel. Allow your words to feed someone else when their chips are down. Take a language audit: Spend 7 days tracking your words. Count how often you default to “problem,” “failure,” or “issue” versus “challenge,” “opportunity,” or “data point.” Notice your reflex. Make sure everyone feels heard: Even if your goal is to redirect toward a solution, people still want to express their own hang-ups before they can see past them. It’s okay to create space for this, but don’t fall into step. Learn to calibrate severity: Build a mental scale from minor friction, such as a typo or short delay, to real loss, such as a layoff, failed launch, or a mistake with real consequences. On the minor end, reframe freely, but when dealing with real loss, lead with acknowledgement and earn the reframe later. Use a “both/and” check: Can you hold both truth and hope in the same hand without one canceling out the other? If not, sit in the tension a little longer. Hold a trusted debrief: Ask a peer or mentor if you come across honestly to others or if you’re seen as glossing over the surface. External calibration is usually more effective than self-assessment. Want to dig in further? Changing small habits pays big dividends over time. Take the first step toward overcoming negative thought patterns by implementing these strategies in your life. Know that no matter where you’re starting from, you have the power to rewire the way you think. If you need help getting started, book a coaching call today. Let’s work together to embrace your true potential. Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Taylor Han Taylor Han, Leadership and Communication Expert Taylor's work focuses on helping individuals and organizations build healthier, more human-centered ways of leading. Drawing from her background in communication and leadership, her work explores topics including organizational culture, relationships, authenticity, and the realities of modern leadership. Through her writing, Taylor challenges conventional assumptions and invites readers into deeper conversations about what effective leadership actually looks like. In addition to leadership consulting, True Voice Consulting also provides ghostwriting services, as well as fiction and memoir editing, helping clients communicate their ideas and stories in an authentic and clear way.

Written by Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director Helen champions the arts as a tool for change. Now, as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of RYTC Creatives Community Interest Company (CIC) and Give Get Go Education, she mentors young people, creates pathways for them to thrive in the arts, and helps launch successful careers. Facts fade. Stories stay. A young person can forget a formula, a date, or a definition within days of learning it, yet remember a story they were told years ago in precise detail, right down to how it made them feel. Helen Kenworthy's work through Give Get Go Education draws directly on this principle, built into the heart of the platform through co-CEO Tony Klinger, a writer, filmmaker, educator, and coach who, across a career spanning academia, business, and film, simply calls himself a storyteller. Klinger's decades in the industry, working on productions including The Avengers, Gold, Shout at the Devil, and The Kids Are Alright alongside names like Roger Moore, Michael Caine, and Vincent Price, are built on a simple truth that also applies to learning: An audience does not remember information, they remember how a story made them feel and what it meant to them. Academic content is too often delivered as a list of things to know, disconnected from any narrative that would make it stick. Storytelling changes that, turning isolated facts into a sequence with cause, consequence, and meaning, which is exactly how the human brain is built to retain information. When a young person understands academic content as a story rather than a list, they stop simply memorising it and start genuinely engaging with it, which changes both how well they learn and how long that learning lasts. Why traditional academic delivery struggles to stick Most academic content is presented in the order a curriculum requires, not in the order that makes it memorable. Facts, processes, and concepts are introduced sequentially, with little regard for whether they connect into anything a student can actually hold onto once the lesson ends. For students who already find sustained concentration difficult, this approach asks a great deal. Without a narrative thread, each new piece of information competes for space rather than building on what came before, and much of it is lost within days. This is not a failure of the student's memory. It reflects how content is structured, and structure can be changed. What Tony Klinger's approach brings to GGGE Tony Klinger has spent a career understanding what makes an audience lean in rather than switch off, from documentary filmmaking to working alongside some of the biggest names in music and film. His storytelling instincts run in the family too, following in the footsteps of his father, Michael Klinger, the producer behind the classic film Get Carter. Tony has continued that legacy through his own films, documentaries, books, and screenplays. As co-CEO of Give Get Go Education, that same instinct for narrative sits at the very centre of how the platform approaches teaching, not as a borrowed idea but as one of its founding principles. Klinger's method treats every piece of content as a story waiting to be told, with a beginning that creates curiosity, a middle that builds tension or complexity, and an end that resolves it. As he puts it himself, he loves telling stories, writing books and screenplays, making films, and teaching about films because incredible stories about real people and real events resonate around the world. Within Give Get Go Education (GGGE), a historical event, a scientific process, or a mathematical proof stops being a set of facts to absorb and becomes a narrative with characters, stakes, and a satisfying resolution, directly shaping how the platform's courses and projects are designed. Tony Klinger's core storytelling principles Across decades of filmmaking, writing, and teaching, Klinger's approach to narrative has settled into a consistent set of principles, ones that translate directly from the screen into the classroom: Every story needs a genuine beginning that sparks curiosity, not just an introduction of facts. Tension and complexity in the middle keep an audience invested in what happens next. A satisfying resolution matters as much as the build-up that leads to it. Real people and real stakes make a story resonate far more than abstract information ever can. Storytelling is a craft that can be taught and practised, not a talent reserved for the naturally gifted. The best stories are shared with honesty, treating the audience as genuinely worth telling the truth to. These principles sit behind everything from Klinger's own films and books to the way GGGE approaches academic content, giving educators a practical framework rather than a vague instruction to “make it interesting.” Turning academic content into story Storytelling in education is not about inventing fiction to disguise a subject. It is about identifying the narrative that already exists inside the content and choosing to teach it that way. Every scientific discovery has a moment of curiosity or failure behind it, every historical event has real people making real decisions under pressure, and every mathematical solution has a problem that once seemed impossible to solve. Once a student can see the story inside the subject, the facts within it stop floating in isolation. They become part of a sequence the student can follow, predict, and eventually retell in their own words, which is one of the strongest signs that real learning has taken place. Signs a student would benefit from narrative teaching Some young people show clearly, often without realising it themselves, that content delivered as a list rather than a story is not landing. Educators and practitioners may notice patterns such as: Retaining information for a test but losing it within days. Struggling to explain how separate facts connect to one another. Disengagement that lifts noticeably when content is delivered as an anecdote. Difficulty summarising a topic in their own words. Strong recall of films, games, or books but weak recall of academic content. Asking “Why does this matter?” more than “What do I need to know?” Better engagement in subjects taught by educators who use examples and narrative. These patterns rarely reflect a lack of ability. More often, they reflect a young person whose brain is simply responding as it is designed to, remembering stories far more readily than disconnected facts. Key qualities of a strong storytelling educator Educators who successfully bring narrative into academic teaching tend to share a consistent set of qualities: Curiosity about the story behind the subject, not just the syllabus content. Willingness to simplify without losing accuracy. Comfort with tension and suspense, letting a problem sit unresolved for a moment. Attention to character, showing the real people behind facts and discoveries. Consistency in returning to narrative structure across different topics. Confidence to let content breathe rather than rushing to the answer. Together, these qualities help students experience academic content the way they experience a good film or book, as something they want to follow through to the end. Why this matters for career growth Many young people who have been labelled as poor learners are, in fact, simply poor at retaining information delivered without narrative. Once the same content is reframed as a story, recall and engagement often improve dramatically, revealing ability that traditional delivery had been masking all along. That ability translates directly into how confidently a young person can perform in interviews, presentations, and real workplace settings. Give Get Go Education exists to prepare young people for a dynamic, ever-changing workplace by combining publishing, film, and education into hands-on, industry-relevant experience. Storytelling is treated as a genuine teaching methodology within that mission, not a novelty. With Tony Klinger's expertise built into its leadership, GGGE places narrative alongside academic rigour and industry preparation rather than replacing either, giving students both the content and a way of holding onto it, as well as a direct route into the creative industries Klinger has spent his career shaping. What about subjects that feel too technical for storytelling? Some subjects, particularly in maths and the sciences, can seem too factual or procedural to lend themselves to narrative. It can feel as though storytelling belongs to English or history and not to equations or formulas. This is rarely true in practice. Every technical subject was built by people solving real problems, often through years of failed attempts before a breakthrough, and that struggle is itself a story worth telling. The narrative may need to be found rather than obvious, but it is almost always there. 11 ways to use storytelling to make academic content resonate Bringing narrative into academic teaching is a deliberate skill, not a talent some educators simply have. The eleven approaches below show how storytelling can be woven into everyday teaching to help content genuinely resonate. Open with a question, not an answer: Every strong story begins with something unresolved. We introduce new content with a genuine question or puzzle, so students want to find out what happens next rather than passively receiving information. Introduce a character behind the content: Facts feel abstract, but people feel real. We connect content to the person who discovered, built, or lived through it, giving students someone to follow through the story. Build in genuine stakes: A story without consequences is easy to forget. We frame content around what was actually at risk, whether that is a failed experiment, a difficult decision, or a real-world outcome that depended on the result. Sequence content like a plot: Information delivered as a list is easy to lose. We sequence lessons the way a story unfolds, with a beginning that sets the scene, a middle that builds complexity, and an end that resolves it. Use failure before success: Every good story includes struggle before resolution. We show students the false starts and failed attempts behind a discovery or solution, not just the final polished answer. Let students predict what happens next: Engagement rises when the audience is guessing. We pause mid-explanation and ask students what they think comes next, drawing on the same instinct that keeps a reader turning pages. Connect new content to a story already known: New information sticks faster when it attaches to something familiar. We link new academic content to stories, films, or experiences students already know, giving the new material somewhere to anchor. Learn directly from Tony Klinger's storytelling principles: Klinger's own approach to narrative, drawn from decades of filmmaking and now shaping GGGE from the top down, offers a practical structure educators can borrow. We apply his emphasis on tension, character, and resolution directly to academic delivery across the platform. Encourage students to retell content in their own words: Understanding becomes visible when a student can retell a story themselves. We ask students to explain content back as a narrative, not a summary, which reveals genuine comprehension rather than memorisation. Give every topic a satisfying resolution: A story that trails off is unsatisfying and hard to remember. We make sure each unit of content reaches a clear conclusion, so the learning feels complete rather than left hanging. Return to the story, not just the facts, during revision: When it comes to review, a plot is easier to recall than a list. We encourage students to revisit the narrative of a topic during revision, trusting that the facts will follow the story back into memory. Conclusion Storytelling is not a decorative addition to academic teaching. It is a foundation that determines whether content is genuinely understood and retained, or briefly memorised and quickly lost. Drawing directly on the storytelling expertise of co-CEO Tony Klinger, Give Get Go Education treats narrative as central to how students engage with academic subjects, creative projects, and preparation for the industries GGGE was built to open up. When content becomes a story worth following, students stop asking what they need to know and start genuinely wanting to find out, building exactly the kind of engagement and retention that carries into real career growth. To explore more about using storytelling to make academic content resonate, visit here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Helen Kenworthy Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director Helen Kenworthy’s career embodies the transformative power of the arts, from her early roles in the prestigious West End with Bill Kenwright to her impactful work in regional theatre. As manager of the Oxfordshire Youth Arts Partnership, she created pathways for young people to thrive in the arts, with many going on to successful careers. Now at RYTC Creatives CIC and Give Get Go Education, Helen continues to inspire and mentor the next generation of theatre-makers and community leaders, offering invaluable opportunities for growth and professional development.