Written by Carla Madeleine Kupe, Executive Leadership Advisor Carla Madeleine is an attorney, executive leader, and advisor who guides executives in integrating unexamined inner aspects so their leadership becomes examined rather than reactive. Her work bridges authority, authenticity, and inner transformation, particularly during moments of personal and organizational transition. Last month, I wrote about the necessity of returning to yourself before attempting to lead others. Before strategy, performance, or response, there must be presence – the capacity to hear yourself beneath the noise of what everyone and everything around you requires. But returning to yourself creates its own challenge. You may discover something you can no longer “unknow.” The role may no longer fit. The way you have been exercising authority may have reached its limits. An identity that once protected you may now constrain you. An organization may have technically moved beyond a rupture while its people are still living inside it. This is where returning ends and transition begins. Transition is not the same thing as change: change happens, transition takes something from us. We often use the words interchangeably, but there is an important distinction. Change is what happens in our circumstances. A role ends. A leader leaves. An organization restructures. A relationship changes. A new opportunity appears. A crisis passes. Change can often be located on a calendar. There was a before, an event, and an after. Transition does not obey the same timeline. Transition is the internal process of coming into relationship with what the change has altered within us, between us, and around us. That means something can change long before we have transitioned from it. I see this often in my work with leaders and organizations. The new leader is in place, but the organization is still oriented around the person who left. The crisis is technically over, but the leader continues operating as though catastrophe is around every corner. Someone has accumulated considerably more authority than they once held, yet still enters rooms prepared to prove that they deserve to be there. The circumstances changed, something else did not. We are very good at moving on Leadership culture has an enormous appetite for what comes next. When disruption happens, leaders are expected to respond. We create the new strategy. Announce the restructure. Fill the vacant role. Establish the priorities. Reassure the team. Develop the plan. There are, of course, times when decisive action is necessary. But our capacity to continue functioning can obscure something important: moving forward and transitioning are not the same thing. Sometimes what looks like resilience is simply our ability to keep going. We survived it. We adapted. We made the decision. We got everyone through. Because life continued, we assume the transition did too. But human beings do not transform on the same timeline as circumstances. Neither do organizations. What we do not transition from, we carry An incomplete transition does not remain neatly behind us. We carry it forward. We bring the behaviors developed during crisis into seasons that no longer require them. We bring old relationships to power into new positions of authority. We bring the expectations of the leader who left into our relationship with the leader who arrived. We bring identities built around surviving environments that no longer exist into spaces where those identities may no longer serve us. Organizations do this collectively, too. A restructure changes the boxes on an organizational chart while leaving the underlying power relationships untouched. A new leader arrives while employees continue organizing themselves around old loyalties, injuries, fears, and expectations. A difficult season ends, but urgency remains embedded in how the organization works. This is one of the reasons change can sometimes feel strangely disappointing. Everything is different, yet somehow everything feels the same. Change rearranges circumstances, transition changes our relationship to what happened. Transition asks us to release Release is a difficult word because we often mistake it for erasure. To release something does not require us to pretend it did not matter. It does not necessarily mean forgiveness. It does not mean forgetting. It certainly does not mean rushing ourselves toward a lesson so that we can make an uncomfortable experience useful. Release begins with recognition. What belonged to what was? What did I become in order to meet that moment? What protected me there? What did I learn to expect? What did I learn to fear? What am I still carrying because I have never stopped long enough to ask whether I need it here? This is where transition can become uncomfortable for leaders. Leadership often trains us toward accumulation: more knowledge, more responsibility, more skill, more capacity, more strategy. Transitions sometimes ask the opposite of us. They ask what we are willing to put down, not because what we carried was wrong, but because it belonged to another terrain. The middle is not a problem to solve Once we recognize that something has ended, another impulse tends to arrive quickly: “So, what comes next?” It is an understandable question. It is also sometimes premature. There is a space between recognizing that something can no longer continue and knowing what should replace it. It is the part of transition many of us would prefer to skip: the middle, the void, the threshold. The place where the old answer no longer works and the new answer has not yet arrived. For leaders accustomed to providing clarity, this space can feel especially threatening. Not knowing can feel like incompetence. Waiting can feel like avoidance. Uncertainty can feel like a problem demanding immediate resolution. So we fill the space: we make a plan, choose the next identity, announce a new strategy, or declare the lesson. But sometimes clarity is not yet available because something is still ending. There is intelligence in allowing that process to complete. Before asking what comes next Returning to yourself may bring you into contact with a truth you would rather not know. Something has changed. Perhaps it changed yesterday. Perhaps it changed years ago. Perhaps everyone around you has already adjusted to the external reality while some part of you is still organized around what existed before. The invitation is not to judge yourself for that. Nor is it to manufacture an ending because endings make better stories. It is simply to notice. What has changed that I have not yet allowed myself to transition from? A role? A relationship? A season of leadership? A version of yourself? A way of holding authority? An organization that no longer exists in the form you remember? Stay with the question before reaching for the next one. Because the work at every threshold is not immediately to determine what waits on the other side. Sometimes the work is to recognize what has already ended and become willing to stop carrying it forward. Only then does another question become possible. Follow me on LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Carla Madeleine Kupe Carla Madeleine Kupe, Executive Leadership Advisor Carla Madeleine is an attorney, executive leader, and trusted advisor who works with leaders navigating power, responsibility, and transition. With a background in law, executive leadership, and organizational change, she helps individuals identify and integrate unexamined inner patterns that quietly shape decision-making, authority, and trust, particularly during periods of uncertainty, contraction, and reimagination. Carla writes at the intersection of leadership, inner work, and change, offering grounded insight for those shaping the future.

Written by Ruth Hutchins, Career Awakening Coach Ruth Hutchins is more than a career coach with 30 years of career experience and a unique holistic approach, helping people find clarity and direction. She is the founder of Creating Healthy Careers, author of Career Awakening: How to Align Your Career With Your Soul Purpose, and creator of the Career Awakening methodology. Fear can make staying comfortable feel safer than taking a leap into the unknown. But what happens when the fear of regret becomes stronger than the fear of change? This article explores how challenging limiting beliefs, embracing purpose, and moving forward despite uncertainty can open the door to a more fulfilling path. I’d gained clarity and identified my purpose, but there was one last hurdle to jump. Something was still holding me back: fear of taking that leap into my business. Being comfortable I was approaching 50, typically a time in life when we’re in a good spot in our career. We’ve gained a lot of experience, wisdom, and knowledge and are at the top of our game. It’s a comfortable ride into retirement from there, right? Well, not for me and, as I’ve discovered, not for many others either. I had been comfortable in my line of work for many years, but sometimes comfort can become a warning sign, especially when it starts to feel more like stagnation than contentment. If we don’t challenge ourselves, life often has a way of bringing challenges into our path to keep us growing, learning, and expanding. When I heard this, I could look back over the last few years and see a pattern of challenges popping up in my career, almost like they were trying to nudge me onto a different path. I had a sense that it was time to start doing more than what I’d been doing for the past 20+ years in my career. I’d always had a dream of having my own business, but I didn’t want it to be in recruitment, the industry I’d been working in. However, I also didn’t know what it would be. It was something I talked about with friends for 7 years, and I’m sure they were fed up with hearing about my dream and wondering when, or if, I was going to do it. So was I. The turning point I was attending a personal development seminar one weekend, and throughout the seminar, we were told to write down any negative thoughts or beliefs about ourselves that we noticed as we went through the weekend. Late on Sunday afternoon, the lights were dimmed, some dramatic music was played, and we held onto our pages of limitations. Then, the presenter walked us through an exercise to future-pace our lives, which was profound. We were told to reflect on everything we’d written down as we stood there. Then, we were to picture our lives as they were currently, observing how we were being and feeling. He then had us view ourselves from the perspectives of those in our lives: our kids, our friends, our partner, and our colleagues. Then we took a step into the future. If nothing changes, how will we feel in 5 years? Imagine waking up in the morning and noticing what thoughts would be going through your mind. Then step out another 5 years and see what your life looks like if nothing changes. Everyone in the room was in tears. Then it suddenly hit me: What if I get to 60 and haven’t given my business a go? How would I feel? What would my kids think of me? How would I feel about myself, having missed doing something I’d dreamt about for years? Suddenly, the fear of not doing it outweighed the fear of doing it. That was the moment I realised fear wasn’t necessarily telling me to stop. I had been asking myself whether I was brave enough to leave, when the more powerful question was whether I was willing to live with the regret of staying. It motivated me to take action I hadn’t taken before. That night, I developed and registered my business and signed up for my coaching courses. Within 6 months, I had resigned from my job and totally turned my life around after 7 years of procrastination. Turning down the volume on negative thoughts Ever notice how, when you make a decision, within 24 hours a range of reasons why you shouldn’t do whatever it is you’ve decided on start to surface? I certainly noticed it, and over almost 9 years of coaching people, I’ve seen this pattern again and again. You can guarantee it’s going to happen. Our subconscious mind is always trying to keep us safe, and one of the mechanisms it uses is to stop us from doing things that create fear within us by trying to talk us out of taking action. Well, my subconscious was working overtime, saying things like, “Who do you think you are? You can’t do this.” “What do you have to offer people?” “Nobody’s going to want to pay for your services.” It was such a revelation to see the pattern at play and recognise what was driving it. As I was preparing materials for my business, I was researching more and more about how to overcome limiting beliefs and started to turn down the volume on them and turn up the volume on all the people who had given me positive feedback on how I’d helped them over the years. I needed to restore some balance to my self-perception. The limiting beliefs didn’t go away completely because the more I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, the more my subconscious would pipe up. But having an awareness of what was going on certainly helped me not take them too seriously. If not you, then who? The other perspective I took on that helped me push past any fear was to realise how life shapes us to do what we’re here to do. The challenges, the experiences, the people who come into our lives and help us grow and develop skills, knowledge and wisdom, our gifts and talents. When you take that on and really let it soak in, then who are you not to deliver what you’ve been equipped to do? You’ve been gifted unique experiences and ideas to serve a purpose in this world. Of course, you have free will and can make your own choices, but are you going to let thoughts of fear stop you? Moving forward in the face of fear I am now almost 60 and am proud that I walked, and am still walking, my path. It has not been an easy path. Just because you pursue your purpose doesn’t mean the red carpet is magically rolled out for you, but that’s not the point. The point is who you become in the process and, for me, what legacy I am creating. Rarely will all the stars align, and rarely will everyone line up to give you permission and support to pursue what it is you want to do. But if you have a feeling within you that you’re meant for more, or a different path, you don’t need fear to disappear before you move. Sometimes fear simply tells you which consequence matters more. If fear is keeping you in a career or chapter of life you know you’ve outgrown, my Life Path Program helps you get clear on what’s calling you forward and build the confidence to take your next step. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Ruth Hutchins Ruth Hutchins, Career Awakening Coach Ruth Hutchins is a Career and Life Path Coach with 30 years of experience spanning recruitment, career development, and coaching. She helps people make sense of the experiences, turning points, and challenges that have shaped them, uncovering the clues that reveal who they are and where they're called next. Ruth believes even our hardest chapters contain gold, pointing us toward our values, strengths, and direction. Through her holistic approach, she helps clients reconnect with themselves and build a career and life that feels genuinely their own.

Anchal Jain Bajaj is an internationally recognized, award-winning Spiritual Psychologist, Energy Alignment Expert, creator of The MEPSEI Method™, and founder of Rise Your Light®. For over 15 years, she has guided high-performing professionals and entrepreneurs toward Financial Growth by breaking the Subconscious Patterns and Energetic Patterns that quietly block leadership, performance, and fulfilment. In this interview, Anchal explores why successful professionals can remain stuck in recurring patterns despite changing strategies, how identity, emotional regulation, and the nervous system influence leadership and performance, and why financial growth does not have to come at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace. Anchal Jain Bajaj, Spiritual Psychologist & Energy Alignment Expert What first drew you to exploring the hidden patterns behind success, performance, and fulfillment? Honestly, it started with a contradiction I couldn't stop noticing. I'd sit across from people who were sharp, driven, undeniably capable, and still hitting the same invisible wall, year after year. They weren't lacking effort. If anything, they were trying harder at strategies that had already stopped working, and burning out in the process. I remember thinking: this isn't a skill gap; something else is steering the car. That "something else" turned out to be Subconscious Patterns and Energetic Patterns, running quietly underneath their decisions, their leadership, even the way they loved and argued. What struck me most was how rational these people were everywhere else in their lives, yet completely unaware of the loop replaying beneath their own success. The moment I started working with that layer directly, instead of circling it with mindset talk, everything moved differently: faster, deeper, and it actually held. That's the moment my work stopped being about motivation and became about breaking patterns. What inspired you to create The MEPSEI Method™, and what did you discover about achieving financial and professional success without sacrificing health, relationships, or inner peace? So many of my clients had already 'made it' – the title, the revenue, the recognition and yet, privately, they were running on empty. Success had arrived, but they hadn't. That gap between how someone looks from the outside and how empty they feel on the inside is what pushed me to build something more complete. Traditional coaching addressed behaviour, but nobody addressed why they kept repeating. So, I built The MEPSEI Method™ around six dimensions: Mental, Emotional, Physical, Spiritual, Energetic, and Identity, because patterns don't live in just one place. They weave through all of them, and healing only one dimension rarely holds under real-world pressure. What I discovered along the way genuinely surprised me: Financial Growth and Inner Alignment were never rivals. The moment someone heals the pattern instead of muscling through it, growth stops costing them their health, their relationships, their peace. It becomes expansive instead of depleting. What makes The MEPSEI Method™ different from conventional mindset or performance coaching? Most performance approaches begin and end with the conscious mind: change your thoughts, set better goals, build better habits. Valuable, but incomplete, because they rarely explain why someone keeps hitting the same wall. That usually produces temporary relief, not lasting transformation, which requires an identity shift. The MEPSEI Method™ treats a person as one interconnected system across Mind, Emotion, Physical, Soul, Energy, and Identity. Someone may consciously want greater Financial Growth while subconsciously associating visibility with criticism, money with guilt, or growth with losing time for family. Their strategy can be flawless, and another part of their internal system is still resisting the very outcome they're chasing – the body reads the goal as unsafe and holds that resistance somatically. MEPSEI surfaces those Subconscious Patterns and Energetic Patterns and works with them directly, rather than treating the block as a mindset issue alone. Which subconscious or energetic patterns do you see most often in high-performing professionals and entrepreneurs? The most common one is the belief that worth must continually be re-earned through achievement. It looks productive from the outside: ambitious, accomplished, but internally there's real difficulty slowing down or ever feeling satisfied. Close behind is fear of expansion: someone consciously wants more income, visibility, or leadership, while subconsciously linking growth to more responsibility, more criticism, less freedom. That's what produces procrastination or self-sabotage right when an opportunity gets bigger. I also see over-responsibility, perfectionism, difficulty receiving support, and an inability to set boundaries: Energetic Patterns that leave someone so engaged with everyone else's expectations that no internal space remains for their own clarity. What's interesting is how well these patterns disguise themselves as strengths: perfectionism reads as high standards; over-responsibility reads as commitment. The goal was never to remove ambition; it's to see what's driving it underneath. Why do so many ambitious people still equate success with pressure, sacrifice, and overwork? Because nobody ever showed us another way. We absorbed the story early that achievement has to be earned through struggle, that ease is suspicious, that rest is something you apologize for. Those beliefs settle in as Subconscious Patterns long before we're old enough to question them, so by the time someone is running a company, sacrifice doesn't feel like a choice anymore. It feels like the entry fee, quietly built into every decision about how much to give and how little to ask for in return. Here's what I tell my clients: sacrifice isn't proof you're serious about success; it's proof that an old pattern is still driving. What sustainable achievement actually requires is Inner Alignment, not more pressure stacked on top of pressure. Once someone genuinely challenges that belief, not just intellectually but at the level where it lives, ambition stops demanding burnout as payment and starts asking for clarity instead. Where do you think leadership development overlooks the role of identity, emotional regulation, and the nervous system? Leadership development usually focuses on what leaders should do: communicate, decide, delegate, manage conflict. But how someone leads depends heavily on what's happening internally while they do those things. A leader can understand delegation intellectually and still micromanage because releasing control creates anxiety. Another can know how to have hard conversations and still avoid them because conflict activates an old fear of rejection. Someone with excellent strategy can still make poor calls when their nervous system is running on constant stress. This is where identity and emotional regulation become essential: leadership isn't only a set of skills; it's the capacity to stay grounded enough to use them when pressure rises. I ask not just what behaviour needs to change, but what internal pattern is producing it. When leaders build that awareness, decisions get less reactive, and environments get healthier for everyone around them. What are the clearest signs that someone is repeating a pattern rather than facing a strategy problem? Repetition is the tell. The same flavor of conflict, the same plateau, the same setback showing up across completely different roles, teams, even different companies, despite genuinely different strategies being tried each time. If new tactics keep producing an old, familiar outcome, the problem was never the plan. Watch for the reaction that doesn't match the size of what actually happened – something small sets it off, and the response is way out of proportion; that "here we go again" feeling settling in your chest before you've even fully registered what happened. One I find especially telling: success that consistently arrives with exhaustion or dread instead of satisfaction, as though some part of you is bracing for the cost rather than enjoying the win. When real effort and smart strategy haven't resolved something that keeps returning, that's rarely a strategy problem anymore. That's Subconscious Patterns or Energetic Patterns asking, quite loudly at that point, to finally be addressed rather than out-strategized one more time. What is one practical step a founder can take to uncover the pattern behind a recurring problem in their business? Stop analyzing each incident on its own, and start tracking the recurrence instead. Pull up the last two or three years and ask yourself plainly what's showing up: the same kind of team conflict, the same revenue ceiling you hit and can't seem to break through, the same client dynamic gone sideways, the same decision you freeze on. Then go one layer deeper: what do you feel right before it happens? Does that feeling echo something from earlier in your life? That emotional thread is usually the doorway, and it's often more revealing than another quarter of data ever could be. I've watched founders spend months in strategic problem-solving and get less clarity than they get from ten honest minutes tracing that pattern, because the recurring issue was never really a business problem. It was a Subconscious Pattern, and business just happened to be the stage it kept performing on. Do you believe financial success and spiritual fulfilment can genuinely coexist? Not only do I believe it, but I'd also push back on the premise entirely. The idea that we must choose between material achievement and inner peace isn't a truth; it's a pattern dressed up as wisdom. In fifteen-plus years of this work, I've watched the exact moment it dissolves for someone: they resolve the Subconscious Patterns and Energetic Patterns that were keeping "success" and "spirituality" in an artificial tug-of-war, and the war just ends. Financial Growth stops being something they chase at the expense of themselves, and becomes an extension of who they already are when they're aligned. Clients often describe it as relief more than achievement, as if they'd been fighting themselves the entire time and simply hadn't noticed. This is genuinely the bridge my entire mission is built on: Inner Alignment as the foundation, not the reward, of what I call conscious success. Ambition and fulfilment were always meant to move in the same direction. What is one belief about achievement you would like more professionals and entrepreneurs to challenge? That sacrifice is the price of admission. It's one of the most quietly destructive beliefs I encounter, because it normalizes burnout, strained relationships, and a depleted body as reasonable tolls for ambition, as if that's just what success costs. I want to push back on that, directly and unapologetically: sacrifice isn't proof of your commitment; it's proof that a pattern is running the show instead of you making a conscious choice. Growth was never supposed to require your well-being, your relationships, or your peace as collateral damage. I've seen what happens when someone truly lets that belief go – not just nods along with it, but actually releases it at the root: achievement stops feeling extractive and starts feeling expansive. The ambition doesn't disappear; it simply stops billing the person for having it. Success stops being something you have to recover from, and starts feeling like something you actually get to keep. What change do you hope The MEPSEI Method™ will bring to the way professionals and entrepreneurs pursue success? I want to change the very first question people ask when they're chasing something bigger. Right now, it's usually "how do I push harder?" I want it to become "what pattern is actually running this?" That single shift changes everything downstream. My hope is for a generation of leaders who stop treating Financial Growth and Inner Alignment as competing priorities, and start recognizing them as two expressions of the same aligned foundation. Today, I bring this work to professionals and entrepreneurs directly through my signature coaching program, The MEPSEI Alignment Code, where clients move through the six dimensions in a structured, guided way to create lasting change rather than temporary relief. Through The MEPSEI Method™, I want people to finally understand what I say to every client I work with: you were never stuck; you were repeating a pattern nobody had helped you see yet. When that pattern breaks, success stops requiring sacrifice, leadership gets quieter and steadier, and fulfilment stops waiting somewhere on the other side of achievement. Multiply that shift across enough people, and it doesn't just change individuals; it changes what an entire generation believes ambition has to cost. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anchal Jain Bajaj

After years of professional achievement, chronic pain, and disconnection, corporate attorney and entrepreneur Courtney Stough discovered that the answer was not to abandon the life she had built, but to learn how to inhabit it differently. Her debut book explores what happens when we finally listen to what has been asking for our attention all along. Atlanta, Georgia – September 15, 2026 – Courtney Stough had spent years building a life that, by almost every conventional measure, was working. She graduated from Yale and Tulane Law, practiced corporate law for nearly fourteen years, became a partner at an AmLaw 100 firm, served as a Deputy General Counsel, helped build a cannabis insurance company, and created a family life near the people she loved. Yet beneath the accomplishments, she was increasingly disconnected from her body, her intuition, and the parts of herself that made her feel most alive. That disconnection eventually reached a breaking point. Sitting on the floor of her young son’s nursery, Stough recognized that something had to change. The months and years that followed included difficult personal decisions, including a period of separation from her husband, but ultimately not the entirely new life she had imagined. She and her husband reconciled, welcomed a daughter, and returned to the same home. What changed was her relationship with the life she was living. That realization became the foundation for Prana Rising: Reclaim Your Life Force & Amplify Your Personal Power. Part teaching memoir and part practical framework, the book examines what happens when someone has built a life that looks successful from the outside but no longer feels fully alive from within. Stough’s story began long before that breaking point. In her early thirties, she was picking up five to eight prescriptions at a time while trying to manage chronic pelvic pain, reflux, anxiety, and brain fog. She had become accustomed to treating each symptom, pushing through discomfort, and continuing to perform at a high level. Over time, however, what she had understood as perseverance began to look more like disconnection. “I had built a life that needed me to be chemically altered just to get through it,” Stough says. “And I called that success.” The unraveling wasn't a single event but a gradual accumulation of signals Stough had learned to manage rather than hear. Drawing on more than a decade of personal journals, extensive reading, therapy, and deep self-study, she began writing Prana Rising to make sense of that journey. Tracing her experience backward, Stough came to understand that the breaking point was not where her story began; it was simply the moment she could no longer ignore what had been asking for her attention. “My body was giving me information long before I knew how to listen to it,” Stough says. “The breaking point got my attention, but it is not where the story began. I don’t want anyone to have to reach the point I reached before they realize something needs to change.” Rather than requiring a dramatic reinvention or the abandonment of everything that came before, Stough began to see transformation as a process of returning to herself: listening to her body, trusting her intuition, reconnecting with creativity and relationships, and learning to distinguish what genuinely generated energy from what quietly depleted it. Stough did not ultimately leave her profession or create an entirely different identity. She continues to practice corporate law as Of Counsel, and she and her husband rebuilt their marriage. Her story became less about starting over and more about coming full circle. “Sometimes the way forward is not about becoming someone new,” Stough says. “It is about remembering who you were before you became so disconnected from yourself.” In Prana Rising, Stough uses prana, the Sanskrit concept of life force, as a framework for understanding that connection. She explores the forces that can quietly drain it, including roles, habits, expectations, and inherited beliefs, and introduces four practices she calls the Four Energy Generators™: Embodiment, Mindfulness, Creativity, and Community. The book also introduces Blissence™, Stough’s term for the experience of being fully present in one’s own essence. Rather than promising a perfected life, Prana Rising offers a different proposition: that people can learn to recognize the signals they have been overriding and reconnect with an inner compass that was there before the noise. There is a literal piece of Stough’s childhood on the cover of the book. When she began looking for an image that captured what Prana Rising meant to her, she went into her parents’ attic and found a watercolor she had painted as a young girl. Rainbow colors filled the page, paint dripped downward, and her maiden name appeared in block letters in the corner. She chose a digitized, reimagined version of that painting for the cover. For Stough, the image became a visual reminder of the central idea behind Prana Rising: sometimes what we spend years searching for is not something we need to create, but something we need to remember. About Prana Rising Prana Rising: Reclaim Your Life Force & Amplify Your Personal Power is a teaching memoir and practical guide for people who have built lives that work but are no longer sure those lives feel fully like their own. Blending personal narrative with mindfulness, somatic practices, psychology, spirituality, and leadership, Stough explores burnout as a deeper experience of disconnection from the body, intuition, creativity, relationships, and what makes us feel alive. The book invites readers to move beyond whether their lives look good on paper and ask whether they are actually inhabiting those lives. Availability Publication Date: September 15, 2026 Kindle, Paperback & Audiobook: Available on Amazon Hardcover: Available through IngramSpark Website Review copies and interview requests: Josh Schwartz, Pubvendo About Courtney Stough Courtney Stough is a corporate attorney, coach, and speaker who helps high-functioning women reclaim their life force. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two children.

Most finance teams do not lack a plan. They lack a plan that survives contact with the quarter it was written for. The annual budget gets approved in November, the assumptions behind it start drifting by February, and by summer the finance function is spending more energy explaining variances than shaping decisions. Agility in planning is not about working faster. It is about designing a process that expects to be wrong and knows what to do next. The annual budget was built for a slower economy The fixed annual budget made sense when input costs moved slowly, hiring plans held for twelve months, and demand signals arrived quarterly rather than daily. That world produced a sensible ritual: negotiate the numbers once, lock them, measure against them. The ritual has outlived the conditions. Supply terms renegotiate mid-year, headcount plans get rewritten after a single strong or weak quarter, and pricing decisions that once waited for the next planning cycle now need an answer in weeks. A budget that cannot be reopened without a political fight becomes a document people work around rather than work from. Start by shortening the distance between question and answer Agility shows up first as response time. When a chief executive asks what happens to cash if a major customer delays renewal by two quarters, the useful measure is not whether finance can answer but how long the answer takes. In many organizations the honest number is days, because the model lives in a chain of linked spreadsheets that only one analyst fully understands, and because the underlying actuals have to be pulled and reconciled before anything can be recalculated. Closing that gap is mostly an engineering problem before it is a strategy problem. It means the plan and the actuals sit in the same place, refreshed on a schedule nobody has to remember. It means the model is version-controlled rather than emailed. Teams that get this right usually did it by consolidating their planning stack rather than adding to it, replacing the patchwork of workbooks with FP&A solutions that keep the source data, the assumptions and the reporting layer connected. The gain is not elegance. It is that a scenario question asked on Tuesday morning can be answered before the meeting ends. Build the model around drivers, not line items A budget organized by general ledger account tells you what was spent. A model organized by driver tells you why, and what changes if the why changes. Headcount by role, average fully loaded cost, sales cycle length, win rate, gross retention, unit shipping cost: these are the levers a leadership team actually argues about. When the model is wired to them, a conversation about slowing hiring produces an immediate revised cash runway instead of a request for finance to circle back. This is also where planning stops being a finance-only exercise. The people closest to the drivers are rarely in the finance function, and a business that grows without drifting tends to be one where operational owners understand which few numbers their decisions move. Give a regional manager the driver they control and the forecast becomes something they can defend rather than something imposed on them. Forecast on a rhythm the business can sustain There is a temptation, once the tooling allows it, to reforecast constantly. That usually backfires. Frequent full reforecasts generate what practitioners call number noise: small revisions that consume attention without changing any decision, and that gradually train the organization to ignore the forecast entirely. A quarterly rolling update, extending consistently beyond the current year-end, tends to hold up better than a monthly one for most businesses. Guidance from professional accounting bodies on how to plan continuously makes the case that budget holders should take part in roughly four forecast updates a year, and that monthly revision is worth the effort only where a genuine high-frequency driver exists, as with an airline tracking passenger loads and fuel. The exception matters as much as the rule: pick the cadence from the volatility of your drivers, not from the capability of your software. Uncertainty is a number, not a mood The weakest part of most planning processes is how they handle not knowing. A single point forecast implies a confidence nobody in the room actually holds, and the usual workaround, a best case and a worst case invented at the end of the process, tends to be decorative. Neither approach tells a board how wide the range genuinely is. There is a more disciplined version, and it comes from research practice. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta runs a panel that asks firms for a five point probability distribution over their own sales and employment twelve months ahead, rather than a single guess, and then derives uncertainty from the spread of those answers. The method translates cleanly to internal planning. Asking a regional lead for a low, likely and high figure with rough probabilities attached takes minutes longer than asking for one number, and it surfaces disagreement that a consensus figure would have buried. What changes when the plan stops being an event Finance leaders often frame agility as a technology purchase, and part of it is. But the durable shift is cultural, and it is narrower than it sounds: the organization has to stop treating a revised forecast as an admission of failure. As long as changing the number carries a reputational cost, people will defend stale numbers, and every process improvement built on top of that incentive will underperform. The practical test is what happens the first time a business unit revises its forecast down mid-year. If the response is a review of what changed in the market and what the company should do about it, the process is working. If the response is a search for who got it wrong, the planning cycle will keep producing careful, confident, slightly fictional documents, no matter how good the underlying model is. Agility, in the end, is the willingness to update in public.

Consumers shopping for men’s performance supplements and wellness products can encounter a wide range of advertising claims, from promises of improved energy and performance to dramatic physical changes. With products promoted across websites, social media, email, and online advertisements, determining which claims are supported by credible evidence can be challenging. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which oversees advertising practices in the United States, requires health-related advertising claims to be truthful, not misleading, and adequately substantiated. For claims involving health benefits or safety, the FTC generally expects marketers to have competent and reliable scientific evidence supporting what they advertise. This standard applies not only to statements made directly in an advertisement but also to claims that consumers could reasonably infer from the overall presentation. According to the FTC's Health Products Compliance Guidance, marketers are responsible for both express and implied claims. This means that imagery, testimonials, headlines, and other elements of an advertisement can contribute to a misleading impression, even when a particular promise is not stated explicitly. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) makes an important distinction between dietary supplements and drugs. A product marketed as a dietary supplement is not permitted to claim that it diagnoses, treats, cures, or prevents a disease without being subject to the requirements applicable to drugs. The FDA also notes that dietary supplements are not approved by the agency before being sold in the same manner as prescription or over-the-counter drugs. Certain supplement claims about supporting normal body structure or function may be permitted. For example, the FDA recognizes appropriately supported claims describing how a nutrient affects the normal structure or function of the body. Manufacturers making these types of claims must have substantiation showing that the claims are truthful and not misleading, and applicable labeling requirements include a disclaimer explaining that the statement has not been evaluated by the FDA. For consumers, this makes the wording of an advertisement important. Statements suggesting guaranteed, immediate, or permanent results deserve additional scrutiny, particularly when the seller provides little information about the evidence supporting those results. Testimonials and endorsements are not scientific evidence Testimonials can be persuasive, but an individual customer's experience does not necessarily establish how a product will perform for other consumers. FTC guidance states that endorsements and testimonials cannot be used to communicate claims that the marketer itself could not legally make. The agency also requires advertising to accurately communicate what consumers can generally expect when testimonials feature results that are not typical. Consumers should therefore distinguish between personal experiences presented in advertising and controlled scientific research supporting a product's claimed effects. Look beyond the headline and examine the product Before purchasing a men's-performance supplement, consumers can take several practical steps, review the complete ingredient list and serving amounts, look for evidence supporting the specific claims being made, check whether important limitations are clearly disclosed, research the manufacturer rather than relying exclusively on an advertisement, and be cautious when testimonials or dramatic imagery are presented as substitutes for evidence. Manufacturing and labeling information can also provide useful context. The FDA states that it periodically inspects dietary supplement manufacturing facilities for compliance with applicable requirements and reviews labels and other labeling information for potentially improper claims. Pay attention to billing and subscription terms Product claims are not the only issue consumers should evaluate. Subscription programs, automatic renewals, free-to-paid conversions, and recurring shipments deserve attention before payment information is entered. The FTC has specifically addressed “negative option” arrangements, in which a consumer's failure to cancel results in continuing charges. Its guidance emphasizes clear disclosure of important terms and informed consumer consent in connection with recurring payment programs. Consumers should check how often they will be charged, whether a purchase automatically enrolls them in recurring shipments, how cancellation works, and whether refund terms are clearly disclosed before completing an order. A more informed approach to men’s performance products No single warning sign automatically establishes that a product is ineffective or that an advertisement is deceptive. Instead, consumers can evaluate the overall picture, the specificity of the claims, quality of supporting evidence, ingredient transparency, manufacturing information, use of testimonials, and clarity of purchasing terms. Government resources from the FTC and FDA provide useful starting points for understanding these issues. Independent educational platforms also focus on helping consumers navigate the category. Ultimate Men's HQ (UMHQ) is one example, offering consumer-oriented information on men's performance products, ingredients, comparisons, and common marketing concerns. Ultimately, consumers are better positioned to make informed choices when they separate advertising from evidence, understand what a product is actually designed to do, and seek qualified healthcare advice when dealing with ongoing health concerns.

A growing screen network can serve several communication needs across one business. A retail entrance may feature promotions, an office lobby may welcome visitors, and an employee area may carry internal updates. Managing these displays from one place helps teams keep their communication organized across locations. A digital signage CMS provides software tools for organizing screens, assigning media, building playlists, and controlling playback from a central portal. Administrators can manage individual displays or selected groups without preparing the same setup for every location. The sections below explain how specific Content Management System (CMS) features help businesses direct suitable content to each screen. Create playlists for specific display groups Playlists bring images, videos, apps, and other supported assets into an ordered rotation. Instead of using one sequence across the entire network, teams can create playlists for particular locations, departments, or communication purposes. The software allows a selected playlist to be assigned to the appropriate display. A retailer might use one rotation for entrance promotions and another for checkout information. An office could maintain separate sequences for visitor-facing and employee screens. Central playlist control lets authorized staff update these rotations remotely while keeping them within the same software. Target individual items with content rules Separate playlists are not required for every variation in a large network. A digital signage CMS can use content tags and screen-level rules to determine which tagged assets from a shared playlist appear on particular displays. Businesses can therefore maintain a common rotation while adding material intended for specific locations or audiences. Administrators can configure targeting around practical requirements: Location: Match regional assets with displays serving a particular branch or area. Department: Direct selected items toward reception, sales, operations, or other teams. Display purpose: Separate customer-facing material from internal communications. Campaign: Limit specific promotional items to screens included in a selected campaign. These controls make content distribution more precise while reducing the need to duplicate complete playlists. Set different playback times through scheduling A screen may require different information as the day or week changes. CMS scheduling tools allow teams to set content for specific hours, weekdays, dates, or recurring periods. Individual playlist items can also receive their own schedules for more precise playback control. A restaurant can present breakfast promotions in the morning and lunch material later in the day. Corporate teams can schedule event notices to appear before a meeting or company activity. Once configured, the software follows these timing rules on the assigned displays. Give teams access to the screens they manage Businesses with several locations may involve corporate teams, regional managers, and local staff in screen management. User roles, teams, and folder-level permissions can control access to screens, files, playlists, and schedules. Administrators can therefore divide responsibilities while maintaining centralized oversight. For example, regional staff can work with resources assigned to their area, while corporate administrators retain broader network access. Shared folders can also distribute approved material across teams when needed. This structure supports coordinated content management as the number of locations and contributors grows. Managing different messages across several screens becomes easier when the software provides the right centralized controls. Businesses should look for a platform with screen organization, playlist assignment, content targeting, scheduling, and user permissions that match the size and structure of their network. Choosing digital signage software with suitable CMS capabilities can help teams maintain central oversight while delivering relevant communication across locations and departments.

Written by Norm Leo, Climate Scientist, Keynote Speaker & Climate Communication Specialist Norm Leo is a climate scientist, speaker, and consultant who makes climate science easy to grasp and inspires confident action by highlighting the tangible benefits of climate solutions. He is also the author of "Look At It This Way," helping readers see climate challenges as opportunities for growth and impact. What if the foods that nourish your body could also help solve climate change? Today, a growing movement in nutrition shows that “smart foods,” choices that support both personal health and climate resilience, are not only accessible but also delicious, affordable, and deeply rewarding. In this article, Norm Leo shows how local produce, urban gardening, regenerative farming, and plant-forward eating can strengthen your health while building a more sustainable food future. What are smart foods? Smart foods are choices that benefit your health, your community, and the climate at the same time. They emphasize fresh, local, and seasonal produce, plant-forward meals, foods grown with regenerative or climate-resilient methods, ingredients that require fewer resources, such as water, land, and energy, and farming practices that protect soil, biodiversity, and long-term food security. Smart foods aren’t about restriction. They expand your options with foods that taste better, nourish more deeply, and lighten your environmental footprint. Why smart foods matter for your health Seasonal produce is fresher, fully ripened, and often costs less. Fresh, local foods are harvested at peak ripeness, meaning they offer better taste and texture, contain more nutrients compared with long-distance imports, and have fewer pesticides when organic or regenerative methods are used. Research shows that organic foods can have higher levels of vitamin C, antioxidants, and healthy omega-3 fatty acids.[1] Reduce the risks of common illnesses Plant-forward diets also reduce the risk of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, high blood pressure, and obesity.[2] Smart foods help your body fight inflammation, improve digestion, and support brain function, all while reducing the environmental pressure of industrial agriculture. Smart foods strengthen food security Climate change threatens global food systems through droughts, heatwaves, and extreme weather. Smart food choices support farming practices that build resilience. Agroforestry: Growing food among rows of trees is proving very efficient. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have shown that it can increase yields by up to 56% thanks to improved soil moisture, wind protection, and enhanced biodiversity.[3] Regenerative agriculture: Regenerative farming replenishes soil, captures carbon, and boosts yields. It produces nutrient-dense foods while restoring ecosystems. Urban farming and rooftop gardens: Urban agriculture reduces transportation emissions and strengthens local food supply. Rooftop greenhouses, community gardens, and balcony planters all contribute to a more resilient food system. Precision agriculture: Drones and satellites help farmers apply water and fertilizer only where needed, reducing waste and increasing production. Some drones even kill weeds with lasers, eliminating the need for chemical pesticides. Smart foods aren’t just healthier, they are part of a climate-resilient food system. Smart foods are delicious and diverse One of the most powerful shifts in sustainable eating is reframing the conversation, instead of saying “eat less of something,” which creates frustration, try saying “eat more of something else.” Everyone loves variety! Smart foods expand your culinary world with options such as jackfruit pulled “pork,” chickpea curries, lentil stews, sweet winter spinach harvested during freezing temperatures, rooftop-grown salad with tomatoes and cucumbers, and seasonal berries bursting with flavor. To discover easy meatless recipes, visit Fit Green Mind. I fell in love with the possibilities of tofu when I made “Best Tofu Ever.” My kids love it, and they’re always happy when I make tofu for supper. Countries like Denmark are demonstrating how plant-based innovation can win over even meat-loving cultures, not through guilt, but through taste, opportunity, and creativity.[4] They funded a new culinary school, and now chefs in various restaurants can cook delicious meals without meat. Many restaurants now list vegan options first on their menus, highlight them, and put the more expensive meat options at the bottom. They also incentivize farmers to grow beans, which are worth more on the market. Food choices are one of the most powerful climate actions individuals can take, especially when it comes to meat and dairy. Producing 1 kg of beef emits 60 kg of greenhouse gases. Producing a plant-based patty emits 89% fewer emissions, uses dramatically less water, and requires much less land.[5] My personal favorite is the Impossible Burger patty. Once cooked, it has a charred exterior and a pink interior and can easily be mistaken for real meat. I’ve fooled a few people with this vegan “meat” before, so it’s a secret. Plant-based cheese alternatives can also reduce emissions significantly compared with dairy cheese. For 1 kg of cheese, a total of 21 kg of greenhouse gases are emitted. However, plant-based cheese, deliciously made with oat milk, reduces that number by 73%. If you haven’t tried vegan cheese yet, you should. My favorite is Violife. They’re grate! (Pun intended.) If you want to go further, local and seasonal foods reduce transportation emissions while also supporting farmers who use sustainable practices. Rediscovering seasonality brings joy, and it has a measurable impact on your carbon footprint. Smart foods you can start eating today There are simple, accessible ways to bring smart foods into your life. Eat seasonal produce that is fresher, tastier, and more nutritious. Support local farmers through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) baskets, farmers’ markets, and urban farms. Grow something yourself, such as herbs, cherry tomatoes, or string beans, as balcony planters are a great option. Try plant-forward meals with ingredients like lentils, chickpeas, beans, tofu, and jackfruit. Explore organic brands and look for labels that support soil health and biodiversity. Reduce food waste by planning meals, storing food properly, and using leftovers creatively. A smarter, tastier future Smart foods are not a sacrifice, they’re an upgrade. They help you feel healthier, save money, enjoy better-tasting meals, support local farmers, strengthen food security, and reduce your carbon footprint. Sustainable food practices offer a wider variety of delicious meals, healthier communities, and a thriving planet. Smart foods are a gift to your body and a vote for a better world. Ready to solve climate change one meal at a time? If you enjoyed discovering how climate solutions make your meals tastier and healthier, you will absolutely love my new book, "Look At It This Way: Climate Change Solutions Will Benefit Your Health and Wealth," available on Amazon and in many other bookstores. A whole chapter is dedicated to food. Its unique reversible design makes learning about climate change more engaging, more visual, and a lot more fun. If you are a professional who is trying to craft messaging that truly resonates, whether you are a sustainability officer in a city, a project manager in a museum, or someone responsible for public engagement, my expertise is at your service. I help organizations communicate climate solutions in ways that inspire action, build trust, and connect with real people. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Norm Leo Norm Leo, Climate Scientist, Keynote Speaker & Climate Communication Specialist Norm Leo is a climate scientist and leading voice in climate communication, known for making complex environmental issues clear, relatable, and actionable. With over 2,000 presentations delivered worldwide, including TEDx, he helps audiences understand climate change without overwhelm or eco anxiety. As the author of "Look At It This Way" and former Head of Science Education at the Biosphere, Environment Museum, he blends scientific expertise with innovative messaging techniques. Norm's talks empower entrepreneurs, executives, and organizations to navigate sustainability with confidence and clarity. His solution-oriented approach leaves audiences inspired to contribute to a more resilient future. References: [1] Reganold, J. P., & Wachter, J. M. (2016). Organic agriculture in the twenty-first century. Nature plants, 2(2), 1-8 [2] Micha, R., Wallace, S. K., & Mozaffarian, D. (2010). Red and processed meat consumption and risk of incident coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes mellitus, a systematic review and meta-analysis. Circulation, 121(21), 2271-2283. [3] Schoeneberger, M.M., G. Bentrup, and T. Patel-Weynand (eds.). (2017). Agroforestry: Enhancing resiliency in U.S. agricultural landscapes under changing conditions. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, DC, (228 pp). [4] Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries of Denmark. (2023). Danish Action Plan for Plant-Based Foods. [5] Quantis. (2019, February 27). Comparative environmental LCA of the Impossible Burger with conventional ground beef burger (Final report). Impossible Foods.

Written by Viviana Castaneda, Digital Mompreneur Viviana Castaneda, a mom of two and entrepreneur since 2017, is the founder of Digital Mompreneurs, an empowering brand helping moms bring their digital business ideas to life. With a focus on confidence, time management, and content consistency, Viviana is dedicated to empowering fellow moms in the digital world. There is a woman I meet again and again in my coaching practice. She is not one person, she is many. She is a coach with a decade of expertise. A consultant with a client list that would make anyone envious. A service provider whose off-camera conversations light up rooms. Every one of these women tells me the same thing, almost word for word, "I don't sound like myself on camera. I freeze the second I press record. I do fifteen takes for a sixty-second video, and then I delete it." For years, the advice these women receive from the online world has been the same tired refrain, just be yourself. Just be natural. Just relax and speak from the heart. Here is the truth I have come to believe after coaching hundreds of them, "Just be yourself" is the worst advice a woman entrepreneur can be given when she is standing in front of a camera. It is not because the sentiment is wrong. It is because it is incomplete, dangerously incomplete. It skips over the mechanics of what actually happens to a woman in that moment. When she cannot follow the advice, she does not blame the advice. She blames herself. The real reason you freeze Let me tell you what is actually happening the moment someone presses record. They are not experiencing a confidence problem. They are experiencing a connection collapse. Off-camera, you speak with ease because there is a person in front of you, right? A client to help. A colleague to laugh with. A friend on the other side of a phone call. Your nervous system is wired for connection, and it has a target. Your words flow because you are not performing, you are relating. Then the camera goes on. Suddenly, there is no person. There is a black lens. There is the ghost of an audience you cannot see and cannot predict. There is a mental split screen playing in your mind: what you want to say on one side, and on the other side, "How does this look? How do I sound? What if I look stupid? What if nobody watches? What if everybody watches?" Your brain is not designed to speak to nobody. It is designed to speak to someone. When it cannot locate that someone, it goes into a low-grade panic that looks, from the outside, like awkwardness. Stiffness. A scripted delivery. A ramble. Fifteen takes. The camera did not steal your personality. The camera removed the person you were speaking to. No one ever taught you how to put that person back in the frame. Why the usual fixes fail This is why the standard playbook doesn't work. You buy the ring light. Still freeze. You invest in a microphone. Still delete the take. You take the course on hooks and scripts. Now you sound even more robotic, because you are trying to remember someone else's words while a camera stares at you. You watch every big creator on Instagram and think, "They are natural. I am not. This must not be for me." The truth is that those creators are not more natural. They have, often without knowing it, trained themselves to hold a single person in mind while they speak. Their eyes are on the lens, but their imagination is on a very specific woman on the other side. That is the trick. That is the entire trick. It is a skill. Not a personality trait. Not a gift. Not something you are born with or without. From camera to connection: A new frame This is the work I have built my practice around, and it is the foundation of the challenge I am about to open to a group of women for the first time. Check the times, you might still be on time. The 6-Week Camera-to-Connection Challenge — Video Confidence for Women Entrepreneurs | herwaybiz I call it Camera-to-Connection, because that is the shift. We stop treating the camera like a stage and start treating it like a person. We stop asking, "How do I look?" and start asking, "Who am I speaking to, and what does she need to hear right now?" We stop scripting to protect ourselves from freezing and start structuring so that we can be free. We stop trying to sound like a creator we admire and start reclaiming what our closest friends already know about our voice: that it is good, that it is warm, that it is worth listening to. The transformation is not cosmetic. It is not about lighting or a better tripod or a more clever hook. It is about a fundamental rewiring of what you are doing when you pick up your phone and turn it toward your face. Once you make that shift, everything changes. You record in one take. You post the same day. You see comments from women saying, "I felt like you were talking directly to me," and you realize they are right. What this actually costs you (when you wait) I want to name something out loud that most women are carrying silently. Every week you don't show up on camera is a week your expertise stays invisible to the women who need you most. It is a week your business grows more slowly than it should. It is a week your competitors, women who often know less than you do, take up the space that could have been yours. It is also a week you lose to overthinking. Hours spent rewriting captions to compensate for what a Reel would have said in ninety seconds. Days spent avoiding the app because you are embarrassed by your empty grid. Months of building a business you can only whisper about, when you were built to be heard. The cost of camera avoidance is not just a lower reach. It is a shrinking of your whole professional identity. What I am building For the past several months, I have been quietly building something for these women. It is called The 6-Week Camera-to-Connection Challenge, and it is unlike anything I have offered before. It is not a course. It is not a set of hooks. It is not another lesson in confidence. It is a live, guided container where women who freeze on camera, who are tired of the fifteen takes, tired of the deleted drafts, tired of watching other women do this thing they cannot seem to do, finally get the missing piece. We will work on the mindset shift, yes. But we will also work on the mechanics. The rhythm of speaking to one woman. The way to structure without scripting. The permission to sound like yourself, exactly, without translating your voice into someone else's cadence. The system to make video not a weekly panic, but a weekly rhythm. Six weeks. Live. With me walking alongside you until you feel the shift for yourself. I have watched this transformation happen enough times in my private practice to know it is not luck. It is not personality. It is a method, and now I am opening it beyond one-on-one work for the first time. An invitation to the woman this is for If you are the woman I described at the beginning of this article, the one with the words on paper and the freeze in your chest, I want you to know that what you have been trying is not failing because you are broken. It is failing because it is aimed at the wrong problem. Camera confidence is not a personality upgrade. It is a connection skill. Connection skills can be taught. The Camera-to-Connection Challenge will not be evergreen. It will run in cohorts, so that every woman inside it gets real attention and real momentum. The next doors will open soon, and the women who are on the waitlist will be the first to know. The first to receive a special early-access price that will not be available to the public. If you have read this article and something in it named exactly what you have been feeling, please consider yourself invited to that waitlist. It says only one thing about you: that you are ready to stop hiding the woman you already are behind a camera you have not yet learned to speak to. You can find the waitlist at herwaybiz.com/challenge. I hope to see you there. I hope, more than anything, to see you show up, one take, one video, one warm and unmistakable you, on the other side of this work. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Viviana Castaneda Viviana Castaneda, Digital Mompreneur Viviana Castaneda has been making waves in the entrepreneurial world since 2017. With a bachelor's degree in marketing and a dedication to her role as a mother, she has seamlessly balanced her entrepreneurial journey with raising her children. As the founder of Digital Mompreneurs, she leverages her personal experiences to develop empowering tactics and strategies that assist fellow mompreneurs in regaining the confidence essential for success, delving deep into the understanding of the human brain, mind, and behavior.

Written by Charles V. Sasser, Jr., Strategic Leadership and Resilience Consultant Charles V. Sasser Jr. is an Executive Leadership Strategist who translates his experience leading the storied 1st Infantry Division (Big Red One) as a U.S. Army CSM into actionable frameworks for corporate resilience. Today, he pioneers AI-driven training and simulation programs for the defense and aerospace sectors. In the Army, we have a saying, "Ounces equal pounds, and pounds equal pain." Every soldier knows that if you don't pack your rucksack with discipline, the weight will eventually break your back on a long movement. After thirty years of military service and a decade in corporate leadership, I’ve learned that the heaviest loads aren't the ones strapped to our shoulders, they’re the ones we carry inside. Whether you’re a Command Sergeant Major leading a battalion, a C-suite executive navigating a market crisis, or a parent managing a household, we all hump an "invisible rucksack" filled with anxiety, expectations, and the dysfunction life throws our way. Resilience isn't about being a statue that never feels the weight, it’s about the tactical discipline of unpacking that ruck before it pins you to the ground. The weight we carry The year 1990 didn’t end with a celebration, it ended with a test of sheer, frozen will. December at Fort Campbell is rarely kind, but that morning, the air didn’t just bite, it hunted. The thermometer bottomed out at 5 degrees Fahrenheit. We stood there, 133 of us, adjusting the straps of our packs for the final 12-mile ruck march of Air Assault School. The first few miles were a rhythmic crunch of boots on frozen earth, but in subzero weather, sweat is a liability. As the moisture rolled off my forehead, the wind caught it. I blinked, and my eyelashes fused together. The moisture had turned to ice instantly. I had to cup my freezing hands over my eyes, using the heat of my palms to melt the bond just to see the heels of the man in front of me. By mile six, the attrition began. The cold doesn't just hurt your muscles, it attacks your spirit. It tells you that a warm truck is just a "quit" away. One by one, the formation thinned. I focused on the "Invisible Rucksack." I told myself the ice on my face was just extra gear. When I crossed the finish line, out of the 133 who stepped off into the dark, only 13 of us remained. The 120 men who fell out weren't necessarily weaker, they just hadn't found the mental gear to override the instinct to quit. When the wind chill hits 5 degrees, and your eyes freeze shut, you don't need a miracle. You just need to take the next step. 1. Unpacking the rucksack (The emotional PCI) In the light of day, a rucksack is just nylon and straps, but at mile 12 in the dark, every ounce feels like a boulder. Mental bandwidth is no different. In corporate environments, the "weight" often goes unnamed. We call it "stress" or "burnout," but that’s lazy leadership. To manage the load, you have to dump the ruck on the floor and conduct a Pre-Combat Inspection (PCI). You must identify the "Dead Weight": Other people's expectations: Carrying the performance anxiety of your board, your peers, or your family. The "weirdness" factor: The shame of personal anxiety, imposter syndrome, or home life friction that we exhaust ourselves trying to hide at the office. Future tripping: Carrying the weight of "what if" scenarios that haven't even happened yet. You cannot maneuver if you are pinned down. If an item is "dead weight," you must have the tactical discipline to leave it in the drop zone. 2. The three pillars of tactical resilience Once the ruck is empty, you don't just leave it that way. You repack it with purpose. To build a resilient life and lead a resilient team, you need three structural pillars. 1. Inventory: The self-awareness scan You can't manage a leak in your system if you don't know it’s dripping. Resilience starts with a constant, honest scan of your internal "equipment." The Drill: Ask yourself, "What am I feeling, and is it a fact or a 'ghost'?" Executive anxiety is often just a ghost in the perimeter. Shine a light on it, demand data, and it loses its power to paralyze your decision-making. 2. Weight distribution: The battle buddy system No soldier humps an 80-pound ruck across a mountain range alone. If a team member is flagging, someone takes a few magazines to lighten the load. The Drill: "Toughing it out" in isolation is a tactical error. Resilience is a team sport. You need a squad of mentors and peers who know exactly what’s in your ruck and are ready to help you shift the weight when the corporate terrain gets steep. Delegate aggressively. 3. Pace and purpose: The north star When the pain sets in, you stop looking at the horizon and start looking at your boots, but you only keep stepping if you know where you are going. The Drill: Define your objective. Having a clear, strategic "why" provides the friction reduction needed to keep moving through the daily tactical grind. 3. The hard reset Sometimes, despite your best packing, the mission goes sideways. The market turns, the strategy breaks, and the weight becomes unbearable. This is the moment for a Hard Reset. It is the moment you stop, drop the ruck, and recalibrate your entire approach. A Hard Reset isn't a failure, it’s a tactical regrouping. It means breaking contact with the noise, securing the perimeter (focusing on sleep, nutrition, and baseline health), and reordering your priorities before stepping off again. The bottom line A leader’s primary job isn’t just to accomplish the mission, it’s to ensure their people are capable of completing it. If someone in your charge is flagging under the weight of an invisible rucksack, you don’t tell them to "suck it up." You teach them how to adjust the straps. Stop treating mental health and burnout as "soft" HR issues. They are operational readiness issues. Resilience isn't a destination, it’s a tactical proficiency that requires constant training. By admitting when our own rucks are heavy, we give our teams permission to be human and the tools to be elite. Follow me on LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Charles V. Sasser, Jr. Charles V. Sasser, Jr., Strategic Leadership and Resilience Consultant Beyond his corporate training initiatives, Charles is a decorated Airborne Ranger whose distinguished career includes four Bronze Stars and two Legions of Merit. He has served as a senior strategic advisor for NATO and managed complex multinational security operations across the Middle East and Africa. A recognized thought leader in organizational growth, he sits on the SBDC Advisory Board and delivers powerful keynote presentations to audiences worldwide. Charles is also the author of the military thriller series Led by Love of Country. Follow his column for masterclasses on navigating organizational crisis, team building, military and political analysis, scaling team performance, and leading through high-stakes transitions.

Written by Miss K, Founder & Host of Uncaged Mind Miss K is the founder and host of Uncaged Mind, a platform for fearless conversations that challenge conventional thinking and question what we are taught to accept. Guided by "Where Curiosity Leads", she is creating a space where no topic is off-limits, no question is too bold, and curiosity refuses to be caged. Have you ever questioned where your strongest beliefs actually came from? We often assume our opinions, values, and ideas are entirely our own, yet the way we think is shaped by far more than conscious choice. Childhood, culture, social conditioning, repetition, cognitive biases, personal experiences, and the information we consume can all influence what eventually feels true to us. Understanding how beliefs are formed does not mean doubting everything you know. It means learning to recognise what shaped your thinking so you can decide what still deserves your belief. How are beliefs formed? Before we learn how to question the world, we learn how to exist within it. As children, we are constantly observing. We notice what receives praise, what causes disappointment, which behaviours are encouraged, what adults describe as good or bad, and what seems to make us accepted. At that age, we are not analysing every message or asking whether there is enough evidence to support it. We are simply learning about the world from the world available to us. As we grow older, that world expands. School, friendships, culture, religion, relationships, media, workplaces, and our own experiences introduce us to different ideas. Today, social media and the enormous amount of information we consume online have become another major part of that environment. This does not mean we are passive products of our surroundings. Two people can grow up in the same household and develop very different beliefs. Personality, temperament, experiences, relationships, and individual choices all matter. Belief formation is complex, and there is rarely one neat explanation for why someone thinks the way they do. What interests me is what happens after those beliefs begin to form. We absorb ideas about success, relationships, gender, beauty, money, happiness, status, and even our own worth long before we have examined all of them critically. Some of those ideas will change as we grow. Others can remain with us for years without ever being revisited. We begin forming a picture of the world before we are old enough to ask who painted it. The question is whether, at some point, we go back and examine the picture for ourselves. How does childhood influence the way we think? Childhood is one of the earliest places where we begin developing assumptions about ourselves and the world around us. Much of this learning does not happen through formal lessons. Children observe patterns. They notice how adults respond to failure, conflict, money, emotions, achievement, appearance, and relationships, and these repeated experiences can contribute to the expectations they carry forward. Imagine a child who consistently receives the most attention when they achieve something. Nobody necessarily sits that child down and says, “Your worth depends on your achievements.” Yet over time, the child may begin connecting achievement with approval. Years later, constantly striving, struggling to rest, or feeling inadequate after failure may simply feel like part of their personality. Another child might repeatedly hear that certain careers are respectable while others are a waste of potential. Someone else may grow up hearing very specific ideas about how women should behave, how men should express emotion, when people should marry, or what a successful life should look like. Not every childhood message becomes an adult belief, and childhood should never be used as a simple explanation for everything a person becomes. We continue developing throughout life. However, our earliest environments matter because they provide some of the first reference points through which we understand ourselves and other people. The interesting part is that beliefs learned early can feel so familiar that we may not recognise them as beliefs at all. Why can repetition make something feel true? One of the most interesting things I came across while researching this article was the relationship between repetition and perceived truth. Psychologists have studied a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect, which describes the tendency for repeated information to be judged as more truthful than information encountered for the first time. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis published in Nature Communications examined 182 studies, 366 effect sizes, and 31,184 participants. The researchers found a small but robust effect in which repetition increased perceived truth, although the strength of the effect depended on the type of information and the circumstances in which it was encountered. This does not mean that hearing something repeatedly automatically makes us believe it. Human thinking is far more complicated than that. What the research does show is that familiarity can influence our judgment, which gives us a good reason to pay attention to the ideas we encounter repeatedly. Think about statements such as, “You should be married by this age,” “A successful person should have achieved this by now,” “Women are supposed to behave this way,” “Men are naturally like that,” or “People like us don’t do things like that.” The exact messages differ across families, communities, and cultures, but when an idea is repeated often enough, it can begin to sound less like an opinion and more like common sense. Something can feel familiar because it is true, but something can also feel true because it is familiar. Learning to recognise the difference is an important part of critical thinking. How does society shape our beliefs? Culture gives us language, traditions, community, and a sense of belonging, but it also gives us reference points for what is considered normal. Every society carries ideas about success, relationships, gender, beauty, family, status, respectability, and acceptable behaviour. There is nothing inherently wrong with being influenced by culture. None of us develops in isolation, and cultural influence can provide meaning, connection, and identity. Questioning a cultural belief does not require rejecting your culture either. I think those two things are often unnecessarily treated as opposites. The problem begins when an influence becomes so familiar that we stop recognising it as an influence. If an idea has surrounded you from childhood and almost everyone around you appears to accept it, you may experience it not as one possible way of seeing the world but simply as reality. This is particularly interesting when we look across cultures. Something considered completely normal in one society may seem unusual in another. Expectations around marriage, family roles, careers, independence, emotional expression, and gender can vary enormously. That alone should make us curious about how much of what we call “normal” is universal and how much has been socially constructed around us. Sometimes the beliefs most worth examining are not the ones somebody forced upon us. They are the ones we never realised were open to questioning. When does a belief become part of your identity? Questioning beliefs becomes much harder when they are connected to identity. A belief about success, for example, may begin as an idea about achievement but eventually become connected to self-worth. If someone has spent years measuring themselves through academic results, career progress, income, or recognition, questioning that belief may no longer feel like a simple intellectual exercise. It can bring up a much more personal question, "If I stop proving myself through achievement, how will I know that I am enough?" The same thing can happen with beliefs connected to family, morality, relationships, gender, culture, politics, religion, status, or community. At that point, changing an opinion can feel as though we are changing something about who we are or separating ourselves from people with whom we belong. This may help explain why conversations about deeply held beliefs can become emotional so quickly. We are not always debating isolated pieces of information. Sometimes we are defending the identity, relationships, and sense of certainty attached to them. That is why I don’t think having strong opinions is evidence by itself that someone thinks independently. The more interesting question is whether we understand why we hold those opinions so strongly. How does social media influence our opinions? The way beliefs are shaped becomes even more complicated in the digital age. We now have access to an extraordinary amount of information. We can encounter people, cultures, research, and perspectives that would once have been completely outside our immediate world. In many ways, that is incredibly valuable. But having access to more information does not automatically mean we examine information more carefully. Every day, we move quickly through headlines, videos, opinions, advertisements, arguments, and other people’s lives. We choose who to follow and which content to interact with, while digital platforms learn from those behaviours and continue showing us material they predict will keep our attention. Over time, it can become easy to think, “Everyone thinks this way,” when what we may really mean is that everyone we repeatedly encounter online seems to think this way. That distinction matters. If we repeatedly hear the same interpretation of an issue, familiarity can easily be mistaken for consensus. We may become extremely informed about one side of an argument while barely encountering the strongest evidence or reasoning from another. The internet has given us more access to information than ever before. What it cannot do for us is decide how thoughtfully we process it. What are cognitive biases and how do they affect our thinking? Cognitive biases are patterns in human judgment that can affect how we interpret information and make decisions. They are important to understand because critical thinking is not simply a matter of intelligence. Intelligent, educated, and well-informed people are still human beings, and none of us becomes automatically immune to bias because we know more. Confirmation bias is one familiar example. We may be more receptive to information that supports what we already believe and more critical of information that challenges it. Motivated reasoning can also influence how we evaluate evidence when we have a personal or emotional investment in reaching a particular conclusion. As discussed earlier, repetition and familiarity can affect how truthful information appears. Knowing that these processes exist does not make them disappear. You can understand confirmation bias perfectly well and still catch yourself looking for information that confirms your position. For me, that is one of the most useful lessons from studying how people think. Critical thinking does not begin with assuming you are rational and trying to identify everyone else’s biases. It begins with accepting that your own thinking deserves examination too. Being able to genuinely say, “I could be wrong,” is much harder than it sounds. What does it mean to think for yourself? Thinking for yourself does not mean rejecting everything your parents, teachers, culture, community, or society taught you. It also does not mean deliberately choosing the unpopular opinion. Automatically disagreeing with everyone else is not necessarily more independent than automatically agreeing with them. Independent thinking is more about understanding how you reached a conclusion and being willing to test it. When I notice myself holding a particularly strong opinion, I find it more useful to go backwards before searching for information that proves me right. Where did I first encounter this idea? Which experiences reinforced it? Have I seriously looked at credible evidence that challenges it? Am I applying the same standard of evidence to information I agree with and information I dislike? One question I find especially useful is, “What would it take for me to change my mind?” If the genuine answer is “nothing,” then I am probably no longer investigating the belief. I am protecting it. That does not automatically mean the belief is wrong, but it should make me curious about why I need it to remain untouched. Thinking independently is not about reaching a point where nobody can influence you. That is probably impossible. It is about becoming more conscious of influence and more responsible for what you choose to continue believing. How can you question your own beliefs? Questioning your beliefs does not mean waking up tomorrow and doubting everything you know. That would not be particularly useful, and it certainly would not make someone a better critical thinker. A much more realistic approach is to choose one belief that feels completely normal to you and examine it properly. It could be something you believe about success, relationships, money, beauty, gender, career, marriage, happiness, failure, or even yourself. Before deciding whether the belief is right or wrong, try tracing it backwards. Think about where you first encountered the idea, who reinforced it, and which experiences made it feel true. Then ask yourself whether you have ever actually investigated it or whether it has simply been present for so long that you stopped noticing it. The next part is more uncomfortable but probably more valuable, look for the strongest credible argument against your position. Not an exaggerated version that is easy to dismiss, but the argument an intelligent and informed person who genuinely disagrees with you would make. Pay attention not only to the information but to your own reaction. If you immediately become defensive, ask yourself why. Sometimes discomfort tells us that an idea is touching something deeper than the evidence itself. It can also help to imagine encountering your belief for the first time today. If somebody presented the claim to you without the years of familiarity surrounding it, what evidence would you require before accepting it? Would you use the same standard if the claim supported something you already disliked? The purpose is not to replace one unquestioned belief with another. It is very easy to leave one echo chamber and enter a different one, or reject one rigid worldview only to become equally rigid about its opposite. The goal is not to believe nothing. The goal is to understand why you believe what you do and to make your beliefs earn the confidence you place in them. Why is curiosity important for critical thinking? Curiosity and critical thinking are closely connected because curiosity keeps a question open long enough for us to examine it. We sometimes treat certainty as strength and questioning as weakness, but I see it differently. You can hold strong values and still examine the ideas surrounding them. You can respect your culture while questioning parts of what you inherited. You can believe something deeply while remaining open to evidence that could refine or even change your position. There is nothing intellectually embarrassing about changing your mind. If you encounter stronger evidence and adjust your position because of it, that does not mean your thinking failed. It means thinking actually took place. Curiosity does not require us to abandon conviction. It asks us to understand where our convictions came from and whether they can survive honest examination. In that sense, curiosity is not the opposite of knowing what you believe. It may be one of the ways we discover whether we truly believe it for ourselves. Start questioning what feels obvious None of us has a completely uninfluenced mind. We are shaped by childhood, culture, education, relationships, experiences, books, conversations, communities, successes, failures, and the enormous digital environments we now spend so much of our lives inside. Influence is part of being human, and the aim should never be to somehow eliminate it. What we can change is how consciously we respond to those influences. Some beliefs will survive examination and become stronger because we finally understand why we hold them. Others may need to change. Some may turn out to be ideas we carried for years simply because nobody, including ourselves, ever asked us to look at them closely. The next time you find yourself completely certain about something, resist the immediate urge to prove yourself right. Go back to the beginning and ask yourself where the belief came from, what evidence supports it, and whether you would still choose it if you were encountering it for the first time today. Then ask the question that started this entire article, "Who taught me to think that way?" You might be surprised by where the answer leads. Continue the conversation with Uncaged Mind Curiosity has never stayed in one lane for me, and neither does Uncaged Mind. It is a space where I explore ideas, experiences, questions, and real-world issues that we often accept, overlook, or live with without ever stopping to examine them deeply. No topic is off-limits when there is something worth questioning, understanding, or seeing from another perspective. If this article made you stop and question even one thing you had always considered obvious, continue the conversation with Uncaged Mind – Where Curiosity Leads. Visit my website for more info! Read more from Miss K Miss K, Founder & Host of Uncaged Mind Miss K is the founder and host of Uncaged Mind, a platform built to challenge conventional thinking through fearless, curiosity-led conversations. When questioning is often replaced by simply accepting, she is promoting critical thinking and bringing voices from vastly different fields into conversations that dare to go deeper. Beyond the microphone, Miss K stands for something deeply personal, encouraging women to own their voices and question the narratives handed to them. Through Uncaged Mind, she is building a space where curiosity is power, bold thinking is celebrated, and no meaningful question is off-limits.

Written by Joanna Kristensen, Sex & Relationship Coach Joanna Kristensen is a certified sex coach helping long-term couples revitalize their sex lives and deepen intimacy. She also supports couples in navigating the relationship challenges that can arise after years together. You're the one who reaches over first, most of the time. Who suggests going upstairs. Who sends the text with a bit of spark in it, or tests the waters with a kiss on the neck. You've probably wished, more than once, that your partner would do that for a change, or wondered, if you stopped reaching, would you still have sex at all? Once that pattern sets in, initiation stops feeling easy. You're not just responsible for "tonight" anymore, you start to feel responsible for the whole sexual connection between you. For the partner on the other side, every "no" can start to feel loaded with guilt, like they're disappointing you, which is exactly why you can both end up avoiding it. Why it gets hard for the one who reaches out most Initiating means putting yourself out there and waiting to see what comes back. When you're the one doing that most of the time, each attempt carries the weight of the ones before it. A no is never just one "not right now", it adds to every other time you reached out and didn't get the response you hoped for. Over time, something sneaks in besides the fear of being turned down again and the feeling of rejection, doubt about your own desirability. If you're mostly reaching out and rarely being reached for, it's hard not to wonder whether your partner still wants you and is attracted to you. That doubt doesn't need to be justified to feel real. Why the other partner might not be reaching out There could be many reasons. It could be stress, exhaustion, or tension between you taking up all the space where desire would normally live. It could be low libido. Or it could be something simpler, couples can slip into patterns around who starts sex the same way they slip into patterns around who handles the bills or who drives the kids to school, and once that role is set, the other person stops doing it. For some, it's that they're not enjoying the sex you're having right now, but they don't know how to say that without it sounding like criticism. So instead of having that conversation with you, they avoid sex altogether because avoiding it feels easier. There's another reason that's easy to miss. When most of the reaching falls to you, touch itself starts to carry a charge, and your partner can tell where a hand on the back or a kiss on the neck is heading. So instead of leaning into it, they avoid touch altogether, not because they don't want closeness, but because they feel there's an expectation attached to it. This tends to happen once non-sexual touch has faded from your day-to-day, so touch starts to imply sex rather than stand on its own. What this looked like in my own relationship I know this pattern well because I was the one in our relationship who didn't initiate much. I have responsive desire. My husband's desire is spontaneous, so for years he initiated most of the time, and I didn't think much of it. I need to admit that, of course, he heard no from me plenty of those times. Then, after a long while, he finally stopped reaching for me. At first, I didn't notice the change, and then I assumed he'd lost interest or was simply fine without sex for a while. It never occurred to me that he might have been waiting for me to make a move. The turning point was realizing that I wasn't fine without sex. We hadn't lost desire for each other, we'd settled into an unspoken agreement where the roles were clear but comfortable for one of us and not the other. So I decided I didn't want it to stay like this between us and started initiating, even when I didn't feel like having sex in the moment, because I wanted the connection. My husband welcomed my invitation with a smile and real enthusiasm. He still initiates more than I do, but now I do too. What actually helps A lot of this comes down to one small misunderstanding that happens over and over in long-term relationships. One person reaches for their partner, meaning "I miss you," and the other hears "sex is expected now." Same moment, two completely different meanings. Some of that comes down to how differently we're wired. Some people need to feel emotionally connected before they want sex, others need sex to feel emotionally connected in the first place. Neither is wrong, but when that difference goes unspoken, what usually follows isn't more sex, it's less touch, less initiating, and more distance between you. The shift that changes this is treating initiation as an invitation, not a contract. An invitation opens a door, it says, "I'd love to connect with you, are you around for it? Let's see where this goes." It doesn't assume what the answer will be. The moment initiation starts to feel like a demand, your partner's body tenses up before their mind even gets a say in it, whether that demand is spoken or just implied by a touch. Here's what that looks like in practice. Get curious. Two questions work far better than "Why don't you ever initiate?" which tends to land as an accusation even when you don't mean it that way. Ask, outside the bedroom and not right after a no, "What would make initiating feel easier for you, and what would actually make you want to initiate more?" Real answers beat guessing every time. Check timing before you reach. A "not now" often has nothing to do with wanting you less. It usually means your partner is still finishing something, or their head is still somewhere else, at work, with the kids, or caught up in the day they just had. A quick read on whether they're actually with you, not just in the room, changes how often you hear a yes. Treat initiation as an invitation. A hand on the back or a kiss on the neck tells your partner exactly where it's heading, which is often the reason they pull away from it. Try saying it instead, "I'd really like some time together tonight. Would you be open to it?" or "I've missed being close to you. What about a make-out session or just cuddling later?" Both name what you want and leave room for a yes, a not right now, or just staying close instead, without shutting either of you out. Let go of the yes-or-no framing. Most couples treat this as a switch, either you're having sex or you're not, but there's a lot of ground in between. If your partner says they're somewhere in the middle rather than a flat no, ask what would help them move a little further, maybe a shower together first, cuddling for a bit, or just some time to switch from work mode to home mode. There's no guarantee it changes anything, and it doesn't need to. The point isn't talking someone into a yes, it's understanding what they actually need in that moment. Bring back touch with no agenda. If non-sexual touch has faded from your day-to-day, every touch that's left starts to carry an agenda, and your partner can feel it. Bring back touch that isn't heading anywhere on purpose, a longer hug, cuddling on the couch, a kiss that's allowed to be a kiss. Once touch stops being a preview of sex, it tends to happen more, not less, and so does sex. What a no needs from you. If your partner says no and you sigh or go quiet, they're left feeling guilty, as if they've disappointed you, and next time they may steer clear of the situation altogether rather than face it again. If you're the one saying no, swap the flat "no" for something like, "Not right now, I'm exhausted, but what about tomorrow morning?" It gives your partner something to hold onto instead of a closed door. If it's a hard no, that's it, nobody should be talked into a yes they don't actually want. Respecting that is what makes it safe to be honest with each other next time too. Try to step back or take turns. Try two weeks where the partner who doesn't usually initiate takes the lead, then check in. Or alternate, so it isn't assumed to be one person's job. At the end of the day, initiation isn't meant to be one person's job, but a shared responsibility. If you can make one mindset shift and think of initiation as an invitation, letting go of the pressure that it must lead to only one thing, the takeaway is simple, it can stop being a job for either of you and become a playful, exciting occasion for connection and pleasure. If this feels familiar in your relationship and you'd like support figuring out what's actually happening between you and your partner, I offer discovery calls where we can look at your specific dynamic and where to go from here. If you're ready to understand the pattern more clearly, let's talk. You don't have to keep guessing at it alone. Book your free discovery call here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Joanna Kristensen Joanna Kristensen, Sex & Relationship Coach Joanna Kristensen is a certified sex coach specializing in sex and intimacy for long-term couples. She works with couples where sex has become infrequent or stopped altogether, where mismatched desire or physical challenges are affecting confidence and connection, or where patterns of avoidance and pressure have quietly taken hold. She also supports couples navigating life transitions that can reshape both sex and intimacy. Having experienced infertility, parenthood, infidelity, and her own midlife transition, she brings a grounded understanding of how life changes a couple’s sex life and intimacy and how to restore both in a lasting way. Her philosophy is "Don’t replace it, repair it."