London, UK/Dallas, TX – Natalia Nicholson, Founder of Top 100 Most Powerful Black Women, and Zondra Evans, Founder and CEO of Zondra TV Network, are joining forces through a Strategic Brand Extension that will connect a London-based global movement with an award-winning international media network to expand visibility, authority, and opportunity for Black women in business. Nicholson has spent more than 20 years building businesses and platforms focused on visibility, digital growth, and opportunity. Through Top 100 Most Powerful Black Women, she has created an international community connecting Black women entrepreneurs, executives, experts and emerging leaders across the United States, United Kingdom, Africa and beyond. Evans brings more than 40 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience and leads Zondra TV Network, an award-winning international media network that helps entrepreneurs, organizations and brands access television, streaming distribution, strategic storytelling and larger audiences. Together, the founders are creating a Brand Extension that moves beyond a traditional partnership by expanding intellectual property, amplifying founder stories, increasing international visibility and creating new pathways to opportunity. “This is about taking a powerful mission and giving it a larger stage,” said Zondra Evans, Founder and CEO of Zondra TV Network. “Natalia has built an extraordinary global movement, and our role is to help extend that vision through strategic media access, storytelling and distribution. When two powerful platforms come together with a shared purpose, the possibilities are significant.” Through the Brand Extension, Zondra TV Network will help expand the Top 100 brand into a broader media ecosystem, creating opportunities for strategic content, audience development, brand authority and ongoing market presence. “Black women do not need to simply be invited into more rooms,” said Natalia Nicholson, Founder of Top 100 Most Powerful Black Women. “We need the visibility, relationships, knowledge and platforms that position us to build, lead and own rooms of our own. Collaborating with Zondra TV Network allows us to take that vision to an even larger global audience.” Nicholson is also the Founder of Women in Digital Business and creator of the Visibility to Revenue™ methodology, helping entrepreneurs and experts transform their knowledge, digital presence and visibility into sustainable business growth. The Brand Extension is expected to begin rolling out in Q4 2026, with opportunities to expand the Top 100 brand through media, streaming, strategic content, founder visibility and international audience engagement. Two powerhouses, one global vision The collaboration reflects a growing need for brands to extend their intellectual property, stories, communities and expertise across multiple platforms and markets. For Top 100 Most Powerful Black Women, the Brand Extension creates a pathway to expand its global mission and increase visibility for the women within its ecosystem. For Zondra TV Network, it advances the company’s work helping founders and organizations transform existing platforms into larger media opportunities. Rather than asking entrepreneurs to start over, Zondra TV Network helps them strategically extend what they have already built. Visibility that leads to opportunity Nicholson and Evans share a common conviction: "Visibility should lead somewhere." It should build credibility, open doors, strengthen authority and create access to opportunities that were previously out of reach. By combining Nicholson’s global community and leadership platform with Evans’ corporate expertise, media experience, and international network, the Brand Extension creates a foundation for expanded influence and long-term growth. Two founders, continents, established powerhouses, and one global vision. About the top 100 most powerful black women Top 100 Most Powerful Black Women is a global platform founded by Natalia Nicholson to increase visibility, connections, and opportunities for Black women in business, entrepreneurship, and leadership. The platform connects entrepreneurs, executives, professionals, experts and changemakers across international markets through education, visibility, relationships and business development. Learn more here. About Zondra TV Network Founded and led by Zondra Evans, Zondra TV Network is an award-winning international media access company and global streaming network. The company helps entrepreneurs, founders, organizations, and brands increase visibility, credibility, and authority through television, streaming distribution, strategic storytelling, media strategy, and Brand Extension initiatives. Media contact Company name: Zondra TV Network Contact person: Zondra Evans Email Phone: 469-854-3554 Country: United States Website

Written by Jordan Baker, PR Agency Founder Jordan Baker is the founder of Fair Public Relations, a journalist-led PR agency supporting founders, experts and growing businesses. A former UK national journalist, he has more than a decade of experience in PR, media relations and earned media strategy. When I worked as a journalist, I could receive several hundred public relations (PR) pitches in a day, so there simply wasn't time to properly read every one of them. Usually, I'd scan the subject line first. If something caught my attention, I'd look at the preview, and if I was still interested after that, I'd open the email and read more. The whole decision could happen in a matter of seconds. I wasn't particularly bothered about who had sent the email. I was much more interested in what they were actually offering me. Was there an expert available? Could I interview someone? Was there a product or service to review? Was somebody offering me a real life story? Was there actually a news story here? I needed to know quickly. I've now spent more than 11 years working in PR, and I think this is something businesses often forget. They spend a lot of time thinking about how to persuade journalists to cover them, when the better question is usually much simpler, why should the journalist care? There are plenty of useful guides to getting media coverage, but before worrying about media lists, press releases and follow ups, it helps to understand what is actually happening at the other end of the email. Journalists do use PR It is easy to talk about journalists and PR professionals as if they are on opposing sides, but that isn't really how it works. Journalists need content. Depending on what they cover, they might need stories, experts, interviews, data, case studies, opinions, products, photographs or interesting people. PR can provide all of those things. Muck Rack's 2026 State of Journalism research found that 86% of journalists say at least some of their published stories start with a PR pitch, so the idea that journalists simply hate PR pitches isn't true. What they tend to dislike are pitches that aren't useful to them. The problem is usually that the thing a business wants to talk about isn't necessarily the thing a journalist wants to write about. Those two things can overlap, of course, but the skill is finding where they overlap and then making that obvious. Here are some of the mistakes I see businesses making most often: 1. The little black book is overrated I've never really bought into the idea that the secret to PR is having a mysterious little black book full of journalists. Relationships help, of course they do. There are journalists I've known for years who I can WhatsApp and say, "We sent you something yesterday. Is it one for you?" Sometimes they'll tell me they haven't seen it and take another look. That is useful, but it only takes you so far. What has never happened, in more than 11 years of doing this, is a journalist writing a story they didn't want to write simply because they were doing me a favour. That is why I think PR is much more content led than relationship led. Knowing a journalist can get your pitch another look, but it cannot make a bad story good. A journalist still has an editor, an audience and their own judgement to think about. If they work online, they may also have traffic and engagement targets. Their job isn't to keep their PR contacts happy. Some PR advice puts a lot of emphasis on networking with journalists before approaching them. There can certainly be value in that, and Brainz has previously published some good advice about pitching businesses to the media. I just wouldn't make the relationship the main event. If you have something genuinely relevant for a journalist, you don't need to spend six months liking their LinkedIn posts before you're allowed to email them. You need something worth sending. 2. Make the subject obvious When somebody is scanning hundreds of emails, clarity matters far more than cleverness. I always wanted to know what I was being pitched, and one of my frustrations was a subject line along the lines of "Exciting opportunity for you!" What does that mean? Is it an interview, an expert, a review, an event or a story? Are you trying to sell me something? If I have to open the email simply to work out what you're offering, you've already made the process harder than it needs to be. Most journalists aren't sitting around hoping somebody will make their inbox more mysterious. Personally, I like very obvious subject lines. If you've got an expert, tell me there's an expert. If somebody is available for interview, say so. If you want me to review something, make that clear. If you have a story, give me enough of the story in the subject line to decide whether I might care. The same applies to the opening of the email. You don't need three paragraphs telling me when the company was founded, what its mission is and how passionate the team are before finally revealing why you've contacted me. If the interesting bit is buried, there's a good chance the journalist will never reach it. 3. Your announcement isn't automatically news PR inboxes are full of "exciting announcements", but quite a lot of them aren't terribly exciting outside the company making them. A new website might have taken your team nine months to build. That doesn't necessarily make it a news story. You've hired somebody. Great, but why would a reader care? Your company has turned ten. That's a lovely milestone for the business, but what is the story for everybody else? This doesn't mean those things can never generate coverage. Sometimes they can, but usually there needs to be something more. Maybe the appointment says something interesting about where an industry is going. Maybe the business has grown from somebody's kitchen table into a multimillion pound company in ten years. Maybe the new product solves a problem everybody is suddenly talking about. Maybe the person behind the business has a much better story than the announcement itself. One of the most useful things you can do in PR is separate "this matters to us" from "this might matter to them". They are different tests, and confusing the two is one of the easiest ways to end up with a pitch nobody wants. 4. Stop pitching everyone I used to receive a lot of pitches that had very little to do with anything I actually wrote about, and it was usually obvious that somebody had found an email address in a database, added it to a large list and pressed send. I don't think there's anything wrong with sending a pitch to a decent number of journalists when the story genuinely warrants it. The problem is relevance. Muck Rack's 2026 research found that 43% of journalists say they seldom receive pitches that match what they cover, while another 4% say they never do. That's quite poor when you think about how basic relevance should be to the process. You don't need to know a journalist's life story before emailing them, and you certainly don't need to reference an article they wrote in 2019 just to prove you've done your research. But you should have a reasonable idea of what they actually cover. Otherwise, not only is that particular email likely to be ignored, but you risk becoming somebody whose emails get ignored automatically. If I receive five irrelevant pitches from the same person, I'm probably not approaching the sixth one with much optimism. I'd rather send a story to 30 journalists who could genuinely use it than 300 who couldn't. 5. Don't make journalists work Some pitches turn something fairly straightforward into hard work. The email is enormous. There's a brochure attached. There are 12 links. There's a link to the homepage, another to the founder's LinkedIn, another to a YouTube video, another to a Dropbox folder and several more to pages you apparently need to read before you'll understand what is going on. Most journalists are not going to do all of that. The email itself should give them enough information to decide whether they are interested. If you want to include one useful link where they can access good images, further details or supporting material, that's fine. In fact, that can be very helpful. The journalist just shouldn't need to conduct an investigation to discover what they're being offered. The same goes for length. Muck Rack found that 69% of journalists prefer pitches to be under 200 words, which doesn't surprise me at all. You don't always need to fit every piece of information into the first pitch. The first job is to get the journalist interested enough to want more. If they then want the research, photographs, full interview, extra statistics or a 900 word biography, you can send it. 6. Speed really matters People underestimate how quickly journalism moves. Let's say a journalist is writing something this afternoon and needs an expert. You happen to know the world's greatest authority on the subject, but they can't answer until tomorrow. I have somebody who's suitably qualified, understands the issue and can give a useful answer in the next 20 minutes. Very often, my person is more useful to the journalist. That's particularly true with expert commentary and reactive PR. Being the best possible expert in theory isn't much help if the article has already been filed by the time you respond. I've seen businesses take several days to approve something that needed to be with a journalist that afternoon. By the time it comes back, it can be beautifully written, carefully approved and completely useless. Journalists have deadlines. Stories move. News changes. Editors decide they want a different angle. Somebody else responds first. If it's a reactive opportunity, you usually need to respond quickly enough for the journalist to still be able to use it. You don't need to drop everything for every media request that comes in, but you do need to recognise when an opportunity has a shelf life measured in hours rather than days. 7. Stop chasing journalists This is probably where I differ most from a lot of standard PR advice. I'm not a huge believer in constantly following up with journalists who haven't replied. When I was a journalist, I received the email. Emailing me again to say, "Just bumping this to the top of your inbox" didn't suddenly make the story more interesting. There are exceptions. If you've got important new information, that's different. If there's a genuine deadline, tell them. If you know the journalist and think they may simply have missed something that's very relevant to them, you might want to check. But repeatedly asking whether somebody has seen an email isn't much of a strategy. I'd usually rather try somebody else, change the angle, find another opportunity or come back to that journalist later with something they might actually want. The goal isn't to wear somebody down until they finally agree to write about you. I'd much rather journalists get used to receiving useful things from me, because then, when my name appears in their inbox, there is at least a decent chance they'll take a look. Relationships still have value None of this means I think relationships are pointless. Quite the opposite. I just think good media relationships tend to come from being useful rather than from trying to manufacture friendships because you want coverage. Years ago, I represented a 90s themed brunch and invited an intern from Cosmopolitan to come and review it. She was very honest with me. She said she couldn't promise any coverage, but if we were still willing to have her, she'd really like to come. We said yes. She came along, had a great time, and later messaged me to say they were going to give the brunch a double page feature. We hadn't made her attendance conditional on coverage. There was no agreement, and I didn't spend the afternoon trying to persuade her to write something. We simply offered her something she wanted to experience, and something positive came from it. That is what I mean when I say relationships can help. Being helpful, fair and easy to deal with can lead to opportunities later. It is very different from believing a journalist owes you editorial coverage because you've taken them for lunch or known them for ten years. Think like the person receiving it If you're struggling to get media coverage, try looking at your pitch without thinking like the business owner for a moment. Imagine you've just opened an inbox with several hundred unread emails. Does the subject line tell you what's being offered? Is it relevant to something you cover? Why would your audience care? Why does it matter now? Can you see the story without digging for it? Could you actually do something useful with what you've been given? If the answer to those questions is yes, you're already in a much stronger position. Small businesses don't necessarily need huge budgets or years of media connections to get coverage either. There are plenty of ways to get published in the media as a small business if you understand what you have to offer. PR isn't about convincing a journalist that your company deserves some publicity. Journalists aren't a free advertising service. It's about finding the point where something your business genuinely has to offer meets something a journalist genuinely needs. To me, that's always been the simplest way to understand media relations. If you'd like help finding the stories, expertise and media opportunities already sitting inside your business, you can find out more at Fair Public Relations. Follow me on LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jordan Baker Jordan Baker, PR Agency Founder Jordan Baker is the founder of Fair Public Relations, a founder-led, journalist-led PR agency working with founders, experts, professional services firms and growing businesses across the UK, US and Canada. A former UK national journalist, Jordan has more than a decade of experience in public relations, media relations and earned media. He founded the agency in London in 2015 and remains directly involved in client strategy, positioning and campaign direction. His work focuses on helping credible people and businesses turn their expertise, stories and ideas into meaningful media opportunities.

Written by Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director Helen champions the arts as a tool for change. Now, as CEO of RYTC Creatives CIC and Give Get Go Education, she mentors young people, creates pathways for them to thrive in the arts, and helps launch successful careers. Some young people cannot easily explain why a worksheet leaves them cold while a piece of music, movement or drama draws them fully in. It is rarely a lack of ability. More often, it is a mismatch between how understanding is being requested and how a particular young person actually processes, expresses and makes sense of the world around them. A learner may refuse to write three sentences about a character and then spend forty minutes improvising that character's choices, relationships and motives. Another may struggle to explain an idea verbally but communicate it with remarkable clarity through movement, sound or visual composition. The capability was already present. What changed was the form of the invitation. Helen Kenworthy's work through Of Course You Can!™ takes this mismatch seriously, using innovative performing arts not as an enrichment activity bolted onto standard teaching, but as a genuine pedagogy in its own right. For learners who struggle in conventional environments, this creates a route into learning that does not require them to first overcome the format that has been holding them back. Why standard environments do not reach every learner Standard educational environments are built, understandably, around dominant modes of learning, largely verbal, written, and seated. For many students, this works well. For others, particularly those who think and express themselves through movement, sound, image, relationship or embodied experience, the format can shut down engagement before learning has a real chance to happen. This is especially true for many young people in Alternative Provision, whose relationship with standard formats may have been shaped by years of struggle. Repeated experiences of not completing work, misunderstanding instructions, or being unable to demonstrate knowledge in the expected form can lead a young person to conclude that they are simply not a learner. The more accurate conclusion may be that they have not yet met a learning environment built for the way they think. Innovative pedagogy does not lower expectations in response. It widens the doorway through which learners can reach those expectations and expands the ways in which understanding can be built, practised and demonstrated. What innovative performing arts pedagogy really means Using performing arts as pedagogy means treating drama, movement, music, storytelling and creative expression as genuine tools for building knowledge, emotional literacy, communication and confidence, rather than as a break from real learning. A young person exploring a concept through role play or collaborative performance is not avoiding rigour. They are accessing it through a route that may be more meaningful and memorable. Story gives information sequence and purpose. Rehearsal makes repetition expected rather than punitive. Ensemble work requires listening, negotiation and shared responsibility. Improvisation creates a safe place to practise uncertainty. A performance, film, or event can integrate literacy, numeracy, technology, planning, and teamwork into an outcome that matters. This is learning through doing, but it is not unstructured activity. The pedagogy lies in how the practitioner designs the experience, scaffolds participation, connects creative activity to learning outcomes and gradually increases independence. The arts are not disguising education. They are making education purposeful and accessible. Recognising learners who may thrive through creative and embodied approaches Certain patterns can suggest that a young person may respond more strongly to performing arts-based pedagogy than to standard instructional formats: Struggling to sustain attention during long periods of seated or written work Coming alive during music, movement, storytelling or drama activities Expressing ideas more fluently through action, sound, role or image than through writing Showing strong emotional or imaginative responses to music, characters and stories Finding purely verbal or written instructions difficult without demonstration Using gesture or physical examples when trying to explain an idea Contributing confidently when a task has a real audience, purpose or shared outcome These signs do not define a learner or suggest that creative work should replace every other form of education. They offer useful information about where engagement may begin and how a broader range of learning can be built from that starting point. The practitioner's role as a creative guide Within this approach, the practitioner's role moves beyond conventional instruction to become that of a creative guide, someone who designs experiences rather than simply delivering content. This requires genuine artistic skill, a clear educational purpose and the ability to notice what is happening beneath the surface of a session. A creative guide recognises that one learner may be ready to perform, another may contribute through sound or lighting, and another may first need to observe before joining in. They adjust the level of challenge without losing the purpose of the activity and make sure that quieter or less visible contributions remain genuinely valued. This attentiveness separates pedagogy from entertainment. The practitioner is always asking what the activity is building, whether that is understanding of a text, confidence in communication, emotional vocabulary, collaboration, persistence or a specific professional skill. Key qualities of effective innovative pedagogy Performing arts based teaching that genuinely reaches learners tends to combine: Genuine artistic skill, bringing real craft to the work rather than a diluted version of it Psychological safety, creating conditions where creative risk feels possible rather than exposing Adaptability, shaping the route around the learners in the room rather than following a rigid script Purposeful structure, connecting creative activity to a meaningful learning intention Patience with process, allowing understanding to emerge through exploration and rehearsal Belief in expressive intelligence, recognising movement, sound and performance as legitimate forms of understanding Choice and consent, offering valued ways to participate without forcing visibility or personal disclosure Artistic skill without safety can feel exposing, while enjoyment without purpose may create a good session but little transferable learning. Effective innovative pedagogy holds these qualities together so creativity becomes a reliable educational pathway rather than a one-off activity. Why this matters for the brilliantly underestimated Many young people who struggle in standard educational environments are quietly brilliant in ways conventional assessment rarely captures. Their intelligence may show itself in how they move, create, connect, solve practical problems, shape a story or respond to an audience. A curriculum dominated by written and seated tasks may not be designed to notice these strengths, let alone reward them. Innovative performing arts pedagogy gives these young people a chance to be seen more accurately. A successful scene, an original idea, a technical solution or a meaningful contribution to an ensemble becomes evidence that challenges the story of failure a learner may have carried for years. For the brilliantly underestimated, that recognition can begin to restore both confidence and educational identity. 10 ways innovative performing arts pedagogy reaches learners Creative engagement matters for far more than enjoyment. When performing arts are used intentionally, with safety, structure and reflection, they can transform both a learner's access to education and an educator's understanding of what that learner is capable of. The following ten outcomes show how innovative performing arts pedagogy can re-engage learners, reveal strengths that standard formats may miss, and build skills that extend well beyond a single creative project. It offers a genuine route into learning for non-verbal and multimodal thinkers: Movement, sound, image and performance allow young people to build and demonstrate understanding without relying solely on extended written or spoken language. A concept can be represented through character, rhythm or action. These routes do not replace literacy, they provide a meaningful foundation from which language and reflection can grow. It lowers the emotional stakes of trying: Creative formats can reduce the fear of getting something wrong that often accompanies formal academic tasks. A first attempt in rehearsal is expected to be unfinished. When mistakes become part of the process rather than evidence of failure, young people become more willing to take the risks through which learning happens. It builds genuine collaboration and belonging: Performing arts activities require learners to listen, negotiate ideas and work towards a shared outcome. An ensemble becomes a community in which different strengths matter. For a young person who has often felt like the problem in a classroom, discovering that the group genuinely needs their contribution can be deeply significant. It develops resilience through live and unpredictable processes: Performance rarely goes exactly to plan. A cue is missed, an idea changes, or another person responds unexpectedly. With appropriate scaffolding, learners practise noticing what has happened, adapting and continuing. This develops a practical form of resilience that can transfer into other areas of learning and life. It gives struggling learners a genuine experience of success: For students who rarely succeed within standard formats, excelling through creative expression can be transformative. Success may appear in a performance, a solved technical problem, a completed design or a contribution that helped someone else. It becomes real evidence of capability rather than reassurance offered from outside. It strengthens emotional literacy and self-expression: Stories, characters, music and movement create safe forms through which feelings and relationships can be explored. A young person can examine conflict, fear or change through fiction before being expected to speak personally. Over time, this can expand emotional vocabulary, perspective-taking, and communication. It reveals abilities that standard assessment often misses: A learner may understand motive, sequence, social dynamics, or cause and effect far more deeply than a written response suggests. Watching them build a scene, explain a design choice, or direct a peer can reveal analysis, leadership, and problem-solving that conventional testing did not capture. It reconnects young people with the idea that learning can be enjoyable: For students who associate education with correction or shame, creative pedagogy can restore curiosity. Fun is not the opposite of seriousness. It lowers barriers, sustains attention and makes repetition possible. Once learning feels worth returning to, wider re-engagement becomes more achievable. It builds confidence in front of an audience, real or imagined: Performing or presenting can develop courage that transfers into interviews, meetings and self-advocacy. This should always be scaffolded. A learner may begin with a partner, a recorded contribution, a technical role or a small audience. Confidence grows through successful experiences of visibility, not forced exposure. It gives educators a richer picture of what a young person understands: Creative processes make thinking visible in different ways. Practitioners can observe how a learner interprets information, organises a task, collaborates and responds to feedback. Reflection through conversation, portfolios, recordings or skills checklists then connects the experience to explicit learning and more accurate next steps. Safety, choice and inclusion must come first Performing arts can be powerful, but they are not automatically inclusive. Noise, group interaction, eye contact, touch, improvisation and public attention can create barriers for some learners. An innovative approach offers meaningful roles across performance, writing, design, sound, costume, filming, research, technical production and organisation. Creative work should never pressure young people to disclose personal trauma or perform emotional experiences they do not wish to share. Fiction, metaphor and imagined characters can provide safer routes into difficult themes. Inclusion is not achieved by placing every young person at the centre of the stage. It is achieved when every young person can contribute from a position that is safe enough to allow growth. From creative engagement to ambitious futures The strongest performing arts pedagogy does more than re-engage a learner for one session. It opens a pathway. A young person can move from joining a game to shaping a scene, from contributing one idea to leading a rehearsal, or from making a short film to exploring professional roles in production, editing, design or event management. This is where the RYTC, Education Selection Box and Give Get Go Education work as connected parts of a wider Creative Pathway. Creative arts can support confidence and expression. Personalised academic support can strengthen the foundations around a learner's interests. Careers training can translate emerging strengths into real projects, professional expectations and ambitious next steps. Conclusion Innovative pedagogy is not a departure from serious education. It is a recognition that seriousness and rigidity are not the same thing, and that genuine learning can happen through movement, sound, story and performance just as powerfully as it can through conventional formats. For young people who struggle in standard environments, that recognition can be transformative. Helen Kenworthy's work through Of Course You Can!™ uses innovative performing arts not as an alternative to real learning, but as a genuine pathway into it. What begins as a lesson in movement or performance can become a learner's first real evidence that their way of thinking has value and that education, when designed around them properly, can finally feel as though it belongs to them too. When a young person engages through performing arts, creativity has not distracted them from education. It may be the first time education has been offered in a language they can fully enter. That engagement can then become the foundation for deeper learning, growing independence and an ambitious future. To explore more about innovative performing arts pedagogy and the wider work supporting learners through The RYTC, Education Selection Box and Give Get Go Education, visit here. Creative Pathway Methodology, Of Course You Can!™ serving the brilliantly underestimated. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Helen Kenworthy Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director Helen Kenworthy’s career embodies the transformative power of the arts, from her early roles in the prestigious West End with Bill Kenwright to her impactful work in regional theatre. As manager of the Oxfordshire Youth Arts Partnership, she created pathways for young people to thrive in the arts, with many going on to successful careers. Now at RYTC Creatives CIC and Give Get Go Education, Helen continues to inspire and mentor the next generation of theatre-makers and community leaders, offering invaluable opportunities for growth and professional development.

There is a moment every rider knows: the engine settles into a steady hum, the road opens up ahead, and everything else falls away. That moment is not an accident. It is the reason people build their lives around two wheels. The freedom of life on two wheels A car insulates you from the world. A motorcycle puts you inside it. The temperature shifts as you drop into a valley. The smell of rain hits before the clouds do. Every curve in the road asks something of you, and you answer with your whole body. That kind of physical engagement makes even a familiar commute feel like something worth doing. The appeal of open roads and spontaneous trips Motorcycles reward spontaneity in a way that cars rarely do. Passing an unmarked turnoff and deciding to follow it costs nothing. Pulling over to watch the sun set over a ridgeline takes thirty seconds. The bike does not care about the plan, and neither do most riders once they are moving. How motorcycles turn ordinary journeys into experiences The route to the grocery store becomes a different thing entirely on a motorcycle. Distance stops being an obstacle and starts being the point. Riders do not just move through landscapes. They read them, feel them, and remember them in ways that passengers in closed vehicles rarely do. Building a lifestyle around your motorcycle Fitting riding into real life takes some intention, but it is more manageable than most people expect. Weekend mornings are a natural starting point. A two-hour loop before the rest of the household is awake costs nothing but an early alarm. Longer trips, the kind that cross state lines or chase a specific stretch of highway, take more planning but follow the same logic: pick a direction, leave early, and stay flexible. Total motorcycle registrations in the United States reached approximately 9.3 million units in 2024, which tells you something about how many people have already made this calculation and decided riding is worth organizing a life around. Motorcycle-friendly destinations have grown alongside that number. Many hotels now offer covered parking and early checkout for riders who want to beat the heat. Scenic byways across the Southwest, the Appalachians, and the Pacific Coast have entire communities built around serving people on two wheels. The motorcycle community Group rides and riding clubs are where the lifestyle deepens into something social. A solo ride is meditative. A group ride is something else entirely: a shared experience with its own rhythm, its own pace, and its own unspoken agreements. Group rides and riding clubs Most clubs organize regular rides, charity events, and longer overnight trips. Some are brand-specific. Others are open to anyone with a license and a willingness to show up. The barrier to entry is low, and the regulars are almost always willing to bring someone new into the fold. The unwritten etiquette of the road The wave between passing riders is the most visible part of motorcycle culture, but the etiquette runs deeper. You do not leave a rider stranded on the side of the road. You do not pass a slower rider in the group without signaling. You check in at fuel stops and wait for everyone before moving on. These habits are not written down anywhere, but they are understood and respected across every riding community. Meeting people through motorcycle culture Bike nights, swap meets, and manufacturer rallies draw riders together in ways that feel genuinely organic. The conversation starter is always the machine, but the friendships that develop tend to outlast any particular bike or riding season. Gear, bikes, and personal style Choosing a motorcycle is a surprisingly personal decision. Cruisers suit riders who prefer a relaxed posture and long, straight highways. Sport bikes attract riders who want precision and performance. Adventure bikes appeal to people who refuse to choose between pavement and dirt. The bike ends up saying something about the rider before a word is spoken. Protective gear has followed the same trajectory. A decade ago, the choice was between looking protected and looking good. That gap has closed considerably. Modern helmets, jackets, and boots are engineered for serious impact protection while fitting the aesthetic that riders actually want to wear. Gloves with reinforced palms, jackets with CE-rated armor at the shoulders and elbows, and boots with ankle protection have all become standard in serious riding circles without sacrificing style. Customization adds another layer. Tank grips, handlebar risers, aftermarket exhaust systems, and custom paint jobs turn a stock motorcycle into something that reflects its owner. Maintenance keeps that investment running. Regular oil changes, tire pressure checks, chain lubrication, and brake inspections are the unglamorous work that makes the glamorous rides possible. Making every ride more enjoyable The best rides are rarely the most ambitious ones. A rider who plans every stop, calculates every mile, and optimizes every minute tends to finish the day feeling like they managed a project rather than experienced a ride. Leaving room in the itinerary for a detour, a long lunch, or an unplanned conversation with a stranger at a gas station usually produces a better story. Taking breaks matters on a practical level too. Fatigue affects concentration, and concentration is what keeps a rider safe. Stopping every ninety minutes or so, stretching, drinking water, and checking the bike before continuing is not inefficiency. It is good riding. Full stop. When a great ride takes an unexpected turn Most rides end the way they begin: uneventfully, with the bike parked and the rider already thinking about the next one. But the road carries real risk, and riders who acknowledge that tend to handle it better when something goes wrong. Motorcycles make up only 3% of all registered vehicles and 0.6% of all vehicle miles traveled in the United States, yet motorcyclists accounted for 16.2% of all traffic fatalities and 3.6% of all injuries in 2024, according to the National Safety Council. Those numbers reflect the physics of riding: no crumple zones, no airbags, and no steel cage between the rider and whatever hits them. What to do after a collision If a collision happens, the steps matter. Get to safety if possible. Call 911. Document the scene with photos before anything is moved. Collect contact and insurance information from any other drivers involved. And decline to give recorded statements to insurance adjusters before speaking with someone who understands how these claims work. Getting appropriate help Riders injured through someone else's negligence often face pushback from insurers who undervalue motorcycle injury claims or dispute liability outright. A Mesa motorcycle accident attorney can help injured riders in the area understand what their claim is actually worth and work through the process without giving up leverage early. Keeping the motorcycle lifestyle going for years Longevity in riding comes down to a few consistent habits. Riders who take refresher courses every few years stay sharper than those who assume experience alone is enough. Skill erodes without practice, and the roads change. New hazards, new traffic patterns, and new vehicle types all warrant updated awareness. Keeping the bike in good condition is the other half of the equation. A well-maintained motorcycle is more predictable, which makes every ride safer and more enjoyable. Neglected maintenance introduces variables that skilled riding cannot always overcome. The lifestyle also benefits from variety. Exploring new roads, visiting new destinations, and riding with different groups keeps the experience fresh. Riders who stay curious tend to stay engaged. And riders who stay engaged tend to stay safe. The road ahead The riders who stick with this lifestyle for decades are not the ones who treated it as a phase. They are the ones who built it into the structure of their lives, found their community, kept their skills sharp, and never stopped looking for the next road worth riding. That kind of commitment does not require anything dramatic. It just requires showing up, one ride at a time.

Written by Jessica Hastings-Lesperance, Realtor®, Director of Operations & Co-Owner Fierce and epic all rolled into one, she’s an absolute rockstar. Jessica Hastings-Lesperance was raised with Real Estate™ for her entire life. She is co-owner, Marketing Visionary, Director of Operations, and Realtor® at the Terri Hastings Real Estate Group/Keller Williams Realty Centres, one of the top-producing Keller Williams teams in all of Canada. I thought I was taking my daughter shopping. I was wrong. I was taking her somewhere we could slow down. Last week, I walked into Fierce Deer Jewelry in Sauble Beach with my daughter, expecting we'd spend fifteen minutes looking around before heading to our next stop. Instead, she stopped in her tracks. "Mom, this store is so cool." Her eyes moved from the crystals to the charms, the handmade jewelry, the engraved pieces, and then to the build-your-own jewelry bar. Every corner seemed to tell a different story. What happened next surprised me. We stayed for almost an hour, not because we couldn't make a decision, but because we didn't want to leave. We talked. We laughed. We picked up charms, put them back, changed our minds, and held necklaces up to see which one felt right. She carefully thought about what each charm meant, and I found myself doing the same. For the first time in what felt like a long time, neither of us was in a hurry. No one was checking a phone. No one was thinking about what came next on the calendar. We were simply together. As parents, we often spend so much time trying to create magical moments for our children that we forget they usually happen in the simplest places. A conversation while choosing a charm. A laugh over which bracelet fits best. The excitement of engraving something that suddenly becomes one of a kind. Research has consistently shown that shared experiences create stronger and longer-lasting happiness than simply acquiring more possessions. Looking back, it isn't usually the purchase we remember. It's how we felt while making it. That's exactly what happened that afternoon. The jewelry was beautiful. The crystals were stunning. The engraving quickly became my favourite feature because it transformed a beautiful piece into something deeply personal. But none of those things became the highlight of my day. Watching my daughter light up did. As I drove home, I realized something. Local businesses like Fierce Deer Jewelry don't simply sell products. They create spaces where conversations happen, where traditions begin, and where parents and children slow down long enough to simply enjoy each other's company. In a world that constantly asks us to move faster, answer another notification, and squeeze one more thing into our day, places like this quietly remind us to do the opposite. Slow down. Stay a little longer. Talk a little more. Laugh a little louder. Because one day, our children won't remember every gift we bought them. They'll remember how we made them feel. They'll remember the places where we spent uninterrupted time together. They'll remember the stories behind the necklace they still wear years later. As I watched my daughter carefully choose every detail, it hit me that we weren't really making jewelry. We were making a memory. The necklace wasn't what we brought home that day. Time together was. Maybe that's the real value of supporting local businesses. They don't just become part of our community. They quietly become part of our family's story. The next time you find yourself in Sauble Beach, I encourage you to do more than shop. Take someone you love. Build something together. Engrave a date, a word, or a memory that matters. Years from now, the jewelry may still be there. But I have a feeling the conversation you had while creating it together will be worth even more. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jessica Hastings Lesperance Jessica Hastings-Lesperance, Realtor®, Director of Operations & Co-Owner Fierce and epic all rolled into one, she’s an absolute rock star. Jessica Hastings-Lesperance was raised with Real Estate™ for her entire life. She is co-owner, Marketing Visionary, Director of Operations, and Realtor® at the Terri Hastings Real Estate Group/Keller Williams Realty Centres, one of the top-producing Keller Williams teams in all of Canada. Jessica is an inspiring entrepreneur, real estate investor, coach, speaker, and published author. She has been featured on major media outlets, including podcasts and real estate TV talk shows, and has been published in various magazines. Recently, she was recognized as one of Canada’s Top Fitness Instructors for 2023 by Impact Magazine.

Written by BE Alink, Founder & CEO of The Alinker Inventions Ltd. BE Alink is a certified Bio-Tuning® Practitioner, a recording soundscape artist/composer of brain entrainment music, a life coach, and creator of ceremonial pieces. BE is a paradigm-shifter-inventor, founder, and CEO of The Alinker walking bike and the Author of her memoir ‘Inventing BE’. When Selma Blair posted a photo of herself on her Alinker in early 2019, our @the_Alinker_world Instagram page exploded. I had to look up who she was, as I am not very familiar with Hollywood stars. I learned that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) after years of symptoms and doctors not taking her seriously, something many people deal with when dealing with what I call our “sick care” system: great for when you break a leg or need surgery, but the medical system is not meant to deal with chronic illnesses or make you healthy. "I got places to go! Sometimes I can’t do it on my own two feet. Sometimes I have to sit down and roll with the punches. I saw this Alinker at my 'ms' doctor’s office and wanted one. I love being able to move at the speed of sound. Totally here for this innovation." – @selmablair My name is BE Alink, Dutch-born and raised, and a permanent resident of Canada. I am the creator of the Alinker, a three-wheeled, nonmotorized walking bike without pedals. With the comment from my mum in 2011, “Over my dead body will I ever use one of those,” while pointing at electric scooters and rollators, I became aware that mobility devices are designed for a “body with a problem,” but that is not who we 'are'. We 'have' a body with exterior characteristics, but we 'are' whole human beings. Freedom in the absence of language I have always been obsessed with language because there was none for what I experienced growing up. I am a woman assigned at birth, and still am a woman, just without a uterus and breasts, and I am always stared at in public washrooms as an intruder. I fall in love with women but don’t feel like I am a lesbian. There is more going on, but I am also not transgender. Get my drift? No segments describe me. Language is powerful, and growing up without it gave me the freedom to invent myself and BE unapologetically me. Language is powerful Look at all the hyper language we use to identify ourselves so we can fight for the rights of our little underrepresented group, based on what we 'have': external characteristics, skin colour, the way we move, gender. The segmented language only divides us. When we identify with a minority, we oppress ourselves. The vast majority of us have the experience of being dismissed, only because we live in a conditioned construct, a “consensus reality” with an assumed mainstream, a small minority that enriches itself, and it can do so as long as we behave and consume as we were taught. But did you ever consent to living in a world where we are consumers of toxic food that makes us sick, then funnelled into a sick care system that needs sick people to make more revenue, all while food industry practices are killing the very environment that we need to survive? With every purchase we make, we buy into that consensus reality and support the system that destroys us. Until we stop. Stop consuming... Deconstructing language is deconstructing our conditioning. Change is not in what we do, but in who we decide to 'be'. Changing the world is an inside job. A vehicle for change We use our company, The Alinker, as a vehicle for change, but it confuses people. People ask, “Why are you talking about food? I thought you were selling bikes.” Food is related to health; industries are related to environmental damage and rising chronic illnesses; the burning of the Amazon forests is related to the meat industry. We cannot separate our product from how it is produced, from what we eat, and from how that relates to becoming sick. Everything is related, and mobility is not an isolated problem to fix. It needs to be approached in the full context. Back to the “sick care” system. We think we have a healthcare system as long as we refer to it as such. Until someone questions it. See my TEDx talk. Once we rename it, we can recognize that we actually do not have a healthcare system; we have a sick care system that is great if you break a leg or need surgery but is no place for chronic illnesses. Medical professionals are not trained to deal with chronic illnesses other than to medicate. Medications often have adverse effects and are designed to manage symptoms, not to make you healthy. Are you looking forward to becoming dependent on our healthcare system as it is? No one will answer “Yes,” so it is time to build healthcare that supports our wellness. Health means having access For us, health has three components: mobility, community, and food. We can talk about these things, but when people have been driven into poverty by the sick care system, they don’t have access to them. The Alinker’s foundation is built on providing 'access' to: Mobility: A 0% rent-to-own program, staying out of the Medicare circus, and hosting crowdfunding campaigns. Community: Hosting Zoom seminars, maintaining an active Facebook group with 1,200+ active Alinker users, rallying around campaigns, and showing up for isolated people. Food: A partnership with Eat Real to Heal’s Nicolette Richer, reversing chronic illnesses while being in community. The Alinker has been in the market for ten years, and we have done so much, but talking about systemic issues when trying to sell bikes confuses people, so... Our vision is clear Mobility and food are medicine. In community, we are powerful and a threat to the systems. We don’t need to tear the systems down. Collectively, we need to stop supporting them; stop consuming the food and the stories we have been conditioned to consume. Choose who we want to be. If we choose to be kind, then our actions need to be congruent with that choice. It’s not about 'what' we do, but 'who' we choose to be. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from BE Alink BE Alink, Founder & CEO of The Alinker Inventions Ltd. BE is a thought leader who uses language as an awareness tool to create awareness around our conditioning that made us mass consumers of all that is making us sick and is killing the planet. BE: "Changing the world is an inside job". With her 10 years international work in non-western countries, she brings her unique perspective on our western world. Whether through her invention of the Alinker walking bike or, more recently, the brain-entrainment compositions she created and hosts for groups and online, BE dedicates her time to building communities around the modalities that support the health and life of all of us.

Crissy Fishbane is a keynote speaker, writer, and former psychology educator exploring what it means to build a meaningful life in a world that often tells us who we should be and what we should value. As the cofounder of HER Health Collective and host of the award-winning podcast Mama Needs a Moment, she has spent years building community and has interviewed more than 160 experts across psychology, relationships, health, and personal development. In this interview, Crissy explores worthiness, courage, connection, and the stories that shape how we see ourselves. Drawing from both lived experience and years of conversations with others, she examines how we can become more intentional about where we place our time, attention, and energy, and actively build lives that feel meaningful to us. Crissy Fishbane, Keynote Speaker & Writer What first drew you to explore what actually makes a life feel meaningful? When I was 16, I was electrocuted by 13,000 volts in a car accident that very nearly took my life. I was airlifted to a burn unit, where I spent months in and out of the hospital with surgeries, skin grafts, and an excruciatingly painful recovery process. Prior to the accident, I had been a deeply troubled teenager, questioning not only my worth but whether I deserved to take up space on this planet. After the accident, I felt genuine gratitude for the opportunity to live another day. I realized I did not just want to survive my life. I really wanted to live it. The adventure, the joy, the heartache, the pain. All of it. Because it meant I was still here. I became obsessed with psychology and personal development. I loved studying human behavior and, in particular, learning more about myself. I had a deep desire to make every day count, but I realized my view of “making a day count” was often very different from what society tells us makes a successful day. As I thought about what had mattered most while I was lying in a hospital bed, uncertain of what came next, the answer was incredibly simple. It was the relationships. The people who continued to show up in my life and support and love me, even when I was at my worst. So many of the other things I thought mattered hadn't mattered at all in that hospital room. It entirely shifted my perspective, the feeling I wake up with every morning, and the approach I take to my life. Twenty-five years later, I am still obsessed with what living a “meaningful life” really means and what it actually looks like to live one. Why can achievement become a way of proving our worth rather than pursuing what genuinely matters to us? As we grow up, we are taught that behaving a certain way and accomplishing certain things can elevate our status in the eyes of others. We learn that society will view us more kindly if we prove our worth through good grades, accolades, higher income, nice cars, a pretty home, and a good job. Psychologist Carl Rogers called this idea conditions of worth, the standards we learn we have to meet in order to feel worthy of acceptance or approval. Nobody ever had to sit us down and explicitly say, “This is how you prove your worth.” But it is an idea we absorb through our interactions with the world around us. Achievement itself is not the problem. There is a big difference between “I want to achieve something because it matters to me” and “I need to accomplish this so I can feel like I matter.” The question I continually come back to is this: Who are you if all of the accolades and success metrics are stripped away from you? What are your core values? Who are you at your core, regardless of what room you are walking into or who you are having a conversation with? That is the true guide to knowing what genuinely matters. The vast majority of our accomplishments will not matter in our final days. I’m all for pursuing big dreams, but accomplishment itself cannot tell you what you’re worth. What changes when we stop waiting to feel ready and choose to act while fear is still present? Everything. When we wait to feel ready before we take steps toward a goal, our lives can become stagnant. The truth is, we will never be entirely ready for most of the challenges life throws our way. There will always be unknowns, curveballs, and unforeseen obstacles we could never have prepared for. We can’t prepare for life. We simply have to live, one day at a time and with our whole hearts. Choosing to act while fear still grips us is one of the most courageous ways we can actively participate in our lives. Fear will always have a voice in our lives. It just doesn’t get the microphone. Every time we take one single scary step towards a goal, we are gathering evidence of our abilities. We are collecting proof that we are capable. Over time, we stop seeing fear as a reason not to act and start realizing we can carry it with us. That makes the big, courageous leaps life sometimes requires of us feel much more manageable. What have more than 160 conversations with experts taught you about the ideas people most often misunderstand about wellbeing and personal growth? People often misunderstand exactly what an expert can give them. I have talked to countless experts with deep knowledge in their areas of expertise, and I have learned so much from them. Yet, I have also discovered that the only person who can truly understand your path to wellbeing and personal growth is you. Nobody will know your health journey or understand your goals and dreams the way you do. You are the only person entering the conversation with knowledge of all your life experiences, aspirations, challenges, and the vision you hold for your life. Sometimes we seek out an expert to serve as a hero in our story, someone who will save us. But I have learned that we are better served when we view our relationships with experts as partnerships. That may mean taking perspectives from multiple experts and using our own discernment to decide what deserves to take up space in our lives. When we mistake an expert's expertise for authority over our lives, we give up agency. We are handing over the reins to someone who simply cannot understand all the intricacies of our lives. Humans are complex beings. We will never be able to discern the full scope of someone's life experience from the outside. When it comes to our wellbeing and personal growth, that nuanced understanding matters. What has building a community for mothers taught you about why feeling seen and connected matters so deeply? We are all starved for connection. Our world is becoming more and more centered on transactional and digital interactions, but those interactions cannot always give us the sense of connection we need as humans. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) psychologist Matthew Lieberman’s research shows that our drive for social connection is deeply rooted in our biology and evolution. It’s not simply something that’s nice to have. We have a deep desire to feel seen and to be known. I have watched this play out in real time over seven years of building a community for mothers. A mother walks into a room uncertain of her place and whether she will belong. Then, through genuine interaction and heartfelt conversation, she discovers she isn’t alone in something she is struggling with. You can see the transformation happen. Her smile becomes more genuine, her eyes light up, and her whole body softens. You can almost see her nervous system settle. Our problems feel less overwhelming when shared, our joy is amplified, and we are given more opportunities to know that we matter. Even one or two relationships where we feel genuinely seen can shift how we experience our lives and how we view ourselves. Those connections can transform the meaning of our lives. How can someone recognize when an old story about themselves is quietly shaping the choices they make? I was raised by a single mom and grew up living in a trailer park. One day in elementary school, a girl called me “trailer trash” in front of all the other kids. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that moment became a core part of my identity. It came to mean I wasn’t good enough, I didn’t belong, and I had something to prove. The stories influencing us most are often the hardest to recognize precisely because we no longer experience them as stories. We experience them as identity. I began looking for evidence everywhere that would prove how right that original declaration was. I wasn’t good at math. I learned to ride a bike late. I couldn’t make the soccer team. A high school friend’s mom publicly judged my homecoming dress for being too short. Completely unrelated experiences became evidence that I wasn’t measuring up. Evidence to the contrary never carried the same weight. I held onto validation for a brief moment, then became starved to prove myself again and again. Anything to keep the feeling of not being enough at bay. That story shaped my choices. I overachieved, avoided things I might fail at, sought approval in all the wrong places, and rebelled. I sometimes stayed out of rooms because I feared I didn’t belong. When I got brave enough to step inside, I had already constructed a story about why everyone else belonged more than me. Looking back, what I wish I had understood was that I never had anything to prove. I am and always have been enough. My worth is not dependent on someone else’s interpretation of me. To recognize the old stories shaping your life, pay attention to the conclusions about yourself you keep reaching, regardless of the evidence. Is this actually true, or have I simply gotten very good at finding evidence that it is? When fear has a strong voice, what helps us keep it from making the decision for us? Taking one small, decisive step is how I move past fear every single time. If I feel fear overtaking me, I know it’s time to move. I don’t need to have a five-year plan. I just need to take one step forward. Even if it’s the wrong step, I can reassess and realign my direction. The first step is simply getting myself out of the fear spiral. When fear really makes me feel stuck, I find that moving twice is what gets me through. First, I move my body. Then, I am able to actually move my life. Sometimes that first movement is doing jumping jacks, taking a walk around my neighborhood, or lifting weights for 20 minutes. It sounds almost too simple, but I have found that physical movement can quiet the incessant chatter enough for me to think clearly again. Then I take the meaningful step. Action restores my sense of agency. It stops the hypothetical catastrophizing and gives me evidence that fear can’t keep me rooted in place. I moved. Nothing catastrophic happened. I am capable of figuring out what comes next. Thinking can keep us stuck in a loop of everything that could go wrong. Action introduces us to what actually happens. Once we have something real to respond to, we can reassess, make a plan, and keep moving forward. How have experiences like surviving a life-threatening accident and walking the Camino shaped the way you decide what deserves your time and attention? Surviving a life-threatening accident taught me that my life mattered. I could see, perhaps for the first time, how much one life can leave an imprint on others. It made me recognize that the ripples of my life were valuable and that how I showed up in the world mattered. Interestingly, walking 500 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago showed me the other side of the coin. Looking at breathtaking sunsets, meeting people from all over the world, and standing inside centuries-old churches and monasteries, I saw how infinitesimally small I was in this great big world. I found that realization beautiful and empowering. Today, I try to hold both truths at the same time. Because my life matters, I choose to spend more of my time focused on the people I love, giving to causes and missions I deeply care about, and thinking about how my words and actions impact the people around me. I consider the ripples I want to leave in the world. Because my life is also infinitesimally small, I spend less time battling the things I cannot control. I am one tiny human in an enormous world. It is not my place to carry everything. I cannot control how others perceive me, what will happen tomorrow, or the decisions other people make. Some things are simply not mine to hold. What is one question you believe more people should ask themselves when deciding how they want to live? My answer may be a bit of a cheat because I think the question has two parts. First: When you reach the end of your one precious life, what do you most want to have been at the core of your life story? I know my answer will not be the things I accomplished or owned. After decades of thinking about this question and hundreds of conversations on the topic, my answer is the people in my life. How I loved them. How I showed up for them. How I helped others. But I don’t want to prescribe my answer to anyone else. We are all unique, and only by grappling with our own mortality can we begin to uncover what a meaningful life looks like to us. The second part is where the magic lives: Does the way I am living today align with my view of a meaningful life? That doesn’t mean dropping everything to maximize every moment. Meaningful work, striving toward a goal, relationships with colleagues, rest, and even the ordinary responsibilities of life can all be part of a meaningful life. The point is alignment. Once we have determined what matters most to us, we have a roadmap. Then we can look at how we are actually spending our days and ask whether our choices reflect it. A meaningful life isn’t something that just happens to us. We must actively build it through the choices we make every single day. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Crissy Fishbane

Written by Ari Yuda Laksmana, Sustainability Leadership & Business Coach Ari Yuda Laksmana is an Executive Coach, ICF PCC, and Mentor Coach, a leadership development expert, and author of Coaching-Verse. With 15+ years in human capital and leadership, he helps executives and organizations navigate change, unlock potential, and create sustainable impact. Sustainability has moved firmly into the boardroom. Companies are setting Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) targets, publishing sustainability reports, making climate commitments, and introducing policies intended to demonstrate greater responsibility toward people, society, and the environment. Yet one question receives far less attention: what must leaders actually do differently for those commitments to influence how a business operates? In my work across leadership development, business coaching, and sustainability, I have increasingly come to believe that this is where the real challenge begins. Sustainability does not become real simply because an organization has a strategy. It becomes real when leaders translate that strategy into everyday decisions, conversations, priorities, behaviors, and trade-offs. What sustainability leadership means Sustainability leadership is often discussed through the language of climate commitments, ESG targets, governance requirements, responsible investment, or sustainability reporting. These are all important, but they represent only part of the picture. Leadership begins when we ask what we actually do with all of that information and how it changes the decisions we make. For me, sustainability leadership is the capacity to make business decisions today while remaining accountable for what those decisions create tomorrow. A leader still needs to deliver results, serve customers, develop employees, satisfy investors, manage costs, and remain competitive. At the same time, a decision that appears successful today may create costs that only become visible later, whether through environmental impact, employee burnout, damaged trust, poor governance, reputational risk, or declining organizational capability. This is why sustainability leadership requires us to expand the time horizon of decision-making. Instead of asking only whether a decision will work, leaders also need to consider what that decision will create, who will experience its consequences, and whether it strengthens or weakens the organization’s ability to create value in the future. Closing the leadership gap Organizations undoubtedly need ESG frameworks, reporting standards, targets, data, policies, controls, and people with specialist sustainability expertise. The challenge is that frameworks alone do not change behavior. A company may have a responsible sourcing policy, for example, while procurement leaders continue to face intense pressure to select the lowest-cost supplier. An organization may publicly emphasize employee well-being while managers normalize late-night messages and unsustainable workloads. Governance policies may encourage transparency while employees remain reluctant to question senior leaders. I think of this as the leadership gap between sustainability ambition and business behavior. At one level, the organization communicates what it believes and intends to achieve. At another level, leaders, managers, and employees make thousands of decisions every day. The distance between those two realities determines whether sustainability becomes embedded in the business or remains primarily part of its reporting and communication. This is why I often return to a simple principle: strategy can be written on paper, but transformation happens through people. Sustainability is increasingly connected to mainstream business management. International Financial Reporting Standard S1 (IFRS S1), for example, organizes sustainability-related disclosures around governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. These are not peripheral activities. They sit at the heart of how organizations are governed and managed. The challenge, therefore, is not simply whether leaders understand ESG, but whether they can translate that understanding into action. 1. Translate ESG clearly One of the fastest ways to disconnect people from sustainability is to make it sound like a language that only specialists can understand. Acronyms multiply, frameworks become more sophisticated, reports become longer, and yet someone working in sales, operations, Human Resources (HR), finance, or procurement may still be wondering what sustainability actually means for their role. Leaders have an important translation responsibility. If environmental responsibility matters, people need to understand what changes in procurement, operations, logistics, product design, energy use, or investment. If social impact matters, the connection should become visible in hiring, employee development, customer treatment, leadership behavior, and community relationships. If governance matters, it should influence accountability, transparency, decision rights, risk conversations, and the willingness to challenge questionable decisions. The objective is not to turn every employee into an ESG specialist. It is to make sustainability understandable enough for people to act on it. If employees can explain the company’s sustainability commitments but cannot identify a single decision they should make differently because of them, the strategy has probably not travelled far enough into the organization. 2. Face hard trade-offs Sustainability leadership sounds relatively straightforward when purpose, profit, stakeholder interests, and short-term performance all point in the same direction. The real test emerges when they do not. A more responsible supplier may initially cost more. Developing employees may require time that could otherwise be spent delivering immediate output. A profitable business opportunity may introduce environmental, social, or reputational risks. A transformation that strengthens long-term resilience may also create short-term discomfort. These are the moments when sustainability becomes a leadership practice rather than a corporate statement. Strong leaders need to be willing to explore the tension rather than pretend it does not exist. They need to understand what the organization is gaining, what it may be risking, who benefits, who carries the cost, and which consequences may not appear on this quarter’s dashboard. Sustainable leadership is therefore not about avoiding difficult choices. It is about making those choices with a broader awareness of their consequences. A sustainable business still needs to remain economically viable, but financial performance should not become an excuse for overlooking costs that appear elsewhere in the system or later in the future. 3. Ask better questions This is where sustainability and coaching come together most naturally for me. Leadership has traditionally rewarded people who know the answer, and there are certainly situations where leaders need to provide direction quickly. However, complex sustainability challenges rarely offer one simple answer. They involve uncertainty, competing stakeholder interests, long time horizons, interconnected systems, and consequences that may be difficult to predict. In those situations, the ability to ask better questions becomes a leadership capability. Through coaching conversations, I have repeatedly seen how the quality of thinking can change when someone is invited to examine an assumption rather than immediately defend a position. A leader might ask what the team is currently treating as fact without sufficient evidence, whose perspective is missing from the conversation, what new risk might emerge if the strategy succeeds at scale, or which stakeholder will eventually carry the consequences of today’s decision. These are coaching questions, but they are also strategic questions because they slow down premature certainty and improve the thinking that precedes action. Research from the International Coaching Federation and Human Capital Institute found that 73% of respondents agreed coaching helps employees understand and implement organizational ESG initiatives. Coaching does not replace sustainability expertise. It serves a different function. Sustainability expertise helps leaders understand what matters, while coaching can help them examine how they think, decide, take ownership, and act on what matters. 4. Build shared ownership A chief executive officer (CEO) cannot personally make every responsible decision inside an organization, and neither can a Chief Sustainability Officer or ESG team. Sustainability begins to scale when people throughout the organization can make sound decisions without constantly waiting for instructions from the top. I describe this as leading through others. As organizations grow, leadership impact is no longer measured only by the quality of decisions a leader personally makes. It is increasingly reflected in the quality of thinking and decision-making that happens when that leader is not in the room. This requires clarity, trust, accountability, and deliberate capability building. A directive leader confronted with a problem may immediately tell someone what to do. A leader using coaching skills might instead begin by asking what the person thinks should be done and what impact the proposed decision could create. The second conversation may take longer, but it develops something the first approach often does not–independent thinking. Over time, that thinking capability becomes organizational capacity. This matters because sustainable transformation cannot remain dependent on a few passionate individuals at the top. If sustainability is expected to influence thousands of everyday choices, ownership has to spread across the organization. 5. Connect purpose and performance One of the most persistent assumptions in business is that leaders eventually need to choose between purpose and profit. I believe that framing is becoming increasingly unhelpful. Purpose without performance eventually becomes difficult to sustain, while performance without responsibility can eventually weaken the conditions that make performance possible. A more useful question is how leaders can create performance that can endure. Viewed through this lens, employee well-being is connected to the organization’s ability to sustain performance. Trust affects collaboration, decision speed, and whether employees are willing to raise risks. Leadership development influences adaptability. Governance shapes decision quality and accountability. Environmental choices increasingly influence resources, costs, reputation, regulation, customers, and long-term resilience. Once these relationships become visible, separating “business” from “sustainability” becomes increasingly artificial. Sustainability ultimately asks whether the way an organization creates value today strengthens or weakens its ability to continue creating value tomorrow. That is clearly a sustainability question, but it is equally a business and leadership question. Where leaders can start The UN Global Compact and Accenture 2025 CEO Study, drawing on insights from nearly 2,000 CEOs across 128 countries, found that 88% of CEOs believe the business case for sustainability is stronger today than it was five years ago, while 99% plan to maintain or increase their sustainability commitments. What interests me most about findings like these is that the challenge appears to be moving beyond commitment and increasingly toward execution. For leaders, this does not necessarily mean starting another initiative. A valuable first step can simply be to observe what already happens inside the organization. Look at where important decisions are made, what happens when targets conflict, which questions leaders ask under pressure, what behavior gets rewarded, and what employees do when senior leaders are not present. Then compare those observations with the sustainability commitments the organization communicates publicly. The gap between those two realities is not something to hide. It is useful information because it shows where leadership development, culture change, or capability building may need to begin. From reporting to leadership Sustainability standards, credible measurement, reporting, governance, and accountability remain essential. Organizations need them, and leadership should not be used as an excuse to lower the rigor of sustainability management. What is important is recognizing that reporting and leadership serve different purposes. A sustainability report can describe targets, risks, commitments, progress, and performance, while leadership determines what happens after that report is published. It influences the next investment, the next difficult trade-off, the next conversation with an employee, the next decision about a supplier, and the next moment when someone must choose between what is expedient and what is responsible. Over time, these seemingly small decisions accumulate and become culture. The organizations making meaningful sustainability progress will therefore need more than sophisticated sustainability language. They will need leaders who can translate commitments into decisions, decisions into behavior, and behavior into culture. Sustainability, after all, is fundamentally about our relationship with the future, and shaping the future has always been one of leadership’s most important responsibilities. Start the conversation At your next leadership meeting, consider asking one question, “What leadership behaviors need to change for our sustainability commitments to become everyday business decisions?” Then avoid the temptation to answer it too quickly. Allow the conversation to reveal where the real gap exists. You may discover that the next step in your sustainability journey is not another framework, dashboard, or policy. It may be developing the people who need to make all of those things work. If you are a business owner or organizational leader exploring how sustainability leadership and coaching can strengthen responsible growth, leadership capability, and long-term business performance, connect with me to continue the conversation. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Ari Yuda Laksmana Ari Yuda Laksmana, Sustainability Leadership & Business Coach Ari Yuda Laksmana is an Executive Coach, ICF PCC, and Mentor Coach, leadership development expert, and author of Coaching-Verse. With over 15 years of experience in human capital, learning, and leadership development, he has held senior roles with multinational organizations and now coaches executives and leaders across industries and cultures. He is the Founder of CoachingYuk, a digital coaching platform created to make professional coaching more accessible, and has pioneered integrating digital and AI-enabled coaching into leadership development. Ari was recognized as CEO of the Year 2024 by APAC Insider. His work centers on one belief: better leaders create better people, organizations, and impact.

Written by Manuel Aragon, Tax Consultant & Advisory Planner Manuel Aragon is a Colorado entrepreneur with a deep background in business, tax preparation, advisory, and planning. He has served as a Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Operations Manager, Finance Director, and Consultant. Look at me today, and you might see a success story. You might see a man who moves with purpose, writes with intention, and earned respect in high-level rooms. But before you can ever understand where I am standing, you have to look down at where I was buried. You have to understand the depth of the dirt, the weight of the pressure, and the suffocating darkness that threatened to squeeze the life out of me long before I ever had a chance to discover who I was meant to be. I grew up at the very back of the line. Where I came from, you didn’t dream about building empires, owning businesses, or sitting in executive seats. You focused on surviving the night. Hope was a luxury we couldn't afford, and long-term planning was a joke. I watched life beat down the people I loved until they broke completely or died. I saw drug addiction strip good men and women of their dignity, turning loving mothers and hard-working fathers into ghosts walking around in broad daylight. I saw how addiction steals the soul long before it stops the heart, leaving empty shells behind to wander streets filled with broken glass and shattered dreams. I learned early that pain was everywhere, and if you didn’t guard yourself with everything you had, it would consume you whole. So, I adapted the only way a child in survival mode knows how. I joined the noise. Street life and violence became a twisted kind of shield. When you feel utterly powerless inside, putting on a tough skin and adopting a dangerous posture makes you feel like you control the room. But that feeling of control is a complete lie. I was just a 14-year-old kid, a freshman in high school, the first time the streets truly claimed me. I picked up a gun and fired six shots, a child playing a deadly game, desperately trying to prove he was dangerous so nobody would see how damaged he really was. That single, split-second choice stamped me with a felony before I was even old enough to drive a car. Before my voice fully deepened, before I even knew who I was, the system wrote me off as a lost cause, locking me away in concrete boxes and deciding my future was already over. The darkness didn't stay outside on the street corners or inside juvenile facilities. It followed me everywhere, seeping into the walls of the place that was supposed to be a sanctuary. I grew up around the raw destruction of domestic violence, watching love turn into a bloody battlefield. I saw how unaddressed trauma, left to rot in the human heart, turns people into monsters who hurt the very ones they claim to protect and love. I learned to read the temperature of a room in a split second, constantly waiting for the next explosion, internalizing the belief that violence was the only language the world truly understood. As I grew older, I thought I could outrun those childhood ghosts, but unhealed wounds don't vanish just because you grow up or grow older. They just put on adult clothes and wait for the right moment to wreck your life all over again. After 19 years together and 14 years of marriage, my relationship collapsed into an agonizing, painful separation. The grief didn't just break my heart. It shattered my entire identity. The pain was unhealthy, overwhelming, and a shock to my existence. Instead of facing the grief, I did what I had learned to do as a kid. I tried to numb it. I drowned myself in the hurt, spiraling out of control, blowing through money sitting at strip clubs, which led to getting two DUIs in a tight six-month span. Driving under the influence wasn't just a severe legal mistake. It was a desperate, reckless cry for help from a man who was unraveling at the seams inside and simply didn't care if he woke up the next morning. I was playing Russian roulette with my life and the lives of others, subconsciously hoping the roads would do what I didn't have the courage to do myself. When you get labeled a felon and a failure, the world writes you off completely. You aren't viewed as a human being who made mistakes or a soul dealing with immense pain. You become a number, a mugshot, a legal file, and a statistic. In the quiet of a cell or behind a steering wheel in the middle of a pitch-black night, all your excuses die. The room gets cold, the noise fades, and you are forced into an environment where lying to yourself is no longer an option. You can’t blame the hood anymore, you can’t blame your ex, you can’t blame your upbringing, and you can’t blame the system. You have to look directly into the mirror and face the brutal, naked truth. Your own choices brought you to your knees. For a long time, I genuinely believed that dark history meant I was finished. I thought the gun, the cell, the failed marriage, and the mugshots were the final, definitive chapters of my story. But sitting at absolute zero teaches you something deeply powerful if you are willing to survive the lesson. The shadow self, the kid with the gun, the broken man bitter over a lost marriage, the reckless driver making terrible choices, isn't a reason to surrender. It is a harsh, uncompromising teacher. My time in the shadows broke my ego into a thousand pieces. It stripped away the fake tough-guy persona, the pride, and the defensive walls I had spent decades building. Those scars aren't pretty, and I will never stand here and make excuses for the harm I caused, the danger I created, or the foolish paths I chose to walk. But those scars are real. They are permanent proof that I survived the absolute worst parts of my own bad choices. You cannot lead anyone else out of the dark until you stop lying to yourself about your own shadows. True self-mastery doesn't come from pretending you never fell. It comes from examining the dirt from the pit you crawled out of, taking responsibility for every single misstep, and using that brutal experience to build an unshakeable foundation. Before you can ever step into the light, you have to own every inch of the shadow. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Manuel Aragon Manuel Aragon, Tax Consultant & Advisory Planner Manuel Aragon has elite expertise in tax preparation, accounting, finance, cash planning, and tax strategy. Manuel has delivered modern, innovative financial solutions, driving growth and efficiency for multiple companies in Colorado. His leadership and approach have solidified a reputation for excellence, onboarding, and overall client satisfaction. Continues to serve in multiple roles across the Front Range as a Tax Preparer, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Operations Manager, Finance Director, and Consultant.

Written by Mark Durieux, Sociologist and Educator Mark Durieux is a sociologist with over two decades of experience as a university instructor. Lead co-author of Social Entrepreneurship for Dummies, he lectures, researches, writes, and publishes in environmental, economic, urban, and public sociology as well as research methods. Democracy is often discussed as if it lives somewhere far away from ordinary life, in parliaments, courtrooms, and election campaigns. But long before democracy is defended in public institutions, it is either strengthened or weakened in the texture of daily living. By changing how we handle disagreement, share responsibility, and consume information, we can rebuild the social conditions in which democratic life flourishes. Why democracy feels personal Many people sense that something larger than partisan conflict is happening. They feel it in the fatigue of every online argument, in the erosion of trust in news and institutions, and in the fear that public life has become one long performance of outrage. They feel it in the privatization of care, the pressure to manage every risk alone, and the shrinking number of spaces where people can gather across differences without being sorted, sold to, or manipulated. This is one of the most important insights of regenerative democracy: political decline does not begin only in formal institutions. It also grows in the social conditions of everyday life. When households are stretched thin, communities are fragmented, and every major need gets pushed back onto individuals to solve privately, democratic participation becomes harder to sustain. Exhausted people rarely have much energy left for collective life. Democracy as a lifestyle If democracy is going to survive periods of polarization, misinformation, economic precarity, and technological manipulation, it must become more visible in ordinary routines. It has to appear not only as a vote cast every few years, but as a pattern of everyday behavior. This means choosing conversation over contempt, verifying information, and participating in local decision-making. Seen this way, democracy is not merely a structure of rules, it is a lived ethic of participation, reciprocity, accountability, and shared stewardship. Practice slower disagreement Polarization thrives on speed. It rewards instant reaction, moral certainty, and emotional escalation. A democratic lifestyle requires something countercultural: the discipline to pause, listen, and ask better questions before rushing into condemnation. This does not mean accepting cruelty or bad faith. It means refusing to let every disagreement become a rehearsal for social breakdown. In family life, workplaces, and friendships, slower disagreement helps preserve the human connection that democratic culture depends on. Maintain daily information hygiene In a fragmented media environment, misinformation spreads quickly because it is emotionally efficient. False claims often travel farther than boring truths, especially when they flatter our fears or confirm what we already wanted to believe. A democratic lifestyle, therefore, includes media habits: checking the source, reading past the headline, comparing claims, and resisting the urge to share content that has not been verified. These are not minor digital courtesies, they are democratic disciplines. Rebuild neighborhood reciprocity Neoliberal risk culture pushes families to manage social reproduction privately, even when the burdens are clearly collective. Childcare, eldercare, food insecurity, transportation, and emotional support are too often treated as private failures rather than shared responsibilities. Democratic renewal starts when people rebuild reciprocal support close to home: shared meals, childcare swaps, neighbor check-ins, cooperative purchasing, and informal mutual aid. These practices reteach people that survival and dignity are collective achievements. Support power-distributing institutions Many people ask how to help democracy without entering party politics. One answer is to support institutions that let people participate in decisions, not merely receive outcomes. Worker cooperatives, housing cooperatives, community land trusts, mutual aid networks, participatory budgeting initiatives, and citizen assemblies all matter because they distribute voice as well as resources. These models are not utopian abstractions, they already exist as practical pathways with measurable benefits for security, civic participation, and community resilience. Treat care as infrastructure Care is often discussed as a private issue or a sentimental virtue. In reality, care is a political infrastructure. A society that abandons people when they are sick, aging, overwhelmed, disabled, underpaid, or raising children under pressure creates the emotional conditions for resentment, withdrawal, and authoritarian temptation. A democratic lifestyle restores the dignity of care. It recognizes that how a society organizes dependence shapes whether democracy feels possible at all. Learn one local system Democratic decline often hides inside technical processes that most people never see: zoning decisions, school board policies, algorithmic procurement, district boundaries, and budget processes. That invisibility is one reason power becomes so difficult to challenge. A strong democratic habit is to learn one local system well enough to explain it to others. This kind of grounded civic literacy turns passive frustration into informed participation. Choose hopeful action Cynicism can feel intelligent, but it rarely builds anything. Democracy survives through ongoing practice, not through comforting myths that everything will work out on its own. Hope, in this context, is not optimism. It is disciplined participation. It is the decision to keep showing up for local meetings, shared projects, careful conversations, and cooperative experiments, even when public life feels coarse, manipulated, and exhausting. Why everyday habits matter Lifestyle writing is sometimes dismissed as soft, private, or apolitical. But everyday habits shape the moral and social architecture in which political life unfolds. The ways people consume, speak, parent, scroll, commute, care, gather, and solve problems are never merely personal. They either normalize democratic values or erode them. Regenerative democracy invites people to think beyond defending damaged institutions and toward rebuilding the social conditions in which democratic life can flourish again. It emphasizes cooperation over domination, resilience over fragility, and social participation over isolated risk management. The more people participate in meaningful collective life, the more they experience themselves as agents rather than spectators. That may be one of the deepest antidotes to democratic despair. Democracy will not be renewed by rhetoric alone. It will be renewed when more people begin to live as if shared life is worth protecting and practicing every day. If democracy is under siege, then the most powerful response may be to make democratic living visible again. Visit my website for more info! Read more from Mark Durieux Mark Durieux, Sociologist and Educator Mark Durieux is the developer of the increasingly popular Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) app, The Sociological Imagination, and the lead co-author of Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies. He has researched and written extensively on introductory, environmental, economic, urban, and public sociology, as well as on research methods. Mark works with communities and organizations in Canada and abroad to advance social entrepreneurship, equity, and democratic engagement. His mission is to democratize sociological knowledge, thereby inviting the public into critical, hopeful conversations about how society can change for the better.

Written by Eliana Bonaguro, Licensed Mental Health Counselor Eliana Bonaguro, Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC), specializes in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders. She blends evidence-based therapy with visual storytelling through her illustrated self-help guides to make complex mental health concepts more approachable, engaging, and easier to understand. Worry and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) can both fill your mind with endless “what if?” questions, but just having these thoughts does not show which issue you are facing. The best clue is what you feel you need to do next and whether that action only brings short-term relief. What is the difference between OCD and anxiety? Anxiety is a natural reaction to threats, uncertainty, or serious situations. But when worry becomes too much, lasts a long time, and gets in the way of daily life, it could be part of an anxiety disorder. For example, generalized anxiety disorder often means worrying about many parts of daily life, such as health, work, money, relationships, family, or the future. The focus of worry might change during the day, but feelings like tension, tiredness, irritability, trouble focusing, or poor sleep usually stick around. Obsessive-compulsive disorder can also cause strong anxiety. What sets it apart is not always what you are afraid of, but the repeated cycle of obsessions and compulsions. An obsession may be an intrusive thought, image, urge, sensation, or doubt: What if I harmed someone? What if I am contaminated? What if I do not really love my partner? What if I made a terrible mistake and cannot remember it? The obsession can make you feel anxious, guilty, disgusted, ashamed, or urgent. You might then feel pushed to do something, either physically or in your mind, to ease the distress, stop something bad from happening, or feel sure about something. This action is called a compulsion. According to the National Institute of Mental Health’s overview of OCD, obsessions are recurring, unwanted thoughts, urges, or mental images. At the same time, compulsions are repetitive behaviors a person feels compelled to perform. These behaviors can be easy to see, or they might happen only in your mind. Why the content of an intrusive thought can be misleading People often try to tell OCD and anxiety apart by asking if the worry is realistic. But in practice, this is not a reliable way to tell the difference. A person with generalized anxiety may worry about a health symptom, while a person with OCD may become obsessed with that same symptom. Someone with anxiety may worry about a relationship, while someone with relationship OCD may repeatedly analyze whether they love their partner enough. Both may worry about sending the wrong email, offending someone, making a costly mistake, or becoming ill. The more revealing question is: What happens after the thought appears? Do you recognize the concern, decide whether action is genuinely useful, and eventually redirect your attention? Or do you feel that you must keep reviewing, checking, researching, confessing, comparing, or seeking reassurance until you feel certain? This difference in how you respond is important. A thought might start as anxiety but then lead to a compulsive effort to get rid of uncertainty. How the OCD cycle keeps doubt alive OCD commonly follows this loop: Intrusive doubt – distress – compulsion – temporary relief – renewed doubt. Imagine that you are leaving home and think, What if I left the stove on? You check and see that it is off. For a moment, you feel relieved. Then another thought appears: But did I check the correct burner? You check again, photograph the stove, or try to reconstruct exactly what you saw. Checking might seem to fix the problem, but the relief does not last. Instead, your brain learns that the doubt was important and that checking is needed. This makes the next doubt feel even more urgent. This is why relief can be misleading. A compulsion may help for a short time, but it often makes the bigger problem stronger. Seven clues your overthinking may be a mental compulsion 1. You are trying to reach complete certainty Useful thinking usually aims for a reasonable decision. Compulsive thinking aims for a guarantee. You may feel that you must know with certainty that you did not cause harm, make a mistake, offend someone, choose the wrong partner, misunderstand a memory, or overlook a dangerous symptom. Since it is almost impossible to be completely certain, the analysis never feels finished. You find one answer, but your mind immediately creates an exception: What if I forgot something? What if this situation is different? What if I only believe that answer because I want it to be true? The search keeps going because OCD is not truly looking for facts. It is looking for a feeling of complete certainty, which facts alone cannot give. 2. You keep reopening a question you already answered You decided that the conversation went fine, but replay it again. You concluded that you locked the door, but test your memory again. You received reassurance from your partner, friend, therapist, or doctor, yet a slightly altered version of the question appears. The problem is not that you do not have enough information. The real issue is that the answer does not give you lasting certainty. This is why reassurance often becomes ineffective over time. Each answer may calm the anxiety temporarily, but OCD soon finds a new detail to question. 3. The thinking feels urgent and mandatory Ordinary reflection can usually be postponed. A mental compulsion feels like an assignment you must finish before you can return to work, sleep, enjoy your relationship, or continue your day. Your mind may insist: I need to figure this out now. I cannot focus until I know. I need to review this one more time. That sense of urgency is an important sign, especially if putting off the analysis makes your anxiety rise. The thinking might not feel like a choice. It can feel like something you must do to be responsible or safe. But the more urgently you try to settle the doubt, the less settled you usually feel. 4. You use research or reassurance to neutralize distress Reassurance seeking is not limited to repeatedly asking another person whether everything is okay. It may include searching symptoms online, reading forums or Reddit threads, checking old messages, studying photographs, taking online quizzes, reviewing medical information, asking several people the same question, searching your memories for proof, or comparing your experience with someone else’s. Doing research is not always a bad thing. The important question is whether your search has a clear end and leads to a useful action, or if it just becomes another way to try to get rid of anxiety. If every answer produces another search, the research itself may be functioning as a compulsion. 5. You monitor your thoughts, feelings, or body for evidence Some people repeatedly check how attracted, loving, certain, calm, safe, or “normal” they feel. Others scan their bodies for sensations or test their reactions to intrusive thoughts. Someone with relationship OCD might look at their partner and ask: Do I feel enough love right now? Am I attracted enough? Why did I feel irritated earlier? Would I be happier with someone else? This internal monitoring can make normal shifts in emotion appear highly significant. A moment of irritation, boredom, emotional distance, or reduced attraction may be treated as evidence that the entire relationship is wrong. Similar checking can happen with physical sensations. A person may repeatedly monitor their breathing, heartbeat, nausea, dizziness, or pain to determine whether something dangerous is happening. Sadly, the more you monitor your feelings and body, the more you notice them, which can make you even more anxious. This kind of internal checking is especially common in relationship OCD, where attempts to measure attraction, love, compatibility, or certainty can become compulsive. If these patterns are interfering with your relationships or daily life, specialized OCD therapy in New York City (NYC) can help you understand the cycle and learn how to respond differently to intrusive doubt. 6. Relief arrives, but it does not last After checking, analyzing, confessing, praying, comparing, or seeking reassurance, you may feel better for a moment. Then the doubt returns, sometimes within minutes. You may notice that you need to repeat the behavior, ask the question differently, or find another source of reassurance. That brief relief is a clear sign of a compulsion. If you have to repeat the same action every time anxiety comes back, it is not solving the problem for good. Instead, it keeps you relying on the ritual. The brain begins to learn: I was only safe because I checked. I only calmed down because someone reassured me. I avoided disaster because I analyzed the thought. This learning makes it harder to tolerate the next intrusive doubt without performing another compulsion. 7. The process is taking time away from your life To others, someone with mental compulsions might just seem thoughtful, careful, or very analytical. Internally, they may spend hours replaying conversations, testing memories, arguing with intrusive thoughts, or trying to obtain the “right” feeling. Repetitive thinking may interfere with sleep, work or school, relationships, decision making, concentration, social activities, daily responsibilities, and the ability to be present. Not all overthinking is OCD. Thinking things through can help you make decisions, take action, or understand something better. Compulsive rumination, on the other hand, keeps you stuck on the same question and often makes things more confusing. If repetitive thinking repeatedly pulls you back into the same question without helping you move forward, recognizing that pattern can be an important part of specialized OCD treatment. Common mental compulsions people often miss OCD is still commonly associated with visible rituals such as excessive washing, counting, arranging, or checking locks. Mental compulsions are easier to overlook because no one else can see them. Common mental compulsions include replaying conversations or events, reviewing memories for certainty, mentally checking intentions or emotions, testing attraction, arousal, or physical sensations, arguing with an intrusive thought, trying to prove that a thought is untrue, replacing a “bad” thought with a “good” one, repeating phrases or prayers until they feel right, comparing your reaction with other people’s reactions, trying to determine what a thought “really means,” mentally rehearsing how you would prevent a feared outcome, and checking whether you feel sufficiently guilty, certain, or safe. The same kind of thinking can be helpful in one situation and compulsive in another. What matters is the role it plays. Ask yourself: Am I thinking because this will help me make a workable decision, or because I am trying to remove uncertainty and distress? If you are trying to feel completely certain or make an uncomfortable feeling go away, your thinking might be part of the OCD cycle. OCD vs. Generalized anxiety disorder Generalized anxiety disorder often involves excessive worry across multiple areas of everyday life. A person may worry about finances in the morning, work performance in the afternoon, a family member in the evening, and their health before bed. The worries can be persistent and difficult to control. They may also come with restlessness, fatigue, irritability, muscle tension, difficulty concentrating, or sleep disruption. People with generalized anxiety can also overthink, avoid, or seek reassurance. The distinction is not that people with generalized anxiety worry about “real” problems while people with OCD have irrational thoughts. People’s experiences are more complex than that. OCD tends to involve a more pronounced obsession and compulsion process, with intrusive doubt or distress followed by attempts to neutralize it, prevent a feared outcome, or obtain certainty. The question is not simply, What am I worried about? The more helpful question is: What am I doing in response to the worry, and what is that response teaching my brain? Can you have OCD and another anxiety disorder? Yes. OCD can occur alongside generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety, health anxiety, or other conditions. Someone may worry broadly about work, finances, and family while also experiencing a specific obsession and compulsion cycle around contamination. Another person may experience panic attacks and also compulsively monitor bodily sensations, research symptoms, or seek repeated reassurance that the sensations are not dangerous. This overlap is one reason why diagnosing yourself can be hard. A careful assessment considers the form, frequency, duration, and impact of the symptoms. It also examines the function of the person’s responses: What are you trying to achieve when you check, avoid, analyze, confess, research, or seek reassurance? Sometimes the most accurate answer is that both OCD and another anxiety disorder are present. Why the correct treatment for OCD matters Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be effective for anxiety disorders. Depending on the condition, treatment may involve examining unhelpful predictions, reducing avoidance, developing coping skills, increasing tolerance for uncertainty, and gradually approaching feared situations. For OCD, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) is a specialized form of cognitive behavioral therapy. The International OCD Foundation’s guide to ERP explains that exposure involves gradually confronting thoughts, images, objects, or situations that trigger obsessions. Response prevention involves choosing not to perform the compulsive behavior after the obsession has been triggered. ERP does not revolve around proving that the feared thought is false or supplying perfect reassurance. Instead, it helps you learn that you can handle uncertainty and discomfort without checking, trying to neutralize, avoiding, researching, or solving the obsession. If OCD says, You must figure this out before you can move on, treatment teaches a different response: I may not get certainty, and I can still choose what I do next. The goal is not to get rid of every intrusive thought. All human minds naturally come up with odd, unwanted, or uncomfortable thoughts. The aim is to stop seeing every intrusive thought as a problem that needs to be fixed right away. How do I know whether I should be assessed for OCD? No single question or online test can diagnose OCD. However, an assessment with a clinician trained in OCD may be worth considering if intrusive doubts, images, urges, or sensations repeatedly capture your attention. You feel driven to check, avoid, research, confess, review, compare, or seek reassurance. Your rituals may be mental rather than visible. Relief is brief, and the doubt repeatedly returns. The cycle consumes significant time or interferes with daily life, you avoid situations, people, objects, or decisions that trigger uncertainty, or previous anxiety treatment focused mainly on reassurance or disputing thoughts without addressing compulsions. If your worries are broad, persistent, and spread across many areas of life without a clear obsession and compulsion loop, generalized anxiety or another anxiety disorder may better explain the pattern. Sometimes the answer is both. Stop solving the thought and start examining the cycle When people ask, “Is this OCD or anxiety?” they often search inside the thought for the answer. A more useful place to look is the response that follows it. Do you need to settle the question, feel certain, obtain reassurance, or remove the discomfort before you can continue? Does your strategy provide only temporary relief? If so, the effort to solve the thought may be the very thing keeping it alive. Understanding this cycle does not give you a diagnosis, but it can help guide you toward a better assessment and treatment plan. If you are looking for specialized OCD therapy in New York, visit Ellie Counseling to learn more about evidence-based treatment for intrusive thoughts, compulsions, and chronic uncertainty. You can also follow on Instagram for accessible information about OCD, anxiety, panic, and intrusive thoughts. Follow me on Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Eliana Bonaguro Eliana Bonaguro, Licensed Mental Health Counselor Eliana Bonaguro, LMHC, is a licensed mental health counselor specializing in OCD, anxiety disorders, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy. She is also the author and illustrator of several mental health guides that blend evidence-based psychology with visual storytelling to make complex mental health concepts more approachable and easier to understand. Her insights and contributions have been featured in Forbes, Healthline, Newsweek, and RTOR.

Written by Anika Kumar Vashishth, Positive Psychology Practitioner Anika Kumar Vashishth is a Positive Psychology Practitioner and founder of I Am Enough | Flourish, a community supporting people to cultivate self-awareness, wellbeing, and flourishing. With a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Melbourne, she brings evidence-based psychology into everyday life. Ever since I was a child, I remember being asked the familiar question, "Is the glass half full or half empty?" It always seemed that there had to be a right answer. Half full meant optimism. Half empty meant noticing what was missing. But somewhere along the way, I started answering differently. What if it is both? The glass is half full. It is half empty. Both are true. I have been thinking about this beyond the glass. About how often we do the same thing with ourselves. We want our experiences to fit into one category, one feeling, one version of who we are. We are either doing well or struggling. We are either grateful or wanting more. We are either confident or afraid. But life rarely feels that neat. We can be two things at once. We can even be many things at once. Psychology has given us interesting ways of thinking about this. Our sense of self isn't necessarily one fixed, unchanging entity. Different aspects of who we are can become more visible depending on our roles, relationships and circumstances. The person who feels confident at work may feel uncertain in a relationship. The person who is usually independent may deeply need connection. The person who has handled difficult things before may still have days when something feels difficult to carry. None of these experiences necessarily makes the other untrue. They can belong to the same person. This is where emotions become interesting. We often treat emotions as though one should replace another. If I am afraid, I should become confident. If I am disappointed, I should remind myself to be grateful. If I am hurting, I should find the lesson. Sometimes that helps. But sometimes, in our hurry to feel differently, we may not give ourselves enough space to notice what we are actually experiencing. What if I can be grateful and disappointed? Hopeful and worried? Loving and angry? Afraid and courageous? The presence of one emotion does not necessarily cancel another. Emotional experience is more complex than the categories we often give it. This is where the idea of coexistence becomes useful. Not because every feeling needs to be acted upon. Not because every contradiction needs to be resolved. Simply because two experiences can exist at the same time. There is an important difference between making room for a feeling and surrendering to it. If I feel afraid, I can acknowledge the fear without allowing it to make every decision for me. If I feel angry, I can understand the anger without making anger my behaviour. If I feel uncertain, I can sit amid uncertainty and still choose a direction. Making room is not giving something control. It is allowing ourselves enough space to understand what is there before deciding what to do with it. That is also why acceptance needs to be understood carefully. Acceptance does not necessarily mean approval. It does not mean giving up. It does not mean deciding that something difficult should remain unchanged. Sometimes acceptance means recognising: This is what I am experiencing right now. From there, we can decide what needs to change. That distinction matters because coexistence is not about becoming passive. It may actually give us more room to act with intention. This is particularly relevant to the way we think about wellbeing. Positive psychology has explored what helps people flourish, positive emotions, relationships, strengths, meaning and other resources that support human functioning. Barbara Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory, for example, suggests that positive emotions can broaden our momentary patterns of thought and action and build psychological resources over time. But what is most interesting here is not choosing positive emotions over difficult ones. It is recognising that something positive can exist alongside something difficult. We can experience stress and still have instances of connection. We can experience disappointment and still experience gratitude. We can be going through uncertainty and still have hope. The difficult experience does not have to disappear before something nourishing can exist beside it. For me, this is where psychology meets something more personal. There is an Indian Sanskrit word that has stayed with me: Pūrṇa, whole, complete, full. I do not understand wholeness as perfection. Being whole means not being consistently confident, calm, grateful or resilient. Wholeness is simply the recognition that the difficult parts of our experience do not make us incomplete. One part of me can be tired, and another can be hopeful. A part that wants change and another that is grateful for what already exists. A part that is afraid and another that knows I can keep moving. Perhaps none of these parts has to win. They can all offer information. They can all belong. This is also why I find the idea of multiple selves, or different aspects of the self, so interesting. We are not necessarily the same version of ourselves in every situation. We change with context. We grow. We discover parts of ourselves that were less visible before. Sometimes, a difficult period can make us question who we are simply because the version of ourselves that previously felt familiar no longer feels quite the same. Nature as an inspiration to hold opposites together Nature seems to understand this without needing to explain it. A tree does not remain the same throughout the year. There are seasons of growth, fullness, shedding and stillness. We do not look at a tree in winter and decide that it has stopped being a tree. We understand that it is changing. Human beings are, of course, far more complicated. We carry memories, expectations and stories about who we think we should be. But there is still something to learn from the simplicity of a changing season. A difficult season does not erase the seasons that came before it. Being uncertain today does not mean we have lost our capacity for confidence. Feeling tired does not erase our strength. Wanting something different does not make us ungrateful for what we have. We can change without rejecting who we were. We may not have to turn every difficult experience into a lesson immediately. Sometimes it may simply be something we are experiencing. Something we can notice. Something we can understand. Something we can carry while we decide what comes next. That could be the real lesson hidden in the half-full, half-empty glass. Not that we should choose optimism. Not that we should focus on what is missing. But that sometimes both ways of seeing can be true. Perhaps the same is true of us. We can be proud of how far we have come and still wish we were somewhere else. We can love our lives and still want them to change. We can be grateful and still have unmet needs. We can be afraid and still be brave. We can be growing and still find growth difficult. The question may not always be: Which one is true? Perhaps sometimes the better question is, "What else is true at the same time?" We may not always have to choose. Both can belong. Perhaps being whole is not about becoming one consistent version of ourselves. It may be about making enough room for all that is true. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anika Kumar Vashishth Anika Kumar Vashishth, Positive Psychology Practitioner Anika Kumar Vashishth is a Positive Psychology Practitioner whose work explores mental wellbeing beyond the absence of distress, towards flourishing. Grounded in positive psychology and neuroscience, she is interested in what enables individuals and communities not merely to function, but to live with greater meaning, connection, and wellbeing. She is the founder of I Am Enough | Flourish, a community that brings evidence-based approaches to wellbeing into everyday life. Her work is centred on making the science of flourishing accessible, relevant, and applicable to how we live, learn, and connect.