Written by Thomas Patrick McNulty, CEO of Success Stories, Inc. Tom McNulty, M.S., is a healthcare consultant with a vast array of experiences in behavioral health, neurology, healthcare hospitality, and health talk podcasting-"MindSet with Tom McNulty, M.S." He is a professional photographer, screenwriter, and public speaker. In 2014, one of our partners, Tom McNulty, Master of Science (M.S.), president of Success Stories, Inc., a healthcare consulting firm created in 1990, was noticing an increase in disgruntled patients, families, employees, physicians, and referral sources. At the time, Tom was also teaching graduate students in the nursing management track and undergraduate students majoring in the healthcare field at D'Youville University. His dean at D’Youville took a position at Hilbert College, and he asked Tom to join him. Tom joined the faculty involved in the healthcare track in the Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) division. While at Hilbert College, Tom taught many classes on marketing, grant writing, and not-for-profit financial management. During his teaching, Tom would routinely ask students to share the good and bad of their last healthcare encounter, be it their own experience or as they accompanied a family member. Sadly, most chose their bad experiences, and the stories were appalling. He’d ask the students, “What experience should you have had?” The answers pointed to a repeated lack of basic hospitality that led to poor outcomes, lawsuits, and a decision to go elsewhere in the future. That’s when his ideas about healthcare hospitality started to percolate. Tom contacted Peter Hertsgaard, Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.), a dear friend and co-creator of The Episodes Project. Peter is an accomplished writer, actor, director, and producer, and the two were very comfortable with each other’s creative energy. Peter has developed a successful company, Invizion, that utilizes “interactive learning” through the presentation of “interactive theater” to Fortune 100 companies coast to coast. Tom believed Peter’s skills and experience would be a perfect fit for a consulting project Tom was envisioning to creatively infuse healthcare hospitality into progressive-thinking health and medical organizations. Being at Hilbert College, Tom brought the dean into the discussion and introduced Peter to see if we could get Hilbert College to host an “interactive theater” presentation, develop a panel of local experts, and invite a full auditorium of interested parties. They did exactly that, to an audience of 150 individuals from a multitude of diverse healthcare providers and managed care organizations. The showcase was a tremendous validation of the need for formal healthcare hospitality training and educational offerings. In 2015, Tom and Peter connected with a fellow consultant in Nashville and planned a similar “interactive theater” showcase for Vanderbilt University’s Medical School administration and senior faculty. Once again, the response was very encouraging. This led to the idea of bringing healthcare hospitality “interactive learning” to medical schools and also to developing a formal Master’s program at Hilbert College. We engaged the CEO of the Health Foundation of Western and Central New York with an initial grant request of $500,000. Internal discussions were gaining genuine interest but were thwarted as the college was in financial distress, and our dean took a big promotion at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. Without the dean’s support, Tom and Peter decided to put advancing the project on indefinite hold. Hope springs eternal. In early 2022, Tom reconnected with several friends, colleagues, and former co-workers who were living in different parts of the United States. While chatting and catching up, Tom mentioned to them that he and Peter had developed an “interactive theater” play about healthcare hospitality. They were intrigued and interested in learning more. After two years of COVID-19 and its variants, healthcare organizations were hurting in every way. While heroic work was being done daily, death was omnipresent, and medical and support staff were physically and emotionally burning out. Service was strained, quality was slipping, staff were quitting, wearing a mask became political, and patients were dying every single hour of every shift. The emotional toll was enormous, but was often put “on hold” to take care of the next influx of patients. Could healthcare hospitality be part of an effective turnaround strategy? The resounding answer was yes! Welcome, Zoom! Using Zoom, one by one, we brought together potential partners with unique yet critical skills to build the best healthcare hospitality program in the country. The program is proprietary and copyright-protected. Tom recruited the partners, and Peter brought Connie Schoyer, Ph.D. (Baltimore, Maryland), an organizational psychologist, to a Zoom meeting. Connie and Peter had worked together for years through Invizion and Connie’s connections at Korn Ferry. They had the “interactive theater” and facilitation experience they effectively used with major corporations, Fortune 100 and 500 companies, including healthcare. The beginnings of an impressive group of complementary partners were coming together. Tom McNulty, M.S., has known Nancy Sheehan, R.N., J.D., for 25+ years. They worked together at BryLin Hospitals, a private psychiatric hospital in Buffalo, New York. Tom was Vice President of Marketing, and Nancy, after many years as a nurse, became a healthcare attorney and was BryLin’s in-house Chief Legal Counsel. She moved on in the same capacity to the large Catholic Health System until she retired in 2022. She was there for 20+ years. Tom introduced Nancy to the growing team, and Nancy accepted an offer to join our partnership in 2022. Dr. Cynthia Ambres (Los Angeles, California) is an entrepreneurial physician and forever friend of Tom’s. While they live in opposite parts of the country, they’ve stayed in touch and exchanged “chats” on various social media sites. Dr. Ambres has witnessed the benefits of “interactive theater” and knows of Peter and Connie’s success with creative solutions to complex situations. For a time, Dr. Ambres lived in Buffalo and held C-level positions in managed care and hospital administration. After several phone calls about our project and an introduction to the team, Dr. Ambres joined the team in March 2023 as Medical Advisor. With a full team in place, the partners began crafting the healthcare hospitality structure and the “pain points” healthcare organizations are facing. Tom and Peter examined the 2025 and 2026 priorities of the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Hospital Association (AHA) and found a lot of common ground where healthcare hospitality could make a significant impact that would endure without heavy lifting for staff. With a strong cast of partners in place, we aligned our skill sets with areas of need identified by AMA and AHA, plus the daily healthcare headlines that can arise without warning. From a point of expertise and skills, we focused on our strengths, including behavioral health, organizational behavior, legal issues and lawsuit prevention, practical and targeted marketing, finance, managed care, recruitment and retention, sales, emotional intelligence, data collection and interpretation, communication, artificial intelligence (AI), and administrative leadership, including staff and team active participation. Hospitality is not a new concept, but in healthcare it can be defined differently based on how its components are perceived. For instance, some hospital executives viewed valet parking, a gift shop, a coffee café, and even a McDonald’s as a genuine hospitality offering. We do not. The goal of healthcare hospitality is to create a culture that is on autopilot and becomes inculcated in the mindset of everyone from the board of directors to all employees at every level, everyone takes personal ownership of practicing the mantra daily, thus new employees enter a culture of hospitality and quickly get oriented to the expectations. There are no binders to read, classes to attend, videos to watch, or those “flavor of the week” management mandates like Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, 360 Evaluations, and dozens of forgettable Leadership Training programs. HHPartners’ focus is on inclusion, active listening, de-escalation techniques, emotional intelligence, creating team champions, new recruitment strategies, facility appearance, and critical communication. Compassion for patients, families, and each other is a given, it’s inside of all of us. Just imagine how many lawsuits could be averted with meaningful communication. When a hospital CEO seems hesitant to move forward, we often ask these questions: What happens to your organization if you do not embrace healthcare hospitality? What is the current perception of your hospital amongst providers, managed care, and the general population? Did you know that avoiding just one lawsuit could probably pay for HHPartners’ services? Are doctors and nurses likely to leave a hospital that is full of positive energy? Is generational loyalty important to your organization? How was your last healthcare experience? Interested in learning more? Please contact Tom McNulty, M.S., here. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Thomas Patrick McNulty Thomas Patrick McNulty, CEO of Success Stories, Inc. Tom McNulty, M.S., developed his interest in psychology and the brain in high school while attending college at the same time. His interests grew, and he received his master's degree. After graduation, he worked in a psychiatric hospital as a family therapist, and then he was offered a management position to work with troubled adolescents. Tom took his passion to the airwaves and hosted a weekly health talk radio program for 18 years. He is the founding partner of HHPartners (healthcare hospitality consulting) and co-creator of The Episodes Project (behavioral health). His mission: "Creating Enduring Impact".

Written by David Asselstine, Behavioral Insight Specialist David Asselstine is the inventive mind behind the paradigm-shifting psychosocial framework, the 7 Dimensions of Self. He has studied Life Coaching, Psychology, and Neurolinguistic Programming and has 5 years of experience working with mental health firsthand in the medical field. For the past several years, I have been developing a framework called the Seven Dimensions of Self (7DS). What began as an attempt to understand my own experiences gradually became something much larger: a way of organizing the internal factors that influence how we perceive ourselves, interpret the world, make decisions, and respond to challenges. Today, that work is evolving again. The Seven Dimensions of Self provided the structure. The next stage is understanding what happens when those dimensions interact. This is where Forward Positive Momentum (FPM) enters. Increasingly, I believe the future of this work isn’t simply about identifying the different parts of ourselves. It is about understanding how those parts work together and whether we can use that understanding to create measurable, meaningful movement in people’s lives. From experience to framework The origins of 7DS are deeply personal. As I have described in my autobiographical work, Still Here, the framework did not begin as an academic exercise. It emerged through lived experience, adaptation, relationships, instability, observation, education, and eventually the recognition that many of the problems we experience as individuals may not be isolated events. They can be patterns, and that realization became central to my work. Instead of asking only, “Why did this happen to me?” I began asking, “What is happening within me that influences how I respond to what happens?” That question changed the direction of the work. Over time, what had initially been a smaller model expanded into the Seven Dimensions of Self. The current framework identifies self-confidence, self-esteem, self-efficacy, motivation, ambition, metacognition, and situational awareness as distinct but interacting dimensions of human functioning. The important word here is interacting because identifying seven dimensions is only the beginning. A map is not a journey Imagine having an incredibly detailed map of a landscape. You know where everything is. You can identify the mountains, valleys, roads, rivers, and obstacles. But having the map doesn’t mean you have moved anywhere. That distinction has become increasingly important in the development of 7DS. The framework helps us ask: Where am I? What is influencing me? What patterns am I repeating? Which internal capacities appear strong? Which appear constrained? What relationships exist between them? But eventually, we have to ask a different question: What happens next? That is the question FPM was developed to address. From the Seven Dimensions to Forward Positive Momentum I define Forward Positive Momentum as movement toward a more constructive state of functioning despite obstacles, setbacks, or uncertainty. It isn’t simply movement. We move all the time. We can move toward something that ultimately makes our lives worse. We can become extremely productive at avoiding the things that matter. We can repeat the same relationship patterns, career patterns, behavioral patterns, or emotional patterns for years. Movement alone isn’t necessarily progress. FPM is concerned with direction, development, and the quality of movement. This is also where the concept connects with existing psychological research on momentum. Research on psychological momentum has found that perceived success can increase confidence, expectations of success, effort, and subsequent performance, creating an upward feedback process. FPM takes a broader developmental perspective. The question becomes: What internal conditions make forward movement more likely, and what causes that movement to stall or reverse? The dimensions don’t operate in isolation Consider self-esteem. A person can have a relatively strong sense of personal worth and still lack confidence in a particular situation. Someone can be highly confident socially while having low confidence in their professional abilities. Someone can possess considerable actual ability but have poor self-efficacy, the belief that they can successfully execute a task. This is one reason I have become increasingly interested in the Self Perception Triad. Self-esteem reflects, “I have value.” Self-confidence reflects, “I can trust myself.” Self-efficacy reflects, “I can do this.” Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from David Asselstine David Asselstine, Behavioral Insight Specialist David Asselstine's model has redefined for many what terms like Motivation, Ambition, and Self-Esteem mean on a relational and personal level. David's life story built the 7 Dimensions of Self through his own experiential learning, adaptation, and resilience. His passion for helping others build their mental fortitude and comprehensive understanding of themselves has been the fuel for his own Forward Positive Momentum. Psychological research and references: Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. Oney, E., & Oksuzoglu-Guven, G. (2015). Confidence: A critical review of the literature and an alternative perspective for general and specific self-confidence. Psychological Reports, 116(1), 149–163. Orth, U., & Robins, R. W. (2014). The development of self-esteem. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(5), 381–387. Orth, U., Erol, R. Y., & Luciano, E. C. (2018). Development of self-esteem from age 4 to 94 years: A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 144(10), 1045–1080. Orth, U., Robins, R. W., & Widaman, K. F. (2012). Life span development of self-esteem and its effects on important life outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(6), 1271–1288. Orth, U., & Robins, R. W. (2013). Understanding the link between low self-esteem and depression. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(6), 455–460. Schwarzer, R., & Jerusalem, M. (1995). Generalized Self-efficacy Scale. In J. Weinman, S. Wright, & M. Johnston (Eds.), Measures in Health Psychology: A User's Portfolio. Causal and Control Beliefs (pp. 35–37). Windsor, UK: NFER NELSON. Schwarzer, R., & Jerusalem, M. General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE). The instrument assesses a general sense of perceived self-efficacy and has been translated into numerous languages.

Written by Lisa Gaines, Leadership Wellbeing Coach Lisa Gaines is a leadership and wellbeing coach, empowering mid-life women leaders to redefine success, break through barriers, and thrive. Drawing on her expertise in neuroscience and emotional intelligence, Lisa supports her clients with navigating change, finding renewed purpose, and creating sustainable growth in both work and life. I was speaking with a client who has spent years thriving in a high-pressure, senior leadership role. She told me she feels guilty for operating at less than full throttle lately, compared to how she has always shown up, even though she and her team keep delivering great results. I asked her a question I ask many of my clients in midlife: ‘How would it be to leverage what you have built up to this point in your career and park the guilt?’ I shared my understanding, drawn from years of reading and research on perimenopause and menopause, that we actually need to make our lives more menopause friendly by slowing down. I could see this idea landing for her, and I was reminded of how I’ve been practising parking my own guilt about slowing down and allowing myself to listen more to my body instead of constantly overriding my needs, as I have done for most of my adult life. The cost of operating at full speed Like many women in midlife, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been operating at a pace that doesn’t quite work for me. I’ve been intentionally creating space to bring more calm and spaciousness into my life, and it’s a work in progress. I don’t always get the balance right. For years, I’ve been fuelled by adrenaline and hormones. I’ve worked hard and travelled extensively for work, and as an Irish Aussie, I visit my family in Ireland every year. I’ve come to realise that if I keep pushing as I have always done, and to some extent gotten away with, there’s a cost, and it’s more expensive than it was in my twenties, thirties, and even early forties. The impact on my physical and mental health is more challenging, and it affects my energy levels and output. This is happening to millions of women in midlife everywhere. In Australia, the Jean Hailes 2023 National Women's Health Survey found that one in four Australian women in midlife say menopause symptoms make it hard to get through daily life, including performing at work. Then, if that’s not enough to be dealing with, there’s the existential identity crisis: ‘If I’m not this hormone-fuelled, adrenaline-driven person, then who am I?’ For some of us, that reckoning goes even deeper: the midlife attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses we didn’t see coming. In a 2022 ADDitude magazine survey of over 1,500 women with ADHD, 83% said they experienced ADHD symptoms for the first time during perimenopause or menopause, precisely when we have spent decades working hard to keep those traits and coping strategies hidden. Then there are the many women who have diagnosed themselves, who don't want medication, and who soldier on regardless. It’s a lot to process. Why slowing down feels like a reckoning I know I’m not alone in this. I see midlife women everywhere speaking about these challenges and considerations. So here I am, going through my midlife inquiry, shall we call it? Slowing down is not something I find easy, and I know this is true for so many of us. Operating at a hectic pace has become a societal norm, and when we pause, slow down, and feel our nervous system and how unregulated it is, it can be a bit of a reckoning. Another reason we might avoid creating more space in our lives is that we get a chance to feel feelings we may have been avoiding and running from. Often, sitting with and acknowledging these feelings isn’t as bad as avoiding them. Sometimes it is, and we may need the support of a wise partner, friend, colleague, coach, or counsellor with our bigger feelings. The book Wise Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, which I think is essential reading for midlife women, gave me the understanding that this is a time when we tend to review our past and need to come to terms with our choices up to this point. It is like a midlife inventory. It can be confronting and can be a time when our inner critic becomes very loud and accusatory. It has to be managed, and recognising that some women in midlife aren't well resourced to support their mental health through this is important. Through awareness of how challenging this time can be for a woman, we can be more compassionate and perhaps normalise reaching out and getting the help we need. Permission, not just productivity If the idea of slowing down comes our way at all, usually the message is that it’s only okay to slow down so we can ultimately speed up and be more productive. This is a tricky message: “Are we only allowed to rest if it ultimately fuels productivity?” But what if slowing down is the priority, and we can trust that when we need to be productive, that energy will be there on the other side of deep rest and stillness? This is what I have found to be true again and again. Perhaps this change in pace and in how we operate is exactly what is needed, without needing to push ourselves to be more, do more, and have more. The irony is that when we slow down, we get a chance to feel how much we have and how much we are. Using perimenopause as permission So here I am today, tapping into my inner wisdom and using perimenopause as permission to slow down so I can continue to connect to this wisdom. From here, I’m feeling a sense of awareness that I am enough. It’s the antidote to “I’m not enough, good enough, young enough, clever enough, experienced enough,” and so on. When I slow down, I have access to more compassion and kindness toward myself, and honestly, it feels like a panacea that helps overcome many of the challenges of midlife. I hope this inspires you and gives you permission to slow down, too. I’m curious to hear from you: what does slowing down even look like for you? Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Lisa Gaines Lisa Gaines, Leadership Wellbeing Coach Lisa Gaines is a leadership and wellbeing coach devoted to helping mid-life women leaders reconnect with themselves, overcome roadblocks or burnout, and thrive. With over 15 years of experience and drawing on her expertise in neuroscience and emotional intelligence, Lisa supports her clients through meaningful transitions in work and life. Her coaching style is nurturing, insightful, and practical, and empowers clients to overcome their barriers and step into new chapters with clarity, courage, and balance. Lisa is passionate about supporting women to step up, stand tall, and create sustainable success on their own terms.

Written by Esther Christopher, Trauma Pain Support Esther Christopher is the founder of Trauma Pain Support Ltd, a speaker, writer, and trauma-informed systems thinker whose work explores the overlooked spaces between crisis, recovery, leadership, and long-term human resilience. Through her writing and framework development, she examines how lived experience can reveal what formal systems often miss. For decades, the glass ceiling has given us a useful way of talking about women and ambition. You can see the next level. You know you are capable of reaching it. Yet somewhere between where you are and where you want to be sits an invisible barrier that is difficult to name and even harder to prove. The response, understandably, has been to focus on breaking through it. The climb has changed Women have been encouraged to become more visible, put themselves forward, negotiate harder, seek sponsorship, take the seat at the table, and keep climbing. Much of that work has mattered. In the United Kingdom (UK), women now occupy more senior and influential positions than they did a generation ago. By the end of 2025, 88% of Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 350 companies had achieved, or were close to achieving, the target of 40% women on their boards. That progress deserves recognition, but I have begun to wonder whether the glass ceiling has also kept our attention fixed in one direction, up. We have become particularly good at asking how many women reach senior management, how many sit on boards, and how many become chief executives. These are important measures of progress, particularly when women were excluded from those positions for so long. They are not, however, the only measures available to us. There comes a point when another question becomes interesting: not simply how far women are progressing within existing organisations, but what women are building and owning themselves. That distinction has become increasingly important to me as a founder. When the direction of success begins to change For most of my working life, success was easy to recognise. There was an established organisation, a role, a structure, and usually another level somewhere above the one you occupied. Even when the route upwards was complicated, you broadly understood the architecture. Starting something of your own is different. There is no floor above you to aim for because, at least in the beginning, there may barely be a floor beneath you. You are no longer navigating a structure. You are deciding what the structure will be. That sounds liberating, and in many ways it is, but “freedom” is probably too simple a word for it. What changes most profoundly is authorship. You decide how decisions will be made and where authority will sit. You decide what the organisation will stand for and then discover whether you are prepared to live by those values when doing so becomes inconvenient. You decide what growth means rather than assuming bigger must automatically mean better. Even the definition of success begins to shift. For years, many of us have worked with somebody else’s scoreboard without necessarily realising it: the next promotion, the larger remit, the more senior title, another step up a hierarchy whose shape was established long before we arrived. When you build something yourself, you are forced to decide what winning actually looks like. Perhaps you want scale. Perhaps you want influence. Perhaps you want a business that can eventually operate without you. Perhaps you want to create something that changes a particular part of the world and makes enough money to sustain doing it. There is no universal answer. The conversation we have less often: Ownership There is another part of this discussion that I think deserves far more attention. When you build an organisation, you are not only creating a job for yourself. If you build it well, you may be creating an asset. The intellectual property, systems, relationships, reputation, and knowledge you develop can accumulate into something with value beyond the work you personally perform each day. For a founder, that changes the nature of the work. You are no longer contributing solely to the value of an organisation that already exists, you are creating value in something you own. That makes me wonder whether our discussion about women’s advancement has sometimes been too narrow. We have rightly asked whether women have access to opportunity and whether they are represented where important decisions are made. Perhaps we should also be asking who owns the value they create. The numbers suggest there is still quite a difference between the two. The UK government’s latest Longitudinal Small Business Survey found that around 14% of Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) employers were women-led. That sits alongside the considerable progress women have made in corporate leadership and tells us something interesting: representation within existing organisations and ownership of businesses are not the same journey. Building your own does not remove the barriers Becoming a founder does not somehow remove the structural barriers women have experienced elsewhere. Money makes that particularly visible. The British Business Bank has reported that only 2p in every £1 of UK venture capital investment goes to female-founded businesses. Now, there is something almost brutally simple about that figure. A woman may decide she wants to create the organisation rather than climb within one, but deciding to build is not the same as being given the resources to build it. There are signs of improvement. Among organisations participating in the Investing in Women Code, the proportion of venture capital investment going to teams with at least one female founder increased from 27% in 2024 to 32% in 2025. That is encouraging, although it also shows why the wider financing conversation remains necessary. Entrepreneurship, then, is not an uncomplicated escape from organisational life. It would be easy to write that version of the story. Leave the job, become your own boss, control your time, and finally do things your way. Anyone who has actually built a business knows how incomplete that picture is. You exchange one set of constraints for another. The uncertainty belongs to you. The financial responsibility belongs to you. So do the decisions that turn out to be wrong. If something stops working inside a large organisation, there is usually an infrastructure around the problem. When you own the organisation, the infrastructure may also be something you are responsible for creating. The freedom is real, but so is the weight. Two distinct kinds of power Perhaps that is why I find the founder story more interesting when we stop presenting it as an alternative fairy tale to the corporate ladder. Some women will continue to rise through established organisations, and I hope they do. We need women running major companies, sitting around board tables, and changing institutions from within. Others will create businesses, organisations, intellectual property, and new models of working. Neither path is inherently more ambitious than the other, but they represent distinct kinds of power. One is the ability to rise within a structure and influence what happens there, while the other is the ability to create the structure in the first place. For a long time, we have measured women’s progress vertically. How high did she go? What title did she reach? Did she finally get into the room? Perhaps the next stage of that conversation needs to become wider. What did she create? What does she control? What assets did she build? How much of the value she generates does she own, and what might happen if more women had access to the capital, confidence, networks, and support required to answer those questions for themselves? The glass ceiling was never the whole story The glass ceiling remains a useful metaphor. There are still barriers above women that need to be identified and removed, and progress should not depend on women simply working harder to overcome them. But the ceiling was never the whole story. Sometimes progress is about reaching the next floor. Sometimes it is about realising that there are other things you could build. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Esther Christopher Esther Christopher, Trauma Pain Support Esther Christopher is the founder of Trauma Pain Support Ltd. (TPS), a trauma-informed recovery program helping road traffic accident (RTA) survivors rebuild physically, emotionally, and mentally. After overcoming her own life-changing road traffic accident, Esther developed the TPS framework to bridge the gap between medical recovery and long-term healing. A certified Total Breakthrough Coach, author, and nutritionist, she combines professional expertise with lived experience to guide others toward sustainable transformation. Her memoir, Triumph Over Tragedy, chronicles her journey from survival to purpose, inspiring others to reclaim their strength and identity.

Written by Bronwen Sciortino, International Author & Simplicity Expert Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live? I've been wondering when we became so comfortable telling other people how to live. Everywhere we turn, someone is ready with an opinion about what we should be doing, thinking, or striving for. Eat this. Don't eat that. Work harder. Slow down. Speak up. Stay quiet. Set boundaries. Be more resilient. The advice comes thick and fast, often delivered with absolute certainty, yet very little of it begins with curiosity. Almost nobody stops to ask who we are, what matters to us, or what kind of life we're trying to build before telling us what we should do next. We've become a society that's remarkably good at giving answers before we've taken the time to understand the person standing in front of us. But maybe that's not so surprising. Most of us have spent our entire lives learning how to meet other people's expectations. From the time we're young, we're taught what it means to be a good student, a good employee, a good partner, or a good parent. We learn which behaviours are rewarded, which opinions are accepted, and which versions of ourselves are most likely to belong. Over time, it becomes second nature to look outside ourselves for cues about how to behave, what to value, and who we should become. We become so practised at meeting expectations that we rarely stop to ask a much more important question: Is this actually who I want to be? When everyone else has your answers Even well-meaning advice reflects the person giving it. It carries their experiences, their values, their priorities, and their beliefs about what makes a good life. That's not a criticism. It's simply how human beings work. The problem begins when we forget that someone else's answer is always shaped by their perspective. That puts us in the position of following advice that was designed for a life that isn't ours, measured against values we may not share, and guided by priorities we never consciously chose. Over time, it's easy to lose sight of a simple truth: no one else has lived your life, carries your responsibilities, or sees the world through your eyes. So how could they possibly know what the right answer is for you? The longer we rely on other people's answers, the easier it becomes to doubt our own judgement. We second-guess the decisions that once felt obvious. We look for reassurance before we take the next step. We start believing that someone else must know something we don't. It's a subtle shift, but an important one. Instead of becoming more confident in who we are, we become more dependent on someone else to tell us whether we're getting it right. Before long, we find ourselves living by borrowed certainty instead of personal conviction, and that's a difficult place from which to build a life that genuinely feels like our own. The power in choosing for yourself Choosing your own direction sounds wonderfully empowering until you have to do it for the first time. That's the moment most people discover that self-direction isn't really about making decisions. It's about becoming comfortable with the fact that not everyone will understand them. The first time you say ‘no’ when everyone expects you to say ‘yes’, it can feel uncomfortable. The first time you choose rest instead of pushing through, step away from a role that no longer fits, or decide that someone else's definition of success isn't yours, you'll probably wonder whether you're making a mistake. You're not. You're simply experiencing what it feels like to stop living by expectation and start living by intention. Those are very different things, and they require a different kind of courage. The good news is that choosing for yourself doesn’t require you to have your whole life mapped out. It simply asks you to become more curious before you become more certain. This is where making questions your ally can give you power in moments when decisions are required. The next time you’re faced with a decision, resist the urge to immediately ask, "What should I do?" Instead, pause long enough to ask yourself a different set of questions. Why does this matter to me? What feels true for me right now? Am I making this choice because it reflects my values, or because it meets someone else's expectations? Those questions won't always make your decisions easier, but they will make them more honest. Over time, every honest decision becomes another quiet vote of confidence in your ability to lead your own life. Becoming the one who decides So, what do you do when you're tired of being told who to be? You don't stop learning. You don't shut out new ideas or decide that no one has anything valuable to teach you. Wisdom has always come from listening, observing, and remaining open to perspectives that challenge our own. The difference is that you stop treating those perspectives as instructions and start treating them as invitations to think. You allow them to inform your decisions instead of making your decisions for you. Perhaps that's what self-direction really is. It's not about having all the answers or getting every decision right. It's about knowing that no one else can define a life that is meaningful for you because no one else has lived it. The questions that shape your future belong to you, but so do the answers. Maybe that's the quiet shift we're being invited to make. Not to become someone different, but to become someone who trusts themselves enough to decide. Because when you're tired of being told who to be, the answer isn't to find another voice to follow. It's to finally hear your own. Bronwen Sciortino is a Simplicity Expert, Professional Speaker, and internationally renowned author. You can follow her on her website, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Read more from Bronwen Sciortino Bronwen Sciortino, International Author & Simplicity Expert Bronwen Sciortino is an International Author and Simplicity Expert who spent almost two decades as an award-winning executive before experiencing a life-changing event that forced her to stop and ask the question, ‘What if there’s a better way to live?’ Embarking on a journey to answer this question, Bronwen developed a whole new way of living, one that teaches you to challenge the status quo and include the power of questions in everyday life. Gaining international critical acclaim and 5-star awards for her books and online programs. Bronwen spends every day teaching people that there is an easy, practical, and simple pathway to creating a healthy, happy, and highly successful life. Sourced globally for media comment as an expert and working with corporate programs, conference platforms, retreats, professional mentoring, and in the online environment, Bronwen teaches people how easy it is to live life very differently.

Dr. Dymond A. Booth is a Faith & Life Coach, speaker, and author with a doctorate in Clinical Psychology, whose work explores what it takes to move beyond survival and build a life rooted in faith, identity, healing, prosperity, and intentional growth. Drawing from her psychological training, experience working with trauma, and Christian faith, she helps people understand the patterns that shaped them without allowing those patterns to dictate their future. In this interview, Dr. Booth discusses why insight alone does not create change, how faith and psychology can work together, and what it takes to intentionally build a life beyond the chapters that once defined you. Dr. Dymond A. Booth, Life Coach What first drew you to helping people move beyond difficult chapters and create a different future? What first drew me to this work was realizing how easy it is for a painful chapter to become an identity. Both personally and professionally, I have seen people survive things they never imagined they would have to carry, yet still feel trapped by what happened long after the crisis itself has passed. Survival is powerful, but I became deeply interested in the question of what comes next. My background in clinical psychology helped me understand how experiences shape beliefs, behavior, relationships, and the way people see themselves. My faith deepened that understanding by reminding me that a person can be impacted by what happened without being permanently defined by it. That is what continues to draw me to this work. I want people to recognize that healing is not only about reducing pain. It is also about reclaiming possibility, rebuilding trust in yourself and in God, and learning how to participate in creating a future that is not simply a repetition of the past. How has your background in clinical psychology and your experience working with trauma shaped the way you understand the difference between surviving adversity and truly moving forward? My background in clinical psychology and my experience working with trauma taught me that survival and forward movement require very different skills. In survival mode, the goal is often protection. A person may become highly alert, emotionally guarded, controlling, disconnected, or focused on simply getting through the day. Those responses can make sense in the context of what they have lived through. The challenge is that the strategies that helped someone survive one season can become restrictive in another. Protection can become isolation. Hyper-independence can make support feel unsafe. Avoidance can prevent new experiences that would challenge old beliefs. Moving forward requires more than telling someone to "let it go." It often means helping them recognize what they learned to do in order to survive, deciding what is still useful, and intentionally practicing new ways of thinking, responding, trusting, and choosing. Survival says, "How do I make it through?" Forward movement begins asking, "Now that I am here, how do I want to live?" Where do psychology and faith complement each other most powerfully in personal transformation? I believe psychology and faith are most powerful together when they help a person understand both what has shaped them and who they are becoming. Psychology gives us language for patterns. It can help us examine how experiences affect thoughts, emotions, behaviors, relationships, and expectations. Faith speaks to identity, meaning, hope, surrender, purpose, and the possibility of renewal. For me, those are not competing conversations. Understanding why I developed a certain response does not remove my responsibility to grow, and having faith does not require me to ignore the psychological impact of what I have experienced. Faith can give someone a reason to believe that change is possible, while psychological insight can help identify what needs to change and what practical work may support that process. I often think transformation becomes especially powerful when a person can say, "I understand where this came from, but I also know I do not have to remain here." That combination creates room for both compassion and accountability. Why can someone understand their patterns clearly and still struggle to change them? Because understanding is not the same thing as practicing something different. A person can know exactly where a pattern came from, explain it beautifully, and still repeat it when they are stressed, afraid, rejected, disappointed, or uncertain. Awareness is a map, not movement. Real change usually requires new behavior to be practiced enough that it becomes available when the old pattern is triggered. If someone has spent years avoiding conflict, people-pleasing, abandoning goals, doubting themselves, or expecting rejection, one moment of insight will not automatically erase years of repetition. This is why I believe change requires more than information. It requires application. You have to create new evidence. Set the boundary. Have the difficult conversation. Follow through on the commitment. Recover after the mistake instead of using it as proof that you cannot change. Insight can explain the pattern, but repeated action begins teaching you that another response is possible. Eventually, the new behavior stops feeling foreign and starts becoming part of who you are. What do you think we misunderstand about motivation, discipline, and what actually creates lasting change? I think one of the biggest mistakes in the coaching and personal development space is treating motivation like the foundation of change. Motivation can be helpful, but it is unreliable. People feel inspired after a powerful conversation, a conference, a video, or a breakthrough moment, and then become discouraged when that feeling fades. But lasting change cannot depend on always feeling ready. People need structures that support the person they are trying to become. That can include clear goals, realistic routines, accountability, boundaries, environmental changes, emotional regulation skills, and a plan for what they will do when motivation is low. I also think we need to normalize recovery. Progress is not destroyed because someone has a difficult week or falls back into an old pattern. The question is not simply, "How motivated are you?" A better question is, "What have you built that will help you keep going when motivation leaves?" Motivation may start the movement, but consistency, self-awareness, support, and repeated choices are what make change sustainable. How can someone begin separating their identity from experiences that have shaped them for years? One of the first steps is learning to describe an experience without turning it into a definition of yourself. There is a meaningful difference between saying, "I experienced rejection" and saying, "I am unwanted," or between "I failed" and "I am a failure." Experiences are real, and they deserve to be acknowledged, but they do not automatically get to become identity statements. I also encourage people to examine who they are outside of what happened to them. What values remain? What strengths have they developed? What do they care about? What do they believe God says about them? What kind of person do they want to become now? Separating identity from experience does not mean pretending the past had no effect. It means refusing to give the past permanent authority. You can honor the reality of what shaped you while still questioning the conclusions you formed about yourself because of it. That is often where a new identity begins to emerge. How can visualization be used as a practical psychological tool for changing beliefs and behavior rather than simply becoming wishful thinking? Visualization becomes useful when it moves beyond fantasizing about an outcome and becomes a form of intentional mental rehearsal. I do not view visualization as imagining something intensely enough that it magically appears. I think it is more practical than that. If someone wants to become more confident, disciplined, emotionally grounded, or consistent, I may encourage them to visualize the behaviors that version of themselves would actually practice. What does it look like to speak up in the meeting? To remain calm during a difficult conversation? To follow the trading plan instead of reacting impulsively? To wake up and complete the commitment even when motivation is low? The purpose is not to convince yourself that success is guaranteed. It is to make the desired behavior more specific and familiar, then pair that picture with action. Visualization without behavior can become wishful thinking. Visualization paired with clear decisions, repetition, and accountability can help a person rehearse the way they want to show up before the real moment arrives. What does it mean to you personally to believe that the past can shape us without defining us? To me, it means refusing to deny the significance of what happened while also refusing to hand it the final word. My past has shaped me. It has influenced the way I think, the questions I ask, the work I care about, the compassion I have for people, and the way I understand resilience. I do not need to pretend painful experiences were insignificant in order to prove that I have moved forward. But being shaped by something is different from being defined by it. Definition implies finality. It says, "This is who you are." I do not believe every painful chapter deserves that kind of authority. Part of my own growth has required me to ask whether I am making present decisions based on where I am now or based on what I learned to expect in a previous season. That question can be uncomfortable, but it is freeing. The past can become context, wisdom, testimony, and even preparation. It does not have to become a life sentence. What is one step someone can take today to move from simply surviving toward living with greater purpose? Start by identifying one area of your life where you have been functioning primarily to get through it. Do not try to change everything at once. Ask yourself, "If I were no longer only surviving in this area, what would living look like?" Then make the answer practical. Maybe living looks like finally asking for support, creating a boundary, applying for the opportunity, returning to something you stopped believing was possible, establishing a healthier routine, reconnecting with God, or keeping one promise to yourself this week. The goal is to choose one action that agrees with the future you say you want. People can become overwhelmed by the distance between their current life and the life they envision. I encourage them to focus on the next faithful, intentional step instead. You do not need to transform your entire life today. But you can make one decision today that stops reinforcing survival and starts creating evidence that a different way of living is possible. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Dymond Booth

Written by Unorji Chibuzor Christian, Founder and CEO Chibuzor (Christian) Unorji is the Founder and CEO of Elogha Ltd, an environmental intelligence company using satellite data and AI to improve environmental accountability. With academic training in Accounting and Data Analysis, he specialises in emissions monitoring, compliance technology, and sustainability strategy. For years, businesses have been encouraged to measure their environmental impact, publish sustainability reports, set targets, and demonstrate their commitment to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG). That was progress. But I believe we are approaching the limits of what reporting alone can achieve. Every organisation operates as an ecosystem. Leadership influences culture, culture influences behaviour, behaviour influences performance, and performance shapes customer experience. Every part affects every other part. When one area changes, everything else adjusts too. Without conscious attention, those changes can create a negative spiral. Evolution requires leaders to notice what is emerging and intentionally create positive conditions. The question has changed There was a time when simply getting environmental issues into the boardroom represented progress. Today, that is no longer enough. Businesses have sustainability teams, ESG frameworks, reporting standards, dashboards and increasingly sophisticated datasets. Yet I believe we are approaching a point where simply having more environmental information is no longer the advantage. Knowing what to do with it is. A Chief Executive Officer (CEO) does not need another hundred-page report simply telling them what happened last year. A regulator does not benefit from more data if that data cannot help identify where intervention is needed. An investor gains little from environmental metrics if they cannot understand what those metrics could mean for operational resilience, regulatory exposure or long-term value. This is where I believe the ESG conversation needs to change. We have spent years improving our ability to disclose. The next race will be about our ability to understand, anticipate and act. That is the transition from traditional ESG reporting to environmental intelligence. From a rear-view mirror to radar The simplest way I think about this difference is driving. Traditional environmental reporting is a little like a rear-view mirror. It is necessary. It tells you where you have been, what happened, and, hopefully, what you can learn from it. But nobody would drive at speed while looking only in the rear-view mirror. You also need to see what is ahead. Environmental intelligence is the radar. It is about bringing together environmental data, operational information, satellite observations, predictive models and financial context to understand not only an organisation's environmental footprint, but also what may be coming next. Imagine being able to ask: Where are our environmental risks increasing? Which operations are becoming more vulnerable? Could water scarcity affect production in a particular region? How might an environmental event disrupt our supply chain? What could a change in regulation mean financially? Which intervention today could prevent a much higher cost tomorrow? Those are not simply sustainability questions. They are business questions. They belong in conversations about strategy, investment, risk and growth. ESG 1.0 reported, the next era must understand. Perhaps the evolution can be explained simply. ESG 1.0 asked, "What happened?" That gave us disclosure. The next stage asks, "What impact did it actually have?" That demands accountability. Environmental intelligence takes us further. What is happening now? What could happen next? What could it cost us? What should we do about it? That is foresight. Foresight can become a competitive advantage. Environmental data is becoming business intelligence One of the biggest changes I expect over the coming years is that environmental information will stop being viewed as something belonging primarily to sustainability departments. The boundaries are already becoming difficult to maintain. A drought can become a production problem. A flood can become an asset problem. Extreme heat can become a workforce and productivity problem. Pollution can become a regulatory and reputational problem. Resource scarcity can become a supply-chain problem. Almost every one of those can eventually become a financial problem. That means environmental information increasingly matters to the CEO, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), risk team, operations team, technology team and board, not just the sustainability function. This is an important shift. Once environmental data begins influencing capital allocation, operational planning, insurance, investment, and risk management, it stops being simply ESG data. It becomes business intelligence. The competitive advantage is not the data Businesses today have access to extraordinary amounts of information. The temptation is to assume that whoever owns the most data will automatically have the greatest advantage. I don't believe that is true. Data without context can become noise. A dashboard without a decision behind it can become decoration. Sophisticated technology without clear purpose can simply help an organisation become confused faster. The real competitive advantage lies in the ability to turn information into useful intelligence and useful intelligence into better decisions. Consider two companies operating in the same industry. Both have environmental data. Both publish sustainability reports. Both face similar regulatory and climate pressures. But one can identify an emerging environmental risk earlier, understand which assets may be exposed, model the potential financial consequences, and evaluate possible responses before committing capital. The other discovers the same risk when it begins affecting operations. Which business is better positioned? Which one would you rather invest in? That is why I believe environmental intelligence will become a competitive capability rather than simply a sustainability capability. AI will accelerate the shift, but it cannot replace judgement Artificial intelligence (AI) makes this transition even more interesting. We can now process environmental information at a scale that would have been extremely difficult not long ago. Satellite systems can observe enormous geographic areas. Machine-learning models can identify patterns across complex datasets. Predictive systems can help organisations explore different scenarios. But we should be careful not to confuse computational power with wisdom. A sophisticated model built on poor-quality data can produce sophisticated mistakes. An algorithm without context can create false confidence. Automation without appropriate governance can scale bad decisions just as efficiently as good ones. The opportunity, therefore, is not simply AI for ESG. It is the combination of trusted data, intelligent modelling, human judgement and institutional accountability. AI can help us see more. Leadership still determines what we do with what we see. Governments face the same challenge This transformation will not stop at the corporate boardroom. Governments and regulators face an even larger version of the same challenge. Environmental governance has historically depended on combinations of company disclosures, inspections, scientific assessments and historical datasets. These will continue to matter. But imagine what becomes possible when policymakers can combine environmental observations, industrial information, economic modelling and predictive analytics to understand emerging risks earlier. Regulators could identify areas that require closer investigation. Governments could model potential consequences before implementing certain policies. Public institutions could better understand where intervention might produce the greatest environmental and economic benefit. This does not mean algorithms should make public policy. They should not. It means policymakers should have better intelligence when they make policy. That difference is fundamental. From compliance cost to strategic asset Another shift business leaders should pay attention to is this. For many organisations, sustainability has historically been viewed as a cost centre, something necessary for compliance, reputation or stakeholder expectations. Environmental intelligence makes it possible to view it differently. If better environmental information helps a company avoid disruption, anticipate regulatory change, allocate capital more effectively, protect assets or identify operational inefficiencies, then sustainability intelligence is not merely a compliance expense. It can become an economic asset. Once that happens, the conversation in the boardroom changes. The question is no longer, "How much do we have to spend on sustainability?" It becomes, "What decisions can we make better because we understand our environmental exposure?" That is a far more interesting question. Why this matters to us at Elogha At Elogha, this shift is central to how we think about the future. Our interest is not simply in what happens when environmental data is collected. We are interested in what happens next. How does that data become intelligence? How does that intelligence help an organisation understand risk? How can environmental impact be connected with economic and policy consequences? Ultimately, how can better intelligence create better accountability? The name Elogha means rethink and recreate, and I think this is an area that genuinely needs both. We need to rethink environmental information as more than something organisations collect for disclosure. We need to recreate the systems that turn that information into decisions people can actually use. For me, that is the real opportunity, not another layer of reporting, but a better way of seeing what is coming and deciding what to do about it. So, is traditional ESG dying? ESG itself is not disappearing. Nor should it. Disclosure will remain important. Transparency will remain essential. Compliance will remain necessary. But ESG as a box-ticking exercise cannot be the destination. The world is becoming too complex, too interconnected and too fast-moving for environmental strategy to depend primarily on retrospective reporting. The evolution I see is straightforward: Reporting → Understanding → Prediction → Action Eventually: Action → Measurable accountability Companies that make that transition early will begin building knowledge their competitors may take years to develop. They will understand how environmental variables interact with their operations. They will improve their models. They will ask better questions. They will make better-informed decisions. That learning compounds. The next competitive advantage The winners of the next era of sustainability will not necessarily be the companies that know the most about what they did yesterday. They will be the ones that understand what could happen tomorrow, and are prepared to act before everyone else does. That is why I believe the next big evolution in ESG will not be another reporting framework. It will be intelligence. Environmental intelligence. Eventually, asking "What does our environmental data say?" may become as normal in the boardroom as asking about revenue, cash flow, customers, or market risk. When that happens, sustainability will no longer sit at the edge of business strategy. It will be part of the intelligence businesses use to compete. Perhaps that is the real death of traditional ESG, not the end of environmental responsibility, but the beginning of something far more useful. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Unorji Chibuzor Christian Unorji Chibuzor Christian, Founder and CEO Driven by a passion for data-driven sustainability, Christian Unorji leads innovation at the intersection of climate, technology, and environmental governance. As the Founder and CEO of Elogha Ltd, his company has developed environmental intelligence solutions that help governments and organisations monitor emissions and strengthen regulatory compliance. With academic training in Accounting and Data Analysis, Christian writes on climate innovation, environmental accountability, and the future of sustainable decision-making.

Written by Sharon Morrow, Personal Trainer and Hypnotherapist Sharon Morrow is a Personal Trainer and Hypnotherapist who guides women through powerful resets after separation, divorce, menopause, and life transitions. She is the creator of The Phoenix Project, a mind and body reinvention programme. If you’ve ever been told to “fake it until you make it,” there’s a good possibility you’ve never reached the “make it” stage. Our minds are constantly responding to the messages we give them. If “faking it” is the initial command, it’s hardly surprising that you can end up feeling like an imposter while trying to appear confident. What if confidence isn’t something you’re missing? What if it’s something you need to remember? Faking it until you make it is saying, “I don't feel confident at the moment, so I’ll pretend until I do,” and you’re left hoping that one day you’ll feel confident. But it doesn’t work like that. Sure, you can get better at doing whatever it is you need confidence for, but your ability to believe in and trust yourself without any doubts needs another way of shining. Confidence is not necessarily a skill we need to acquire, but more like a state of being that we need to remember. It tends to get buried underneath years of conditioning, criticism, comparison, expectations, and experiences that teach us to doubt ourselves. When you were younger and learning to walk, talk, and feed yourself, you didn’t doubt yourself or give up. You just kept doing it until you learned how. There was no faking it. You didn’t need to pretend you could feed yourself first and then hope it worked out. You just did it, badly at first, but you still had the confidence. Where did your confidence go? Confidence is often less about what you can do and more about what you believe someone like you is allowed, capable, or worthy of doing. You can be extremely competent and still not feel confident when making decisions, raising your prices, speaking up, and being seen. Once you understand that confidence isn't necessarily something you need to create, you can begin to see how much of it may have been conditioned out of you. “You’re too sensitive.” “You're shy.” “Don’t make a fuss.” “You're not very sporty.” “You’re always so dramatic.” “Why can't you be more like.” Children learn by observation, so even if you didn’t hear the words above, you could still pick up on what gets approval and what doesn’t. Eventually, those external messages can become internal beliefs about who you are as a person. Something as simple as a child hearing “you’re too loud” can evolve into: Child: “I'm too loud.” Teenager: “I should tone myself down.” Adult: “I don't want to dominate the conversation.” Professional: “I'll let someone else speak first.” The behaviour changes from child to adult, but the underlying identity hasn’t. Why affirmations don't always work Imagine you've spent 35 years believing you're not good enough. Then one day, you write “I am a huge success” on a Post-it note and stick it to your bathroom mirror. When you read it each day, do you actually believe it? Or does your inner critic quietly respond, “Yeah, right”? So now you’re arguing with yourself because there’s a conflict between what you want to believe and what you actually believe. The effort you're putting into forcing the new belief can feel exhausting when your deeper sense of identity is still saying, “I'm not enough.” Sometimes, this can actually reinforce the original belief. If nothing seems to change despite repeating the affirmation, you can end up feeling as though you're failing yet again. Affirmations like this are much more successful when you question where the original belief came from and whether it’s still relevant today. Once you understand where the belief came from, question whether it still belongs in your life, and begin to release its hold on you, something interesting can happen. The confidence underneath it has room to emerge. It’s a much more empowering place to begin if you reinvent who you believe you are before you reinvent what you do. Instead of saying to yourself, “Once my business is successful, I'll feel like a successful businesswoman,” try flipping it around to, “What would change if I began showing up as the successful businesswoman I already want to become?” This creates space to consider what version of yourself shows up in your business and what decisions she makes that are more in line with your success. Similarly, when thinking of a personal goal like, “Once I lose weight, I'll feel confident,” ask yourself, “What would it look like to start treating myself as a confident woman now?” We don’t show up as confident when we achieve something. We show up confidently first, and then we achieve our desires. Perhaps the starting point is remembering who you were before you became self-conscious and self-critical. You could start by asking yourself: What did she like? What did she wear? What did she say? What did she think? What did she dream about? When you ask yourself these questions, the tiny ember that still resides inside you begins to grow. The flame starts to burn again, and perhaps, for the first time in a long time, you begin to see your own radiance. Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sharon Morrow Sharon Morrow, Personal Trainer and Hypnotherapist Sharon Morrow is a personal trainer and hypnotherapist who helps women rebuild their strength, confidence, and identity after major life transitions. As the founder of The Phoenix Project, she combines fitness, mindset work, and subconscious reprogramming to guide women through powerful personal reinvention. Drawing from both professional expertise and personal experience, Sharon supports women in reconnecting with themselves and rising stronger than before. She writes and speaks about personal reinvention, resilience, and the power women have to rebuild themselves at any stage of life.

Written by Alondra Forteza Cedeño, Biomedical Aesthetics Alondra Forteza Cedeño is a Biomedical and Medical Esthetician who incorporates the best scientific evidence and technology, offering the best treatments for her patients. She is the founder of Mímate Aesthetic & Spa, a medical spa to improve the health of your skin. What happens when metabolic health, hormonal transitions, and skin biology intersect? The term “Ozempic face” has become increasingly common in aesthetics. It is often used to describe facial hollowing, increased laxity, and changes in facial contour observed after significant weight loss associated with GLP-1 medications. But the biology is more complex than the name suggests. GLP-1 receptor agonists do not simply “age” the face. Rather, substantial weight loss can reduce subcutaneous adipose tissue and alter the structural relationship between facial fat compartments, skin, and underlying support. At the same time, many patients may experience these changes during another major biological transition: perimenopause and menopause. This creates an important clinical intersection. Weight loss can change facial volume, while hormonal transition can alter the biological environment that supports skin quality, collagen, hydration, elasticity, and tissue resilience. When weight loss meets perimenopause Estrogen plays an important role in maintaining dermal structure, hydration, collagen, and other components of skin integrity. As estrogen declines during the perimenopause process, changes in collagen, elasticity, moisture, and skin thickness can become increasingly apparent. So, consider what happens when these two biological events overlap. A woman enters perimenopause, her estrogen environment changes, her body composition begins to shift, she starts a GLP-1 medication, she loses significant weight and, suddenly, she looks in the mirror and feels that her face has changed dramatically. That experience is so much more sophisticated than “Ozempic face.” A longevity approach to skin health In aesthetics, this is why, before starting treatment or skincare, it’s important to determine what your real skin concern is, such as volume loss, skin laxity, dehydration, texture, pigmentation, etc. Step one: Assess Objective imaging and professional skin analysis can help establish a baseline and monitor changes over time. In-clinic technologies can support a more structured assessment and analysis of skin characteristics and visible changes, including any medical history that, as mentioned, may relate to skin health. Step two: Protect This includes appropriate cleansing, barrier support, hydration, antioxidants, and consistent broad-spectrum photoprotection. The goal is to reduce unnecessary environmental stress while supporting the skin’s natural functions. Also, integrating evidence-based topical actives, such as peptides supported by clinical evidence, can help address skin laxity. The objective is to minimize environmental stress while supporting the skin’s ability to function healthily, regenerate, and repair itself. Step three: Stimulate When the primary concern is skin quality, texture, or mild to moderate laxity, evidence-based treatments designed to stimulate dermal and tissue remodeling may help increase collagen production, reduce laxity and pigmentation, and improve overall skin quality. These include microneedling, radiofrequency, ultrasound, laser-based treatments, and many more. Step four: Preserve The objective is to create a sustainable treatment plan and skincare routine that supports skin quality, tissue integrity, facial harmony, and healthy aging. As a biomedical professional, medical aesthetician, and nurse, I consider the future of aesthetics to be not about treating aging as a problem to be erased. It’s about understanding how the patient’s biology is changing and adapting our approach accordingly to achieve the best results, no matter their needs. The skin cannot be separated from the biology of the person attached to it. Metabolic health, hormonal changes, nutrition, muscle preservation, inflammation, collagen, facial volume, and environmental exposure are not isolated variables. They interact continuously, but we can still support healthy skin aging. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Alondra Forteza Cedeño Alondra Forteza Cedeño, Biomedical Aesthetics Alondra Forteza Cedeño is a Biomedical and Medical Esthetician who incorporates the best scientific evidence and technology, offering the best treatments for her patients. She is the founder of Mímate Aesthetic & Spa, a medical spa with the mission to improve the health of her patients' skin. She is certified in the most effective skin treatments and innovative technology. Alondra is constantly educated, and she uses her social media to educate and provide valuable information for the benefit of all.

Written by Paul Smyth, Chief Executive Officer & Gayathri Delanerolle, Chief Scientific Officer Paul Smyth is an international CEO and executive leader with senior experience at Ferrari, Aston Martin and Harley-Davidson. Now CEO of AuroraOX, he brings expertise in global leadership, governance, business transformation and building high-performance organisations. Women’s health is entering an era of extraordinary technological possibility. Artificial intelligence, wearable technologies, digital biomarkers and real-world data can reveal aspects of health that conventional appointments may never capture. Investment is growing, innovation is accelerating and women now have access to technologies that can track everything from reproductive health to sleep, symptoms and changes over time. But more technology does not automatically produce better science or better healthcare. Women’s health is not short of apps, devices, platforms or data. What it continues to lack is a sufficiently connected scientific architecture: one capable of linking evidence across the female life course, understanding that evidence within the realities of women’s lives, and translating it responsibly across different populations, cultures and healthcare systems. The challenge, therefore, is not simply to generate more information. It is to connect scientific research, clinical practice, technology development and real-world experience well enough to create lasting clinical value. That requires a different way of thinking about innovation. Why women’s health needs a more connected approach Women’s health has historically been affected by gaps in research investment, representation and clinical understanding. Although representation in research has improved, evidence is still frequently generated within separate conditions, medical specialties and stages of life. Menstrual health may be studied separately from mental health. Fertility may be disconnected from metabolic or cardiovascular health. Menopause may be treated as an isolated hormonal transition rather than one stage within a longer biological, psychological and social trajectory. Healthcare systems, meanwhile, are often organised around individual appointments, diagnoses and episodes of treatment. Women’s health develops across an interconnected life course. What happens during adolescence, pregnancy, illness, medical treatment, menopause and later life may be related. Health is also influenced by employment, environment, culture, family responsibilities, income, geography and access to healthcare. Studying each of these factors separately can produce scientifically accurate pieces of evidence while still failing to explain the whole picture. That is where Deep Science Tech becomes important. What is Deep Science Tech for women’s health? What will transform women’s health? More data? Better technology? Smarter artificial intelligence? More personalised platforms? None of these is sufficient in isolation. What matters is the architecture connecting them: research that reflects women’s lives, evidence that retains its scientific and real-world context, technology that has clinical meaning, and healthcare systems capable of learning from what happens when innovation moves into practice. We use the term Deep Science Tech (DST) for Women’s Health™ to describe this interdisciplinary approach to generating, interpreting, translating and implementing women’s health evidence. The idea draws on an important principle associated with deep technology: meaningful innovation should emerge from substantive scientific discovery rather than simply applying an existing technology to a new market. But DST goes further. It connects life course science, clinical research, contextual understanding, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and real-world evidence with implementation in healthcare. Just as importantly, it creates a feedback loop. Research produces evidence. Evidence informs technology and care. Implementation generates new information about what works, for whom and in which circumstances. Those insights can then improve the next generation of research and innovation. In simple terms, DST asks, "How do we move from collecting more information about women to understanding that information well enough to improve their health?" What makes the science “deep” is therefore not simply the sophistication of an algorithm or device. An advanced algorithm trained on narrow, fragmented or poorly understood evidence will reproduce the limitations of that evidence. Scientific depth comes from connecting different forms of knowledge, understanding the circumstances in which evidence was produced and translating it responsibly into clinical practice. What makes AuroraOX’s approach different? At AuroraOX, Deep Science Tech is not a label applied to technology after it has been developed. It is the operating architecture through which research questions are defined, evidence is generated across populations and healthcare systems, clinical and contextual meaning is established, and discoveries are translated into implementation, digital platforms and healthcare innovation. This means treating research, implementation and technology as interconnected parts of the same scientific process rather than as separate activities passed between different organisations. Our wider research has helped shape this architecture in practice. MARIE, our multinational menopause research programme, has demonstrated why women’s health cannot be understood through biological symptoms alone. Working across different cultures, populations and healthcare systems has shown that psychological health, behaviour, cultural context, socioeconomic circumstances, treatment access and health system realities can fundamentally change how apparently similar clinical experiences should be interpreted. These insights helped shape a central principle of DST: context is not separate from scientific evidence; it is part of what gives that evidence meaning. ELEMI extends this thinking across the female life course, while AuroraOX provides the translational route through which scientific discovery can inform scalable clinical and technological innovation. It is the integration of discovery, context, implementation, technology and continuous real-world learning that distinguishes this approach from a conventional women’s health product model. But isn’t this just Femtech? Not quite. Femtech has achieved something enormously important. It has made women’s health visible as a category for innovation and created products around needs that healthcare systems had frequently overlooked. Deep Science Tech is not intended to replace Femtech or compete with it. A useful way to understand the relationship is to think of Femtech as the visible technology a woman may interact with, while DST describes more of the scientific architecture that can sit underneath that technology. A menstrual health application, fertility platform, menopause device or digital therapeutic could all form part of a system enabled by DST. But the important questions sit behind the technology: How was the underlying evidence generated? Which women were represented? What biological, clinical, psychological and social circumstances were considered? Has the technology been clinically validated? Can it perform across different populations and healthcare settings? What happens once it is implemented in the real world? Does the evidence generated through that implementation improve the system over time? DST therefore provides a framework through which research programmes, Femtech products, digital platforms and healthcare services can be designed, validated, implemented and continually improved. Why context matters scientifically Consider disrupted sleep. A wearable device might identify a very similar pattern in a woman experiencing perimenopause, a new mother, someone receiving cancer treatment, a night shift worker, a woman living with chronic pain or someone experiencing housing insecurity. The measurement may look almost identical. Its meaning, and what should happen next, may be completely different. That is why context is not an optional addition to scientific evidence. Health information needs to be interpreted alongside the circumstances in which it was generated. Those circumstances may include work, income, language, culture, family structure, migration, faith, caring responsibilities, disability, geography and access to healthcare. This does not mean assuming that one characteristic determines an individual woman’s health. It means building scientific systems capable of understanding which circumstances matter, when they matter and how they interact with biological and clinical evidence. Context is therefore not something added after the science has been completed. It is part of what gives the science meaning. From static evidence to a learning healthcare system There is another limitation within the traditional research model. A study is conducted, analysed and published. Its findings may eventually influence clinical guidance and healthcare practice. But what happens after evidence reaches the real world does not always flow efficiently back into the research process. Deep Science Tech proposes a more continuous cycle. Research generates evidence. Evidence is translated into practice. Implementation is evaluated. What happens in practice then informs the next stage of research. Wearable technologies, electronic health records, registries and digital platforms may all contribute to this process by showing how health changes over time and how interventions perform outside highly controlled research environments. This does not mean collecting every piece of personal information that technology makes available. Meaningful consent, data protection, clinical oversight, transparency and accountability must remain central. The objective is not to measure everything. It is to learn responsibly from what genuinely matters. Why equity must be embedded throughout the evidence lifecycle Equity is sometimes considered only after a research question has been chosen, a dataset assembled or a technology developed. By that point, important exclusions may already have become embedded in the evidence. Deep Science Tech therefore places equity throughout the scientific lifecycle: from deciding which questions deserve investigation to recruitment, evidence generation, interpretation, validation, implementation and evaluation. This matters ethically. It also matters scientifically and commercially. A technology intended for broad populations cannot be assumed to be broadly effective if the evidence underpinning it reflects only a narrow section of those populations. Global relevance also requires local adaptability. Inclusion is not simply about placing more diverse women into an unchanged model. The scientific model itself must be capable of understanding diversity. What could Deep Science Tech change in practice? The ambition is healthcare that becomes more predictive, personalised, preventive and precise. Predictive healthcare identifies emerging risks earlier. Personalised healthcare considers a woman’s history, biology, preferences and circumstances. Preventive healthcare uses that understanding to reduce avoidable deterioration. Precision healthcare connects the right evidence, the right intervention and the right moment. None of this removes uncertainty from medicine. Nor should we expect an algorithm to predict an individual woman’s future with certainty. The opportunity is more realistic, and potentially more valuable. It is to create stronger evidence systems so that clinicians and women can make better informed decisions because the evidence supporting those decisions reflects real lives more closely. For researchers, healthcare providers and technology companies, that means developing solutions that can be validated across populations, integrated into real care pathways and continually improved through responsible use. For investors and business leaders, it changes how innovation should be evaluated. The most impressive technology is not necessarily the technology collecting the most data or using the most sophisticated algorithm. A stronger question is, "What quality of evidence sits underneath it?" Five questions leaders should ask Before describing a women’s health programme, product or platform as personalised, inclusive or transformative, leaders should ask: Does the evidence represent different stages of the female life course? Which biological, clinical, psychological and social circumstances have been considered? Who might be excluded because of language, geography, disability, trust, digital access or affordability? Have measurements, models or predictions been clinically validated in the populations where they will actually be used? How will evidence generated through real-world implementation return to improve the system? If these questions cannot be answered, we may have sophisticated technology applied to women’s health, but we do not yet have Deep Science Tech. Where does DST go from here? Building this approach requires people who do not always work in the same room. Clinicians, epidemiologists, behavioural scientists, data scientists, engineers, healthcare organisations, investors and, critically, women themselves all bring different parts of the picture. At AuroraOX Biotech, DST informs how we approach scientific research, evidence generation, digital platforms, clinical implementation and scalable women’s health technologies. But the wider opportunity extends beyond any one organisation. The next era of women’s health innovation should not be judged solely by how much data a system collects, how sophisticated an algorithm appears or how quickly a product reaches the market. It should also be judged by the quality of its evidence, its clinical relevance, its inclusivity, its adaptability and its ability to improve outcomes in real healthcare settings. The future of women’s health will not be built simply by adding women to an evidence architecture that was never designed around the complexity of their lives. It will be built by moving from isolated episodes to life course understanding, from measurements to meaning, from representation to genuine inclusion, and from technological promise to responsible implementation. Deep Science Tech for Women’s Health™ provides one framework for making that transition. Our responsibility is to ensure that the science understands women as whole people, not simply as patients, datasets, consumers or biological categories. This article introduces the foundations of that approach. In the next part of the series, we will explore one of its central components in greater depth: why the future of women’s health requires new forms of digital epidemiology capable of learning continuously from the real world. Follow me on LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Paul Smyth Paul Smyth, CEO and International Executive Leader Paul Smyth is an international executive leader with extensive experience leading businesses, teams and transformation across Europe, Africa, Asia Pacific and Greater China. He has built and transformed high-performance organisations while delivering measurable improvements in growth, profitability, governance and operational performance. As CEO of AuroraOX, Paul applies this experience to building a purpose-led organisation focused on advancing evidence-based solutions in women's health. His particular interests include leadership, organisational performance, governance, international business and turning strategy into disciplined execution.

Written by Ladys Patino, Book Reviewer and Writer Ladys Patino is a distinguished writer and book critic with a specialization in organizational behavior, management, leadership, and community dynamics. For all the talk of algorithms, automation, and artificial intelligence, business still comes down to people. Customers buy from brands they trust. Teams follow managers who see them as more than headcount. The companies pulling ahead in the AI era are the ones that treat technology as a tool for human connection, not a replacement for it. The five books on this list each take on a different piece of that puzzle: self-worth, branding, managing people, leadership, and AI strategy. But they share one belief: the human element is the real competitive advantage. Read together, they map the human side of business from the inside out, starting with the confidence to show up and ending with how to stay indispensable in a world of intelligent machines. The courage of your talent How to Build Your Self-esteem, Trust Your Own Judgment, and Constantly Succeed in Business (and Life) by Alan Weiss Every business relationship starts with how you value yourself. Alan Weiss, known as the "Rock Star of Consulting" and the author of more than 60 books, including the classic Million Dollar Consulting, argues that self-esteem is the hidden factor that shapes every deal, negotiation, and career move. Drawing on his PhD in psychology and decades advising Fortune 500 executives, he untangles self-esteem from the traits people confuse it with, like confidence, competence, and humility, and shows how outside pressures quietly erode our sense of worth. More importantly, he explains how to rebuild it. The result is a candid, practical guide to trusting your own judgment and showing up as your full self, whether you're 20 or 90. For anyone whose success is being undermined before they even enter the room, Weiss offers a way to lead from a place of genuine self-respect. Get the book on Amazon. Notes from the brand stand Building Emotional Connection Between Brands and the People They Serve by Warren Kornblum Great brands aren't built on logos or slogans; they're built on feeling. Warren Kornblum, the former chief marketing officer of Toys "R" Us, spent a career proving that the strongest brands earn a "Share of Heart™" before they ever earn a share of wallet. In this collection of 28 short, punchy chapters, he lays out his philosophy of emotional branding: the idea that purpose, trust, and consistency are what turn a product into something people love. Kornblum introduces memorable concepts like the "Brand Stand" and the "Promise Problem," and sprinkles in the "Warrenisms" that colleagues have quoted for years. Praised by CEOs and CMOs from Petco to Newell Brands, the book is a warm, human masterclass in forging authentic connection in a crowded market. For anyone trying to build a brand people actually believe in, this is the inside track. Get the book on Amazon. People, performance, and succeeding as a manager HBR Work Smart Series by Harvard Business Review, with Kim Scott, Lia Garvin, Gleb Tsipursky, and Martin G. Moore Becoming a manager is one of the hardest transitions in any career, and few people are truly prepared for it. This entry in Harvard Business Review's Work Smart Series is a practical, no-nonsense guide for new and early-career managers trying to figure out what kind of leader they want to be. It tackles the real tensions of the job directly: how to earn your team's trust, when and how to give constructive feedback, how to motivate people without micromanaging, and how to care for yourself so you don't burn out. With contributors including Radical Candor author Kim Scott and team dynamics expert Lia Garvin, the book delivers quick reads, real-life stories, and expert advice, plus chapter recaps and online resources. It's proof that managing people well is a skill anyone can learn. For first-time managers who want to support their people and grow their own careers at the same time, this is an ideal companion. Get the book on Amazon. The human success playbook A Leadership Tale for the Age of AI by Rasmus Holst, Robin Daniels, and Nina Carøe, With Chris Westfall Most books about AI focus on the technology. This one focuses on the people. Told as a business fable, The Human Success Playbook follows a group of leaders wrestling with the question every executive now faces: are you scaling software, or are you scaling humans? Rasmus Holst, Robin Daniels, and Nina Carøe blend Silicon Valley ambition with the Scandinavian idea of tryghed, a deep sense of security, to argue that engagement, learning, and performance aren't separate silos but one connected system they call "The Trifecta." Along the way, they introduce the rising role of the "Human Success Officer" and make the case that the smartest response to AI is to invest more in people, not less. Engaging and easy to read, the book gives leaders a blueprint for building a culture that outcompetes AI-native rivals by putting human relationships at the center. For any leader feeling lost in the noise of digital transformation, it's a welcome course correction. Get the book on Amazon. The Microsoft AI insider's playbook Your Guide to Cloud Strategy and Digital Transformation by Krishna C. Mukherjee To understand where AI is taking business, it helps to learn from someone who helped shape some of its earlier practical applications. Krishna C. Mukherjee joined Microsoft in 1988, and his teams worked on intelligent assistance features such as AutoCorrect and AutoFormat, bringing early forms of intelligent automation into everyday software long before the current boom. In this comprehensive guide, he demystifies cloud strategy and digital transformation for leaders who need to make smart decisions without a computer science degree. Mukherjee translates decades of frontline experience into a practical roadmap: how to think about AI adoption, where the real returns come from, and how to modernize an organization without losing sight of the humans it serves. Authoritative yet accessible, the book bridges the gap between deep technical expertise and the strategic choices facing every executive. For anyone trying to separate AI's genuine promise from the hype, this is a trustworthy guide from someone with decades of experience in the field. Get the book on Amazon. Taken together, these five books trace a single throughline: technology keeps changing, but business is still fundamentally human. Whether you're building the self-worth to trust your own judgment, forging an emotional bond between a brand and its customers, learning to manage people well, leading a team through the disruption of AI, or setting a cloud strategy that serves people rather than sidelines them, the advantage always comes back to the human element. The leaders and companies that thrive in the years ahead won't be the ones that automate the most; they'll be the ones that stay the most human while everyone else races to keep up. Visit my website for more info! Read more from Ladys Patino Ladys Patino, Book Reviewer and Writer Ladys Patino is a distinguished writer and book critic with a specialization in organizational behavior, management, leadership, and community dynamics. Her expertise lies in dissecting and evaluating literature that delves into the intricacies of organizational structures, the nuances of leadership styles, and the complexities of community interactions. Patino's reviews and writings offer insightful perspectives on how these themes play out in various settings, providing valuable analysis for those interested in understanding and improving the functioning of groups, businesses, and societies.

Written by Anne-Sophie Gossan, Transformational Career Coach Anne-Sophie Gossan, founder of Inner Spark Coaching, supports individuals going through career transitions so they find meaningful direction, reignite their spark, and thrive. She brings calm, clarity, and deep empathy and asks the questions that unlock their truths while holding space for both vulnerability and growth. If you're currently considering a career change, you're one of a very large group in the United Kingdom (UK). The largest survey of active UK career changers to date found that three in four have been thinking about it for a year or more.[1] A quarter have been considering it for three years or longer. If you're one of them, you already know the frustrating part isn't wanting something different. It's the waiting. Waiting to feel sure. Waiting for the right moment. Waiting to feel ready. The problem isn’t readiness. Readiness, as most people define it, rarely shows up before you act. It shows up after, which means that if you're waiting for that feeling before you make a move, you could be waiting for a long time without realising that's what you're doing. This article looks at what readiness for a career change actually looks like, the real cost of staying in a role that no longer fits, and what to do about it starting this week, without needing every part of the plan figured out first. Why "feeling ready" is the wrong thing to wait for Most people believe motivation and readiness come first, and action follows. You'll start looking once you feel confident. You'll make the call once you're sure. You'll update your Curriculum Vitae (CV) once you know exactly what you want next. Research in behavioural psychology tells a different story. Motivation tends to follow action rather than the other way around. Small, deliberate steps engage the brain's reward systems in ways that build momentum, rather than momentum being something you need before you can take the first step. In plain terms, the confidence you're waiting for is usually a result of starting, not a condition for it. This matters in a career change because disruption of any kind (a redundancy, a restructure, a role that stopped fitting somewhere along the way) tends to strip away the exact conditions people think they need before they can move: certainty, energy, and a clear plan. Wait for those conditions to return before you act, and you may be waiting for something that was never going to arrive on its own. The real cost of staying where you are Staying in a role that no longer fits rarely feels like a decision. It feels like the default, the safe option, the responsible one. But staying has a cost. Employee engagement in the UK has stayed close to the lowest levels in Europe. According to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, only 10% of UK employees describe themselves as engaged at work (behind the European average of 12% and well below the global average of 20%).[2] Disengagement at that scale isn't only a productivity problem for employers. It's a daily experience for the people living inside it, and it tends to compound the longer it goes unaddressed. Financial caution is often the reason people give for staying anyway, and it's a legitimate concern. But the same survey by Careershifters found that only 12% of people going through a career change name financial constraints as their biggest obstacle. Far more common, mentioned by almost half, is simply not knowing what they want to change to. If you don't address what's driving you toward a change, that cost keeps accumulating in the background, showing up as exhaustion, disengagement, or the sense of having drifted somewhere you didn't choose. If you don't fix this, here's what it keeps costing you: not a single big loss, but a slow accumulation of energy spent managing frustration instead of building something better. That's a cost that rarely shows up on paper, which is exactly why it's so easy to underestimate. Five signs you're ready for a career change (even if it doesn't feel like readiness) Readiness for a career change rarely announces itself clearly. It tends to show up in small signals that are easy to dismiss individually. A few worth paying attention to: You've stopped being surprised by your own frustration. It's become background noise rather than a warning sign. You find yourself encouraging other people to make the same change you're avoiding, telling a friend to leave a job you'd never let yourself leave. The plan you imagined for your career a few years ago no longer excites you, and you haven't replaced it with anything new. You're more tired by the effort of staying than you would be by the effort of changing. Small comments from other people ("you don't seem like yourself lately," "are you okay at work?") have started to hit differently than they used to. None of these require certainty about what comes next. They're simply signs that something has already changed underneath the surface, whether or not you've fully acknowledged it yet. One client I worked with recognised four of these five signs in herself before she ever said the words "I want to leave" out loud. She'd spent months telling friends to pursue their own career changes while staying quiet about her own. Once she noticed the pattern in her own behaviour, things moved faster than she expected. Her plan didn’t become clear overnight, but she stopped waiting for it to become clear before she started. I know this pattern from my own experience too. I'd already qualified as a coach while still in my corporate role, but it wasn't until I experienced burnout, followed by redundancy, that I actually broke the pattern and left the corporate world behind. Did I feel ready? Not even close. I felt scared, but somewhere underneath the fear, I knew it was the right move, and that knowing turned out to matter more than the readiness I was waiting for. Running from something versus running toward something Not every career change starts from the same place, and the distinction matters more than most people realise. Some people are running from something (a role, a culture, a manager, or a way of being at work they no longer recognise as themselves). Others are running toward something (not necessarily escaping anything specific, but wishing for more than their current career allows). Most people are a mix of both, but usually one force is doing more of the driving. Knowing which one changes what the next step should actually look like. Someone escaping a difficult team needs a different plan than someone whose current role has simply become too small for what they actually want. Skip this distinction, and it's easy to fix the wrong problem, taking a new job that solves the immediate frustration but recreates the same limits a year later. What to do with these signs, starting this week None of this requires a resignation letter by Friday. It requires a few clear steps that don't need the whole plan figured out first. Write down the signs from this article that apply to you, in your own words, without editing them to sound more reasonable. Ask yourself which force is driving you more, running from or running toward, and get specific about what's underneath it. Tell one person. Saying it out loud to someone else is often the first real action, long before any practical step. Give yourself a single, small next step this week: one conversation, one piece of research, or one honest check-in with yourself. If this pattern keeps repeating without any of these steps, you'll keep managing the same frustration indefinitely instead of moving through it. Waiting for readiness to arrive before you move rarely produces readiness. It produces more waiting. Where this leaves you None of this means you need the next ten years mapped out. It means paying attention to the signs already in front of you and giving yourself permission to act on them before they feel obvious to anyone else. If you recognise yourself in this – someone who already knows something needs to change, even without all the answers yet, I'm opening a small group programme this September called the Career Change Circle, built for exactly this stage. Six sessions, a small group of people working through the same thing at the same time, and a structure that moves you from thinking about a change to actually making one. Register your interest to be the first to know when doors open, or book a free discovery chat if you'd rather talk it through first. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Anne-Sophie Gossan Anne-Sophie Gossan, Transformational Career Coach Anne-Sophie Gossan spent 25+ years in the corporate world navigating high-stakes environments and career transitions. She spent years building a career and a home, juggling the demands of raising two boys while holding down a very demanding job. When redundancy struck, it shook her confidence and identity in ways she hadn’t anticipated. She decided to qualify as a coach and to create Inner Spark Coaching: Reimagine Your Story, a safe space where her clients can reclaim the unstoppable version of themselves that’s always been there. Through coaching, conversation, and deep transformation, she guides individuals into their next chapter with clarity, confidence, alignment, and renewed purpose. Sources: [1] Careershifters, "State of Career Change Report 2026" (survey of 11,567 active UK career changers), April 2026. [2] Gallup, "State of the Global Workplace: United Kingdom Country Level Data," April 2026. [3] Christopher Spromberg, Psy.D., "Why Action Creates Motivation, Not The Other Way Around," Livingston HealthCare, April 2026.