Written by Janice Elsley, Leadership Expert, International Author, and Podcast Host Janice Elsley is a leadership strategist, author, and keynote speaker who helps CEOs and leaders elevate their impact. As founder of Harissa Business Partners, she blends neuroscience, change management, and human design to drive success. I need to tell you something most leaders won't admit out loud. Some of the most successful people I've worked with, people with impressive titles, decades of experience, and teams who respect them deeply, have confessed the same thing in our private conversations, "I still wonder if I'm good enough." "What if they realize I don't actually have it all figured out?" "Do I really belong here?" If you've ever felt this way, here's what I want you to know, self-doubt is not a leadership flaw. It's a human response. Your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do, scanning for threats to your safety, belonging, and certainty. The problem? When self-doubt runs unchecked, it quietly shapes how you think, communicate, decide, and show up. It costs you energy. It costs you presence. It costs the people you lead. But here's the truth that changes everything, your brain can rewire. Confidence isn't something you're born with. It's something you build, one intentional shift at a time. Here are seven neuroscience-based strategies that actually work. Rewire the story your brain keeps repeating Your brain loves patterns. It's constantly scanning for evidence to confirm what it already believes. Neuroscience calls this confirmation bias. If your internal narrative says, "I'm not experienced enough," your brain will find proof everywhere. The thing is, most of these stories were written years ago, maybe by a critical manager, a painful setback, or a moment when you questioned yourself. Ask yourself, is this belief true today, or is it an outdated story my brain is replaying? Leadership growth often begins by updating your identity, not your capability. Understand that discomfort is not danger When you step into new territory, your amygdala, the brain's alarm system, lights up. New role? Bigger visibility? High stakes decision? Your brain interprets unfamiliar as unsafe. You feel discomfort and think, "Maybe I'm not ready." But discomfort is not evidence of failure. It's evidence of growth. Leadership requires learning how to move forward anyway. Build an evidence bank Our brains are wired with a negativity bias. We remember the one mistake in the meeting but forget the twenty times we added value. One of the simplest practices I teach is creating an evidence bank. Document your achievements, positive feedback, breakthrough moments, and times you created real impact. When doubt shows up, return to facts. Confidence grows when evidence replaces emotion. Regulate your nervous system before making meaning You can't think your way out of self-doubt when your nervous system is in overdrive. When stress rises, cortisol floods your system, cognitive flexibility drops, and your brain moves into protection mode. You cannot access your best leadership thinking from survival. Pause. Breathe. Ground yourself. Move your body. Get outside. Regulate first. Reflect second. State always influences strategy. Stop performing leadership One of the greatest traps is believing you must constantly prove yourself. Proving creates pressure. Presence creates trust. The strongest leaders I know aren't the loudest or most polished. They're congruent. They know who they are, and they lead from alignment. When you disconnect from your values, strengths, and identity, self-doubt grows louder. Real confidence comes from authenticity, not performance. Focus on progress over perfection Perfectionism is often self-doubt wearing a different outfit. Leadership is messy. Growth is messy. Change is messy. You don't need all the answers. You need curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to learn. Future ready leaders aren't those who know everything. They're those willing to evolve. Lead from human potential, not fear At its core, self-doubt is often fear of rejection, exclusion, or not being enough. Humans are wired for connection. Belonging matters. But leadership isn't about becoming someone else. It's about becoming more of who you already are. The future belongs to leaders who understand both people and themselves. Leaders who regulate their nervous systems. Leaders who lead with humanity. Leaders who stop performing and start aligning. Because the most powerful leadership shift isn't learning another strategy. It's remembering who you are. Leading from there. If self-doubt has been quietly shaping how you lead, decide, or show up, you don't have to work through it alone. Janice's leadership programs help leaders build confidence from the inside out, using practical tools for self-awareness, nervous system regulation, human skills, and aligned leadership. Explore Janice's leadership programs and take the next step toward leading with more clarity, confidence, and authenticity. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more insights, and tune in to my podcast, Legacy Leaders with Janice Elsley, for deeper conversations on leadership, purpose, and growth. Read more from Janice Elsley Janice Elsley, Leadership Expert, International Author, and Podcast Host Janice Elsley is a leadership expert, author, and keynote speaker helping CEOs and executives future-proof their leadership with neuroscience-driven strategies. As founder of Harissa Business Partners, she drives performance, inclusivity, and talent retention. Her book Leadership Legacy and programs, Leading Edge Women, The Leading Edge, and First 100 Days of Leadership, equip leaders with the confidence and strategies to make an impact. Whether coaching executives or delivering transformational keynotes, Janice creates real results.

Written by Loren Vax Since its founding in 2012, Vesper has become one of the prominent developers in Moscow's luxury residential market. Denis Kitaev is its co-founder and the person behind its architectural vision. Denis Kitaev Building Vesper’s groundwork Born and raised in Moscow, Denis Kitaev started his career in banking after graduating from the Financial Academy. Soon, however, he began his transition to the property sector. Denis Kitaev’s first role in the sphere was overseeing construction at a gas company, where he was also responsible for non-core assets. After that, Kitaev moved fully into the field and for several years occupied senior roles in construction and real estate development companies. This accumulated experience, combined with a growing passion for the industry, led Denis Kitaev to co-found his first business, Evocom, with his future long-term business partner Boris Azarenko. Kitaev became the CEO and was in charge of strategy and day-to-day execution. Evocom delivered several residential and office projects. The venture gave Kitaev the opportunity to build expertise and accumulate the capital that would pave the way for the next chapter. Vesper: How it started Evocom worked across various segments of the real estate market, delivering both residential and commercial projects. This experience gave Denis Kitaev a comprehensive understanding of the industry and its emerging trends. As the market evolved, his attention was increasingly drawn to the luxury residential sector, which in the early 2010s was still taking shape. Kitaev identified a clear imbalance between supply and demand. Truly high-quality projects were scarce, while properties distinguished by thoughtful architecture, exceptional finishes, and a high level of service were selling rapidly. Affluent buyers often struggled to find homes that fully met their expectations. Observing these shifts in consumer preferences, Kitaev concluded that the market was ready for a new approach. Luxury homebuyers no longer viewed real estate solely as a symbol of status. Increasingly, they were seeking quality of life, comfort, privacy, architectural value, and long-term investment potential. This realization became a turning point in Kitaev’s career. In 2012, together with Boris Azarenko, he made the decision to focus exclusively on the development of luxury residential properties. Their ambition was not simply to build expensive homes, but to create distinctive living environments defined by exceptional architecture, high-quality finishes, and enduring value – projects capable of preserving and enhancing their appeal for decades to come. With this aim, Denis Kitaev defined a set of standards that continue to shape Vesper’s work to this day: Full finish is the mark of true luxury. Russian real estate market analysts credit Denis Kitaev’s team with making this approach a broader trend. Between 2011 and 2016, the share of developer-finished properties in the luxury segment rose from 6% to 15%. By 2025, fully finished properties accounted for more than 20% of the market. Repurposing historic office buildings into residences. Vesper targets prime properties in central locations. It acquires architecturally significant office buildings and carefully revitalizes them. Functional planning is built around how people live. Vesper’s layouts are designed around comfort, privacy, and functionality. Bedrooms are separated from the main living areas and form private suites, each with its own walk-in wardrobe and en-suite bathroom, creating a self-contained personal space for every resident. The kitchen’s working area is set apart from the dining and entertaining zones, while many residences also include dedicated service quarters for household staff, complete with a kitchen, bathroom, and rest area. Attention to architecture, design, and materials. Denis Kitaev works with premium materials and collaborates with the world's leading architects and designers. Among them are Architects of Invention, a London-based studio known for its innovative approach to architecture and urbanism; Jean-Louis Deniot, the French designer who chose Nabokov as his debut project in Russia; ODA Architecture, celebrated for its convention-defying projects; Aukett Swanke, whose portfolio includes the restoration of the Statue of Liberty in New York; and Rockwell Group, whose work is driven by the interplay of art and technology. Vesper has worked with GAFA Architects, SPEECH, Meganom, and Tsymaylo Lyashenko & Partners. These studios were included in Russian Forbes' ranking of the 30 most successful architecture firms in Moscow in 2023. Denis Vladimirovich Kitaev in Vesper As head of operations, Denis Kitaev oversaw the execution of approved plans and conducted ongoing financial and economic analysis. Beyond the operational side, Denis Kitaev took personal charge of the product: architecture, design, finishes, and the aesthetic identity of the company's projects. Until 2022, Denis Kitaev was involved in developing the architectural and planning solutions for Vesper's properties. In 2022, Kitaev stepped back from his operational role and transitioned to the shareholder position. The portfolio of Denis Vladimirovich Kitaev Over the course of more than a decade, Vesper has delivered a series of projects that reflect the principles Denis Kitaev defined from the outset. Vesper's debut was the restoration of a rental house designed by Gustav Gelrikh, after whom the project takes its name: Gelrikh’s House. The architects, whose work was coordinated by Denis Kitaev, preserved the facades, oriel windows, and neoclassical relief ornaments. The interiors were designed using Jurassic marble and high-quality materials from Europe. Bulgakov is a new-build on Patriarch's Ponds conceived in the spirit of classical Haussmann-era Parisian architecture. Natural stone facades, French balconies, and bay windows are matched inside by antique parquet, marble windowsills, and plasterwork. St. Nickolas is a landmark renovation of a 19th-century heritage building on a street near the Kremlin. It is the first deluxe restoration project of its kind in Moscow and one of the most ambitious luxury heritage restoration and adaptive reuse projects in Europe. Chekhov is a boutique house adjacent to the Hermitage Garden. About 30% of its exterior is finished in architectural bronze hand-patinated at the Italian Secco factory. The architects sought to make the building a natural extension of the park. Particular attention was paid to materials: wood, copper, and stone were chosen for their timeless quality. Nabokov is a minimalist boutique residence. Its exterior is a composition of 42,800 natural stone pieces paired with Swiss-made Optiwhite panoramic glazing. A lobby installation of 300 handcrafted Lasvit butterflies and a monumental marble staircase anchor the interior. Sovremennik is a project located on Chistye Prudy. It combines a restored 19th-century income house with a contemporary fifth floor. Triangular bay windows with panoramic glazing open onto a private landscaped courtyard. Bunin is the renovation of a century-old building on Plushchikha Street. The white facade with arched windows and French balconies was restored with precision. The entrance halls are finished in terrazzo assembled from marble, granite, and semi-precious stones. Brodsky is a waterfront house in Khamovniki. The building is surrounded by its own landscaped park. The facade is a composition of white arches, with the largest openings facing the Moscow River. Interiors feature marble and Ebony & Co oak flooring. Cloud Nine is a project of careful renovation of four buildings. Each has its own architectural character – classical or industrial – and history, but together they are organized into a balanced ensemble. The courtyards are laid in Versailles-style mosaics. Vesper Tverskaya is a serviced apartment complex conceived in partnership with Fairmont. The ensemble is located on Moscow's main street and integrates naturally into the historical streetscape and the city’s infrastructure – literally, since the building incorporates the entrance area to Mayakovskaya metro station. The apartments are delivered fully furnished and finished, down to the lighting and accessories. The building is serviced to five-star hotel standards. Lucky is Kitaev’s first large-scale sociocultural residential quarter. It combines eight new residential towers with facades clad in platinum-toned anodized aluminum, and seven carefully restored heritage buildings housing restaurants, a farm market, an arts center, and a children’s educational center. Denis Kitaev at Lucky Quarter Levenson is an ongoing restoration of the legendary Alexander Levenson printing house on Patriarch's Ponds, originally built to a design by Fyodor Shekhtel. The Art Nouveau mansion is complemented by a new architectural ensemble designed by Tsymaylo Lyashenko and Partners. Vesper Pogodinskaya is another boutique complex currently under development. It is located near the Novodevichy Monastery. Its two buildings are clad in white and green glazed ceramic panels that shift in appearance with the changing light. The expected completion year is 2030. Vesper Kutuzovsky is a large residential quarter under construction on Kutuzovsky Avenue. Ten buildings will be united by a shared concept: classical elegance combined with contemporary laconic forms. Terracotta-graphite cladding on the lower floors echoes the architectural language of the avenue, and the warm gold-sand finishes of the top floors gesture toward the nearby business neighborhood of Moscow City. Denis Kitaev’s company has several ambitious developments in the pipeline. These include another residential neighborhood on Shabolovka, a food industrial cluster in Troitsky District, and a 65-acre development in Dorogomilovo combining residential and office space in equal measure. Awards and recognition The work carried out under Denis Kitaev’s leadership has earned the company recognition in the industry. For example, Vesper was ranked first in the premium category of the Developers' Confidence Rating compiled by Russian Forbes in 2023. Individual projects have also received international and Russian awards, as well as mentions in industry publications: St. Nickolas received prizes in heritage and renovation categories from the International Property Awards and FIABCI, the International Real Estate Federation. Cloud Nine got an award from the Architectural Council of Moscow as the best house in the premium comfort housing category, and another one from the mayor, Sergey Sobyanin. It was voted by the citizens as the best project in its category in 2022. A year prior to that, Brodsky earned the same honor, and Denis Kitaev personally received the award from the mayor. In addition, Brodsky was included in the list of Moscow’s 30 landmark buildings showcased at The Shchusev Museum of Architecture in 2022, alongside the Luzhniki Stadium and GES-2 cultural venue. The Russian edition of Forbes named Nabokov among the world’s most luxurious real estate. The model of Vesper Pogodinskaya was exhibited at the Zotov Center’s Inside the City. The Art of Architectural Models event. Denis Kitaev’s cultural collaborations Denis Kitaev believes that architecture and art are inseparable, and that living spaces should inspire their residents. A part of Vesper’s philosophy is the integration of art into its spaces and the city's cultural life. The company routinely collaborates with museums. Vesper Tverskaya’s penthouse has hosted pre-auction sales for auction houses Vladey and ON, as well as numerous concerts and parties. Most recently, it served as the venue for an exclusive reception preceding conductor Teodor Currentzis and his musicAeterna orchestra's late-night concert at Mayakovskaya metro station. At St. Nickolas, an exhibition organized in collaboration with Sotheby’s took place in October 2016. In 2020, MIRRA Gallery staged 60 pieces of collectible design across three rooms in Nabokov, inspired by three novels by Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita, The Defense, and King, Queen, Knave. And at one point, Damien Hirst’s installation titled Pharmacy occupied the Levenson house. In addition, art is literally embedded in Vesper’s projects. For example, the company’s sales house within the Vesper Tverskaya complex and the lobby of Lucky feature works by contemporary artists.

Written by David Mahler, Recovery Coach | Sober Companion | Addiction Awareness Facilitator David Mahler is a Board-Certified Addiction Recovery Coach dedicated to helping individuals and families overcome the challenges of substance use disorder. Combining professional expertise with lived experience, he empowers people to rebuild their lives and find lasting hope in recovery. Summer is often associated with freedom, relaxation, and celebration. The weather improves, the days grow longer, and social calendars quickly begin to fill with beach trips, pool parties, barbecues, concerts, vacations, and holiday weekends. For many people, it is the most anticipated season of the year. But for individuals navigating recovery from alcohol or substance use, summer can also become one of the most emotionally challenging seasons to manage. Behind the images of gatherings and celebrations often sits an uncomfortable reality: alcohol and substances frequently become the focal point of summer socializing. What may appear harmless or “normal” to others can create anxiety, temptation, emotional exhaustion, and isolation for someone working hard to protect their sobriety. The pressure to participate, the fear of feeling left out, and memories tied to past summer behaviors can quietly begin to wear down even strong recovery foundations. This is where the value of a recovery coach becomes especially important. What is a recovery coach, and why do you need one now? If you have ever wondered what a recovery coach is and how they differ from a sponsor or therapist, the answer lies in their actionable, real-time approach. A recovery coach provides support, structure, accountability, and perspective during a season that can easily become unstructured and unpredictable. Summer routines often shift dramatically. Vacations interrupt schedules. Long weekends create opportunities for impulsive decisions. Late nights and social gatherings can slowly pull individuals away from the healthy disciplines that helped stabilize their recovery in the first place. Even individuals who are doing well can find themselves caught off guard. Navigating relapse triggers in summer and social settings One of the most important roles of a recovery coach is helping clients prepare before difficult situations arise. Recovery rarely succeeds by accident, particularly during high-risk seasons. Entering summer without a clear plan can leave individuals vulnerable when triggers unexpectedly appear. A coach can help identify the people, places, and situations that may increase emotional stress or temptation. Certain social circles, parties, bars, vacations, or even family events may require new boundaries to protect long-term recovery. Coaching also provides practical preparation. A recovery coach can help clients create a personalized summer action plan that includes accountability check-ins, healthy routines, sober activities, and clear coping strategies for stressful situations. Just as importantly, a coach can help clients develop an exit plan before attending events where alcohol or substances may be present. Sometimes the healthiest decision is leaving early. Sometimes it means attending with sober support. Other times it means declining an invitation altogether. Preparing these decisions ahead of time removes pressure in the moment and helps clients respond intentionally rather than emotionally. The benefits of sober companion services for travel and major events For major summer milestones or trips, learning how to stay sober on vacation can feel overwhelming. For some individuals, having a recovery coach serve as a sober companion during vacations, weddings, business trips, or large social events can be a true game-changer. A sober companion provides real-time support in environments that may otherwise feel overwhelming or unsafe. Simply knowing that someone is there solely to support and protect recovery can significantly reduce anxiety and strengthen confidence. That distinction matters. A recovery coach is not simply a friend reminding someone to “take it easy,” nor are they a family member who may unintentionally become emotionally compromised during a social event. Loved ones often care deeply, but they can also get caught up in the atmosphere of the moment. A recovery coach remains focused on one priority: helping the client protect and strengthen their long-term recovery. At Ground Zero Recovery Coaching, we often remind clients that relapse rarely happens suddenly. In many cases, it begins emotionally and mentally long before substances are ever picked up. Recovery coaches are trained to recognize emotional warning signs, behavioral shifts, rationalization patterns, and the subtle thought processes that can quietly place someone at risk. Summer environments can unintentionally fuel those risks. Longer days, social media comparisons, disrupted routines, and increased social pressure can create emotional vulnerability, even for individuals with strong sobriety. Many clients begin to romanticize past experiences, convincing themselves that “this summer will be different.” Others may feel isolated watching friends and family participate in activities they once associated with drinking or substance use. A skilled recovery coach helps clients challenge those thought patterns while also helping them redefine what healthy enjoyment and connection can look like. How to have fun without alcohol: Redefining your summer lifestyle One of the most transformative aspects of recovery coaching is helping individuals rewire their understanding of fun, connection, and fulfillment. Many people entering recovery genuinely ask themselves how to have fun without alcohol, believing that substances were necessary to relax, socialize, celebrate, or escape stress. Summer often magnifies those beliefs because so many memories and traditions are attached to alcohol or substance use. But sustainable recovery is not simply about avoiding substances. It is about building a life that no longer depends on them. A recovery coach helps clients discover healthier ways to experience joy, connection, and purpose. That may include fitness goals, beach walks, fishing, travel with accountability, volunteering, faith-based activities, wellness communities, or sober social groups. It may also involve helping clients reconnect with hobbies, passions, and relationships that were neglected during active addiction. Recovery should never feel like punishment or isolation. In many ways, recovery coaching helps individuals rediscover how to fully live again. Establishing long-term structure and accountability Another critical aspect of coaching during the summer months is accountability. Summer often creates a false sense of freedom that can gradually weaken structure and discipline. Recovery coaching helps clients stay grounded in their goals while also providing consistent encouragement during emotionally challenging periods. A good recovery coach becomes an anchor during seasons that may otherwise feel emotionally unpredictable. They help clients slow down impulsive thinking, process emotions more clearly, and make decisions aligned with their long-term goals rather than temporary emotions. They also celebrate progress that others may never fully understand. Sometimes the greatest victory is simply making it through one event sober. The truth is, recovery during summer does not have to become a season of fear or deprivation. With the right support system in place, it can become a season of growth, confidence, healing, and personal transformation. Individuals can learn that meaningful connection, relaxation, joy, and fulfillment are all possible without alcohol or substances. Recovery coaching is not about controlling someone’s life. It is about helping individuals build a life worth protecting. Take the next step with ground zero recovery coaching As summer approaches, many people prepare for vacations, parties, and long weekends. For those in recovery, however, it may also be the ideal time to strengthen accountability, establish a clear plan, and ensure they are not walking into difficult situations unsupported. Having a recovery coach by your side can often make the difference between simply getting through the summer and truly thriving within it. To learn more about recovery coaching, personalized sober companion services, and dedicated family recovery support, visit Ground Zero Recovery Coaching here. Follow me on LinkedIn for more info! Read more from David Mahler David Mahler, Recovery Coach | Sober Companion | Addiction Awareness Facilitator My coaching approach is rooted in building trust and openness with clients, drawing from my experience with both those struggling with substance use disorder and their families. My coaching journey through my own battle with substance abuse, my career's survival through national tragedy, and my relentless support in my daughter's fight against substance abuse have equipped me with invaluable insights into the recovery process.

Written by NaRon Tillman, Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Pastor, Educator NaRon Tillman is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and mindfulness educator helping people navigate leadership, personal growth, and the age of artificial intelligence. He is the CEO of Principal Matters, Inc., host of the Walk In Victory Podcast, Director of Urban Yogis, and author of Awakening I AM: Internal Awakening in an AI Age. Most conversations about artificial intelligence begin with prompts. What should you ask, and how should you phrase it? What input creates the best output? Yet long before machines responded to prompts, human beings were responding to them. Our families, communities, fears, ambitions, and experiences all shape how we think, react, and make decisions. Many of these influences operate quietly beneath our awareness, guiding our behavior long before we consciously choose a direction. The challenge of the AI age may not be learning how to prompt machines. It may be learning how to recognize the prompts already shaping us. The lessons that taught me this did not come from technology. They came from my father, my mother, the communities that raised me, and the students I would later teach. Looking back, I can see that awareness was never just a mindfulness practice. It was the beginning of understanding who was driving the conversation within. The first prompts we ever received "David, to be aware is to be alive." My father used to say that to me all the time. David is my middle name, and whenever we spoke, he rarely missed an opportunity to remind me. As a child, I thought he was talking about paying attention to my surroundings. Watch where you are going. Be mindful of your environment. Stay out of trouble. Years later, I realized he was teaching me something much deeper. My parents divorced when I was young. My father moved away, first to Washington and later to Virginia. Much of our relationship happened through phone conversations. Whenever we spoke, he would ask, "What are you thinking about?" Like many teenagers, my answer was usually, "Nothing." His response never changed. "An empty wagon makes a whole lot of noise." At the time, I hated hearing it. Today, when we speak, we often say it together. Looking back, I realize my father was not trying to teach me information. He was teaching me awareness. My mother had her own way of teaching it. There were no grocery lists, no shortcuts, no excuses. I grew up in a family that loved to celebrate. One day, my mother sent me to the store to gather ingredients for one of my sister's birthday parties. I returned convinced I had everything, but I forgot the chicken bouillon. Back to the store I went. The frustrating part was that it happened more than once. Every time I rushed, every time I assumed, every time I stopped paying attention, I found myself making another trip. Years later, I realized something profound. I thought I was saving time. I was actually prolonging the experience because I was not paying attention. Years later, I realized something my mother understood long before I did: what we practice repeatedly becomes easier. My mother was not teaching memory. She was training attention. Learning where to pay attention When I teach movement classes today, I see the same principle at work. We repeat many of the same movements week after week, not because we lack creativity, but because familiarity creates confidence. As movements become familiar, people stop worrying about what comes next and begin noticing what is happening within them. A tighter shoulder. A deeper breath. A stronger balance. The repetition creates space for awareness. Years later, I became involved with Urban Yogis, an organization born through the vision of Erica Ford, Life Camp, and Deepak Chopra. The mission was simple but powerful, bringing mindfulness, movement, and emotional regulation practices into communities affected by violence, trauma, and chronic stress. When I introduced the program to schools, I often shared a simple observation. We spend a lot of time telling young people to pay attention, yet we spend far less time teaching them how. I remember teaching at a school in Brooklyn early in my career. The students were energetic, restless, and often difficult to engage. Then one day, something changed. We completed a full five-minute meditation. The students began calling it "sleep time." They were not sleeping. They were resetting. At first, I thought I was teaching a classroom full of restless children. Over time, I realized I was looking at younger versions of environments I knew well. I grew up in communities where awareness often meant survival. You learned to read a room. You learned to recognize danger. You learned to pay attention to things many people never had to consider. Because I came from similar circumstances, I understood the struggle. What I lacked were the tools to transfer what I knew. Like many community leaders, I had spent years helping through backpack drives, food giveaways, and community programs. Those things matter, and they always will. But Urban Yogis gave me something more to offer. It gave me tools that helped people develop awareness itself. When those students called meditation "sleep time," they were not sleeping. They were experiencing stillness. Perhaps for the first time that day, their attention no longer had to scan for threats, distractions, or interruptions. That moment changed my teaching forever. It taught me that awareness is not simply about paying attention. It is about learning where attention belongs. From prompt to pattern I grew up during the height of the War on Drugs. Hip-hop was not just music. It was culture, education, aspiration, and identity. The messages we consumed shaped how we understood success. Win. Hustle. Get ahead. Never stop moving. Those prompts became the rhythm of my childhood and eventually the soundtrack of much of my adult life. At first, those messages felt empowering. Later, I learned something difficult. The same mindset that helps you achieve success can eventually blind you to what success is costing you. We become so focused on winning that we stop paying attention. We neglect relationships. We ignore warning signs. We sacrifice presence for progress. One of the most painful lessons of my life was realizing that winning and awareness are not the same thing. You can achieve goals while losing touch with yourself. You can accumulate success while neglecting the people who matter most. The prompts become patterns. The patterns become habits. The habits become identity. Awareness begins when we ask, whose voice am I following? The culture, my fears, my ambitions, or my own? The environment is always prompting us In 1994, I was living with my father in Norfolk, Virginia, after being kicked out of college. Michael Jordan had retired, and the Knicks were in the NBA Finals. For lifelong Knicks fans, it felt like destiny. Then O.J. Simpson happened, and the Knicks lost that series. Years passed. Then this year's Finals run happened. For the first time in decades, it felt possible again. That is why I could not put my phone down. I listened to interviews, podcasts, commentary, predictions, supporters, and critics. I went to sleep listening. I woke up listening. Then something happened. The content stopped being about basketball. The algorithms noticed my attention and began offering me more. Political commentary, current events, more opinions, more outrage, more stimulation. One prompt became dozens, then hundreds. My creativity suffered. My sleep suffered. My mood shifted. Because every piece of content felt important in the moment, I barely noticed it happening. The environment was directing my attention before I realized it. Why do negative things capture us There is another reason awareness matters. Human beings tend to give greater weight to negative experiences than positive ones. We remember criticism longer than praise. We replay failures more than successes. I first noticed this growing up in church. One of my earliest memories involved a young woman my age becoming pregnant and being asked to sit apart from the rest of us. Years later, what stayed with me was not the theology. It was the feeling, the shame, the separation. Looking back, I realize that awareness is not only about noticing what captures our attention. It is also about noticing the filters through which we interpret our experiences. Sometimes the prompt is not the event itself. Sometimes the prompt is the meaning we attach to it. Awareness gives us an opportunity to examine both. Attention is not awareness Many people use the words attention and awareness interchangeably. They are not the same thing. Attention is directional, whereas awareness is observational. Attention focuses on an object, while awareness notices where attention is going. When I was consumed by the Knicks playoff run, I had attention, lots of it. I could tell you every statistic, every interview, every prediction, and every opinion. What I lacked was awareness. I was not noticing my declining creativity, my disrupted sleep, or how easily one piece of content led to another. Attention had been captured. Awareness had stepped away. That distinction matters because many of us assume that being informed means being aware. It does not. Attention gathers information. Awareness creates understanding. Awareness creates a pause Artificial intelligence responds to prompts. Human beings do too. The difference is that awareness creates a pause. Without awareness, prompt leads to reaction. With awareness, prompt leads to reflection, then response. That space changes everything. It is where choice lives. It is where identity is formed. It is where transformation begins. Continue the conversation Attention gathers information. Awareness creates understanding. Before reacting today, pause and ask yourself, what prompt am I answering right now? The answer may reveal more than the reaction ever could. If this idea resonates with you, continue exploring the relationship between awareness, identity, and intentional living through Awakening I AM: Internal Awakening in an AI Age and the conversations shared on the Walk In Victory Podcast. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from NaRon Tillman NaRon Tillman, Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Pastor, Educator NaRon Tillman is a leader in mindfulness, personal transformation, and human potential in the age of artificial intelligence. He is CEO of Principal Matters, Inc., Pastor of One Ministries, Director of Urban Yogis, and host of the Walk In Victory Podcast. As the author of Awakening I AM: Internal Awakening in an AI Age, his mission is to help people reconnect with their authentic identity and harness the power of intentional thinking.

Written by Hayley Su Buchanan, Creator of The Extra Ordinary Way™ & Founder, The Embodiment Lounge Hayley Su transforms how successful women build wealth from forcing to embodying. Creator of The Extra Ordinary Way™ and founder of The Embodiment Lounge, she combines 30 years of healing expertise with Human Design to teach that the nervous system is our wealth technology. The truth about building a business your way. There’s a narrative that gets sold to women all the time: Start your own business. Be a solopreneur. It’s easier than working for someone else. Let me tell you, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Being a solo CEO doesn’t mean freedom from responsibility. It means intimacy with it. Your mind doesn’t switch off. It expands. You are constantly thinking. Constantly creating. “What if I did this?” “What if I changed that?” “How would this work?” “What if it doesn’t?” Your business doesn’t live outside of you. It lives within you. With that comes everything: the vision, the expansion, the growth, but also the doubt, the pressure, the “what if I can’t cover everything this month?” This is the reality of the Femme SOLO CEO. I started my first business at 21. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I knew I was meant for something different. I built. I grew. I closed. I rebuilt. Eventually, I created a six-figure wellness spa. From the outside, it looked like success, but behind the scenes it was long days, physical exhaustion, seven days a week. No boundaries. No rest. Just push. Push harder. Grow more. Do more. I almost lost my pregnancy during that time because I was still pushing. Yes, I did it. I built the business. I made the money. But at what cost? My health. My body. My sense of ease. I had completely burned out my nervous system building success. I learned that wealth created through pressure always comes with a price. When your nervous system is dysregulated, your body doesn't feel safe holding more, so you unconsciously sabotage or cap your success to stay within your comfort zone. I had created success, but it wasn’t ease-filled. Looking back, I can see something clearly now: I wasn’t just building a business. I was proving something. Proving to the world that there was a different way. This was the early days of energy work and embodiment in business. Proving that I could succeed in an industry that didn’t yet exist. Proving to my father that I was worthy. That I could do it. That I was enough. Like so many women, I thought doing it all myself was the answer. I’m a Manifesting Generator 2/4 in Human Design. I move fast. I build fast. I see things quickly. So I told myself, “It’s quicker if I just do it.” But faster isn’t always better. Independence isn’t the same as alignment. Everything changed when I stepped away. When I sold my business, I didn’t just take time off, I came back to myself. That’s when I discovered Human Design and, for the first time, I understood why I had built the way I had and why it had cost me so much. Human Design showed me where I was forcing, where I was over-giving, where I was trying to be someone I wasn’t designed to be. It showed me my defined centres, my areas of mastery, and my open centres, where I was taking on pressure that wasn’t even mine. That changed everything. Here’s some truth no one tells you about being a solo CEO: It’s not just about strategy. It’s about self-awareness. If you have an open head centre, you are constantly receiving ideas, thoughts, and inspiration, not all of them yours. Without awareness, that becomes overwhelm. If you have an open root, you feel pressure to perform, to produce, to keep up. Without awareness, that becomes burnout. If you are undefined emotionally, you may be amplifying everyone else’s feelings, making decisions from intensity instead of truth. Yet, we build businesses without ever understanding how we are designed to operate. We follow someone else’s blueprint, someone else’s pace, someone else’s way. Then we wonder why it feels so hard. What if it’s not meant to be this hard? What if you’re not doing it wrong, you’ve just been doing it someone else’s way? The Femme SOLO CEO is not here to prove anything. She is here to build in alignment with who she actually is. She understands that her business is an extension of her energy. That her capacity to receive determines her capacity to grow. That success is not built through force, but through awareness. Most importantly, she understands the power of receiving. As women, we are taught to give, to nurture, to hold everything together. We are everything to everyone, and somewhere along the way, we forget how to receive: receive support, receive guidance, receive ease, receive wealth. But your business will only grow to the level you are willing to receive, not just money, but help, support, expansion, and space. This is where The Extra Ordinary comes in, because success isn’t something you chase. It’s something you begin to notice: in your body, in your breath, in the small moments where things just work. The aligned client. The idea that lands effortlessly. The moment you choose rest instead of pushing, and everything still moves. The Extra Ordinary is always there, but when you’re in survival mode, you miss it. This is why I now work as an Energetic Midwife of the Extra Ordinary. I help successful women birth themselves from force-based business into embodied wealth. Because the deepest business strategy isn't in your head. It's in your body. So what does it actually look like to build as a Femme SOLO CEO? It looks like knowing your design, honouring your energy, making decisions that feel clean in your body, letting go of proving, allowing support, and choosing ease-filled expansion over forced growth. It looks like trusting that your way is enough because you get one life, one experience in this body. The question becomes: Are you building a business that lights you up, or one that slowly disconnects you from yourself? You don't need to hustle harder. You need to trust yourself deeper. When you finally build from your body's wisdom instead of your mind's force, you don't just create a business, you birth yourself into the woman who was always meant to receive everything she desires. Click this link to start reconnecting with your body and the Extra Ordinary already available to you. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Hayley Su Buchanan Hayley Su Buchanan, Creator of The Extra Ordinary Way™ & Founder, The Embodiment Lounge Hayley Su is the creator of The Extra Ordinary Way™, a revolutionary movement transforming how successful women build wealth from forcing to embodying. After her own journey from 6-figure spa owner to burnout and back to embodied abundance, she now combines 30 years of healing expertise with Human Design and nervous system regulation. Hayley Su teaches that the nervous system is our most powerful wealth-generating technology. She leads The Extra Ordinary Wealth Method™ program and The Embodiment Lounge community from her manor house in the UK, where she's building a movement to spread The Extra Ordinary Way globally.

Written by Masithokoze Moyo, Aviation Professional-Entrepreneur and Philanthropist Masithokoze Moyo is the Founder and CEO of Angel Wings Aviation and the Masithokoze Foundation, combining her expertise in aviation with a mission to empower youth and girls in under-resourced communities through skills development and mentorship. Where pain meets purpose, something enduring is born: a voice tempered by struggle, disciplined by experience, and lifted by hope. This book is far more than a sequence of chapters, it is a living testimony, an intimate dialogue between destiny and discipline, ancestry and aspiration. In Rising from the Ashes, My Existence Does Not Begin with Success, and My Life with My Parents, Masithokoze Moyo invites us into a sacred literary space where the African story is rendered with honesty, courage, and rare grace. At its core, this book is a dedication to the African child, that child whose dreams are so often conceived amid contradiction, whose hopes rise against the weight of history, hardship, and inherited silence. It is also a tribute to Masithokoze Moyo herself and to her parents, Cde Elliott Mabedla Maphenduka Moyo and Simangaliphi Mabuza Maphenduka, figures of nurture, conscience, and continuity. Within this dedication resides a profound African truth: a child is not raised by chance, but by values, not sustained by wealth alone, but by wisdom, love, and a deeply rooted sense of identity. Chapter One, Rising from the Ashes, speaks eloquently of rebirth. It reminds us that ashes do not mark the end of fire but bear witness to transformation. In these pages, the reader encounters resilience as an African inheritance, a quiet, steadfast strength forged in struggle, memory, and hope. It teaches that from loss may emerge vision, and from brokenness, a more refined and enduring sense of self. Chapter Two, My Existence Does Not Begin with Success, stands as a philosophical and moral triumph. It challenges a world preoccupied with outcomes to return to the question of origins. Here, Masithokoze affirms a timeless truth: human worth precedes achievement. Existence is sacred long before applause, identity is valid long before validation arrives. This chapter will resonate deeply with young Africans navigating a global culture that too often confuses value with visibility and success with survival. Chapter Three, My Life with My Parents, is a tender homage to family, legacy, and the shaping of becoming. It reveals how parental love, discipline, sacrifice, and example quietly form the architecture of destiny. Through this chapter, we are reminded that behind every purposeful child stands a story of intentional parenting, of roots that hold firm even as wings gather the courage to fly. Taken together, this book is African in soul and universal in its reach. It transcends borders and speaks to our shared humanity, to parents and children, leaders and learners, Africans at home and in the diaspora, and to a wider global community in search of authentic narratives of hope, identity, and becoming. I commend this book to Africans everywhere as both a mirror and a map, a mirror through which to see ourselves with honesty, and a map by which to navigate life with dignity. I also offer it to the global readership as a meaningful contribution to world literature, one that enlarges understanding, deepens empathy, and celebrates the indomitable human spirit through an unmistakably African lens. May this work be read, shared, taught, and treasured. May it awaken purpose in the young, restore pride in the old, and remind us all that from ashes, greatness may yet rise, and that existence, when anchored in values, will always find its way to meaning. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Masithokoze Moyo Masithokoze Moyo, Aviation Professional-Entrepreneur and Philanthropist Masithokoze Moyo is a Zimbabwean-British aviation professional, entrepreneur, and public figure who gained international media attention following a high-profile banking error. She is the founder and CEO of TripleM Group Holdings, which trades as Angel Wings Aviation, a private jet charter brokerage firm based in the UK.

Written by Taryn Lee Johnston, Publisher, Book Writing Partner, Strategist Taryn Lee Johnston is a UK publisher, writing partner, and integrated media consultant specialising in helping high-achieving professionals write and publish books that build authority. She is the founder of FCM Publishing, Chronos Publishing, and Taryn Lee Johnston Integrated Media Consultancy. Most senior professionals reach a point where the next level of opportunities stops arriving. You assume the timing is wrong, or that you need to be more visible, or that excellence will eventually find its audience. None of those are the actual problem. You have built a career that anyone outside it would recognise as a serious success. Your work is strong, your reputation among the people who know you is solid, and you are paid well for what you do. Yet something has stopped moving. The next level of opportunities you expected to be reaching by now are not reaching you. The board appointments, the partnership offers, the invitations to speak at the events that genuinely matter, the seven-figure deals, the calls from journalists looking for the authoritative voice on a story, all of these continue to happen in your field, just not to you. When this becomes apparent, the natural assumption is that the issue must be one of timing. Excellence eventually gets recognised, the thinking goes, and visibility is a function of doing good work over a long enough period. This is one of the more comforting beliefs in professional life, and unfortunately, it is, in most cases, wrong. What you have hit is the bottleneck between expertise and authority. It is the most common career plateau among genuinely successful people, and the most misdiagnosed. What the bottleneck actually is Expertise is what you have built. It is the depth of your knowledge, the quality of your work, and the body of experience that let you do something well. Authority is something different. It is how the world sees what you have built, and specifically, whether the people who matter in your field recognise you as one of the voices that defines what good looks like. These two things are related, but they develop on entirely different tracks. Expertise tends to deepen steadily through the work itself, which is why you have so much of it. Authority builds through a different set of mechanisms altogether, none of which the work itself triggers. You can be an extraordinary expert with little authority, and you can be a moderate expert with substantial authority. Most senior professionals understand this in the abstract and underestimate how much it matters in practice. The reason the bottleneck appears at the stage it does is that expertise alone gets you to a certain level, after which it stops compounding. The work you do becomes invisible to the people who could open the next set of doors because they do not see the work directly. What they see are the markers of your standing, which is to say, your authority. Without those markers, you remain inside the level you have already reached, doing excellent work that the right people never quite hear about. Why doing more of what got you here stops working The instinct when something stalls is to lean harder into what has worked before. For senior professionals, what worked before was the work itself. The discipline of doing it brilliantly, the long hours, the relentless improvement, the focus on the craft. That instinct served you well for two decades, and it is the instinct that brought you to where you are now. It is also the instinct that, at this stage, fails to move you any further. The reason is structural. The senior level of any field is full of people who are excellent at what they do. Excellence is the entry condition, not the differentiator. The professionals who break through to the next layer of opportunity are not the ones doing better work than their peers, because at this level, the differences in work quality are too small to read from the outside. They are the ones who have done something different, which is to make their thinking visible in a form that travels independently of them. This is the move most senior professionals never quite get to. Not because they could not, but because the work itself is so absorbing, and the assumption that excellent work will eventually be enough is so embedded that the question of how to step outside the work and build something that represents it never arises. What actually moves someone across the bottleneck There is a small category of professional moves that genuinely transition someone from expertise to authority, and they share a common feature, which is that they exist independently of you. They are things you build that travel into rooms you have never been in, and that carry your thinking with them when they get there. A signature talk delivered at the right event is one of these. Original research published in a respected forum is another, as is a defining piece of intellectual property, like a framework or methodology that other people adopt and reference. The artefact that does this work most reliably, however, and for the broadest range of senior professionals, is a book. Not any book, and not a book treated as a marketing project or a legacy piece, but a book that has been written with strategic intent, structured with architectural rigour, and published through a route that gets it taken seriously by the people who matter in your field. The reason a book does this work better than the alternatives comes down to durability and reach. A talk reaches the room it is delivered in, and possibly the recording afterward, if anyone bothers to watch it back. Research tends to circulate within a discipline rather than across one. A framework only carries you once other people start using it, which can take years. A book sits permanently on the shelf of every reader, gets referenced in articles and interviews, opens conversations with people who read it years after publication, and continues working long after every other piece of marketing you have ever done has disappeared. It is the only artefact in this category that compounds indefinitely. A book also does something the other artefacts struggle to do. It establishes the shape of your thinking on a topic in a way that becomes the reference point for everyone else in your field who works on similar questions. People stop forming their views and then comparing them to yours, and start forming their views in relation to yours. That is what authority actually is. The conditions that make the shift happen Saying that a book is the answer is the easy part. What separates the senior professionals who successfully cross the bottleneck from the ones who stall is not whether they decide to write a book. Most decide to. What separates them is whether they get the conditions right. The first condition is clarity about what the book is for. A book written without a defined strategic purpose tends to drift into something that pleases the author and serves nobody else. The strongest books at this level are written with a sharp answer to the question, “What is this book supposed to do for the person reading it, and for the person whose name is on the cover?” The second condition is honesty about what the book has to be to do its job. Most senior professionals, left to their own devices, end up writing a book about everything they know. The books that change careers are the books that focus on one thing, said properly, in a way that nobody else has said it. The third condition is publication that takes the book seriously. A book that enters the world without architecture behind it, without an imprint, and without the structural backing that signals to a discerning reader that it is worth their attention, will struggle to do the work it could otherwise have done. The fourth condition, the one most often underestimated, is the editorial and strategic thinking that sits behind the work from the beginning. Writing a book that successfully repositions a career is not the same discipline as being excellent at your existing work. It is its own form of craft, and the senior professionals who get it right are usually the ones who recognised that early. A final thought The expertise-to-authority bottleneck is rarely solved by the things that got you to it. It is solved by recognising that the next stage of a senior career runs on different mechanics, and that those mechanics reward the building of durable, public-facing artefacts over the accumulation of more activity. A book is the most accessible, most durable, and most consistently effective of those artefacts. The professionals who understand this earlier rather than later spend the next decade in conversations they were previously locked out of, with audiences who knew them only by name before, and at price points that reflect the standing they have built. The question is rarely whether to write the book. It is when you decide that staying inside the bottleneck is more comfortable than the work it takes to step out of it. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Taryn Lee Johnston Taryn Lee Johnston, Publisher, Book Writing Partner, Strategist Taryn Lee Johnston is an independent publisher, UK writing partner and thought leader on artificial intelligence in publishing. Founder of FCM Publishing and Chronos Publishing, she has worked with clients including Tony Robinson OBE and Bob Champion CBE. Named Independent Publisher of the Year 2024/25/26, her authors have achieved six consecutive Business Books of the Year shortlistings. She is also a TEDx speaker and a former University of Lincoln lecturer.

Written by Joanne Angel Barry Colon, Certified Wholistic Personal Trainer, Intuitive Healer & Cosmic Energy Reader Joanne Angel Barry Colon has 30+ years in the health, fitness, and wellness industry. She is the Wholistic Fitness owner located in Queens, New York, a certified holistic personal trainer, intuitive healer, cosmic energy reader, student of Astrology, Master of Numerology, and Creator of Chakra Balance Numerology Cosmic Energy Forecast Deck. On June 9, Venus and Jupiter unite in Cancer, creating one of the most beautiful and heart-centered alignments of 2026. This sacred conjunction will not occur again in Cancer for another 12 years, making this a rare opportunity to plant seeds for your future and expand into your deepest desires. Venus represents love, beauty, relationships, money, values, self-worth, and pleasure. She governs Taurus and Libra. Taurus connects us to our physical body, material possessions, values, security, the throat, neck, and thyroid gland. Libra governs balance, harmony, agreements, partnerships, marriage, diplomacy, and justice. Jupiter represents expansion, growth, wisdom, spirituality, abundance, faith, and opportunity. As ruler of Sagittarius and Pisces, Jupiter encourages us to seek truth, embrace higher consciousness, travel beyond limitations, and trust in divine guidance. Sagittarius is the philosopher, teacher, and seeker of freedom, while Pisces connects us to intuition, dreams, compassion, imagination, psychic awareness, and spiritual surrender. When Venus and Jupiter join together, they amplify one another's gifts. Love expands, opportunities increase, relationships deepen, financial blessings may appear, creativity awakens, and spiritual wisdom grows. This year, their meeting occurs in Cancer, the sign of home, family, emotional security, nurturing, ancestry, and feminine wisdom. Cancer reminds us that true abundance begins within. Many people spend years seeking success, love, validation, and fulfillment outside themselves. Cancer gently guides us inward, asking us to create emotional safety within our own hearts first. Before the outer world can reflect abundance, the inner world must feel nourished. Cancer also relates to the physical body and career. Just as a house provides shelter, your body is the sacred home for your soul. Likewise, your career should feel aligned with your emotional well-being rather than draining your life force. This conjunction asks you to consider where you need to feel more supported, which relationships require nurturing, what emotional wounds are ready for healing, and which dreams you have been quietly carrying are ready to grow. Adding to this powerful energy is Mercury's transit through the early degrees of Cancer. Mercury governs communication, learning, thinking, speaking, and perception. While moving through Cancer, Mercury invites us to communicate from the heart rather than the mind alone. Your intuition becomes louder, your emotions become messengers, your memories become teachers, and your body begins speaking more clearly. After all, your body is your greatest messenger. Pay attention to subtle signals, recurring emotions, dreams, sensations, and intuitive nudges, as they may reveal exactly where your soul is guiding you next. Take a look at your natal chart and locate Cancer. The house Cancer occupies reveals where Venus and Jupiter are blessing your life with expansion, healing, abundance, and opportunity over the coming year. This is not simply a transit. It is a 12-year portal inviting you to manifest a future rooted in emotional truth, feminine wisdom, and spiritual alignment. Mercury retrograde in Cancer June 29 – July 23, 2026. As if Venus and Jupiter joining together in Cancer were not enough, Mercury will station retrograde in Cancer from June 29 through July 23, inviting a period of emotional reflection, reassessment, and recalibration. Because this retrograde occurs in Cancer, the focus shifts from logic to emotion. Past memories may surface, family dynamics may require healing, old relationships may reappear, and conversations left unfinished may seek closure. This is an excellent time to review family relationships and boundaries, reconnect with loved ones, journal and reflect on emotional patterns, revisit unfinished projects, reorganize your home environment, strengthen self-care rituals, listen deeply to your intuition, and heal ancestral or generational wounds. Zodiac forecasts Aries: Family healing, home improvements, and emotional security become priorities. Taurus: Your words carry tremendous influence. Gemini: Financial growth is highlighted. Cancer: This is your personal expansion cycle. Leo: Healing occurs behind the scenes. Virgo: Friendships, communities, and collaborations bring blessings. Libra: Career opportunities expand. Scorpio: Travel, education, publishing, spirituality, and personal growth are favored. Sagittarius: Deep emotional healing and financial transformation unfold. Capricorn: Relationships take center stage. Aquarius: Health, wellness, daily routines, and work receive divine support. Pisces: Creativity, romance, joy, and self-expression flourish. Final thoughts As Venus and Jupiter join together in Cancer, remember that abundance is not measured solely by what you possess. True abundance is the feeling of being safe, supported, loved, and aligned with your soul's purpose. The more you nurture your inner home, the more blessings the outer world can reflect back to you. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Joanne Angel Barry Colon Joanne Angel Barry Colon, Certified Wholistic Personal Trainer, Intuitive Healer & Cosmic Energy Reader Joanne Angel Barry Colon has 30+ years in the health, fitness, and wellness industry. She is the Wholistic Fitness owner located in Queens, New York, a certified holistic personal trainer, intuitive healer, cosmic energy reader, student of Astrology, Master of Numerology, and Creator of Chakra Balance Numerology Cosmic Energy Forecast Deck. She is the Host of Joanne's Healing Within TV Show, Joanne's Cosmic Energy Radio Show, and Author/Self-Publisher. Joanne's mission is to help women (men by referral) release issues from their tissues as they release emotional weight and fall in love with themselves while witnessing their transformation into the best version of themselves.

Written by Vanessa Power, Therapist Vanessa Power is a dynamic psychotherapist with 21 years of clinical experience in a wide variety of settings. She is an Air Force veteran, a boy mom, a cat lover, a travel junkie, and a fitness enthusiast. Finding the right therapist can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. This guide breaks down five practical steps to help you choose a licensed professional who meets your needs, whether you prefer virtual or in-person sessions, and ensures your therapy journey starts smoothly and effectively. When should I start therapy? The best time to start therapy is after an incident or stressful event. The second-best time is right now. Maybe something heavy is weighing on you, or you’re having a difficult time adjusting to a new situation, a new job, or a new relationship. Maybe you’ve experienced significant loss and need to process what you’re feeling. Maybe something from your past is resurfacing, and you’d like to work through it so it doesn’t negatively impact you now. Whatever the reason, you are worthy of having a licensed therapist help you through it. So, where should you start? If you are considering therapy but are unsure how to find a therapist, you are not alone. The process of finding a therapist can sometimes feel cumbersome and often deters people who just want to speak with a professional. After practicing in this field for 21 years, I’ve created a step-by-step guide for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the process. Step one If you’ve decided to start therapy, consider payment options. In my professional opinion, therapy is an investment in yourself. Whether you participate in short-term therapy or meet with a therapist regularly for years, the therapeutic relationship can have a positive impact on your overall quality of life. There are two payment options. The first is cash pay, which means you cover the hourly rate the therapist charges. The second is using your health insurance, which requires finding a therapist who accepts your insurance. You would then be responsible for the co-pay. Therapists who do not accept insurance may offer a superbill, which is a monthly statement you can submit to your insurance company for reimbursement. Reimbursement rates vary depending on your specific plan. For example, if a therapist’s rate is $120 per hour, your insurance company may reimburse 75% of that fee, meaning you would be reimbursed $90. Step two Decide whether you want therapy sessions virtually or in person. If you want virtual appointments, you can search online platforms like Alma, Simple Practice, or Headspace. You can also search online directories like Psychology Today. Word-of-mouth references are usually worth checking. For in-person therapy, a generic Google search filtered by location can be helpful. Many therapists now offer both in-person and virtual services, which may also be something to consider. Step three Spend time reviewing different therapists’ profiles. Most therapists provide general information such as their availability, location, and payment options. They should also include information regarding their areas of expertise. Some therapists are trained in specific issues, such as trauma or substance abuse, or in specific modalities, such as DBT or EMDR. Depending on the issue you are currently struggling with, filtering for certain specialties or certifications can be useful. Step four See which therapists offer a free consultation. This is a helpful way to get an idea of who they are, how they work, and whether they are a good fit. You may have questions to ask, such as: What is your cancellation policy? How many years have you been practicing? What is your style of practice? I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation and encourage potential clients to ask me anything. Step five Once you find a therapist, it is important to be open and honest with them. That is the basis of all positive therapeutic outcomes. If you don’t feel a connection within 2-3 sessions, you can stop. Therapy is not a place to perform. The best therapist for you now may not be the same as the one who was best for you in the past. In the future, you might face a different stressor and need a different type of support. That’s okay. The focus is on working on whatever issue is keeping you stuck right now. Follow me on Instagram for more tips on finding a therapist. If you reside in FL, IN, KY, LA, MD, MO, NC, TN, TX, or WA, you’ve already found your therapist (it’s me). Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and visit my website for more info! Read more from Vanessa Power Vanessa Power, Therapist Vanessa Power is a versatile mental health provider with 21 years of experience in the behavioral health field. She is located in Tampa, FL, and has active clinical licenses in FL, IN, KY, LA, MD, MO, NC, TN, TX, and WA. She is also a qualified supervisor in the state of FL, which allows her the opportunity to mentor and coach new therapists. In session, Vanessa utilizes authenticity, curiosity, compassion, and humor, as well as her own life experiences, to help her clients achieve their goals and live their best lives.

Written by Tara Swann, Emotional Empowerment Coach & Author Tara Swann is an Emotional Empowerment & Embodiment Coach and three-time Author who guides women to alchemise emotional patterns, reclaim their inner power, and manifest a life that reflects their deepest truth. I was at a women’s retreat recently and found myself judging the women in the room, one by one. I was observing how easily my mind goes to judging others, how icky it feels in the body, and almost instantly I thought, “How can I be curious instead?” Judgment and curiosity cannot co-exist I started asking those women questions, curious about their lives, their stories, their pains, and their interests, and over the long weekend, I learned something truly special about every woman there. I could see them in a different light and connect with each of them, each teaching me something unique within their own journey. When I started being curious instead of letting myself go to judgment, I opened up a space to learn. This is the key: curiosity allows for learning and expansion. Judgment takes us straight to contraction and being closed off to anything else. Judgment leaves us in non-acceptance. Self-reflection and personal growth As a practitioner and coach, I was also aware of how much our external judgments are simply mirroring our judgments within and toward ourselves. They’re either pointing to something we feel is lacking within, something we are longing for, something we judge ourselves for, or they’re pointing to our internalised beliefs, which are mostly passed down and, the majority of the time, simply untrue. When we think about this, we can also become curious about our own judgments, curious about our judgments toward others, and curious about our judgments toward ourselves. When we ask ourselves the same question, “How can I be curious instead?” we open up a space to learn more deeply about ourselves and return to a truer state of who we are in our essence. It’s the difference between being open to life’s endless possibilities and being completely closed off to anything new. Returning to wholeness Curiosity kills judgment, and judgment kills curiosity. When you make it a practice to notice judgment and instead become curious, you start giving parts of yourself a safer space to be seen. When you begin to see these parts of yourself and meet them with love over judgment, you become more familiar with your desires, your longings, your needs, your pains, your beliefs, and with each moment of reflection, you can choose whether or not to meet those longings and needs, to be with those pains and old belief systems, and whether or not to change them. Curiosity gives you choice and possibility. Each part of you wants to be met with non-judgment, and with each part, you have an opportunity to return to yourself, your truth, and your wholeness. Anytime you reject a part of yourself or meet it with judgment, you are rejecting your innate wholeness. Anytime you love and accept a part of yourself, you are returning to your wholeness. Self-acceptance begins the moment you become curious instead. What does self-acceptance look like in real time? When judgment arises and you choose curiosity instead, you start asking questions: What is this reflecting to me? What is this part of me? When did I form this belief about others or myself? When did this part of me accept this belief as truth? Let’s say you judge someone because they are playing, acting like a child. You think, “Why is she acting that way? Who does she think she is? So unladylike.” Then you catch yourself in your habitual thought patterns and decide in the moment to be curious instead: “Ok, I notice my judgment again. What is this reflecting to me?” You realise you have a longing to play, enjoy life, and act childlike at times. You realise that you formed a belief earlier in your life that, as an adult, you’re no longer allowed to act that way. Maybe you’re also afraid of others’ judgments toward you. From here, you can acknowledge your longing for play. You can choose to incorporate more play into your life in small ways. You begin to fulfil your desire, and that part of yourself begins to feel full again. You are no longer rejecting a part of yourself and no longer rejecting this in others. You begin celebrating play in your life and encouraging it in others. You actively uplift yourself and uplift others. You become a bringer of joy. That part of yourself that longed for play is no longer buried within; you have integrated it into your life. You have successfully begun to feel your wholeness and have raised your frequency to match the life you actually desire. Your wholeness moves you toward the external reality you wish to create, which would have otherwise been stagnant in your state of judgment. Curiosity opened the door to a whole new way of being and loving yourself and your life. How self-love aligns you with your desired reality Loving yourself, feeling whole and connected, also means you’re more in tune with your true self. When you are attuned to your true self, you can begin making decisions aligned with your truth rather than over parts of you that are afraid of judgment. With each shedding of old judgments, beliefs, and false ideals, you crack open a doorway to a life truly aligned with you and your soul. When you love yourself, you make decisions from your heart. When you love yourself, you stop settling for anything that doesn’t reflect and expand that love. When you love yourself, you create a life that you love. The example above is actually one of my own stories. When I recognised my longing for play, I started dancing more, doing random cartwheels throughout the day, playing with my kids more, and acknowledging that I also wanted to manifest a relationship that was fun and playful. This was one of the things I aligned with in my life and also one of my non-negotiables when calling in my relationship. Then, I called in a man who also values play as much as I do. Alignment within creates alignment in your life. This is where curiosity can take you. Curiosity creates change Curiosity doesn’t just remove judgment, but it truly allows you to explore your inner terrain and change the things that don’t feel good. Instead of accepting your internal and external reality as it is, you can choose to think, feel, live, and love differently. Life truly gets to be fun. My invitation to you is to open to curiosity. Start saying things to yourself like, “Oh, that’s interesting!” when a thought pops up, or “Oops, there’s that judgment again, where’s this one coming from, I wonder?” By doing this, you’re choosing to break free from the box that your life has conditioned you to live in and create a life that radiates from you and your soul. Curiosity does not kill the cat; it kills a life that was never truly yours to begin with. If you’re ready to be curious and open up to life’s beautiful possibilities, I welcome two new clients into my space. Whether you want to manifest love, awaken your voice, or align with your truest self and find direction, you can apply to work with me here. Visit my website for more info! Read more from Tara Swann Tara Swann, Emotional Empowerment Coach & Author Tara Swann is an Emotional Empowerment Coach, Author, and Speaker known for helping women alchemise emotional patterns into personal power. She guides women into deeper confidence, clarity, and self-connection through her unique blend of emotional mastery, feminine embodiment, and manifestation work. Tara is the author of You Don’t Have Anxiety, Becoming Her, and The Ocean Is She, and is currently deepening her expertise through formal Tantra Practitioner training. Her mission is to help women remember who they are and consciously create lives that feel aligned, expansive, and unapologetically alive.

Written by Ariel Griglin, Health & Fitness Coach Ariel Griglin’s expertise lies in helping women journey toward Becoming Lighter in all ways. She uses protocols like The Metabolic Reboot to support them in overcoming weight loss resistance, hormone imbalances, and autoimmunity. Ariel is the founder of Becoming Lighter Retreats, where women gather for deeper spiritual immersion. We live in a world where fear has become a form of entertainment. Every day, we are inundated with outrage cycles and endless invitations to doomscroll. As someone who works in physical transformation and nervous system restoration, I see the effects of this every day with the rise of burnout, chronic fatigue, and metabolic dysfunction. People are exhausted. Not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually too. We do not have to look far to see how deeply fear and tragedy saturate modern culture. Just this week, several of Netflix’s top trending films centered around kidnapping, psychological instability, violence, and human devastation. Over time, this kind of constant consumption conditions the nervous system toward hypervigilance. The nervous system rarely gets a moment to exhale. The doomsday narrative seems to be everywhere we look in mainstream and social media, and because of my work in guiding people towards Becoming Lighter, I hold a belief that miracles are still taking place every single day, and they’re happening right under our noses. Therefore, I decided to conduct an experiment and put that belief to the test. The Miracle Project began as a curious challenge and has quickly become the seed for a revolution. I sent out an email to my closest clients, friends, and family, asking for their help. I needed proof that these miracles are, in fact, happening every single day, right under our noses. I asked them to share any sort of miracle, whether it was a life-changing birth, a small act of kindness when someone held a door open or paid for their coffee, or even a 30-second reprieve when they walk outside, feel the sun on their face, and can simply exhale and say, “Ahhhhh, thank you, God.” I expected to get just a couple of responses. I was actually traveling after sending the email, so I only had access to my phone, where I saw little response. Then, one miraculous evening, when I sat in an airport for eight hours, I opened my laptop, and guess what I saw? New miracle, new miracle, new miracle, and more. My inbox was flooded with miracles. I was in tears. I could not stop smiling. The stories were beautiful and reminded me of all that is good in this world. I began to notice themes. Themes of gratitude and connection, moments of mercy, feeling guided by something greater, and gaining certainty that all would work out okay. It revealed to me that, in this time of uncertainty, division, and media-driven pessimism, men and women have been craving relief for their nervous systems. Beyond the noise and devastation, they too are seeking all that is good in this world. The nervous system is starving for evidence of safety I knew I was on to something. The feelings were contagious. As I sat on that airport floor reading these stories, my entire physiology shifted. It shifted to a state of ease and awe. I could feel my nervous system shifting. I was finishing a difficult trip, and as the tears flowed and the goose bumps rose, I was becoming lighter. In my work with The Metabolic Reboot, Reclaim, and all Transgenetic programs, my clients are learning about their Reticular Activating System and the power they have to program it. What is the Reticular Activating System, you ask? The Reticular Activating System, or RAS, acts like the brain’s filter. It decides what we notice consciously and what fades into the background. I once thought about buying a yellow Jeep Wrangler, and suddenly, I started seeing yellow Jeep Wranglers everywhere I went. That’s the RAS at work. What we repeatedly focus on becomes easier for the brain to recognize. When working with clients and teams, we purposefully program the RAS towards their desired outcome. So, of course, when miracles are sought after, documented, and read, guess what shows up? Yes, miracle after miracle! Stories of impact Here is some of what I received: “My grandmother once went into the ER with an impacted bowel, and her surgery kept getting delayed for other emergencies. Eventually, she had the surgery, and the medical team perforated her bowel. She was not expected to make it. She was in her mid-80s, and family members were being called in for her final wishes. The priest came in to give her final rites. My grandmother ended up living another 10 years after that.” “Yesterday, I received a phone call from a former college mate. I hadn't heard from him in quite a while, but I had just been thinking about him the day before!” “I spent another early morning pumping on the couch. I felt exhausted and tired. I was getting ready to start complaining, but I was interrupted by the most beautiful bird singing outside. I opened the window and listened to it. I got to experience the world waking up with me. I remembered this is what I love about early mornings. By getting up early to pump, I get to start my day slowly and listen to the magic of the birds in the morning.” “I was literally choking. It was scary. I couldn’t speak or breathe, but it just so happened to take place while I was having lunch with a nurse! She saved the day!” “Recently, I noticed a screw in my car tire. Ugh! I had just bought new tires, and the screw was precariously close to the edge. I thought, they won't patch that. I decided I would drive as long as I could. The night before last, my low tire pressure sensor came on. My car doesn't indicate which tire. Here we go, I thought. The next day, before I went to the tire shop, I said to myself, ‘Let's not go down the rabbit hole of doom and gloom.’ I really just want the guy to say everything is okay. I went to the dealer, explained the situation, and hoped it was no big deal. I reassured myself, ‘Everything will be fine no matter what.’ I waited for the outcome. The service guy came to me with a smile on his face. The tires were low because of the outside temperatures. Then, he held out the screw. It was only 1/4 inch long! It couldn't do anything to my tire. I was thrilled. He added that there would be no charge. What! I gave him a $20 bill and said, treat the guys to something. Thank you, God.” Do you see it? Our world is craving relief and wonder. The truth is that what we repeatedly consume shapes our biology. The food we eat becomes the tissues of our body, and the media we watch becomes the navigation for our Reticular Activating System. Our brain becomes wired differently based on what we give it. When we are chronically consuming stories that provoke terror, we are programming our subconscious to find problems, and we are limiting our perception to see possibility and beauty. It wreaks havoc on every system of our body and goes against a state of well-being. I believe the world needs less outrage. I believe it needs more people willing to document beauty. More people willing to notice grace. More people willing to remind one another that miracles are still happening every single day. This is only the beginning of The Miracle Project. I hope you’ll join us. Perhaps miracles are not rare at all. Perhaps we have simply stopped noticing them. So I’ll leave you with this, "What miracle have you witnessed recently?" No matter how small. A moment of grace. A synchronicity. A kindness. A breath of relief. Document it. Share it. Because the more we train ourselves to notice beauty, the more beauty we begin to find. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Ariel Griglin Ariel Griglin, Health & Fitness Coach Ariel’s youth as an athlete, alongside parents with terminal diagnoses, primed her for the depths of healing. She became a NASM-certified personal trainer and developed expertise in reshaping the body. It wasn’t until she experienced death and divorce in her adult life that her work evolved beyond the physical, refining her true capacity to heal. Through that season, she was gifted what she now holds as the core truth of healing: Light. Today, Ariel is one of a select group of elite coaches trained in The Metabolic Reboot, a program that has helped tens of thousands eradicate disease and overcome weight loss struggles. She is also the founder of Becoming Lighter Retreats, an immersive spiritual experience for women

Written by Victoria Miles, Founder of The Clarity Club Victoria Miles is the founder of The Clarity Club. She supports professionals and organisations operating under sustained pressure to think clearly, work intentionally, and operate within their capacity through a thinking-partner approach. Burnout is often recognised at the point where continuing feels impossible, rest no longer restores, or the body and mind force a stop. Typically, there is a period before that point when the signs are already present. They are more subtle, easier to dismiss, and easily absorbed into the demands of leadership. Recognising this stage is critical because, before you hit the wall, there is still an opportunity for recalibration. The smoke signals before burnout Before the fire, there is smoke. Some of the earliest smoke signals appear as small changes in how a leader experiences their work, life, and themselves, long before burnout becomes impossible to ignore. There may also be physical cues or emotional and behavioural responses that feel out of character. For leaders, these early signs can also appear in the way they are thinking, responding and leading day to day. They may become more reactive than usual, find decision-making harder, feel less patient in conversations, become less available to their team, withdraw from connection, or notice they are controlling more than they normally would. These shifts can be easy to rationalise as a period of heightened pressure, increased responsibility or a demanding stretch, but they can also be signs that capacity is narrowing. Ordinary demands may begin to feel disproportionately heavy. Recovery may offer temporary relief without fully restoring the presence needed both within and beyond work. Leaders may also notice that work feels increasingly all-consuming, with little room left for the parts of life that usually restore perspective or give meaning. These changes are often noticed before they are acted upon. They may not feel significant enough to interrupt anything, especially when they still feel manageable enough to keep going. Over time, that is where the risk sits. What begins as something to get through can gradually become something a leader endures rather than addresses, which is why those early signs deserve attention. Recognised early, these signals can become a point of recalibration before burnout becomes the endpoint. What the smoke signals are pointing to The smoke signals may point to pressure that has moved beyond normal stretch and into chronic workplace stress that is not being successfully managed. The World Health Organization describes burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. In simple terms, it is characterised by energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance or cynicism related to work, and reduced professional efficacy. In real time, those signs are rarely that clear-cut. Energy depletion may first appear as needing longer periods of rest to feel restored. Increased mental distance may show up as a slow withdrawal from work, from loved ones, or from social connection that once felt important. Cynicism may begin as a colder internal commentary, a more negative interpretation of work, or a loss of belief that things can improve. Reduced professional efficacy may show up as a growing sense that work now takes more effort, carries less satisfaction, or no longer feels as effective or impactful as it once did. Together, these signs can indicate that pressure is no longer being carried without consequence. A leader may still be meeting what is required, but the cost of doing so begins to show. The paradox of pushing through One of the paradoxes of burnout is that many leaders keep pushing through in order to avoid disruption. They want to keep things moving, protect others from pressure, and prevent work from falling behind, often with the hope that things will calm down soon. Yet when leaders push beyond their capacity for too long, the risk is the very outcome they were trying to avoid: a significant stop, a greater cost to health, work, and personal life, and recovery that takes much longer than expected. This is why the earlier smoke signals matter. They can indicate that the current way of working is no longer sustainable, even if it remains possible for now. Recalibration at this stage is about addressing what has been left unmanaged and making intentional adjustments before the cost of continuing becomes greater. That may mean reviewing what really matters, reducing unnecessary load, opening up communication, seeking support, or creating recovery that genuinely restores, rather than getting just enough rest to keep pushing through. The aim is not to step away from ambition or core responsibility, but to work and lead in a way that can be sustained while protecting capacity, health, and life beyond work. A question that matters Something to ask yourself, "If the smoke signals are already there, what is being left unmanaged?" This is where recalibration starts: when the earlier signs become a reason to review what is being carried, what matters most, and what now needs to change. Before you go For further information on burnout, including signs, symptoms, and support options, you can refer to Mental Health UK’s burnout overview. If you are concerned that you may be experiencing burnout, or if the signs are persistent or affecting your health, work, or daily life, seek appropriate support. This may include speaking to a qualified health or mental health professional, accessing workplace wellbeing provision, or speaking to someone you trust personally or professionally. Available services will vary by country. Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Victoria Miles Victoria Miles, Founder of The Clarity Club Victoria Miles is the founder of The Clarity Club, where she supports professionals and organisations operating under sustained pressure to think clearly, work intentionally, and operate within their capacity. Her work is shaped by over 15 years spent working alongside senior executives in high-pressure environments, giving her deep insight into how responsibility, pace, and pressure can accumulate over time. Through a thinking-partner approach, Victoria creates space for individuals and teams to pause, observe their patterns, and recalibrate the way they are working and leading. Her writing explores clarity, capacity, and intentionality as essential to sustainable performance, conscious leadership, and a more meaningful way of working.