Written by Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director Helen champions the arts as a tool for change. Now, as CEO of RYTC Creatives CIC and Give Get Go Education, she mentors young people, creates pathways for them to thrive in the arts, and helps launch successful careers. There is often a strong emphasis in education on measurable outcomes. Academic targets, grades, and performance indicators provide structure, direction, and a clear way to track progress over time. However, while these measures capture a visible aspect of achievement, they do not fully reflect the deeper processes that shape how a student learns, engages, and ultimately moves forward. What happens when progress is taking place in ways that cannot be easily measured? Meaningful and lasting development does not begin with performance alone, but with a shift in how a student experiences themselves within the learning process. Confidence, emotional regulation, communication, and a willingness to engage with challenge all play a critical role in determining whether effort translates into sustained progress. Without these foundations, even capable students can find themselves disengaged or unable to demonstrate what they know. This is where the role of a mentor becomes significant. Beyond supporting immediate academic goals, a mentor influences how a student approaches learning, responds to challenges, and understands their own potential. While this impact is not always immediately visible, over time, it shapes the decisions a student makes and the direction they begin to see as possible for themselves. As education continues to evolve, there is a growing recognition that strong academic outcomes and long-term personal development are not separate objectives, but closely connected. This article explores how mentoring works alongside traditional measures of success while addressing what they often leave out, before outlining eleven ways personalised support can influence a student’s trajectory over time. Who is a mentor? A mentor is often understood in simple terms as someone who provides guidance or support, particularly in academic or professional contexts. However, this definition only captures part of the role. In practice, effective mentoring extends beyond instruction or subject knowledge and is grounded in the ability to understand and respond to the individual in front of them. Unlike a traditional teaching role, which is often structured around delivering content to a group, mentoring is inherently more personalised. It requires attention not only to what a student needs to learn, but to how they learn, how they respond to challenge, and what may be influencing their ability to engage. This distinction is important, as it shifts the focus from simply transferring knowledge to actively supporting the conditions in which learning becomes possible. A mentor does not replace the role of a teacher, nor do they operate in isolation from the wider educational system. Instead, they work alongside it, offering a layer of interpretation, adaptation, and consistency that can be difficult to achieve within more standardised environments. In doing so, they help bridge the gap between expectation and experience, allowing students to navigate requirements with greater clarity while maintaining a sense of direction. At its core, mentoring is relational rather than transactional. It is built on trust, consistency, and a clear understanding of the student as an individual. When this is established, the mentor is able to support not only academic progress but the broader development that underpins it, creating a foundation from which more meaningful and sustained growth can take place. The role of a mentor in a student’s life The role of a mentor within a student’s life extends beyond academic support and into how the student experiences learning, challenge, and progress over time. This role is often defined not by a single function, but by a combination of consistent, personalised contributions that shape both immediate engagement and long-term development. These roles are not isolated functions, but interconnected elements that shape how a student experiences learning over time. A mentor’s key roles include: Providing clarity where there is confusion Breaking down complexity into manageable steps Supporting engagement with learning Strengthening confidence over time Offering consistency and continuity Recognising patterns in behaviour and progress Responding to individual needs with flexibility Bridging the gap between expectation and experience Encouraging independent thinking and action Supporting a more positive relationship with challenge Over time, these elements begin to influence more than immediate academic outcomes, shaping how a student approaches learning, responds to difficulty, and understands their own capacity to move forward. The traditional system: A focus on academic targets In most educational settings, there is a clear, established focus on academic targets as the primary measure of progress. These targets provide a structured way to assess performance, track development over time, and ensure that students are meeting expected standards. For educators and institutions, they offer a consistent framework for monitoring and comparing achievement, supporting accountability and clarity across the system. This approach has practical value. It allows for measurable outcomes, supports planning, and provides a shared understanding of what success looks like within a given context. Students are guided towards specific goals, and their progress can be evaluated in a way that is both visible and quantifiable. In many cases, this structure helps maintain direction and focus, particularly in environments where large groups of learners are supported simultaneously. However, the emphasis on academic targets also shapes how success is defined. Attention is often directed towards results that can be measured within set timeframes, which can lead to a prioritisation of performance over process. As a result, aspects of learning that are less immediately visible, such as confidence, engagement, and the ability to navigate challenge, may receive less attention, even though they play a significant role in long-term development. This is not a limitation of intention, but of structure. Educational systems are designed to operate at scale and, in doing so, rely on methods that can be applied consistently across diverse groups of students. While this ensures a level of fairness and organisation, it can also mean that individual differences in how students learn and respond are not always fully addressed within the framework itself. Why this change matters now Recognising the limitations of a target-focused approach does not suggest that academic outcomes are unimportant. Rather, it highlights the need to expand how progress is understood and supported. As learning environments continue to evolve and expectations rise, there is growing awareness that focusing solely on measurable outcomes is insufficient to support meaningful and sustained development. Students are navigating increasing academic pressure, alongside a need to develop skills that extend beyond subject knowledge. Confidence, communication, adaptability, and the ability to engage with challenges are becoming increasingly important not only in education but also in preparation for future opportunities. When these elements are not supported, progress can become inconsistent, regardless of ability. In this context, a broader and more responsive approach is not simply beneficial but necessary. It allows for a more accurate understanding of how students learn and what they require in order to move forward. Rather than expecting all students to respond to the same structure in the same way, it creates space for flexibility and adaptation, ensuring that support remains relevant to the individual. Importantly, this shift does not lower expectations. Instead, it strengthens the foundation on which those expectations are met. By recognising and supporting the factors that underpin learning, students are better positioned to engage consistently, build confidence, and sustain progress over time. For many students, particularly those whose strengths are not always immediately visible within traditional systems, this change can be significant. It allows potential to be accessed more effectively, not by changing the student, but by adjusting the approach to better align with how they learn and develop. The creative pathway methodology In response to the need for a more comprehensive and individualised approach, the Creative Pathway Methodology brings together learning, creativity, and career development within a unified framework. Developed through the combined work of RYTC Creatives CIC (The RYTC), Education Selection Box (ESB), and Give-Get-Go Education (GGGE), it reflects an understanding that meaningful progress cannot be separated into isolated areas but is shaped through the interaction of multiple elements working together. At its core, the methodology places the individual at the centre of the learning experience. Rather than expecting students to adapt to a fixed structure, it recognises that each student engages differently, and therefore requires an approach that is responsive to how they think, process, and develop over time. This allows support to be tailored in a way that remains both relevant and effective. A key aspect of this approach is the integration of creativity alongside more traditional forms of learning. Creativity is not treated as an addition, but as a fundamental component that supports communication, confidence, and the ability to engage more fully. When combined with structured academic support and a clear focus on career development, this creates a more balanced and sustainable model of progression. Mentorship is central to how this methodology is applied. It provides the consistent, individualised support that allows learning, creativity, and career development to connect in a meaningful way. Through mentoring, students are guided not only in what they are working towards, but in how they approach learning, respond to challenge, and develop confidence in their own ability to move forward. This ensures that progress is not only achieved, but sustained. Through this unified approach, students are supported not only in meeting immediate academic expectations but also in developing the broader capabilities that enable long-term success. This includes building confidence, strengthening communication, and developing the ability to navigate challenges with greater clarity and independence. 11 quiet ways a mentor changes a student’s life The impact of mentoring is not always immediate or highly visible. It often develops through consistent, subtle shifts that, over time, begin to influence how a student engages with learning and understands their own potential. These changes may appear small in isolation, but together they shape the direction a student begins to take. They change how a student sees themselves: A mentor helps a student recognise their capability, often before they are able to see it independently, creating the first shift in how they approach both learning and possibility. They create the conditions for learning to take place: By establishing consistency and trust, a mentor allows a student to engage more fully, making learning feel accessible rather than overwhelming. They provide clarity in moments of uncertainty: Tasks and expectations become more manageable when they are clearly understood and structured, reducing hesitation and confusion. They reduce overwhelm into something manageable: Breaking down complexity allows students to approach challenges with greater confidence, rather than disengaging when tasks feel overwhelming. They support a more consistent approach to learning: Structure and guidance help students maintain progress beyond short bursts of motivation, creating steadiness over time. They reconnect learning to meaning and purpose: Students are more likely to engage when they understand the relevance of what they are doing and how it connects to their wider direction. They normalise challenge as part of progress: Difficulty becomes something to navigate and learn from, rather than something to avoid or fear. They strengthen communication and expression: Students become more able to organise their thinking and express ideas with clarity, supporting both academic and personal development. They build independence over time: Support is gradually reduced as confidence and capability increase, allowing students to take greater ownership of their progress. They shift how a student responds to pressure: Students develop the ability to approach expectations with greater control and resilience, rather than feeling overwhelmed by them. They expand what a student believes is possible: With the right support, students begin to see options and opportunities that were not previously visible, opening new directions for their future. Taken together, these shifts reflect the broader impact of mentoring beyond immediate academic outcomes. While each element may appear subtle, their combined effect influences how a student engages with learning, responds to challenge, and begins to make decisions about their own progress. Over time, this shapes not only performance but also the direction a student feels able to take. Conclusion While academic targets remain an important part of education, they do not fully capture the depth of what enables a student to progress in a meaningful and sustained way. As this article has explored, the role of mentoring extends beyond immediate outcomes, influencing how a student engages with learning, responds to challenge, and begins to understand their own potential. When this support is consistent and personalised, the impact reaches further than performance alone. It shapes confidence, strengthens capability, and creates the conditions for students to move forward with greater clarity and independence. Over time, these shifts influence not only how a student performs but also how they think, the choices they make, and the direction they begin to see as possible for themselves. If you are exploring how this approach could support a student more effectively, you can book an initial discovery call with Helen Kenworthy here. You can also find her here. Creative Pathway Methodology: Of Course You Can!™ serving the brilliantly underestimated. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Helen Kenworthy Helen Kenworthy, Artistic Director Helen Kenworthy’s career embodies the transformative power of the arts, from her early roles in the prestigious West End with Bill Kenwright to her impactful work in regional theatre. As manager of the Oxfordshire Youth Arts Partnership, she created pathways for young people to thrive in the arts, with many going on to successful careers. Now at RYTC Creatives CIC and Give Get Go Education, Helen continues to inspire and mentor the next generation of theatre-makers and community leaders, offering invaluable opportunities for growth and professional development.

Written by Sierra Melcher, Author, International Speaker & Educator Sierra Melcher is the founder of Red Thread Publishing LLC. She leads an all-female publishing company, with a mission to support 10,000 women to become successful published authors & thought-leaders. I want to start with something I don't say often enough in public, I have not always been a whole leader. I built Red Thread Publishing on passion and instinct, and for a long time, I confused the two with strategy. I was constantly executing, signing authors, developing manuscripts, running workshops and quietly burning myself out in the process. I built teams and failed teams. From the outside, it looked like momentum. On the inside, it felt like I was sprinting in four directions at once. It took sitting across from my own authors, watching them wrestle with their ideas on the page, to finally see what I was doing wrong. And right. That's the thing about publishing that nobody warns you about. You think your job is to help people write books. But what you're actually doing, if you do it properly, is helping people confront themselves. The mess that hides behind high performance At Red Thread, we work with entrepreneurs, executives, and thought leaders who have real things to say. They're not short on ideas. They're not short on experience. What they're often short on is integration, that connective tissue between who they are, what they believe, and how they actually show up day to day. I see it in the gap between a leader's vision statement and how they run a meeting. I see it in the founder who talks about psychological safety but goes silent when someone challenges them. I see it in the executive who has read every leadership book on the market and still can't figure out why their team doesn't trust them. I have been versions of these people at times. The information isn't the problem. The integration is. We've built an entire industry around teaching leadership in pieces. Starting a company didn’t make me a leader. Reading the books didn’t make me a real leader either. Strategy is taught over here. Culture over there. Emotional intelligence in a separate workshop on a Thursday afternoon, if you don’t have client work due. Then we wonder why so many leaders feel fragmented, because we've handed them fragments and called it development. What writing a book actually does to a leader Here is what I have learned after years of working with authors. The writing process is merciless. You cannot fake your way through a manuscript. The moment you try to write something you don't actually believe, it breaks. It’s like the page knows. The sentences go hollow, the logic collapses, and your own BS becomes impossible to ignore. I've watched leaders come into this process thinking they're writing a business book, and leave having completely renegotiated their relationship with how they lead. Not because I pushed them there, but because sustained, honest articulation of your ideas will do that to you. One of the authors I worked with recently put it in a way that has stayed with me. She said you cannot write about leadership without confronting how you actually lead. The gaps become visible, and that's where the real work begins. She's right. And I'd add, that's also where it starts to get genuinely interesting. What I mean by leading whole I didn't always have language for this. For a long time, I just called it alignment, that feeling when what you're doing matches what you care about, and both of those match how you're actually spending your days. Easy to describe, surprisingly hard to sustain. What I've come to understand, both from my own experience and from sitting with hundreds of leaders in the writing process, is that fragmented leadership has a cost that doesn't show up on a balance sheet, at least not immediately. It does show up in decision fatigue, in the slow erosion of team trust, and in the leader who is technically performing but privately exhausted by the demands of performance. I know that person well. She is in the mirror. Integrated leadership, what I now think of as leading whole, isn't softer. It's actually harder because it requires you to stop outsourcing your clarity to frameworks and start building it from the inside out. That means knowing what you actually believe, not just what sounds credible in a room. It means noticing when your actions are running ahead of your values. It means being willing to slow down long enough to ask why you're doing what you're doing, and to sit with the answer even when it's uncomfortable. Why this matters more now than ever We are in an era that is accelerating faster than most leadership models were designed to handle. The old playbook of authority, consistency, and certainty is becoming less useful in environments that are anything but certain. What I keep seeing, across the authors and leaders I work with, is that the ones navigating complexity most effectively aren't the ones with the best strategies. They're the ones with the deepest self-knowledge, that stuff AI can’t do for you. They make faster decisions because they know their own values well enough to move from them. They build more cohesive teams because they're not managing from behind a persona. They have the real competitive advantage, alignment, not because it's a nice idea, but because it's operationally true. I was reminded of this recently while working with a leadership consultant on her book, a project that reinforced for me, all over again, how much courage it takes to write honestly about leading. Unfollow the Leader, by Reem Borrows, explores all these topics I had been sensing but hadn’t quite yet put into words. The themes she was wrestling with on the page were ones I recognize across nearly every leader I've worked with, the exhaustion of performing a version of leadership that doesn't quite fit, and the relief and terror of letting that go. A few things worth trying I'm a publisher, not a therapist, although sometimes both are needed, so I'll keep this practical. If any of this resonates, here are three places to start. First, create space to think, not just plan. Most leaders I know are brilliant at execution and chronically underinvested in reflection. Even fifteen minutes at the end of a week to ask what actually happened, and why, will tell you more than most leadership courses. Second, notice where you're running on autopilot. The decisions you make without thinking are the ones most worth examining. They reveal your actual operating values, which are sometimes very different from your stated ones. Third, and this is the one I'm obviously biased about, write something. Not a book necessarily, a letter to yourself about what you believe, a short piece about what kind of leader you want to be, anything. Writing is an act of integration. It forces the fragments into the same room. The future of leadership isn't louder, faster, or more optimized. It's more honest. And honesty, in my experience, starts with being willing to look at the whole picture, not just the parts that are working. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sierra Melcher Sierra Melcher, Author, International Speaker & Educator Best-selling author, international speaker & educator, Sierra Melcher is the founder of Red Thread Publishing LLC. She leads an all-female publishing company, with a mission to support 10,000 women to become successful published authors & thought-leaders. Offering world-class coaching & courses that focus on community, collaboration, and a uniquely feminine approach at every stage of the author process. Sierra has a Master’s degree in education and has spoken & taught around the world. Originally from the United States, Sierra lives in Medellín, Colombia, with her young daughter.

Written by Alena Elchaninova, Life Coach Alena Elchaninova is a London-based ICF-certified life coach, artist, and Pricing Director. Guided by the belief that nothing is broken but much can be seen and integrated, she supports human beings in moving from inner friction and self-abandonment toward greater awareness, personal agency, aligned action, and consciously integrated living. Underneath most of the things people tell me they want, love, peace, success, ease, there is a quieter question they are rarely asking out loud, "Am I actually allowed to have this?" Not in theory. In real life. I know this question intimately. I have been single for a long time, long enough to sit with the thoughts that quietly gather around that fact. And underneath all of them, there was one I did not always want to admit: Maybe I have not yet qualified. I have noticed many people carry some version of this. Not just around love, but around joy. Money. Ease. Success. Support. Rest. There is often an invisible line inside us, a line between what we consciously want and what, somewhere deeper, we still do not fully allow ourselves to receive. I call it the Allowance Map. It is the internal set of rules, usually formed early and unconsciously, that tells us what we are permitted to have, feel, receive, and become, and under what conditions. And for many people, those conditions are exhausting. Mine sounded something like this: When I look better. Slimmer. When I prove my worth at work. When I heal all my traumas. When I am more conscious. More aware. When I am more disciplined. When I figure it all out and become enlightened. When I finally become the kind of person love happens to. Because surely good things only happen to good people. And if love is still not happening, I must not have qualified yet. Until then, the mind delays permission. Not always loudly. Sometimes almost elegantly. Where it begins Most of us were not taught what we deserve. We were taught what we had to do in order to feel safe, accepted, approved of, or loved. Do well. Need less. Do more. Ask nothing back. Be useful. Be easier. Keep the peace. Take up less space. Be more. But don’t be too much. A child's mind learns quickly. It notices what gets connection, what creates tension, what feels safe, and builds rules from that. Not philosophical rules. Nervous system rules. Rules about what is allowed. Rules about what has to be earned. That becomes the map. And because it was formed early, it rarely feels like a map. It feels like reality. The map is not the territory The Allowance Map was built in a specific context, usually early in life, by a mind trying to adapt. It was intelligent. It was protective. It was often necessary. But many of those rules do not belong in our adult lives. So the old conditions keep running: We apologise for things that are not our fault. We work until there is nothing left, then feel guilty for resting. We crave love but mistrust it when it appears. We keep trying to prove ourselves to emotionally unavailable people, as if this time, if we are slightly better, softer, prettier, slimmer, calmer, less intense, we will finally be chosen. And if something genuinely good appears, we tighten, overanalyse, or quietly sabotage it. Not because we are broken, but because we are still operating inside the boundaries of what feels permitted. And underneath it, for many of us, is a brutal little rule: I am not enough just to receive it. I need to do something extra. And the painful part? Even the extra never quite felt like enough. The trap of deserving This is where it gets really interesting. Many of us translate this into: I don't deserve love. I don't deserve ease. I don't deserve to be chosen. So, we work hard to replace it with: I deserve love. I deserve ease. I deserve more. And yes, that can be an important step. But pause there for a moment. Feel what happens in your body when you read it. Because "I deserve" can quietly become another version of the same trap. It still keeps the whole conversation inside the same framework: Permission must be justified. We move from "I do not deserve" to "I deserve", but both still assume that life must first be earned. That there is a gate. That something inside us decides whether we have finally met the criteria. Same coin. Better lighting. Deserving is not some deep law of existence. It is a human idea. A social one. A psychological one. It helps organise behaviour. It helps societies make sense of fairness. But internally, it often becomes something else entirely: A private gatekeeping system. A way the psyche delays permission. A way old safety logic disguises itself as moral truth. That is why this matters so much. The issue is not what we want. It is the conditions under which we believe we are finally allowed to receive it. When the map becomes identity The deepest difficulty with the Allowance Map is not that it exists. It is that, over time, we mistake it for who we are: If I am fully myself, I will lose love. I need to do extra just to be seen. Reciprocity doesn’t come easy for me. Love must be earned, it does not come freely. Maybe this job, this love, this body is not for me. And if I stop pushing, stop controlling the outcome, everything will fall apart. These are rarely objective truths. They are conclusions. Conclusions drawn from old emotional data, from what was rewarded, withheld, implied, or repeated so often that it stopped feeling like a message and started feeling like identity. And because they were learned early, they often feel more convincing than present-day evidence. More convincing than our actual achievements. More convincing than someone's genuine care. More convincing, sometimes, than our own direct experience. That is why people can look highly capable on the outside and still feel internally barred from receiving what they say they want. The issue is not always desire. It is permission. What actually changes the map The old map does not change through affirmations. It does not change because you force yourself to think positively. And it definitely does not change through shame or self-criticism. The map changes through awareness, but not the performative kind. Not the kind that can explain the pattern beautifully from a distance while still living inside it. The kind that actually meets the pattern. The kind that asks questions and sits with what comes up with full presence: What do I believe would happen if I truly received this? What feels dangerous about receiving without earning it first? Which part of me is scared to receive and why? Where am I still performing, at work, in love, in friendships, hoping to finally be chosen? What did I learn early on about what people like me are allowed to have? What would have to be true for me to allow something good, without conditions? That kind of awareness changes things. Because the map does not update when you attack it. It updates when you create enough safety, and enough repeated new experience, for a different reality to become believable. Not one grand breakthrough. Small contradictions to the old rule, repeated over time. Resting without collapse. Receiving without retreating. Letting love land without performing for it. Beyond the trap There are levels to this work. Level one: You notice the old belief. I don't deserve this. I'm not enough. I'm not the kind of person who gets that. Level two: You build a better belief. I do deserve this. I am worthy. I am enough. And sometimes that matters enormously. But there is a deeper level. Level three: You realise both positions are still happening inside the same permission system. One says denied. The other says approved. But both still assume there is a gate. That is where real freedom begins. Not when you finally convince yourself you deserve love. But when you stop needing the gate to exist at all. So, the real question is not only: What do I want to experience? It is also: What have I decided I am not allowed to experience? And why? Because many of the things we think are unavailable to us are not unavailable at all. They are simply still marked as forbidden on an old internal map. And old maps can be updated. If this resonated, I work with people who are ready to look at what their inner map has been quietly deciding for them, and what becomes possible when they begin to change it. You can learn more about my work through my website. Follow me on LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Alena Elchaninova Alena Elchaninova, Life Coach Alena Elchaninova is a London-based ICF-certified life coach, artist, and Pricing Director working at the intersection of self-awareness and practical life change. She supports individuals who feel internally conflicted despite functioning well on the outside, helping them move from self-abandonment to self-trust, personal agency, and clear, conscious action. Her work explores inner narratives, emotional and somatic awareness, and the integration of different parts of the self, translating insight into grounded, aligned change. She brings both structure and depth to the process of meaningful realignment.

Written by David Asselstine, Behavioral Insight Specialist David Asselstine is the inventive mind behind the paradigm-shifting psychosocial framework, the 7 Dimensions of Self. He has studied Life Coaching, Psychology, and Neurolinguistic Programming and has 5 years of experience working with mental health firsthand in the medical field. Most people believe their struggles are situational. Bad relationships. Bad luck. Bad timing. But what if none of it is random? What if the same outcomes repeat across different people, places, and moments are not a coincidence, but a pattern? That question changes everything. Because once you stop asking “Why is this happening to me?” and start asking “What is happening inside me that keeps producing this?” you begin to see something deeper, structure. The pattern beneath relationships Many of us have been in relationships we knew weren’t right and stayed anyway. In my own life, there were moments where I would be waiting for a message, watching silence stretch longer than it should, convincing myself that the next response would reset everything. Sometimes it did, but only temporarily. The same cycle would return: distance – confusion – reconnection – relief – repeat. It's important to recognize how subtle changes in behavior can be mistaken for progress. Over time, you may find yourself adjusting your life without even realizing it. Initially, these adjustments may seem like steps toward connection, but they can quickly turn into patterns of conditioning. For example, you might find yourself constantly waiting for replies, shifting your priorities to accommodate others, or adjusting your actions to align with someone else's emotional rhythm. At first, these actions might feel like you're fostering connection. However, over time, they can lead to delays in your own direction, leaving you stuck in a cycle of accommodating others at the expense of your own needs. What begins as a form of connection can gradually transform into a pattern of conditioning that shapes your behavior without you consciously choosing it. Recognizing this shift is key to reclaiming control and understanding the difference between genuine connection and emotional adjustment that holds you back. Red flags don’t disappear, they normalize In Still Here, there are moments where things felt undeniably wrong, but were still rationalized. Not because I didn’t see them. But because I didn’t want to lose what I thought I had. That’s the trap most people miss. Red flags don’t always end relationships. Often, they just get re-labeled as “manageable.” When that happens, repetition begins. Same emotional outcome. Different face. Different setting. Same internal result. Emotional conditioning: How patterns take hold One of the most powerful insights in my book is this: You don’t just choose patterns, you are trained into them. Over time, behavior becomes conditioned through repeated experiences, shaping how we react to various situations. For example, many people find themselves: Saying “yes” when they really want to question. Staying quiet to avoid disrupting the status quo. Taking responsibility simply to restore peace. This conditioning often occurs in emotionally unstable dynamics, where silence or distance from a partner can feel like rejection, even when nothing explicit has happened. The uncertainty created by these situations leads to internal over-processing, where individuals constantly question themselves with thoughts like: “Did I do something wrong?” “How do I fix this?” “What version of me keeps them close?” Over time, these thought patterns erode one's sense of self, causing identity to adapt not around truth, but around emotional survival. When self-trust starts to break In Still Here, a notable pattern emerges across various environments: when external stability fades, internal certainty begins to erode. This shift is subtle yet profound, and its effects can be far-reaching. As external anchors fade, individuals often experience a cascade of changes: Self-doubt replaces intuition, making decision-making harder and less clear. Over-apologizing replaces clarity, leaving communication and intentions muddled. Emotional reactions replace grounded responses, leading to impulsive reactions rather than thoughtful actions. At this point, many mistakenly label the issue as a "lack of confidence," but the problem runs deeper than that. It’s not just about confidence, it’s about the structural integrity of the self. This shift represents a breakdown in how the self organizes and processes experience, disrupting the ability to navigate life with a sense of certainty and direction. The internal system: Why patterns repeat Through reflection on my experiences, I began to recognize that behavior isn’t random, it is organized through internal dimensions. Three core elements shape this system: Self-confidence: The ability to trust yourself in handling life situations. When this weakens, even simple decisions feel overwhelming. Self-worth: Your internal sense of value. When it fractures, you begin accepting conditions you normally wouldn’t tolerate. Self-efficacy: Your belief in your ability to execute specific actions. You may know something is wrong, but still feel unable to act on it. This is where awareness and behavior split. You see the issue but don’t act on it. The prime movers: What drives behavior Beyond the internal structure of an individual, there are key forces that drive action. Motivation plays a crucial role, acting as the emotional pull toward a reward or away from discomfort. It provides the initial drive, urging individuals to take action. However, motivation alone is not enough. Ambition is the structural direction that channels motivation. Without ambition, motivation becomes reactive, simply responding to immediate circumstances, rather than being directed toward a specific goal. On the other hand, without motivation, ambition is reduced to empty planning, lacking the emotional energy required to make progress. Together, motivation and ambition form a dynamic pair that determines whether an individual moves forward in life or remains stuck in a cycle. Motivation ignites the desire for change, while ambition provides the framework for that change to unfold. When both forces align, they create a powerful drive that propels a person toward growth and success. Awareness: The point where patterns break Two forms of awareness determine whether cycles continue or come to an end: Metacognition: The ability to observe your own thinking, allowing you to reflect on your thought processes and behavior. Situational awareness: The ability to accurately interpret external events without distortion or bias. When these forms of awareness are low, patterns repeat unconsciously. But as they rise, something shifts. You begin to see the pattern clearly, rather than being trapped within it, allowing for meaningful change. Still here: The origin of the framework Everything in Still Here is rooted in lived experience, not theory. It reflects the instability of early childhood, the repeated environments, the shifting relationships, and the emotional adaptation required for survival. Over time, all of these elements converged into a singular realization: behavior has structure, and that structure can be mapped. From this insight emerged the Seven Dimensions of Self (7DS) and Forward Positive Momentum (FPM). These aren’t abstract concepts, but practical tools for understanding and breaking free from repetitive patterns. Why this matters When you start recognizing patterns in your life, you shift from feeling like a victim of circumstance to understanding your own behavior. Instead of thinking, "Why does this always happen to me?", you begin to realize, "This is what I keep repeating." This shift is the first step toward change, not just motivation or insight, but a deep recognition of the cycle you're in. By identifying these patterns, you unlock the potential for transformation. It's about awareness, not just external inspiration, that sparks lasting change. Final reflection This isn’t just my story. It’s evidence of something larger, no matter where you start. No matter what you go through. If you can see the pattern clearly enough, you can interrupt it. Once you interrupt it, you are no longer repeating your past. You are building something new. About the book This article is based on experiences and reflections from Still Here, a personal narrative exploring trauma, adaptation, emotional conditioning, and the development of structured psychological frameworks for understanding human behavior. For more work on these ideas, visit my Facebook page. That is where Still Here is made available and where the ongoing framework continues to evolve. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from David Asselstine David Asselstine, Behavioral Insight Specialist David Asselstine's model has redefined for many what terms like Motivation, Ambition, and Self-Esteem mean on a relational and personal level. David's life story built the 7 Dimensions of Self through his own experiential learning, adaptation, and resilience. His passion for helping others build their mental fortitude and comprehensive understanding of themselves has been the fuel for his own Forward Positive Momentum.

Written by Jamie Alexander, CEO, Certified Online Fitness Trainer, and Author Jamie Alexander is the CEO of Living Well With Jamie, a Certified Online Fitness Trainer, and author of the Mind, Body & Soul Fitness Journal, helping high-performing women transform through holistic wellness, fitness, and mindset coaching. You’re working out. You’re trying to eat better. You’re doing “all the right things,” but the scale isn’t moving. Your energy feels off, and your body doesn’t respond the way it used to. Here’s what no one is telling you: It might not be your workouts. It might be your protein. Are you eating enough protein, or just thinking you are? Most women believe they’re eating enough protein, but when we break it down, they’re often far below what their body truly needs. Protein supports metabolism, energy, hormone balance, and overall function. As we age, our protein needs increase, not decrease. What is protein really doing in your body? Protein is made up of amino acids. There are 20 in total, but 9 are essential, meaning your body cannot produce them. These amino acids support muscle repair, metabolism, immune function, and more. Complete vs. Incomplete protein: Why it matters Complete proteins contain all 9 essential amino acids. These include eggs, chicken, fish, Greek yogurt, and quinoa. Incomplete proteins, like beans and nuts, can still be valuable when combined properly. Why protein becomes more important with age Research shows adults can lose 3–8% of muscle mass per decade after age 30. This process, called sarcopenia, impacts metabolism and strength. Higher protein intake helps preserve lean muscle and supports metabolic health. Protein, perimenopause, and menopause Hormonal changes reduce the body’s efficiency in using protein. Studies show that increasing protein intake supports muscle retention, fat loss, and blood sugar stability during this stage. How much protein do you need? A common recommendation is 0.7–1 gram per pound of goal body weight. For example, a woman aiming for 150 pounds may need 105–150 grams of protein daily. Why appetite drops and why that’s a problem Appetite often decreases with age, which can lead to lower protein intake. This makes it essential to prioritize nutrient-dense meals. Simple ways to increase protein intake Add protein to every meal, prioritize it first, prep ahead, and choose high-protein snacks like Greek yogurt or eggs. The bottom line: Protein is power Protein supports fat loss, muscle tone, energy, and confidence. Being intentional with protein intake leads to sustainable results. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Jamie Alexander Jamie Alexander, CEO, Certified Online Fitness Trainer, and Author Jamie Alexander is the founder of the Elite Transformation Accountability Program, helping high-performing, busy moms all around the world prioritize their health and create lasting change. She’s the CEO of Living Well With Jamie, a Certified Online Fitness Trainer, and author of the Mind, Body & Soul Fitness Journal. Jamie’s mission is to help women thrive from the inside out through holistic wellness, fitness, mindset, and sustainable habits. Her work empowers women to feel strong, confident, and in control of their health, no matter how full their plates are. Follow Jamie for real-life strategies, expert insights, and inspiration to live well in every season of life. References: Morton RW et al. (2018). Protein intake to maximize resistance training. British Journal of Sports Medicine. Deutz NE et al. (2014). Protein intake and exercise for optimal muscle function. Clinical Nutrition. Paddon-Jones D & Rasmussen BB (2009). Dietary protein recommendations. Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition. Phillips SM (2016). Protein requirements and aging. Applied Physiology. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – Protein

Written by Sajdah Wendy Muhammad, Business Advisor Wendy is a multi-million-dollar business and real estate developer, global thought leader, crisis manager, emotional intelligence coach, and award-winning urban historic preservationist. An international entrepreneur, she has pioneered innovative healthcare business models and founded the Mind of an Entrepreneur® brand to empower marginalized communities through wealth-building, business ownership, and sustainable community development. The political economy of perception refers to the way narratives, beliefs, and public impressions shape economic policy just as powerfully as data itself. In this framework, policy is not always driven by measurable outcomes but by what stakeholders are led to believe about who benefits, who loses, and where imbalance exists. When perception diverges from empirical reality, it can redirect legislative attention toward correcting imagined distortions while leaving actual structural disparities unaddressed. Over time, these misaligned perceptions become embedded in institutional decision-making, influencing funding priorities, regulatory actions, and enforcement strategies. The result is a cycle in which narrative reinforces policy, and policy reinforces narrative, often to the detriment of accurate analysis and equitable economic participation. The contemporary debate surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has moved beyond institutional practice into the center of federal policy and national discourse. Once understood as a framework for expanding access and correcting measurable disparities, DEI is now increasingly framed as a mechanism that undermines merit, introduces inefficiency, and creates unlawful discrimination. This shift is codified in the March 26, 2026, Executive Order, "Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors," which asserts that DEI activities impose artificial costs and reduce economic efficiency.[1] At the center of this policy framing lies a widely accepted assumption, that DEI initiatives have produced disproportionate advantage for Black Americans. This assumption has shaped public perception and is now influencing federal action. However, when examined through empirical data, this claim does not withstand scrutiny. The evidence reveals a different reality, one defined not by overrepresentation, but by persistent underrepresentation. “The data does not show overrepresentation, it reveals persistent underrepresentation.” Federal contracting and the distribution of opportunity Federal procurement remains one of the most powerful mechanisms through which economic opportunity is distributed. In fiscal year 2024, the federal government awarded approximately $183 billion in contracts to small businesses, representing 28.8 percent of total contracting dollars.[2] While this figure is often cited as evidence of inclusive procurement, distribution patterns tell a more precise story. Black-owned businesses received approximately 1.54 percent of small-business-eligible federal contracting dollars.[3] This figure stands in stark contrast to demographic benchmarks, as Black Americans comprise roughly 13 to 14 percent of the U.S. population.[4] Rather than demonstrating preferential access, the data reflects a significant participation gap within one of the largest procurement systems in the world. “DEI has been framed as preference, but the data reflects limited access.” From a policy standpoint, this disparity suggests that the issue is not one of overcorrection, but of incomplete integration into federal contracting pipelines. Structural barriers, such as capital constraints, bonding requirements, and restricted access to established networks, continue to shape participation outcomes. Business ownership and structural economic disparities The broader economic landscape reinforces these findings. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2025 Annual Business Survey, Black-owned employer firms account for approximately 3.4 percent of all employer businesses, generating $249 billion in receipts.[5] In contrast, white-owned firms represent over 80 percent of employer businesses and generate approximately $17 trillion in receipts, while Asian-owned firms account for 11.5 percent of employer businesses and $1.2 trillion in receipts.[6] These disparities are not incidental. They reflect longstanding structural conditions, including differential access to credit, historical exclusion from asset accumulation, and uneven participation in high-growth sectors. “Policy built on perception rather than evidence risks reinforcing the very disparities it seeks to resolve.” The persistence of these gaps indicates that DEI initiatives, as currently implemented, have not produced disproportionate economic advantage for Black businesses. Instead, they operate within systems that continue to yield unequal outcomes. Corporate workforce outcomes Corporate employment data further complicates the prevailing narrative. Despite widespread adoption of DEI programs, advancement outcomes remain uneven across demographic groups. According to McKinsey & Company’s 2024 Women in the Workplace report, for every 100 men promoted to management roles, only 54 Black women are promoted, compared to 89 white women and 99 Asian women. [7] Additional research from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission indicates that Black professionals remain underrepresented in high-technology sectors and executive leadership positions, with minimal progress over time. [8] “The central question is not whether fairness matters, but whether fairness is being measured accurately.” These findings suggest that while DEI initiatives may increase awareness and representation at entry levels, they have not fundamentally altered advancement trajectories for Black professionals. Policy analysis: The executive order and its assumptions The 2026 Executive Order defines “racially discriminatory DEI activities” as disparate treatment based on race or ethnicity in employment, contracting, or program participation. ¹ It further asserts that such practices undermine efficiency and limit the available labor pool. A careful examination of these claims reveals a misalignment between policy assumptions and empirical evidence. First, the assertion that DEI produces widespread racial preference is not supported by contracting or workforce data. Black-owned businesses and Black professionals remain underrepresented across key economic indicators. Second, the claim that DEI reduces efficiency lacks empirical grounding. Research in organizational performance suggests that expanding participation can enhance competition, innovation, and problem-solving capacity. Third, the characterization of DEI as limiting the labor pool overlooks the nature of many equity-oriented initiatives, which are designed to expand recruitment, training, and supplier participation. “Expanding access is not the same as restricting opportunity, it is the foundation of a competitive marketplace.” Finally, the policy does not adequately distinguish between unlawful discrimination and lawful efforts to address barriers to participation. This lack of clarity risks discouraging practices that are both legally permissible and economically beneficial. A more precise framework would recognize that there is a meaningful difference between exclusionary preference and inclusive access. Programs designed to expand opportunity, such as supplier outreach, workforce training, mentorship pipelines, and technical assistance, do not allocate advantage based on race, they work to ensure that qualified participants are able to compete within systems that have historically limited entry. When these efforts are broadly categorized as discriminatory, organizations may withdraw from them altogether, not because they are unlawful, but because the risk of regulatory scrutiny, contractual penalties, or reputational exposure outweighs the perceived benefit. Over time, the effect of this is one that narrows participation, reduces competition, and reinforces existing barriers rather than removing them. The result is not a more neutral or efficient marketplace, but a more restricted one, where access is implicitly governed by legacy structures rather than open, competitive opportunity. The political economy of perception Beyond its economic implications, the framing of DEI reflects a broader dynamic in the political economy of perception. Narratives about who benefits from policy interventions shape both public opinion and legislative action. The portrayal of Black Americans as primary beneficiaries of DEI contributes to a perception of disproportionate advantage, despite evidence to the contrary. This perception can drive policy responses that address perceived inequities rather than measurable disparities. “When perception replaces data, policy begins to solve the wrong problem.” Such misalignment diverts attention from structural barriers that continue to limit participation, including capital access, network inclusion, and institutional practices that shape opportunity distribution. These are operational barriers. Capital access, for example, is governed by underwriting standards, collateral requirements, credit histories, real estate valuations, and relationship-based lending practices that often disadvantage first-generation or historically excluded entrepreneurs. Even when formal discrimination is absent, these mechanisms can produce uneven outcomes by design, concentrating opportunity among those already positioned within established financial ecosystems. Network inclusion functions in a similar way. Much of business development, particularly in government contracting and corporate procurement, relies on relationships, referrals, and prior performance within closed or semi-closed circles. Entry into these networks is rarely determined by qualification alone, it is mediated by visibility, proximity, and trust built over time. When certain groups have been historically excluded from these networks, the absence of intentional pathways into them effectively preserves the status quo, regardless of formal policy commitments to openness. Institutional practices further reinforce these dynamics. Procurement thresholds, bonding requirements, scale expectations, and compliance structures can inadvertently favor larger, well-capitalized firms with established track records, limiting the ability of smaller or emerging businesses to compete. In employment, similar patterns appear in recruitment pipelines, credential preferences, and promotion criteria that privilege continuity over access. These systems are often perceived as neutral because they are standardized, yet their outcomes reveal patterned disparities. When policy discourse centers on perceived overcorrection rather than these underlying mechanisms, it shifts attention away from the points where intervention is most needed. The result is a misdiagnosis of the problem, instead of addressing how opportunity is structured and distributed, policy risks focusing on whether efforts to broaden access are themselves problematic. A more effective approach would interrogate how capital flows, how networks are formed and accessed, and how institutional criteria shape participation, ensuring that the architecture of opportunity reflects both fairness and economic efficiency. Conclusion The evolution of DEI policy underscores the importance of aligning public discourse with empirical evidence. While the principle of fairness remains central to federal contracting and employment policy, fairness must be defined through measurable outcomes rather than perception. The data demonstrates that Black-owned businesses and Black professionals remain underrepresented in key areas of economic participation. These findings challenge the prevailing narrative of disproportionate advantage and instead point to the persistence of structural limitations. “Clarity produces precision. Precision produces results. Policy must begin with truth.” Effective policy requires discipline in both analysis and interpretation. Without that discipline, interventions risk reinforcing the very disparities they seek to eliminate. A disciplined reading of the data points to a larger economic truth, the question before us is not simply one of fairness, but of national performance. In my book The Art and Science of Business, I advance the principle that business is both a structural science and a living system, one that either expands through inclusive productivity or contracts through exclusion. Closing the wealth gap is not a symbolic exercise, it is a measurable economic strategy. When capital is extended into historically constrained communities, it does not disappear, it circulates. It strengthens small business formation, stabilizes local markets, revitalizes declining industries, and ultimately contributes to gross domestic product through increased production, employment, and consumption. Economists have long demonstrated that narrowing racial wealth disparities could add trillions to the U.S. economy over time, not as a theoretical projection, but as a function of unlocking underutilized capacity. Black Americans have not been peripheral to the American economy, they have been foundational to it. From agriculture to infrastructure, from industrial labor to cultural production, the historical record reflects a sustained contribution to the building of national wealth, often without proportional access to ownership or capital accumulation. The modern economy still bears the imprint of that imbalance. To ignore the productive potential of a population with a demonstrated history of resilience, innovation, and labor contribution is not only inequitable, it is economically inefficient. Equally important is the inverse question that is rarely asked with precision, "What is the cost of exclusion?" Beyond the visible disparities lies an unmeasured but significant expenditure, capital spent on maintaining barriers, whether through litigation, compliance friction, gatekeeping mechanisms, restricted access to financing, or the systemic inefficiencies created by limited participation. These costs are absorbed across both public and private sectors, diminishing overall economic output. A serious policy framework must begin to quantify not only what is gained through inclusion, but what is lost, and continually spent, through exclusion. The future stability of the American economy will not be determined solely by innovation at the margins, but by how effectively it integrates the full productive capacity of its people. To infuse the productivity of Black businesses and professionals into the broader economic system is to expand the nation’s operating base. It is to convert unrealized potential into measurable growth. In this sense, closing the wealth gap becomes more than a moral imperative, it becomes a strategic buffer, capable of strengthening GDP, revitalizing sectors in decline, and providing resilience in periods of economic contraction. The path forward requires clarity, discipline, and a willingness to measure what has long been assumed. When policy aligns with truth, the result is not only equity, it is endurance. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sajdah Wendy Muhammad Sajdah Wendy Muhammad, Business Advisor Wendy Muhammad is a multi-million-dollar business developer, Author of the best-selling book, The Art and Science of Business, an Award-Winning Urban Historic Preservationist and Real Estate Developer, with more than $500 million in projects across healthcare, real estate, infrastructure, and community development. Muhammad is a leading voice in empowering entrepreneurs and building generational wealth. Her Mind of an Entrepreneur brand includes podcasts, workshops, and books that blend strategy, spirituality, and economic empowerment. Footnotes: [1] Executive Order, Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors, March 26, 2026. [2] U.S. Small Business Administration, FY2024 Small Business Procurement Scorecard, 2025. [3] Reuters, analysis of SBA contracting data (2024–2025). [4] U.S. Census Bureau, QuickFacts: United States, 2025. [5] U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Business Survey, 2025. [6] Ibid. [7] McKinsey & Company, Women in the Workplace, 2024. [8] U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Diversity in High Tech Workforce Report, 2023. [9] Art and Science of Business, Sajdah Wendy Muhammad (Now available on Amazon).

Written by Mark Durieux, Sociologist and Educator Mark Durieux is a sociologist with over two decades of experience as a university instructor. Lead co‑author of Social Entrepreneurship for Dummies, he lectures, researches, writes, and publishes in environmental, economic, urban, and public sociology as well as research methods. Walk into any university library today, and you will see screens glowing with the unmistakable, rapid-fire text generation of artificial intelligence. What was once a slow, halting process of drafting and deleting has become frictionless. But this newfound efficiency forces us to ask a profound question: What is education actually for? The central issue is no longer whether students use AI, but whether they are using it to deepen their thinking or to bypass it entirely. That distinction matters because education is not merely about producing correct answers. It is about cultivating judgment, interpretive capacity, intellectual discipline, and the ability to reason under conditions of uncertainty. From a sociological standpoint, the rise of generative AI in the classroom is not just a matter of individual student choice. It is a structural shift tied to technological change, institutional incentives, and transforming cultural expectations about achievement. What might appear as a personal struggle, a student relying on AI to reduce effort, avoid uncertainty, or simply survive a crushing workload, is actually a public issue embedded in the very organization of schooling and the broader political economy of digital capitalism. From personal trouble to public issue The sociologist C. Wright Mills famously argued that we must connect personal troubles to public issues to truly understand society. That framework is vital here. Students often experience AI as a practical convenience, a study aid, or a lifeline in an era of mounting academic pressure. Yet these seemingly private decisions are shaped by larger social conditions: the inflation of credentials, intensified competition, time scarcity, and the normalization of constant optimization in our everyday lives. In this sense, generative AI is not simply another educational tool like a calculator or a spell checker. It is a social force that presses institutions to clarify their values. Do we value visible, polished outputs, or do we value the slow, sometimes messy development of durable intellectual capacities? If a student can generate a passable essay, a coherent summary, or a discussion post with minimal cognitive effort, then our longstanding assumptions about learning, assessment, and merit are thrown into sharp relief. The political economy of "cognitive rent" When we look at the adoption of AI in universities through the lens of critical platform studies, it becomes clear that this is not a neutral upgrade. It is a shift in the political economy of knowledge. Institutions are increasingly "renting" cognitive tools from a handful of private tech giants, leading to a profound loss of institutional autonomy over data and curriculum. When a university integrates a proprietary Large Language Model into its learning management system, it essentially outsources the infrastructure of thought to entities whose primary motive is profit, not pedagogy. This creates a state of platform dependency. The "black box" nature of these tools means that the logic of optimization is determined by Silicon Valley engineers rather than educators. As institutions become reliant on these rented cognitive scaffolds, they risk a form of intellectual capture, where the very parameters of what constitutes a "good" argument or a "valid" summary are dictated by the underlying weights of a private algorithm. This is the digital capitalism Mills might have warned us about: the transformation of student cognition into a data point for the further refinement of commercial products. AI as scaffold or substitute One of the most crucial distinctions in the current debate is between AI as a scaffold and AI as a substitute. Used well, AI can support brainstorming, clarify complex concepts, organize thoughts, and guide inquiry. It can function as a bounded assistant that helps students identify gaps in their understanding and refine their own arguments. In this form, AI extends thinking. Used poorly, however, AI becomes a mechanism for cognitive offloading. Students may outsource summarizing, framing, drafting, and even interpretation itself. In these cases, the technology does not support learning so much as it simulates its products. The student submits something that resembles competence while bypassing much of the effort through which competence is ordinarily developed. The key question is not whether AI appears in the learning process, but what cognitive work remains with the learner. Productive friction and cognitive development Learning often requires friction. Students grow intellectually by struggling with ambiguity, confronting weak arguments, revising incomplete understandings, and working through problems that do not yield immediate answers. This kind of productive friction is not an unfortunate obstacle to learning; it is one of its central conditions. Generative AI complicates this process because it reduces friction with extraordinary efficiency. It can instantly summarize texts, propose structures, generate examples, and offer seemingly coherent interpretations. The danger is that students may begin to experience the absence of friction as educational success. But when tools consistently remove the need to wrestle with uncertainty, they may also erode the habits of mind that higher education is supposed to cultivate. If educational cultures increasingly reward speed and convenience, AI will be adopted in ways that align with those norms, potentially causing institutions to reorganize learning around outputs that are easiest to automate. Social reproduction and the cognitive divide Education has long been a site of social reproduction, transmitting not only knowledge but also unequal opportunities. AI may now be reshaping this process, creating a new cognitive divide layered onto existing forms of stratification. Students with stronger academic preparation and more supportive learning environments are positioned to use AI strategically, employing it as an instrument for extension and refinement. Conversely, students under greater pressure, with weaker preparation or less institutional support, may use it as a shortcut to compensate, conceal gaps, or simply "get through" the system. Those already advantaged may use AI to become even more effective thinkers, while others become increasingly detached from the very processes that build expertise. In this sense, AI could intensify educational inequality even when access to the technology appears widespread. Credentialism and the crisis of legitimacy AI also exposes a deeper problem within our credential-focused society. If educational systems rely heavily on assignments that can now be generated or heavily assisted by AI, the legitimacy of assessment comes under strain. A purely policing approach, relying on imperfect AI detectors, is unlikely to solve the problem. The deeper issue is that many assessment regimes have long rewarded the final product over the learning process, completion over reflection, and performance over demonstrated understanding. AI forces educators to confront whether traditional assignments actually reveal learning or merely provide opportunities to display it. A stronger response involves redesigning assessment around forms of work that make judgment visible: iterative drafting, oral defenses, process notes, and assignments anchored in specific, real-world contexts. The culture of efficiency and the hidden curriculum The appeal of AI reflects a broader cultural logic. In modern, efficiency-driven settings, individuals are encouraged to optimize performance, maximize productivity, and treat time as a scarce resource. Under such conditions, AI fits an already dominant ethos: do more, faster, with less effort. Students are not irrational when they turn to AI shortcuts. They are responding to institutional environments shaped by high workloads, precarious futures, and relentless measurement. This context explains why many students use tools that promise to accelerate the path to a credential. Yet, every educational technology carries a hidden curriculum. Generative AI may teach students implicit beliefs about knowledge, authorship, effort, and intelligence. If students repeatedly encounter knowledge as something instantly produced, they may see understanding as mere retrieval rather than active construction. If writing becomes the assembly of plausible prose rather than the disciplined clarification of thought, the educational meaning of writing changes entirely. Over time, these patterns can shape dispositions that extend well beyond the classroom, potentially weakening the moral and cognitive value of perseverance. Conclusion: The stress test As routine cognitive tasks become more easily automated, educational institutions must reconsider what forms of human labor they are preparing students to perform. Information recall and formulaic writing may become less distinctive, while judgment, synthesis, interpretation, and ethical reasoning become more central. Crucially, this does not mean content knowledge no longer matters. Sound judgment depends on substantive understanding. Students cannot evaluate AI outputs well if they lack the conceptual grounding to recognize distortion, omission, or superficiality. Generative AI is best understood not as a simple teaching aid or a cheating device, but as a sociological stress test. It exposes tensions that were already present in education: between learning and credentialing, effort and efficiency, judgment and output, equity and stratification. The central challenge is therefore normative and institutional, not merely technical. Educational systems must decide whether they will organize AI around the cultivation of thought or allow it to normalize the outsourcing of thought. By reclaiming institutional autonomy from private platforms and emphasizing productive friction, we can ensure that AI serves to extend human capability rather than replace it. How will we choose to shape the minds of tomorrow when the answers of today are only a click away? Visit my website for more info! Read more from Mark Durieux Mark Durieux, Sociologist and Educator Mark Durieux is the developer of the increasingly popular Generative AI app, The Sociological Imagination, and the lead co‑author of Social Entrepreneurship For Dummies. He has researched and written extensively on introductory, environmental, economic, urban, and public sociology, as well as on research methods. Mark works with communities and organizations in Canada and abroad to advance social entrepreneurship, equity, and democratic engagement. His mission is to democratize sociological knowledge, thereby inviting the public into critical, hopeful conversations about how society can change for the better.

Written by Mike Falkow, Strategist, Creative Director, and Writer Mike Falkow is the CEO of Meritus Media, a PR and digital marketing agency based in Los Angeles. He is also known for his work as a creative director in former roles at Falkow Creative and Rogue Magazine. He's a published author of the novel Desert Storm, released in 2025, and host of the ProActive Podcast. In an era that rewards specialization, there is something quietly radical about a person who refuses to live in only one lane. The modern Renaissance man is not a relic of another age, nor is he simply someone with many interests. He is someone who understands that creativity, business, craftsmanship, culture, and legacy are not separate worlds at all, but connected expressions of the same life. Dave Tourjé is a compelling example of that way of living. Tourjé is best known in many circles as an artist and founder of the California Locos, the influential Southern California collective whose work draws from surf and skate culture, punk, graffiti, tattoo, design, and the broader visual language of Los Angeles. His work has long reflected that collision of so called high and low culture, blending fine art with the energy of the street, the garage, the beach, and the boulevard. But the deeper story is not simply that he makes art. It is that he has built a life around making, restoring, preserving, documenting, and shaping culture from multiple angles at once. He is also a successful businessman, and that duality matters. It suggests a way of living in which aesthetics and enterprise do not compete, but reinforce each other. That same impulse toward preservation and cultural stewardship can be seen in his role with the Chouinard Foundation. It is one thing to create new work. It is another to help preserve the lineage, values, and institutions that shaped generations of artists in the first place. In a culture obsessed with novelty, there is something deeply important about people who also understand the value of memory. That preservation instinct extends beyond institutions. It also appears in the way Dave approaches place itself. He purchased and restored a château in Pasadena previously owned by Jacqueline and Norman Blank, a residence designed by Sylvanus Marsden. It would be easy to see this simply as a real estate story, but it is more revealing than that. Restoration, in the hands of someone like Tourjé, becomes another form of authorship. It is not only about ownership. It is about stewardship, taste, continuity, and the belief that beautiful things with history deserve to be brought forward rather than erased. This is one of the clearest markers of a true Renaissance mindset. It is not only about output. It is about worldview. It is about understanding that building a meaningful life requires both invention and stewardship. The Renaissance man does not simply create new things. He also protects the lineage, language, and craft that made those new things possible in the first place. That idea is visible again in Tourjé’s work as a documentary filmmaker. His creative life does not stop at the canvas or the built environment. He has developed documentary projects around the California Locos and Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs, and is also in the early stages of a film centered on Rory Gallagher and a guitar from Dave’s own collection. Seen together, these projects suggest an artist deeply drawn to cultural memory, iconic figures, and the objects and stories that might otherwise fade with time. Film, for him, is not a departure from painting or construction. It is another extension of the same instinct, to observe closely, to tell stories, and to preserve people, places, music, and ideas before they disappear. That instinct feels especially relevant now, at a time when so much culture is consumed quickly and forgotten even faster. A documentary practice pushes in the opposite direction. It asks us to slow down, to pay attention, and to recognize the value of legacy. It also shows up in the unexpected places where art meets fashion and design. Tourjé is now developing a line of truck style hats under the California Locos brand, but these are not ordinary merchandise pieces. They are being conceived more like art objects, using unusual and elevated materials such as sterling silver buttons and premium denim. The hats will also be displayed at the Millard Sheets Center, adding another visual layer to the California Locos presentation. In collaboration with Joshua and Abraham Paskowitz, the project introduces another dimension of the Renaissance idea, the belief that everyday objects can also carry meaning, beauty, narrative, and craft. That collaboration with the Paskowitz family extends into another project rooted in American mythology and California history, the restoration of the famous Paskowitz family van. That van is more than a vehicle. It is a symbol of freedom, family, surf culture, movement, and an older form of American self invention. In restoring it, and in looking toward a documentary series around it, Tourjé once again reveals the same pattern that runs through his life and work, a fascination with the things that carry memory, identity, and cultural meaning. This is what makes the phrase Renaissance man feel earned rather than ornamental. In lesser hands, a multi role life can feel scattered. In Tourjé’s case, it feels integrated. The art, the business, the architecture, the film work, the preservation, the fashion experiments, the cultural collaborations, and the documentary storytelling all seem to belong to one coherent worldview. That worldview is also visible in the work happening now. An upcoming California Locos presentation, LOCOS Origins, will bring together major works from 2001 to the present as part of the larger Play Pavilion exhibition at the Millard Sheets Art Center. It is the first time these works will be publicly displayed together in this way, turning the show into more than an event. It becomes a statement about continuity, roots, and cultural memory. That may be the real lesson here. In a world that often pushes people to choose a single identity, artist or entrepreneur, visionary or operator, maker or thinker, Tourjé represents a more integrated model. The most interesting lives are rarely built through narrow categories. They are built through curiosity, range, discipline, and the willingness to follow a creative instinct wherever it leads. There is, of course, a risk in living this way. A multi layered life can confuse people who are more comfortable with neat labels. But when it is lived with coherence, it becomes something else entirely. It becomes a philosophy. The point is not to do many things for the sake of it. The point is to recognize the thread running through them all. With Tourjé, that thread seems clear, art, craftsmanship, California culture, history, and the urge to build. Build artworks. Build businesses. Build institutions. Build films. Build objects. Build stories. Build spaces where culture can live and evolve. One might also replace the word “build” with the word “create” and it would still ring true. That is what makes the Renaissance man relevant now. He reminds us that a meaningful life is not assembled from disconnected achievements, but from a body of work, a pattern of values, and a long conversation between what we make and what we preserve, and that may be the most modern thing of all. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Mike Falkow Mike Falkow, Strategist, Creative Director, and Writer Mike Falkow is the CEO of Meritus Media, a PR and digital marketing agency in Los Angeles. He helps founders and brands turn expertise into coverage, thought leadership, and measurable growth. Previously a creative director at Falkow Creative and Rogue Magazine, he is the author of the 2025 novel Desert Storm and host of the ProActive Podcast.

Written by Julie Cloutier, Coach and Wealth Consciousness Mentor Julie Cloutier is a Wealth Consciousness Coach who mentors leaders, visionaries, and entrepreneurs in embodying effortless prosperity. Through her group programs and private mentorship, she guides clients to dissolve scarcity patterns, elevate their self-concept, and align with the frequency of true wealth and ease. The investment in high-ticket offers goes beyond the price, it is a pivotal moment where both buyer and seller affirm their value. This threshold represents a courageous decision to choose oneself, signaling readiness for growth, abundance, and transformation. For those who have chosen to diverge There is a moment I will never forget. I was sitting across from the price of something I deeply wanted, a high-ticket mentorship container that would cost more than I had ever invested in myself in a single transaction. Everything in me wanted it. And everything in me was terrified. I said yes anyway. That decision changed my life, not because of what I learned inside the container, but because of what I discovered the moment I crossed that threshold. I discovered that the courage it takes to say yes to yourself at that level is the same courage it later takes to offer that level to someone else. You cannot sell what you would never buy. And when you buy something at the level you are being called to, you are giving yourself a promotion in the field, into the next version of who you are becoming. You are stepping into a higher level of courage and a higher level of valuing yourself by giving yourself what you want and perceive to be contributing to your expansion. I know this because I lived it. And I know it because I now sit on the other side of that transaction, offering premium mentorship at the level I once had to find the courage to receive. Every offer is a mirror Most people think of sales as a numbers game, a persuasion technique, or at best, a necessary discomfort. I want to offer you a completely different frame. Sales is a mirror. When you move from intuition, in the purity of your heart, and genuinely feel someone would benefit from your service or product, it is your duty to offer them the possibility to buy. Not as a strategy, but as an act of love. Before we look at why someone says no, there is something worth examining on your side first. Sometimes an offer is not landing simply because it is not your truest offer in this moment. If you find yourself receiving consistent no’s, look within before looking outward. Is this truly what you are most excited to give? If they say yes, they have chosen themselves. If they say no, it is mainly one of three things, they do not resonate with the offer being for them in this moment, they believe in lack and fear they will not be replenished, or they are showing themselves exactly where they are still choosing limitation over expansion. Either way, you lose nothing. You opened a door. What they do with it is their sovereign choice. This means that if you make 100 offers and receive 99 no’s, the one yes that comes is the only one that counts. You were not rejected 99 times. You were being directed to the right person. Sales is not a dirty word Let me reframe it entirely: S: Soul A: Aligned L: Love E: Ecstatic S: Sharing When you offer your services from this place, you are not asking for something. You are offering someone the privilege of saying yes to themselves. The offer is not about you. The no is not about you. The yes is not about you either, it is about them. The moment you internalize this, the weight of sales disappears entirely. What remains is generous, clear, and completely free of manipulation. The courage that meets itself Here is what nobody talks about when it comes to high-ticket offers. It requires the same level of courage to offer a premium service as it does to buy one. These two acts of courage are energetically equivalent, they are mirrors of each other. The seller who has genuinely crossed that threshold themselves becomes a bridge for the buyer. Not a salesperson, but a transitional being. When I offer my private mentorship at $15,000 for six weeks, I am not simply exchanging time for money. I am offering someone a container where my full attention, my full skill, and my full presence are devoted entirely to their process. Nothing diluted. Nothing held back. Think of the difference between eating at a fast food chain and sitting at a table in a Michelin-starred restaurant. You are not eating the same thing. The craft, the attention, the devotion behind every element, it is categorically different. Not because one person is worth more than another. But because one experience is built on a completely different quality of presence. When I walk into that level of work, I work with the precision of a heart surgeon, efficient, exact, and fully present. If I did not offer this at the level it deserves, that skill and that devotion would simply go to waste. The work is mainly done the moment the person says yes. The minute they pay, the threshold has been crossed, what follows is simply the stabilization of their energy at a higher frequency level. The seller who has stabilized in this level of courage is only the energetic bridge for the buyer who is just arriving at that edge. Like attracts like. The being who is ready to say yes at that level will find their way to you, guided by infinite intelligence, by intuition, by whatever name you give to the force that moves things into alignment. You do not need to find them. God is at the wheel. Your duty is to state your offer, give it to yourself, and allow the being who is ready to give it to themselves to do it through your portal. You are asked only to be a portal, from one paradigm of fear of lack to the paradigm of infinite abundance. The investment is the threshold Here is the code I want to leave you with, and it applies whether you are on the buying side or the selling side. The investment is not the price. It is the threshold where you choose yourself, and in doing so, you give permission for others to choose themselves through you. Every time you invest in yourself at a level that stretches you, you are signaling to the field that you are ready for more. You are not losing money, you are expanding your capacity to receive. Lack does not exist. It is a belief. And when you choose to act from that recognition, rather than from the fear of scarcity, life meets you there. The same is true when you offer. When you price your work at the level it is truly worth, when you hold that offer with steadiness and without apology, you are not being greedy. You are being coherent. You are matching your outer reality to your inner knowing. Your responsibility as a conscious being in business is this, act with integrity, communicate clearly, and choose your highest excitement without fear of lack. It is not your job to manage the how. It is not your job to convince anyone. Your job is to offer your gifts, with love, with precision, and without attachment to the outcome. From this perspective, your offers are a gift to the world. The soul who benefits most will say yes. When one leaves, another arrives. This is not a philosophy. It is a lived reality. Before you were ready I bought that high-ticket mentorship before I had the clients to justify it. I said yes before I was ready, which is the only way you ever say yes to something that truly expands you. And then I watched what happened. The version of me who crossed that threshold was not the same version who had hesitated at the door. Something had shifted. A new level of self-trust had been installed. A new level of what I allowed myself to receive, and to offer. You cannot give what you have not claimed for yourself. If there is an offer in front of you that scares you and excites you in equal measure, that is not a coincidence. That is your next threshold. If you are holding an offer that you have been afraid to make at its full value, the world is waiting for the version of you who says it anyway. Related article: The Hidden Power of Mentorship The celebration of the end Let us be clear about what lack of integrity looks like, so that we can align with integrity at all times. Lack of integrity is anything that involves shaming others, trying to convince, being demanding, or being dishonest. To be in integrity, make sure you are offering what you genuinely feel would benefit the person in front of you. If you have multiple offers, you will know what to offer, when, and to whom. Follow that intuition at all times. Be clear about what is expected and what is agreed upon before payment, not as promised results, but as the structure of the offer. And then deliver that structure as the world-class being that you know yourself to be. Stay the course if turbulence arises. You are responsible for stabilizing the space by remaining anchored in self-trust and self-honesty. Celebrate the beginning of the offer, when the client takes the high jump with you into the unknown. Stabilize during the experience. And celebrate the ending, when the client has outgrown your offer. There is a true celebration in letting someone outgrow you. It is not so different from life itself. We celebrate birth, we live fully, and we honor the end as the transition into something bigger. When you allow things to be born, fully lived, and dissolved, life becomes truly magical. Our presence here is transitional. Celebrate it. Live fully, without fear of lack, without fear of ending. This is what it means to be consciously transactional. Not a strategy. A way of being. Related sharing on YouTube: As a Mentor, Celebrating The End – Even When it “Hurts”. Subscribe to Julie’s YouTube Channel for more inspiration. Access the website. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Julie Cloutier Julie Cloutier, Coach and Wealth Consciousness Mentor Julie Cloutier is a Wealth Consciousness Coach who guides leaders, visionaries, and creators to embody effortless prosperity. Through her groundbreaking work in wealth consciousness, self-concept, and energetic mastery, she helps dissolve scarcity patterns and activate deeper alignment with abundance. Julie’s approach blends spiritual insight with grounded clarity, inviting clients to return to their natural state of ease, where striving dissolves, and wealth becomes the natural reflection of being more of who they truly are. Invitation: Enter The Free Conscious Creator Community Small Group Mentorship — The Conscious Creator Inner Circle Premium High-Level Mentorship — The Sovereign — 2 spaces available

Written by Annick Verboven, Trauma and Narcissism Recovery Coach Annick Verboven writes about trauma, narcissistic abuse, and embodied leadership. She guides her clients and visionary leaders to break survival patterns, transmute inner blocks into clarity, and activate spiritual intelligence, unlocking truth, vitality in the mind, body, and nervous system, and the power to lead from deep alignment. Have you ever walked into an important meeting and felt the ground shift beneath you? Not because of what was happening outside, but because something inside you could not hold still? Maybe you pushed through it, or you mistook the tension for focus. It’s possible you never stopped long enough to ask where it actually comes from. Keep reading to discover why internal stability is the true foundation of leadership and how your nervous system is either working for you or against you. What does it mean to lead from internal stability? Leading from internal stability means that your ability to stay grounded and present does not depend on the circumstances around you. When pressure rises, when markets shift, when teams conflict, or when decisions must be made without complete information, you do not get swept away. You become the steady current others can follow. Internal stability is not the absence of emotion. It is not performed composure or forced calm. It is a trained capacity to return to center, regardless of what is happening around you. And it begins not with your mindset, but with your nervous system. Why does the nervous system matter in leadership? Your nervous system constantly scans the environment and broadcasts a signal, safety or threat, calm or chaos. This happens beneath conscious awareness, faster than thought. The people around you pick it up without realizing it. Polyvagal theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, describes this as co-regulation. Human nervous systems read and influence one another continuously. When you are dysregulated, flooded, or operating from survival mode, your team feels it. They become more guarded, less creative, and more focused on managing your state than on doing their best work. The reverse is equally true. When you are regulated, your presence becomes a stabilizing force. Your calm is not just yours, it becomes the environment others think and lead from. When does dysregulation show up in a leader? Dysregulation rarely announces itself dramatically. It shows up when you make decisions faster than necessary because uncertainty feels unbearable. It shows up when you snap and call it directness. It shows up when you avoid a difficult conversation because your body tightens at the thought of it. It shows up as over-control, withdrawal, and chronic exhaustion that no amount of rest seems to fix. These are not personality traits. They are nervous system responses—old survival strategies that once kept you safe but no longer serve you or the people you lead. Recognizing them as such is the first and most important shift. What are the three nervous system states every leader should know? The autonomic nervous system operates in three primary states: The ventral vagal state is your social engagement system. From here, you feel connected, curious, and grounded. You think clearly, hold complexity, and lead with genuine presence. This is where real leadership lives. The sympathetic state is your fight-or-flight response. Your thinking narrows, your empathy drops, and your decisions become reactive rather than considered. Many leaders live here chronically without realizing it. The dorsal vagal state is your freeze or shutdown response. It can look like emotional flatness, disconnection, or going through the motions without being truly present. Knowing which state you are operating from is not a philosophical exercise. It is a practical leadership skill that changes everything. Does internal stability mean suppressing emotion? No, and this distinction matters. Pushing emotion down or performing a calm you do not feel is suppression. It carries significant costs, both physically and relationally. People sense the gap between what a leader projects and what they actually feel, even when they cannot name it. True stability is the capacity to feel the full weight of what is happening while still choosing your response. Emotion is information. A regulated nervous system does not eliminate that information, it allows you to receive it without being controlled by it. What underlying patterns does leadership behavior reveal? Not every pattern a leader carries is originally theirs. The loyalties inherited from family systems. The survival strategies passed down through generations. The ways we learned to belong within the systems we grew up in. These become woven into how we lead and how we respond under pressure. Family constellation work makes this visible in a way that little else does. It shows where you took on something that was never yours to carry. It offers the possibility of standing on your own ground, free from what earlier systems asked of you. When you lead from inherited patterns rather than your own authentic authority, people feel the difference. They may not be able to name it, but they respond to it. 5 practices to build internal stability as a leader 1. Regulate before you lead Breathing is the one part of your autonomic nervous system you can consciously control. Extended exhales activate the parasympathetic nervous system and shift your state within seconds. Before a difficult meeting or a hard conversation, take three slow breaths and exhale longer than you inhale. This is not a relaxation technique. It is a direct intervention in your nervous system's threat response. 2. Build a somatic anchor When stress rises, the tight chest, the clenched jaw, and the racing thoughts slow down. Place both feet on the floor. Feel the weight of the chair beneath you. Notice what is actually present in the room. This practice interrupts the threat response and returns you to the present moment, where your leadership is actually happening. 3. Name your state without judging it Research by Dr. Dan Siegel shows that labeling an emotion reduces its intensity by engaging the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for perspective and clear thinking. When you notice activation, try saying internally, "I notice I am in urgency right now." That single act of naming creates enough distance to choose your next move rather than react from an old pattern. 4. Examine the beliefs that keep you stuck The patterns that keep a leader stuck in reactivity are rooted in conclusions drawn under pressure, often very early in life, about what is needed to feel safe, valued, or enough. The Work of Byron Katie is a rigorous process for investigating these beliefs with curiosity rather than judgment. The question is simple but powerful, "Is this actually true? Who would I be without this thought?" 5. Recover as if your leadership depends on it Your nervous system is biological infrastructure. Sleep, movement, stillness, and genuine rest are not rewards for productivity. They are the conditions under which your system returns to baseline. A leader running on chronic depletion is not resilient. The costs in decision quality, relational capacity, and creative range accumulate long before they become visible. Can internal stability be trained? Yes, and this is perhaps the most important thing to understand. Internal stability is not a fixed trait you either have or do not have. It is a capacity built through consistent and deliberate practice. NeuroEncoding rewrites the neurological structure of how the brain has stored stress and survival responses. Not by endlessly revisiting what happened, but by changing the coding itself and installing new reference frameworks at the level where decisions are actually made. Polyvagal work trains the nervous system to register safety structurally, not just intellectually, so that regulation becomes the default rather than the exception. These are not soft skills. They are the framework of sustainable leadership. What does internal stability produce in practice? The result is not simply a calmer leader. It is what I call a shifted attractor field. A new field from which you operate and from which you draw what truly belongs to you—in your relationships, your work, and in how you experience yourself. When you are internally stable, you stop needing the room to behave a certain way in order to feel okay. You hold uncertainty without forcing premature answers. You acknowledge difficulty without catastrophizing it. You stay present with someone else's fear without absorbing it. The people around you have something real to orient to. Your presence becomes the ground others stand on. Internal stability is where leadership actually begins The world will keep moving, shifting, and demanding more than feels manageable. That will not change. What can change is who you are inside of it. By understanding how your nervous system shapes your leadership, by working at the level where the patterns actually live, and by building daily practices that return you to center, you stop surviving the instability and start leading from within it. Your emotional and physiological health are not separate from your leadership. They are the source of it. Plan a free introductory conversation here. An honest conversation about where you are and what is possible. That is the first step toward your new life. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Annick Verboven Annick Verboven, Trauma and Narcissism Recovery Coach Annick Verboven is a trauma and narcissism recovery coach, vitality expert, and Reiki Master with a background in innovation management and neuroencoding. As founder of Topfit na Narcisme and European Wellness Artificial Intelligence Worldwide Leadership, she guides clients from survival mode to embodied healing and self-leadership. Her work integrates trauma-informed coaching, nervous system regulation, and energetic transformation. She developed the BRUG-method, a holistic framework that helps individuals reconnect with their inner truth, restore boundaries, and build emotional resilience. Annick creates safe spaces for deep transformation and works exclusively with clients who choose themselves, honoring purity and energetic boundaries.

Written by Sheryl Maharaj, People & Purpose Consultant Specialising in multifaceted workplace dynamics and interpersonal relationships, with a unique focus on patterns recognition for transformative change. Sheryl integrates her love for universal principles and science-based methodology in human development for meaningful results. Feeling joy or pleasure from others' misfortune? The tendency to take pleasure in others' misfortune is the opposite of Freudenfreude. When someone is suffering, and we feel joy, it not only reflects counter-empathy but also activates the brain's reward and feel-good regions. It’s not the same as holding someone accountable for their actions and feeling relieved and grateful for unethical, hurtful, and unjust behaviour. The opposite of Freudenfreude will make you feel shame and guilt, especially if deriving pleasure from the misfortune of others. If someone responds to accountability with shame, it does not mean we have shamed them by holding them accountable for their actions. What is Fredenfreude? Sharing joy and empathy in celebrating another person is at the heart of Fredenfreude. We ask questions, celebrate their effort, show interest, and learn from their actions. It allows a person to respond with gratitude to the shared joy. Deficiencies in Fredenfreude, derived from the pleasure in others' misfortune, either intentionally or not, are at the other end of shared joy and empathy. Relief from insecurity We continue any behaviour that feels good and relieves us momentarily, regardless of the consequences, deficiencies, and reasons. Others' misfortune validates our situation and boosts our self-worth, helping us cope with the challenges we face. As a form of superiority that offers only momentary relief, it shuns reality. Measuring self-worth against someone else's misfortune or perceiving others as worse off signals insecurity. We may experience a form of schadenfreude, in which a lack of empathy allows us to take pleasure without guilt. How do you feel and react to others' misfortune? The eeky side of human nature In defence of human nature, we can take delight in schadenfreude, a behaviour deriving pleasure from others' misfortune, not only directed towards rivals or others we may not associate with. It can also strengthen social bonds and provide meaning in connection and community. The inclusive nature of schadenfreude and the feel-good rewards activated in parts of the brain by its behaviour make it challenging to resist. Active engagement What do you wish to be remembered for? Another's misfortune and a celebration prompt a reaction. In these instances, the brain's reward system can be activated, delivering a rush of pleasure that distracts us from our circumstances. Essentially, this response can temporarily alleviate feelings of inadequacy, leading us to unintentionally revel in others' misfortunes without considering the implications for our values and relationships. This relief is short-lived, as shame and guilt set in without active engagement and awareness of our reactions. Celebrating others If we experience a sense of well-being and pleasure in celebrating others, as in Fredenfreude, why choose its opposite? The answer lies in the overarching health of the individual's mind, body, spirit, and soul. Just as with many unethical, hurtful, and unjust behaviours, it may simply not be possible for the individual to engage in behaviour that reflects Fredenfreude. Schadenfreude is the experience of pleasure, joy, or self-satisfaction derived from learning of or witnessing the troubles, failures, or humiliation of another in the absence of empathy. In practice, Fredenfreude is the healthy counterpart to schadenfreude. Both achieve the feel-good, power, and certainty we desire, but one is short-lived and cannot sustain overall well-being or a deeper connection. The deficiencies in Fredenfreude stem from its detrimental effects on mental health, interpersonal relationships, and societal bonds. Recognising these shortcomings can encourage more positive emotional responses, for empathy, understanding, and growth. Sheryl Maharaj, Nourish | Instagram | Linktree Read more from Sheryl Maharaj Sheryl Maharaj, People & Purpose Consultant Sheryl Maharaj is well-recognised globally as a Relationship Consultant and Founder of Nourish. Her services aim to bring awareness to the forefront for individuals, teams, and organisations with pragmatic tools for moving through conflict, breaking patterns, creating connection, mastering effective communication and decision-making, and maintaining sustainable change. She has a background in human development, conflict resolution, polyvagal/nervous system integration and transformative change.

Written by Veronica Kim, Certified QHHT® Level 2 Practitioner and Harmonic Egg® Guardian Veronica Kim connects the dots within the vast field of reality, guiding individuals to a powerful 40,000-foot macro view of their life’s purpose while offering intimate micro perspectives that reveal the intricate essence of who they truly are. I was sitting on the bed in my small private room at the St. Francis Retreat Center, on the final day of the Monroe Institute’s Gateway Voyage. After a week of deep, rigorous meditations, I was preparing for exercise number 22 when, out of nowhere, a voice, clear, loud, and sounding like my own, cut through the silence, “January 17.” I froze. “What about it?” I asked inwardly. “Today is December 18, 2025. That’s exactly one month from now. Tell me more.” No further words came, but only the date flashing brightly in my mind, 1/17/2026. January 17 had already been lingering in my awareness for weeks. Seventeen has become a sacred number to me in recent years. And 2026, the beginning of a bold new 9-year cycle, a Fire Horse year, a 1-year of fresh beginnings, already carried weight. It was also my parents’ wedding anniversary, the first one my father would face without my mother’s physical presence. Still, there was something deeper I couldn’t name. A tangible knowing that something significant was approaching. One evening, my husband and I sat across from each other at a quiet local restaurant. Out of nowhere, he looked at me and said, “There’s something very different about you lately. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed changes, but this one feels, different. The word ‘defiance’ comes to mind. I thought you should know.” It was the first time he had ever spoken to me like that. His words carried such sincerity that they landed deep. I replied, “I have never felt this level of knowing in my life. I understand everything, why I’m here, the simulation of this reality, my purpose.” A profound, crystalline awareness flooded my entire being. I kept falling into long pauses of silence throughout dinner. As we walked home, we both began reminiscing about our magical trip to Japan last September with my sister and her boyfriend. We laughed, expressing deep gratitude for the experiences we had shared with them. After years of distance, my sister had truly come back into my life. My heart felt full. The field of clarity held me in a dreamlike, fuzzy glow. That night, as we walked through the front door, my phone lit up with a text from my niece in Japan, my sister’s only daughter. The last time we had spoken was over a year ago, when I was helping her with college entrance exams. “My mother passed away.” No time to bask, no gentle landing. The universe handed me the next initiation immediately. It was late on January 16th. My sister had chosen January 17th as her departure date, the exact date that had been flashing in my mind for weeks. While I listened to the waves of shock turn into deep, guttural wailing from my father, my cousin, and others across Korea and Japan, I sat there completely dry-eyed. Not a single tear fell. I had never seen my husband cry the way he cried that night. Yet I remained in an almost superhuman state of calm knowing, as if the clarity itself was holding me. For the next many hours, I moved through call after call, caught in a strange twilight zone, sharing the same January 17th with everyone across the oceans, as if time itself had folded. What came next was something I could never have imagined. One week after the call, my husband and I were on a plane to Japan. We went straight to Kiyose, the city where my sister had lived. I needed to stand in the space she had just left. I needed to breathe her air, touch her ground, and complete the circle for my own grieving heart. But reality met us with a cold unfamiliarity. My 20-year-old niece suddenly stopped replying. Her last text read, “Thank you for taking care of me always. But I won’t see you even though you come to Japan. I will reach out when I am ready.” We stood in front of my sister’s apartment building, the same place she had warmly welcomed us whenever we visited. Now it felt strange and icy. We couldn’t bring ourselves to walk inside. Her ex-husband, even though they had divorced years ago, suddenly reappeared on the scene and refused to see us or share any information about her death. We even went to the city hall just to confirm the divorce had truly been finalized. Her boyfriend, who had cared for her through every hospital visit and surgery, was shut out completely. Lawyers declined to get involved. Door after door stayed closed. There was no funeral we could attend. No ashes I could hold. No warm hug from the niece we had quietly hoped might one day feel like a daughter. And yet, I was strangely okay. The same crystalline clarity that had held me dry-eyed on the night of the call continued to carry me through every wave of disappointment, anger, and sadness. I was there for my sister. I was there for myself. That was enough. Back home, I sit in meditation and call upon my team, along with my furry son Piccolo, my mother, and now, my sister. Why am I calling you into this space? She was right here. Just 6 months ago we were laughing together in Japan. How can she already be pure energy on the other side? This is the part I have not yet fully assimilated, her physical absence. The mind understands, but the heart is still catching up. What just happened? Did I accidentally slip into a different timeline? In December, right before my Monroe training, a client came for a Harmonic Egg session. For two months, we had spoken about her trip to Antarctica. When I asked about preparations, she looked puzzled. “I’m going to the Galapagos Islands,” she said. “I’ve never thought about Antarctica.” Two complete timelines overlapped in my field. I had clear memories of conversations that, in this current line, had never happened. My husband later confirmed he remembered the Antarctica version too. This is what the holographic code looks like when you begin to see it clearly. The lessons compress, the awareness intensifies, the timeline bleeds through. The tests arrive the moment you claim expansion. There is no padding left. One day, my sister’s voice came through softly, “I am sorry, sister, for now, just focus on yourself, your life.” Those words gave me both an apology and a deep permission. She knows the weight she left behind, the questions, the closed doors with my niece, the mysteries still unresolved. She also knows I cannot carry it all while trying to live. I am learning to hold the confusion without forcing resolution. The overlap between “she was right here” and “she is now pure energy” is sacred space. It is teaching me to trust the bridge that is still forming. The niece I flew to Japan to hold remains quiet no matter how hard I try to reach her. Her father controls access, I know. Old patterns repeat. I send love across the silence and practice the same steps I offered my sister, acknowledge, forgive, choose unconditional love, speak truth when the moment comes. Some seeds take longer to sprout. And that is okay. Loss is not only initiation, it is calibration. It is a reveal. Every time the veil thins further, reality asks, "Can you hold the knowing while still feeling the pain? Can you stay in clarity even when the immediate test arrives?" I am saying yes, even when my voice shakes. My sister’s sudden departure, the timeline glitches, the instant test after expansion, they are not random. They are precise mirrors showing me that I am ready for the next level of embodiment. The body aches with assimilation, but the soul recognizes the acceleration. We are fractals of Source, living through compressed cycles so we can remember faster. I still cry. I still feel the confusion when I call her name. I still ache when I hear her gentle voice calling me “언니야.” And yet, I also celebrate with all of them across the veil, shouting louder than ever, “We did it!!” And we are still doing it. The ripple continues. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Veronica Kim Veronica Kim, Certified QHHT® Level 2 Practitioner and Harmonic Egg® Guardian Veronica is a QHHT® Level 2 Practitioner and Harmonic Egg® Guardian who guides individuals toward profound self-discovery and healing through Quantum Healing Hypnosis and sacred sound-light energy sessions. Her journey spans continents, from a childhood fascination with the supernatural in Korea to immigrating to America, where serendipitous paths led from teaching English to thriving in Silicon Valley's innovative tech world, reigniting early scientific dreams as tools for growth and stability. Through deep self-observation, she embraced her true purpose, helping others release blocks, access Higher Wisdom, and step into mastery of their intricate soul stories.