Written by Randy Franciscus Johannes Laumen, Holistic Health Coach Randy F.J. Laumen is a holistic health coach specializing in physical health, mental well-being, and identity-based lifestyle change. He is the co-founder of We The Fit People and the author of Your Metabolic Reset (2025), focused on restoring metabolic health and overcoming insulin resistance. He had one of the most extensive blood panels I had ever seen. Page after page of values. And according to every single one of them, he was fine, well, mostly. So why was a man in his thirties feeling older than his biological age, too exhausted to train, too foggy to think, and too heavy in a body that once competed at the highest level? This is not a rare story. It is becoming the defining health experience of our time. The man who should have been fine When I first spoke with him, the picture was clear long before I looked at a single number. In his younger years, he had been an athlete. High-level sport, a well-trained body, a competitive mind. Then life happened. An injury. The accumulating weight of daily stress. Struggles with ADHD. Early-life trauma that had never fully been processed. A self-identity that had quietly fractured somewhere between who he once was and who he had become. Over the years, the signals mounted. The weight that kept creeping upward. Fatigue that no amount of rest could resolve. A body that felt sluggish and cold. Gut issues that cycled between bloating, constipation, and diarrhea. A mind wrapped in fog. A feeling that he was aging far faster than his years. He had not accepted this quietly. He had sought answers everywhere. Doctors, personal trainers, specialists. He arrived at our first conversation carrying that thick stack of blood results, one of the most comprehensive panels I had encountered. And the answer he had received, consistently, was the same: "Everything looks fine. It is probably stress. Come back next year." He had been dismissed not once, but repeatedly. Not because the clinicians were indifferent. But because his results, measured against standard clinical reference ranges, fell within acceptable boundaries. The system looked at his numbers and saw no disease. The man living inside that body experienced something else entirely. What the blood test results were actually saying When I reviewed his panel through a functional lens, a very different story emerged. His liver values were elevated. His thyroid showed early signs of compensatory overactivity. His lipid values were off track. And scattered across that extensive panel were multiple markers pointing in the same direction, a body working far harder than it should to maintain equilibrium. I asked him about his energy patterns throughout the day. His cravings. His sleep quality. His waist circumference. His response to carbohydrates. He ticked every box on a familiar list, the clinical picture of insulin resistance. When I raised this possibility with his GP and asked whether insulin testing could be added, the response was predictable, his fasting blood sugar was within normal range. There was no clinical indication to test further. And this is precisely where the gap lives. Fasting blood glucose is a late-stage marker. By the time glucose levels rise above clinical thresholds, insulin resistance  has often been working in overdrive for years, sometimes a decade or more. The pancreas compensates. It pumps out more and more insulin to keep blood sugar stable. Glucose looks fine. Insulin does not. But insulin, in standard care, is rarely tested until glucose has already crossed the line. He decided to get the insulin test done independently. And there it was, exactly what the clinical picture had suggested. His insulin was elevated. His body had been compensating for years. And not a single doctor, despite that extensive panel, had thought to look there. Reference ranges are not the same as optimal This is one of the most important and least discussed distinctions in modern healthcare. Clinical reference ranges are statistical constructs. They represent the values found in roughly 95% of a tested population, which, in a world where metabolic dysfunction is widespread, means they are calibrated against a population that is itself not entirely healthy. A value sitting at the upper edge of "normal" may reflect a body already under significant physiological pressure. It simply has not yet crossed the threshold at which medicine intervenes. Optimal and normal are not synonyms. Normal means you have not yet reached the point where a diagnosis applies. Optimal means your systems are functioning with genuine resilience and efficiency. The space between those two states can span many years, and it is in that space that most people are quietly losing ground. Researchers like Dr. Benjamin Bikman have spent years documenting how hyperinsulinemia, chronically elevated insulin, drives inflammation, weight gain, fatigue, hormonal disruption, and cognitive decline long before a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes ever appears. The disease, when it finally arrives, is not the beginning of the problem. It is the end of a very long story. A second story: When the system recommended surgery instead of investigation He was not the only one. Around the same period, I was working with another man, someone whose health had deteriorated under the combined weight of severe trauma, psychiatric medication, and years of accumulated metabolic stress. He weighed 140 kilograms. His weight was still climbing. He felt exhausted at the simplest physical effort. His mood was unstable, his concentration fractured, his body slow and swollen. His blood tests, again, came back within clinical reference ranges. Normal. Fine. And the recommendation from his medical team was bariatric bypass surgery. Let that sit for a moment. A man whose labs showed no abnormalities was being offered permanent surgical alteration of his digestive system. Not because the underlying cause had been identified. But because the system had run out of other answers. When I requested further metabolic testing, there was resistance. The clinical picture did not warrant it. So we began with what we had, a thorough history, a functional perspective, and a commitment to lifestyle intervention. Within a few months, he had lost twelve kilograms. More importantly, he had regained something the numbers had never captured, a sense of agency, energy, and direction. No surgery. No additional medication. A different lens and a different set of questions. The right questions change everything Standard clinical assessment asks if a diagnosable disease has appeared? Functional medicine  asks something different, how are the underlying systems performing, and where is the body beginning to lose resilience? These are not competing philosophies. They are complementary lenses. Conventional medicine is extraordinary at acute care, emergencies, infections, trauma, surgical intervention. It has limitations when it comes to the slow, systemic deterioration that precedes chronic disease. That is not a criticism of clinicians. It is a structural observation about how systems are designed and what they are optimized to detect. The body rarely breaks suddenly. It adapts. It compensates. It sends signals long before it fails. The question is whether anyone is listening to those signals before they become a crisis. For the former athlete, the decision to test his insulin independently changed the course of his health. With clarity about what was actually happening in his body, we could design a targeted lifestyle intervention, nutrition that addressed insulin sensitivity , movement calibrated to his current capacity, sleep and stress strategies aligned with his neurology. The last time we spoke, he was thriving again. Training. Energized. Reconnected with the version of himself that had felt so distant. Not because of a new drug or a surgical procedure. Because someone finally asked the right question. So who do you believe? If your blood test says normal but your body says otherwise, the answer is not to distrust medicine. It is to understand what medicine is and is not designed to detect. Clinical reference ranges tell you whether you have crossed into disease territory. They do not tell you how far you are from optimal. They do not capture the years of compensatory physiology that precede a diagnosis. They do not measure the gap between functioning and thriving. Your symptoms are not imaginary. Your fatigue is not just stress. Your body is not malfunctioning without reason. The right question is not whether your numbers are normal. The right question is whether your biology is telling a story that the standard markers are not yet equipped to read. Because here is what both of those men had in common, their bodies were trying to communicate something important, long before disease had a name. And when someone finally listened, really listened, everything changed. Ready to read your own story? If you recognise yourself in any part of this, the fatigue that sleep does not fix, the weight that lifestyle changes alone have not shifted, the sense that something is off even when the tests say otherwise, it may be time to look at your health through a different lens. At We The Fit People, we work with the full picture, your biology, your history, your lifestyle, and your identity. We ask the questions that often go unasked. And we build a path forward that is grounded in what your body is actually telling us. Book a consultation today, and let's start reading your story properly. Book: Your Metabolic Reset , available on Amazon Follow me on  Instagram and  LinkedIn   for more info! Read more from Randy Franciscus Johannes Laumen Randy Franciscus Johannes Laumen, Holistic Health Coach Randy F.J. Laumen is a psychiatric nurse and an emerging voice in the healthcare space, focused on preventing chronic illness before it takes root. With a background in mental health and applied training in Functional Medicine, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and lifestyle-based interventions, he bridges the gap between conventional care and long-term well-being. Through his work, Randy explores both the strengths and limitations of modern healthcare, advocating for a more integrative, human-centered approach. Together with his wife, Sabrina Gutierrez, he co-founded We The Fit People, a platform dedicated to empowering individuals to take responsibility for their health and redefine what healthcare can be. Further reading: Are We Treating Disease Instead of Creating Health? Breaking Free From Chronic Disease And Reversing Metabolic Disorders With Lifestyle Changes Differences Between Traditional Medical Doctors And Functional Medicine Doctors Insulin Resistance — Cleveland Clinic A Functional Medicine Protocol for Balancing Blood Sugar — Rupa Health Why Fasting Blood Glucose Alone Isn't Enough — Mindful Living

Written by Sara Brinell, Author, Speaker & Awareness Guide Sara has a unique ability to quickly shift energy into presence and joy through her work as a mindfulness coach, speaker, and yoga instructor. She is also the author of the book One With Nature (published in 2025) and a popular speaker in the field. The simple answer is, yes, it can. You might be wondering how, and perhaps even why. The short answer is this, you are part of nature. Nature is your natural state because you come from it. In other words, it is your home. I’d like to share a passage from the beginning of my book, “I hope this book reaches you somewhere in the world, maybe by a beach, among icebergs, on a wild safari, or in a park in the middle of a big city. No matter where you are, we all share one thing, we come from nature. We are part of it, and it is part of us.” In this article, I will share five simple but powerful things that nature has taught me. My hope is that, by the end, you’ll have a deeper understanding of why reconnecting with nature can help you reconnect with yourself, and perhaps feel inspired to explore nature more and, through it, to explore yourself. Your mental health If there is one thing nature truly helps us with, it is bringing us back to the present moment, helping us slow down, become more aware, and step away from the fast pace and constant busyness of everyday life. Spending time in nature, even for a short while, can make a real difference. As little as 10 minutes in a natural environment can help reduce stress and improve both mood and overall well-being. It allows your mind to pause. In a world full of noise, notifications, and constant stimulation, nature offers something different, space. Space to breathe and to simply be. And in that space, something shifts. Your thoughts begin to settle, your body relaxes, and your attention naturally returns to the present moment. This is where clarity begins. You may notice that after spending time outdoors, things feel less overwhelming. Your focus sharpens, your thoughts become clearer, and what once felt heavy can feel lighter. And that is why spending time in nature can be so deeply supportive for your mental health. But not only that, but it can also nurture something deeper within you, something more spiritual. Because when you reconnect with nature, you don’t just clear your mind, you reconnect with yourself and your heart. Source of creativity Here is an excerpt from my book, “Nature boosts your creativity. To be creative is to be in tune with the creative force of life. Think about how often we hear that inspiration comes from nature, natural patterns, shapes, earthy colors, materials, and more. Whether it’s design, textiles, furniture, art, or music, nature offers an abundance of creativity when you take the time to observe the colors, patterns, and biodiversity around you.” See for yourself how you can explore your creativity in nature. Use your senses. What sounds can you hear? How does it feel to listen to natural sounds instead of the constant noise of the city or screens? Perhaps birds singing, leaves rustling in the wind, branches creaking, water flowing in a stream, or insects buzzing. Notice the rhythm, the stillness between sounds, and how it all makes you feel. Chances are, it helps you settle more into the present moment, into a sense of harmony, moving away from stress. In that space, creativity can begin to flow more freely. What can you see with your eyes? Patterns, colours, textures. Notice the contrast between light and shadow, the repetition in shapes, the diversity in forms. Let your eyes wander without purpose, this is often where new ideas begin. What can you smell? The freshness of the air, the scent of pine, the earth after rain, or the subtle shifts between seasons. Scents have a unique way of grounding you and bringing back memories and emotions, often sparking creativity in a quiet, unexpected way. What can you feel? The texture of bark beneath your fingers, the softness of moss, the coolness of the air against your skin, or the warmth of sunlight. Let yourself connect through touch, it brings you closer to the present moment. I often sit in the forest and practise presentations. I literally sit there and speak out loud. Being in nature gives me focus and a sense of calm, especially without distractions, and I always gain new ideas and insights that fall into place. Find light in the darkness Nature has taught me to see the light in the darkness. Because the truth is, light always returns, no matter how dark it may seem. Even the smallest ray of light can brighten the surroundings, suddenly, it’s no longer completely dark. The same applies to life. I go outside every morning, no matter the weather or the time of year. During the winter months, it’s almost pitch black at 6 a.m. Still, I’ve had the chance to witness the gradual transition from night to day, simply by being present and observing. There is something deeply powerful in that experience. It reminds me, again and again, that the light always comes back. Research also supports the importance of morning light. Exposure to natural light early in the day helps regulate your circadian rhythm, the body’s internal clock, which can improve sleep, mood, and overall well-being. Morning light signals to your brain that it’s time to wake up, increasing alertness and supporting a more balanced energy level throughout the day. So even when it feels dark, outside or within, there is a quiet reassurance in knowing that the light always returns. The answer is always nature Have you ever paused to consider what makes it possible for you to have a roof over your head, food on your table, clothes on your back, and support for your health? These are things we so often take for granted. The answer is always nature. Everything we rely on, in one way or another, comes from it. The materials that build our homes, the food that nourishes our bodies, the air we breathe, the water we drink, it all begins there. We often live as if we are disconnected, as if nature is something “out there.” But the truth is, we are part of the same system. What we take from nature, we depend on. And what we give back matters just as much. The further we move away from what is natural, the further we often move away from well-being. Highly processed foods, artificial additives, and fast solutions may be convenient, but they are not what our bodies are designed for. We are meant to be nourished by what comes from the earth, by real, whole, living foods, by simplicity. Perhaps this is something to remember. Something to return to. To come back to the way we were created to live, more in tune with what truly supports us. And perhaps, when we begin to truly see this, something shifts. We don’t just look at nature differently, we begin to live differently. The wise tree Here is an excerpt from my book, “How do you look at a tree? Where do your eyes go? What do you think when you look at a tree? Perhaps you've never asked yourself these questions before. If so, wonderful. Now you have. I see a tree the way I see a human being, or any living creature, for that matter. I look without judgment and with curiosity. Each tree is unique, with its own history and future.” Trees carry a deep sense of wisdom and grounding, something we as humans can truly learn from. They stand firmly rooted, yet they grow and adapt. They come in different shapes and sizes, with branches reaching in all directions. Some carry visible scars. Some have deeper roots. Some have stood for centuries, while others are just beginning their journey. And yet, each one has its place. Each one serves a purpose. Each one matters. There is something powerful in simply being near a tree. Hugging a tree, does it sound strange? A bit unusual, maybe even a little crazy? But in reality, it can be a deeply calming and grounding experience. Studies have shown that spending time close to trees can reduce stress levels, lower blood pressure, and promote a sense of well-being. For example, research on “forest bathing” (the Japanese practice of Shinrin-yoku) has demonstrated that being among trees can lower cortisol levels and support both mental and physical health. So the next time you pass a tree, pause for a moment. Place your hand on its bark, or simply stand beside it. You might feel more than you expect. And if you feel open to it, give it a hug. Sometimes, stepping boldly outside your comfort zone is where something meaningful begins. One with nature So, as you can see, all of these insights and lessons come from Mother Earth, for us, for you. And this is just a very small part. She is like an infinite library, ready for you to open any book and explore the beauty and wisdom within. And you know what? It doesn’t cost anything. You are welcome just as you are, and she will generously share everything with you. If you feel ready to explore the power of nature and, in turn, yourself, I warmly invite you to dive deeper into my book One with Nature, and connect with me for more inspiration on Instagram. And most importantly, go out into nature. Enjoy. Connect with me on   Instagram  and through my   website  for more inspiration on meditation, yoga, and inner harmony. Read more from Sara Brinell Sara Brinell , Author, Speaker & Awareness Guide Sara is an expert in inner harmony and the healing power of nature. She carries a profoundly healing story, having experienced depression in her teenage years and, later in life, the early loss of both her parents. These experiences became part of a deeper journey that eventually led her to guide others back to their hearts through her work as a yoga instructor, mindfulness coach, and speaker. She also shares her insights through her book One With Nature. Her mission is to show that loneliness can become a path to deeper connection, and that nature can heal where words are not enough.

Written by Justin Edgar, Coach Justin Edgar is a life and breathwork coach and creator of The Art of Creative Flow, blending entrepreneurship, education, and mindful somatic practice to help individuals, leaders, and teams move beyond struggle and burnout to reconnect with clarity, vitality, and purpose. There is a line from Einstein that is so often repeated it risks being misunderstood entirely, “I possess no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Most people hear that as humility. I don’t. I hear it as a redefinition of what talent actually is, particularly, a core talent of a genius mind. Because if you take him seriously, he’s not downplaying his intelligence. He’s pointing to the source of it. The thing beneath the thing We live in a world that rewards specialization. To know a lot about very little. To be an expert in your particular field. To become precise, efficient, certain. To arrive at the right answer quickly, and repeatedly. And there is value in that. Beyond being a surefire path toward recognition and reward, it is a powerful thing to acquire a body of dependable knowledge. But there is something quieter, and far more fundamental, that tends to get overlooked. Not what you know, but how you come to know anything at all? And so it goes: With curiosity and our capacity to inquire. With intuition and our capacity to receive intelligence from a source beyond ourselves.[1] With imagination and our capacity to envision for ourselves. And with the willingness to stay with something unresolved… long enough for understanding to emerge. And when it does, new knowledge doesn’t stand alone, it finds its place within the wider structure of what we already know. Einstein displayed a rare clarity in understanding how his mind functioned in real-time. He came to appreciate that these particular skills are foundational to the mind and the construction of lived experience. In essence, they are the cognitive skills that sit beneath, within, and across all others. At the heart of consciousness, what we might simply call awakened presence, sit three native functions of the mind, the capacity to perceive, which gives rise to imagination, the capacity to relate to what we perceive, which invokes curiosity and the daring to inquire, and the capacity to attribute meaning to what we perceive, which becomes the means by which we cultivate a body of understanding. They are what allow a specialist to deepen their craft…and what allow a generalist to move fluidly between many. Without them, knowledge becomes fixed. With them, knowledge remains alive. And once this becomes visible, something else begins to shift. Because we’ve inherited a story, "Jack of all trades, master of none." As though breadth comes at the expense of depth. But lived experience suggests something else entirely. It is possible to develop mastery across multiple domains, not by knowing everything within each, but by carrying the same set of underlying skills into all of them. The ability to remain curious. To ask better questions. To see connections and the interrelationships between things. To learn, adapt, and reorient quickly. Interestingly, these same capacities are often found most vividly expressed in those who have struggled within traditional systems of learning. The dyslexic mind, for example, is frequently described not in terms of deficit, but in terms of difference, an ability to see patterns, to shift perspective, to think across domains rather than within them. It is perhaps no coincidence that such thinkers are significantly overrepresented among entrepreneurs, those required not to operate within a single function, but to move fluidly across many, holding vision, strategy, relationships, and execution all at once. In this sense, mastery is not a fixed state. It is a way of engaging. And perhaps the most powerful form of mastery is this: To know deeply… while remaining open enough to see that there is always more to understand. The shaping of the mind If these capacities are native… it becomes worth asking what happens to them over time. A child does not need to be taught to wonder. They arrive wondering. Anyone who has spent any time with young children will appreciate their endless fascination with things. In fact, a simple walk around the block with a toddler or young child can literally take hours. Not simply because of little legs, but because of deeply inquiring minds. Everything is alive with wonder and possibility. Why is it like this? What happens if…? How does that work? They do not yet feel the need to be right. They do not rush to close a question. They are not burdened by what something is supposed to be. They are simply in relationship with what is. Over time, that begins to change. Not because these capacities disappear, but because the conditions in which they operate begin to shift. The mind starts to orient itself differently. Toward certainty. Toward resolution. Toward knowing. And this is not accidental. At a very basic level, the mind equates certainty with safety. If I know… I’m safe. If I’m right… I belong. If I have the answer… I am accepted. So gradually, almost imperceptibly, a trade begins to take place. Curiosity gives way to certitude. Exploration gives way to conclusion. Relationship gives way to assumption. Not as a failure of the mind, but as an adaptation to the environment it finds itself within. Which raises a deeper question, what conditions have we created, culturally and societally, that so reliably narrow these native capacities of the mind? The quiet conditioning Much of what we call education reinforces this orientation. There is a right answer. It is known in advance. Your role is to arrive at it. And when you do, you are rewarded. A mark. A grade. A quiet confirmation that you are “on track.” Over time, this begins to shape not just what we know… but how we come to know. We learn to trust that: There is always a correct answer That it can, and should, be reached quickly And that not knowing is something to move through as efficiently as possible, for fear of revealing some latent incompetence And in doing so, something subtle begins to form. A quiet expectation… that we are supposed to know. That uncertainty is something to be resolved before it becomes uncomfortable. That the answer is more valuable than the inquiry that gave rise to the answer. Perhaps without quite recognizing it, we become more enamored with the finished product than the process that gives rise to the product itself. But a process-orientation forms the grounds of a growth mindset, while a product-orientation becomes the soil upon which a fixed mindset becomes the natural consequence. And perhaps this is where the quiet cost begins to reveal itself. Because when the process is replaced by the product… when knowing is valued more than understanding… we begin to lose something essential. Not intelligence, but the willingness to remain open long enough for intelligence to deepen. Curiosity and the courage not to know Curiosity interrupts this pattern. Not by rejecting knowledge, but by loosening our dependence on certainty. Because curiosity does not require immediate resolution. It allows us to remain with something not yet fully understood… long enough to see it more clearly. Not just what it is, but how it relates within a broader body of understanding. Why it behaves the way it does. What sits beneath its surface that gives it shape and meaning. In this sense, curiosity is a form of intellectual courage. It requires a certain steadiness to lean toward uncertainty, trusting that nothing unduly untoward will happen. That we can explore, play with concepts, try something new… and possibly get it wrong. And this is where something important reveals itself, curiosity is not simply a function of intelligence. It is a function of safety. Because to remain open, to not know, to explore without immediate certainty, requires a mind that does not feel threatened by the absence of answers, or the assurance that things will work out as desired or intended. And for many, this has been conditioned out. Replaced by the need to be right. To be certain. To be seen as capable. So curiosity, while native, often becomes something that must be consciously re-engaged. As Einstein himself observed, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives education.” And perhaps that is not an exaggeration. Because a mind repeatedly trained to seek the right answer can slowly lose its appetite for the question itself. Imagination as extension Where curiosity allows us to stay with a question, imagination allows us to move beyond its current boundaries. It is the natural extension of perception. The capacity to see not only what is present but what could be. Not as fantasy detached from reality, but as a deeper engagement with it. Einstein did not arrive at his insights by accumulating more information. He imagined. He explored possibilities that could not yet be measured. He allowed himself to move beyond the limits of existing frameworks. Not because he rejected a prevailing body of knowledge, but because he was not confined by it. And this is the interplay. Curiosity opens. Imagination extends. Understanding integrates. Together, they form a living process through which the mind continues to evolve. To think in this way is to move between lenses. To see a problem not from one fixed position but from many, analytical, creative, emotional, practical, often all at once. It is a way of thinking that Edward de Bono sought to formalize through his “Six Thinking Hats,” though for some, particularly those less bound by linear modes of thought, this capacity arises far more intuitively. The fear of being wrong There is, however, a quiet force that disrupts this process. Not a lack of intelligence. But a fear. A fear of being wrong. Because being wrong has come to mean something. That you are behind. That you are not capable. That you are somehow less. And for many, particularly those leaving the hallowed halls of education somewhat convinced that they are not smart or not smart enough, this is not theoretical. It has been experienced. Reinforced. Felt. So the safest move becomes: Simply shy away from even giving it a go. Better not to try rather than confirm what we already suspect about ourselves, that we’re not smart enough, that we lack the requisite talents. But in doing so, we close the very space in which curiosity, imagination, and understanding naturally unfold. A different relationship to knowing There is another way to meet the world that lays the ground for a certain fluidity of mind that naturally reveals itself within what we call a growth mindset. One that recognizes the value of knowledge but does not mistake it for understanding. One that allows us to know… and also allows us not to know. To remain open long enough for something deeper to emerge. In many traditions, this is referred to as the beginner’s mind. Not because it lacks depth, but because it is not constrained by what it assumes it already knows. It remains open to what could be, because the idea that something might be impossible has not yet stood in the way of possibility itself. It is willing to look again. To ask again. To see again. And in doing so, it keeps knowledge alive, constantly learning… and unlearning, which allows for our body of understanding to consistently evolve in ways that enable us to perceive more clearly, relate more harmoniously, and understand with greater wisdom. No special talents So when Einstein says, “I possess no special talents…,” perhaps what he is really pointing to is this: Nothing I have done has come from being exceptional in the way we typically define it. It has come from applying a set of capacities that are available to all of us. Not rare. Not bestowed. Not reserved for the few. The capacity to remain curious. To ask questions. To imagine beyond what is immediately visible. To stay with something long enough for understanding to emerge. What differs is not the presence of these capacities, but how we choose to engage with them. Our interests may vary. What captures our curiosity… what we feel drawn to explore… what we dare to imagine for ourselves, these will always be uniquely our own. But the underlying skills themselves? They are shared. They are trainable. And they are available, in equal measure, to anyone willing to use them. An invitation So what makes a talent? Perhaps it is simpler than we have been led to believe. Perhaps a talent is less something you possess but rather something you practice. A way of engaging with the world. One that, for some, has always felt more natural than structured forms of learning ever allowed: The willingness to stay curious. To inquire a little more deeply. To imagine beyond what is immediately visible. To remain with something long enough for understanding to emerge. For anyone who has ever felt “not smart enough”… not capable… not equipped, curiosity quietly dissolves that story. Because curiosity does not require you to know. It only asks that you begin. And in beginning, in wondering, exploring, testing, questioning, something shifts. The mind becomes more open. More adaptable. Less rigid in what it holds to be true. And life, in turn, becomes easier to navigate. Not because it becomes simpler, but because you become more fluid within it. More willing to learn. More willing to unlearn. More willing to see again. So perhaps the invitation is not to become something more… but to return to something fundamental. To get a little curious. To dare to inquire. To imagine what might be possible, even if you don’t yet know how. To dream the impossible dream, for as Nelson Mandela suggested, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” No special talents? Welcome to the club. You are far more capable than you realize, the moment you allow yourself to wonder what might be possible for you. Follow me on Facebook , Instagram , and visit my website for more info! Read more from Justin Edgar Justin Edgar, Coach Justin Edgar is a life and breathwork coach, speaker, and creator of The Art of Creative Flow, a transformational program helping individuals, leaders, and teams move beyond burnout and reconnect with purpose, creativity, and resilience. With a unique background spanning financial markets, Montessori education, wellness entrepreneurship, and somatic practice, Justin brings rare depth and insight to his coaching. His work empowers clients to harness clarity, intuition, and creative flow as tools for personal and professional breakthroughs. [1] Einstein described intuition as “a sacred gift”. And he lamented its absence from learning and society more generally. He once stated, “Intuition is a sacred gift and reason is its loyal servant. We have created a society that has forgotten the gift and honours the servant.”

Written by Bohdan Hlushko, Head of Growth Bohdan Hlushko is a product strategist and bestselling author known for helping early-stage startups build focused, scalable products. He has launched 25+ products, contributed to $90M+ raised across 12+ funding rounds, and guided teams from zero to recurring revenue. You’ve just launched and got 400 trial signups. The Slack channel exploded with 'celebration emoji'. Three weeks later, 340 of them never logged in again. Six converted, or maybe even less. Most teams have a conversion problem, they're too busy to see clearly. They're heads down optimizing ads, iterating on landing pages, and A/B testing button colors, while the real leak sits in plain sight, somewhere between the signup confirmation email and the moment a real human being decides your product isn't worth their time. This article is about the three strategic failures that turn promising trial pipelines into graveyards of unused accounts. If your trial to paid conversion rate makes you uncomfortable when someone asks about it in a meeting, keep reading. 1. Your messaging is making promises to the wrong person When we work on this with clients in Insart, the team loves the analogy of a fishing net with the wrong mesh size. Cast it in the right water, haul in a full net, and still end up with nothing worth keeping, just because the holes were sized for the wrong catch. You did everything right. I’ll try to give you a slightly different perspective on ‘lost users’ and look at it like a successful misfire. Your marketing worked exactly as written, but it wasn't written for someone who needs your product. Most SaaS messaging fails the moment it describes what the product does instead of what changes for the person using it. The homepage says "collaborative workspace with AI powered automation." The user reads it and thinks, sounds useful, maybe. They sign up, open the dashboard, and then they leave. You call it churn, but the funny part is that it was never a real prospect. This is feature led messaging, and it is everywhere. The copy on your landing page is a filter. Right now, it's probably letting everything through. Outcome led messaging works differently. It starts with the user's current reality, the frustration, the inefficiency, the thing that's costing them time or money, and positions your product as the specific resolution. Compare these two: Weak: "Streamline your team's workflows with smart automation and real time collaboration." Strong: "Ops teams at 50 to 200 person companies use [Product] to cut weekly reporting time from 6 hours to 40 minutes, without touching a single spreadsheet." The second version does three things the first doesn't. It names who it's for, it describes life before the product, and it gives a concrete after state. A wrong fit visitor reads it and self selects out. The right fit visitor reads it and thinks that's me. The positioning problem usually runs deeper than the homepage, though. It lives in the ad copy that optimizes for CTR instead of qualification. It lives in the SEO content written for search volume rather than buyer intent. It lives in the case studies that are vague enough to apply to anyone, which means they resonate with no one specifically enough to act. When your messaging is broad by design because someone in a meeting said, "We don't want to exclude potential customers," you end up with a funnel full of curiosity and zero intent. So, fix the message before you fix the funnel. Until your copy is doing the filtering work, every other optimization is just rearranging deck chairs. 2. You're celebrating signups while flying blind past the only metrics that matter There is a particular kind of optimism that lives in acquisition dashboards. Signups are up. CAC is trending down. The paid campaign hit its MQL target. Someone screenshots the graph showing signups increasing, CAC trending down, and paid campaigns hitting their MQL target, and posts it in the company all-hands. Everyone feels good. Meanwhile, nobody knows what happens after the signup. There's a vague sense that "engagement could be better." There might be a 7-day email sequence running on autopilot that nobody has touched in eight months. And somewhere in a spreadsheet that gets opened quarterly, there's a trial to paid conversion number that everyone agrees is "something we need to work on." This is what flying blind looks like, and it's more common than you might think. Acquisition metrics tell you how many people walked through the door. Activation metrics tell you whether the product delivered on the promise that got them there. Most teams are obsessively measuring the door. The core problem is a measurement philosophy that treats the signup as the destination rather than the starting line. It usually looks like a login count and a prayer, with no data or internal alignment on what "activated" means for their specific product. Just a login count and a prayer. Activation is not logging in. Let's be precise about that. Logging in is showing up to the gym. Activation is completing the first workout and feeling the result. For a project management tool, it might be the first task assigned to a teammate. For an analytics platform, it might be the first dashboard built from live data. For a sales tool, it might be the first sequence launched with a reply received. The "aha moment," the point at which the user experiences the core value of the product, is different for every product, but every product has one. If your team hasn't defined it, you cannot measure it. And if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. Here's what a basic activation funnel should look like, even for an early-stage team with no dedicated data infrastructure: Signup: Baseline. Everyone starts here. Onboarding completion: Did they finish setup? Did they skip it? First meaningful action: The one action most correlated with retention. Find it empirically. Aha moment reached: Core value delivered at least once. Return visit within 72 hours: The strongest early signal of intent to continue. The most dangerous metric in a trial funnel is total signups with no downstream context. It creates a political reality where the marketing team is hitting targets, the product team is shipping features, and nobody owns the gap in between, which is exactly where 80 percent of your potential revenue is evaporating. So, your job is to make the invisible visible and start measuring it. 3. Your onboarding is where good signups go to die Think about what it takes to get the right person to sign up. The targeting, the copy, the specific outcome you promised, and the friction you removed from the signup flow. All of that work lands a qualified human being at your front door. And then you open the door, hand them a map of every room in the building, and wish them luck. That's what a blank dashboard is without a neutral starting point. The messaging said this solves your specific problem. The product responded with forty empty fields, six navigation tabs, and a tooltip that says "get started by creating your first project." Industry data puts early trial churn driven by poor activation somewhere between 60 and 80 percent. The average activation rate across SaaS sits around 36 percent, which means the majority of people who want your product, who signed up for your product, never experience it. To fix this, streamline with personalized, goal-based flows. Ask "What do you want to achieve?" then guide via tooltips, one-click setups, and quick wins. Add benefit-driven messaging, interactive tours, and behavior-triggered emails to boost completion by 2 to 3 times. So what? Three things you can do this week Here are three actions with no ambiguity, no six month roadmap required, and no organizational buy in needed to start. 1. Run a "Who actually stayed?" audit on your last 30 conversions Pull your last 30 paying customers and find the three to five attributes they share that your churned trials do not. It can be company size, job title, use case, the channel they came from, or the feature they touched first. This is your real ICP, derived from evidence. Then look at your current homepage, your top performing ad, and your onboarding email sequence. Count how many times that specific person is directly addressed. If the answer is rarely or never, you have found the source of your ghost signups. Rewrite one piece of copy this week as if speaking exclusively to that person. Measure what changes. 2. Define your aha moment in a single sentence Get the three to five people closest to the product in a room and answer this question together, "What is the one action a new user must take to experience the core value of this product for the first time?" A specific, observable action with a clear outcome attached to it. Write it down in one sentence. Something like, "A user is activated when they have completed their first automated report and shared it with at least one teammate." Then check whether that event is currently being tracked. In most cases, it will not be, or it will be buried in a dashboard nobody looks at. 3. Freeze one ICP and run a four week focused experiment Pick the one ICP most represented in your converted customer base. For the next four weeks, direct one channel, one ad set, one outbound sequence, or one content push, exclusively at that profile. No exceptions, no "but what about" carve outs. Then measure trial to activation rate. If the numbers look different, you have your answer about what ICP sprawl has been costing you. The real issue is upstream Ghost signups are a signal that the promise being made to attract users and the experience waiting for them on the other side are not the same promise. The good news is that it can be fixed, but the earlier you begin, the better. Fix the message, narrow the audience, and instrument the gap. Do those three things with honesty and consistency, and the conversion numbers will follow. The 'celebration emoji' in Slack should come when a user hits their aha moment for the first time, not when they fill out a form. Follow me on LinkedIn , and visit my website for more info! Read more from Bohdan Hlushko Bohdan Hlushko, Head of Growth Bohdan has worked closely with early-stage startups for years, witnessing firsthand the ambition, optimism, and hard realities that come with building from the ground up. That experience shapes how he works today. Bohdan helps founders design products that are strategically focused and operationally scalable, bridging product strategy, engineering logic, and investor-ready storytelling.

Written by Linden Thorp, Embodied Presence Mentor Linden Thorp is an Embodied Presence Mentor, writer, and founder of Lodestone Inside. She helps professionals and leaders restore grounded, compassionate, sustainable ways of working through embodiment, self-awareness, and whole human intelligence. Modern professional life prizes intelligence. But too often it prizes only one narrow band of it. In this article, I explore what I call the brilliant but limited mind, the head-led mode of intelligence that helps us analyse, plan, solve, and perform, yet becomes damaging when it governs alone. I look at how professional culture rewards this narrow band, why that creates fear, strain, false self-reliance, and burnout, and why restoration begins not by rejecting thought, but by returning to whole human intelligence. What happens when brilliant thinking governs alone Modern professional life prizes intelligence. But too often it prizes only one narrow band of it. I call this the brilliant but limited mind. By this I mean the head-led mode of intelligence that looks, listens, speaks, compares, analyses, predicts, critiques, measures, and seeks control. These are brilliant human capacities. They help us communicate, study, organise, negotiate, forecast, and survive in complex systems. But they are limited because they are not the whole of intelligence. The mind is not the master but the servant. It is a refined set of tools. The trouble begins when modern life persuades us to let those tools govern alone. What I mean by the brilliant but limited mind The brilliant but limited mind is not bad thinking. It is overdeveloped thinking. It is quick, articulate, strategic, productive, and often highly admired. It can generate plans, solve problems, defend positions, produce insights, and dazzle others with mental fireworks. That is why people become so attached to it. It feels alive. It feels powerful. It feels like intelligence itself. But fireworks are not the same as fire. They flare, impress, and vanish. Much of what passes for thinking in modern life is like that, brilliant for a moment, but not necessarily grounded, balanced, or true. It produces movement, stimulation, and display, but often without depth of reception. That is why I call it brilliant but limited. Its brilliance is real. Its limits are equally real. Human beings do not live by thought alone. We also live through the body, through consciousness, through direct perception, through purpose, through compassion, through conscience, and through spirit. We also live through what is now called interoception, the ability to notice what is happening inside the body, breath, tension, pressure, constriction, heaviness, calm, or the felt sense that something is right or wrong. When that inner channel is weak, the mind becomes more dominant and less accountable. A person may still appear highly capable while losing contact with the very signals that would tell them they are out of balance. How work trains and rewards it Professional culture rewards exactly this narrow band of intelligence. It rewards speed, verbal fluency, strategic thinking, ideation, problem-solving, certainty, visible competence, and the ability to keep producing under pressure. These things matter. I am not dismissing them. But they are only one band of intelligence. The modern workplace trains people to trust what can be measured, argued, and displayed far more than what can be felt, received, or quietly known. The result is that many people become highly developed in one direction and undernourished in others. They know how to think, but not how to become inwardly still. They know how to speak, but not how to receive. They know how to plan, but not how to witness. They know how to pursue outcomes, but not how to remain grounded while doing so. This is why the culture of the limited mind becomes self-reinforcing. It rewards the very qualities that keep people trapped in it. And because it is culturally admired, most people do not question it. They assume this is simply what intelligence looks like. What it costs when it governs alone When one brilliant band of intelligence governs alone, the whole person begins to organise around strain. Breathing narrows. Listening thins out. Speech becomes more driven. The body tightens. Thought becomes repetitive and self-important. Life starts to feel like a sequence of tasks, problems, and performances rather than a reality to inhabit. This is why so much modern distress is misunderstood. Burnout is not only overload. Anxiety is not always weakness. Restlessness is not always a lack of discipline. Often, these are the signs of imbalance, one narrow band of intelligence has been forced to carry too much of life. And because the culture praises that very band, people often do not recognise the trap they are in. They assume they need more thinking, more planning, more effort, more productivity, more ideation, more control. But the result is often not freedom. It is a more sophisticated form of inner pressure. One of the clearest signs of this pressure is that the limited mind does not really listen in the deepest sense. It is often busy broadcasting itself. It listens in order to answer, compare, improve, defend, or reassert itself. It looks, but it rarely witnesses. It thinks, but often without true observation. That is why so much modern communication feels thin. Two people are often not meeting. Two systems of self-assertion are taking turns. The illusion of self-reliance One of the cleverest tricks of the brilliant but limited mind is that it makes people feel self-reliant when they are not. A person may have a strong opinion, a better idea, a sharper analysis, a more compelling strategy, and mistake that for real inner independence. They may believe that because they can out-think a situation, they are grounded in it. But thought alone is not self-reliance. Thought is often transitory. It flashes brightly, then disappears. That does not make it worthless. It simply means we should not mistake brilliance for ground. Real self-reliance is not the victory of one person’s thinking over everyone else’s. It is the capacity of the whole being to stand in reality. If I am truly self-reliant, then my body is with me. My breathing is with me. My heart is with me. My spirit is with me. I am not depending only on ideation, performance, or mental control. I am drawing on something more stable than display. This matters because modern life has taught many people to confuse cleverness with anchoring. They are mentally active, but not deeply rooted. They can generate thoughts endlessly, but the real question is always the same: What is generating them, and from where? What the mind cannot do alone The brilliant but limited mind can do many things well. But there are certain things it cannot do alone. It cannot truly receive. It cannot truly rest. It cannot love well on its own. It cannot create peace by force. And it cannot restore the whole person by thinking harder. It also becomes ego-protective. It asks: How do I succeed? How do I secure myself? How do I avoid failure? How do I rank? How do I matter? Once fear enters the system, life becomes end-gaining. The person begins to organise around outcomes, status, and self-protection. This fear is not only psychological. It becomes physiological. Breathing changes. Muscular tone changes. Voice changes. Presence changes. This is where compassion matters. Compassion is not just a principle, a thought, or a soft moral preference. It is an embodied state. It changes breathing, muscular holding, threat level, and the quality of attention. Self-compassion allows a person to tell the truth about pain without turning that pain into self-condemnation. The limited mind compares, ranks, and condemns. Compassion restores relationship. This does not mean that the mind has no place. It means that the mind cannot, by itself, produce the kind of grounded, sincere presence that human beings actually long for. What restores the whole person I once spoke briefly online with a man I will call Georg. His wife contacted me because he was in deep distress. He was living with unexplained whole-body pain, chain-smoking, watching dreadful television, and mourning what he felt was his wasted life. As I understood it, he had spent years being judged through a narrow outer lens of success, status, promotion, wealth, achievement, and fitting the family pattern. He did not fit. He had absorbed the external verdict that he was a failure utterly. Worse than that, he no longer seemed able to feel any mission or purpose in his own life. When I spoke with him, what struck me most was his voice. It had a hollowness I find difficult to forget a constricted range of vibration and a tone of deep sadness. I do not offer this as a medical claim. I offer it as a spiritual one. It felt to me as though his own voice had been overpowered for so long by outer judgement that something vital in him had begun to withdraw. That case remains with me because it reminds me that the death of the human spirit often begins long before the death of the body. What restores the whole person is not the rejection of the mind, but the return of the rest of us. This begins with the body. It begins with noticing breath, tension, pressure, collapse, warmth, unease, and resonance. It begins with slowing down enough to receive. It begins with reflection that arises from the heart and body, not from the need to perform. And it begins with a different relationship to time and result. When we are no longer compulsively end-gaining, a different quality of presence appears. We become calmer, more grounded, more loving, less driven by fear, less addicted to display, and more capable of sincere expression.   This is not a fix, it is a practice One of the deepest habits of the brilliant but limited mind is that it assumes everything can be fixed strategically. Find the right idea, the right framework, the right intervention, and the problem will disappear. But this is precisely where the limited mind reveals its own limits. What I am describing here is not a fix. It is a practice. And practice is not about repairing a fundamentally broken self. It is about regulating what is already there and uncovering what has been covered over. Beneath the fear, comparison, overthinking, end-gaining, and self-judgement of the limited mind, I believe there is something fundamentally sincere, loving, and whole in human beings. Practice does not manufacture that. It reveals it. Each time we return to the body, to breath, to inner stillness, to compassion, and to the absence of compulsive striving, we drill down a little further beneath the noise. We regulate the system. We soften the false urgency. We come back into relationship with a deeper and more authentic nature that was never absent, only obscured.   What readers can take away If you recognise yourself anywhere in this article, the first takeaway is simple: Your suffering may not be personal failure. It may be the cost of living through too narrow a band of intelligence. The second is this: What has become imbalanced can be brought back into relationship. And the third is this: The next step is not more pressure. It is practice. My purpose is not to accuse people for living this way. Most have been trained into it. My purpose is to help people recognise the brilliant but limited mind, understand the cost of living through it alone, and begin the transition into a more balanced, self-reliant, compassionate, and deeply human way of living and working. If this article has named something you have felt but not yet articulated, explore Lodestone Inside and join the Embodied Presence for Professionals live weekly masterclass. This is where the conversation moves from recognition into practice.   Closing series note This article is the first in a three-part series on the brilliant but limited mind and the restoration of whole human intelligence. In the next article, I explore why brilliant thinking is not the same as whole intelligence and why insight alone is never enough to restore balance. Article 2: Why Brilliant Thinking Is Not Whole Intelligence | Burnout, Balance & Work. Coming in April. Follow me on LinkedIn , and visit my website for more info! Read more from Linden Thorp Linden Thorp, Embodied Presence Mentor Linden Thorp works at the intersection of embodiment, communication, and sustainable professional life. As an Embodied Presence Mentor and founder of Lodestone Inside, she helps professionals and leaders move beyond overthinking, strain, and burnout into grounded, compassionate ways of working. She is the creator of Embodiment Q&A and Your Body Is Your Business Plan, live spaces devoted to whole human intelligence in modern work. Her work reconnects body, mind, heart, and spirit as the basis of clearer communication, wiser leadership, and more humane performance. Her mission is to help bring embodiment back into the centre of modern professional life.

Written by Aisha Saintiche, Certified Health Coach With over fifteen years of experience in mental health, accessibility, and diversity and inclusion, Aisha has used her experience as a strategic advisor and health coach to understand the complexity and intersectionality of the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual barriers that keep people from achieving their optimized health and wellness. Seven years. Even as I write that, I have to pause and take it in because Me to Moi Health was never just a business. It was a decision, a decision to choose myself, to trust my voice, and to build something rooted in care, truth, and transformation, not just for others, but for me too. Seven years ago, I said yes to something I could not fully see but deeply felt. And today, I am standing in the evidence of what happens when you choose alignment over fear. This was never about hustle If I’m honest, there were seasons where I thought success meant pushing harder, saying yes more often, doing more, and proving my value through output. But one of the greatest lessons these seven years have taught me is this, you cannot build something sustainable from a place of depletion. Hustle might get you started, but it will not sustain you. What sustains you is alignment, clarity, and the willingness to pause and ask, "Is this still true for me?" The lessons that changed everything Over the past seven years, there have been many wins, pivots, and moments of deep reflection. But these are the lessons that have shaped me the most, both as a leader and as a human being: I am allowed to evolve: Who I was when I started is not who I am today (which is so wild to even think about sometimes), and that is not failure, that is growth. Evolution requires release, and release requires courage. Boundaries are not barriers, they are bridges: Every time I honoured my boundaries, I created more space for aligned opportunities, deeper relationships, and sustainable impact. My voice is my power: The more I leaned into my truth, unapologetically, the more my work resonated. Not with everyone, but with the right ones. Rest is not a reward, it is a requirement: I used to think rest had to be earned. Now I know, rest is part of the work. It is where clarity lives. Impact is not measured by how much I do, but by how deeply I connect: The most meaningful moments in this journey have never been about numbers. They’ve been about transformation, about people seeing themselves differently, about leaders choosing to show up differently. This year’s theme: Reinvestment If the last chapter was about refinement, letting go of what no longer fits, this next chapter is about reinvestment. And I want to be clear about something, reinvestment is not indulgence. It is infrastructure. It is the intentional decision to pour back into what sustains you, supports you, and strengthens you. This year, reinvestment will show up in how I: Rebuild my relationship with others Strengthen my boundaries and decision-making Prioritize mental and emotional well-being Lead from alignment instead of urgency Choose depth over constant motion What you can expect this year This year with Me to Moi Health is going to feel different, and intentionally so. You can expect: Deeper, more intentional workshops rooted in reflection, healing, and aligned action Spaces that prioritize nervous system regulation and mental clarity before strategy The expansion of The T.E.A. Table, a community grounded in Truth, Energy, and Audacity Tools and resources that support sustainable leadership, not performative productivity Conversations that challenge hustle culture and redefine what it means to live and lead well Everything I do will be anchored in one question, "What are you choosing to reinvest in?" Me to Moi Health has grown, but more importantly, I have grown. I have learned to trust myself more, to move differently, and to honour what I need, not just what is expected. And if there is one thing I know for sure, it is this, the audacity to choose yourself will always change your life. Whether you have been here since day one or you are just stepping into this space, thank you. Thank you for trusting me, for doing the work, and for choosing yourselves in big and small ways. As we step into this next year, I invite you to pause and reflect, "What is no longer yours to carry?" And what are you ready to reinvest in? Because this next chapter is not about becoming more. It’s about becoming more aligned. Seven years in. A lifetime of impact ahead. And we’re just getting started.   Follow me on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , and visit my website  for more info! Read more from Aisha Saintiche Aisha Saintiche, Certified Health Coach Aisha Saintiche is a certified health coach and the founder and owner of MetoMoi Health. With over fifteen years of experience in mental health, accessibility, and diversity and inclusion, Aisha has used her experience as a strategic advisor and health coach to understand the complexity and intersectionality of the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual barriers that keep people from achieving their optimized health and wellness.

Written by Sarah Frustié, Ecotherapist, Forest Guide, Nature Retreat Facilitator and Holistic Counsellor Sarah Frustié is an ecotherapist, forest guide, nature retreat facilitator and holistic counsellor working between Australia and France. Through nature-based practices, she supports people in caring professions navigate burnout, ease chronic stress, and reconnect with the Earth. I wouldn’t be wrong in saying it out loud, the world feels overwhelming. Fast. Loud. Unfair. Mad. Especially now. Over the years, I’ve learned not to fight that chaos anymore, but to meet it differently. To stay still when everything accelerates. To soften instead of panic. To embrace the unknown. Because the harsh truth is that we have control over very little. And again and again, I keep returning to the same place, the natural world. Out there, something shifts. My body calms. My mind quiets. My soul feels nourished. In my previous article, I explored what ecotherapy and ecopsychology are, where they come from, and how they take shape in practice. Here, I want to take you deeper into their benefits, what I witness every day with my clients. A glimpse into my story I’m not going to lie. The work I do is deeply personal. I mostly walk alongside people in the helping professions, therapists, nurses, carers, social workers, healers, doctors, support workers, any kind of carers, people like you who give, hold, support, and carry so much. I understand that path intimately. I’ve been caring for as long as I can remember. Growing up with a mother living with long-term clinical depression, I stepped into the role of emotional support very early in my life, and I also cared for my younger sister along the way. It shaped me quietly, deeply, and painfully at times. Years later, in 2012, I worked as a home care worker for the first time. In 2015, I started working in the humanitarian field. Now, over a decade on, I’m still here, walking alongside others, just in a different way, as an ecotherapist, a forest practitioner, and a counsellor. It’s a field full of passion, and also, if we’re honest, a field that can slowly deplete us. When caring becomes too much I’ve experienced burnout more than once. The first time was in 2017, in Cambodia, where I was working with children facing prostitution and child labour. I was young, deeply committed, and completely immersed. I was also living where I worked, giving everything I had, too much, too fast. I worked long hours, took on more than I could hold, and cared deeply, but I felt powerless. I cried often and questioned myself. And still, I couldn’t leave. I felt I was meant to be doing this, meant to be listening to this calling. I ended up doing an amazing job with a wonderful and committed team. Then, when my work was done, I returned to France. Back home, as I was writing my thesis, something in me had collapsed. I felt exhausted, low, and disconnected, as if my life had suddenly lost meaning, and it lasted for four months. The second burnout came in 2024. Different context, same pattern, long hours behind a screen, multiple roles in the disability and aged care industry, constant pressure, and being “on” all the time. My body was whispering, “I am tired,” until it screamed, “Enough!” I quit, with no regrets, but clear lessons. A few months later, Sarah Frustié Therapy was born. Today, my work looks different, slower, rooted, outside, and alive. Recognising burnout Sometimes, burnout doesn’t always arrive loudly. You might recognise some of its symptoms as: Persistent low energy or motivation Emotional exhaustion or numbness Feeling trapped or unable to step away Cynicism or disconnection from your work Decreased life satisfaction Irritability or overwhelm Procrastination or loss of focus Physical symptoms like headaches, body pain, or disrupted sleep.  If this feels familiar, you’re not alone. How ecotherapy supports burnout recovery Ecotherapy is not about escaping your life. It’s about returning to it, returning to the source where you feel more grounded, more connected, and more alive. It’s a gentle reconnection with yourself, guided by the rhythms of the seasons. Here are some of the benefits I consistently witness in walking alongside clients: A calmer nervous system: Something profound happens when we step into nature. The body begins to soften, and the constant alertness eases. Clients often feel calmer within minutes. Spending 20 minutes in nature each day eases the body and mind drastically. Spending 72 hours in nature without technology can feel deeply restorative and may support significant mental reset. Reduced stress, anxiety, and depression: Nature creates space to breathe, feel, and release. Chronic stress begins to unwind. My clients feel more present and connected in the moment. Slower body and mind: Heart rate slows, breathing deepens, and muscles release tension. The physical sensations and benefits of working outdoors are fascinating. This work requires a sense of safety. In nature, the body remembers what safety feels like. The Earth is loving, understanding, and profoundly nourishing. Your entire body and soul can finally relax. Emotional balance and improved mood: My work also focuses on emotions. Clients often describe a sense of lightness returning, where every emotion is welcome, felt, named, and accepted. Emotions move and express themselves, and mood improves as we walk and explore the living world. Reconnection to creativity and inner wildness: Ecotherapy moves away from rigid structures, allowing space to play and explore freely. It offers a more natural way of being and discovering yourself through therapeutic experiences in the wild. Deeper self-awareness and relationships: Nature mirrors the self. The trees, the seasons, the skies, a bird flying nearby, or a butterfly landing on your shoulder can all hold meaning. Nature speaks in subtle ways. My clients gain deeper insights and begin to find meaning in their suffering and life experiences. Presence and focus: Attention shifts from constant thinking to sensing. We return to the body, where the mind becomes quieter. The present moment becomes tangible again. Support through grief and life transitions: Nature holds space without needing to fix anything. It offers a steady presence during times of loss, change, or uncertainty, including burnout. The space I co-create with the living world becomes a safe and transformative container where clients can be heard and supported in their grief. Resilience and post-traumatic growth: Slowly and gently, clients rebuild themselves, becoming stronger and wiser. Over time, as we continue the work, they become more rooted, present, and aware. A sense of belonging: This is perhaps the most important shift, remembering that you are not separate from nature. You belong here. You belong to yourself, to others, and to the Earth. You are nature. You’re not alone in this Burnout can feel isolating, like you’ve lost your way, but there is nothing broken here. The system is, a system that asks too much for too long. I still feel, at times, that I am recovering from past burnouts. Healing is not linear. Post traumatic growth builds like nature, slowly, in cycles, and in darkness. And maybe that’s the point, not to “bounce back” to who you were before, but to grow into someone more aligned, more attuned, and more wild. Follow me on Facebook ,   Instagram , and LinkedIn  for more info! Read more from Sarah Frustié Sarah Frustié, Ecotherapist, Forest Guide, Nature Retreat Facilitator, and Holistic Counsellor Sarah Frustié is a bilingual ecotherapist, holistic counsellor, and forest guide based in the Adelaide Hills and France. She supports people in caring professions to navigate burnout, release chronic stress and anxiety, and reconnect with themselves through nature-based practices, forest bathing, and guided nature and meditation retreats. With a deep belief in the healing power of the natural world, Sarah blends mindfulness, eco-psychology, trauma-informed, and whole-person approaches to create safe and sacred experiences. She is the founder of Sarah Frustié Therapy, where every session is an invitation to slow down, breathe, and connect with the living world.

Written by Sharon Banfield, HR Consultant | Strategic Coach Sharon Banfield, the founder of Ikonix Business Solutions, is an internationally accredited HR Consultant, Master NLP Practitioner, and coach. She partners with leaders to solve challenges and transform the way people work, with innovation and tailored coaching strategies to empower resilient growth. Pressure does not just reveal who you are as a leader. It shapes who your team becomes. What feels like a single moment under pressure is rarely contained to the instant it occurs. The tone you set and the way you respond are absorbed, mirrored, and normalised by the people around you. Over time, those responses become part of the invisible architecture of your culture. They shape how people speak up, how decisions are made, and how performance holds under stress. This is already happening in your team. The question is, what is your response creating? The emotional contagion effect There is a moment most leaders recognise, even if they do not name it. A decision lands harder than expected, or a conversation shifts tone. In that split second, something subtle ripples outward, not just within you, but through the team around you. As you respond, your internal state acts as an emotional beacon that is quickly mirrored by those around you. Research on primal leadership shows that a leader’s mood is a powerful driver of team climate and performance. In high-stakes moments, people rarely adopt new behaviours. They default to existing patterns, often the ones their leaders model. A calm leader can anchor the team’s focus. Visible tension, by contrast, amplifies uncertainty. What do your default responses signal under pressure? Research on leading through anxiety shows how quickly a leader’s emotional state can transfer through a team, shaping behaviour and decision making in real time. These moments gradually shape what is safe to say, how decisions are made, and whether collaboration strengthens or fractures. This is where leadership moves beyond personal discipline and begins to shape the internal architecture of the team. This is the contagion effect in action. A leadership response under strain is mirrored, repeated, and gradually embedded into culture. Culture is shaped by many forces, including peer norms, systems, incentives, and routines. Leadership behaviour remains one of the most visible and influential within that mix. This article focuses on how leaders’ responses under pressure reveal and reinforce cultural patterns. High-stakes moments matter, not because culture is formed only in crisis, but because pressure reveals and intensifies the patterns being built in everyday interactions. The power of the intentional moment Real change is built through small decisions made consistently, especially in moments where pressure is present. The pause before you respond, the tone you choose, and the signal you send when the tension is highest. Each one feels small. Collectively, they compound. This is where intentionality becomes one of leadership’s most underused tools, not in strategy sessions or annual reviews, but in the heat of real-time leadership. Intent is the starting point. The real work lies in building the capacity for self-regulation through deliberate practice, heightened self-awareness, and mindful attention. This practice enables your internal state to set a constructive emotional baseline for the room and the broader team. Individual leadership matters, yet it is continually strengthened or undermined by the organisational systems around it. How teams learn from your signal Leaders are not just decision makers. They are broadcasters, and their teams are receivers. Every interaction teaches your team what to interpret and mirror. To understand the message you may be sending, consider how two different leaders respond to the same recurring systemic failure. The team discovers that a core operational process they rely on every day has been fundamentally flawed for months. The result is significant rework, wasted budget, and avoidable disruption. Two leaders receive the same piece of bad news. Here is what happens next. Alex’s response, the search for fault There is a beat of silence. Alex swears. His arms fly up as if he could push the news away, before gravity pulls him back into the chair. He drops forward, elbows on the table, both hands pressed over his eyes. You can already feel the temperature in the room drop. Alex searches for fault. He focuses on individual blame rather than underlying root causes. Meetings quickly fill with defensive updates and ever-growing task lists. Energy pours into documenting every decision, just in case, and chasing quick fixes that patch symptoms without addressing the flawed process. The team looks busy with frantic emails, overtime, and endless status reports. Yet the same operational breakdowns keep occurring. What the team learns from Alex Alex transmits the pressure directly to the team, signalling that mistakes are threats to reputation rather than data for improvement. He focuses on who is at fault and what went wrong, rather than on a systematic review, and people begin hiding smaller errors to avoid being the next target. Within weeks, the invisible architecture shifts toward silence and self-protection. Sam’s response, the system audit Something different happens with Sam. The news lands. You can sense that he feels it too. Then he pauses, not with the held breath of someone about to explode, but with the kind that makes space. When Sam speaks, his voice is calm, and the room adjusts to meet it. Sam acknowledges the weight of the failure and then says to the team, “This is a design problem. The process we adopted was likely not built for our current scale. I am not here to find who to blame. I am here to understand where the system broke.” Sam then asks three questions that shift the conversation. “What did the system allow that it should not have? What should the system prevent that it currently does not? What small changes could we test in the next two weeks?” Energy shifts into joint diagnosis and rapid testing instead of cover-ups. What the team learns from Sam Sam transforms pressure into clarity and problem solving. He validates the team’s frustration and redirects their energy toward solving the design problem. This signals that identifying problems is part of the work, not a threat to anyone’s reputation. It builds a culture where people feel safe to course-correct early. Through his calm and deliberate approach, Sam reinforces that clarity comes before effort and builds the team’s capacity to perform. The difference is the signal The distinction between Alex and Sam is not the presence of pressure. It is the integrity of the signal they each broadcast. Alex’s search for fault may look like accountability, but it actually encourages self-protection and busyness instead of meaningful improvement. Sam, by contrast, gives the team the mental clarity to face the problem head-on. This is not soft leadership. It is a core performance capability. It prevents the team from retreating into threat-response mode, losing sight of the wider picture, and turning communication into simple transactions. By intentionally regulating the signal he sends when pressure rises, Sam builds capacity for the next challenge instead of simply forcing the team to endure the current one. Do you sustain output at the cost of capacity like Alex? Or build capacity as part of performance like Sam? The difference shapes not only immediate outcomes, but long-term team resilience. The same moment, everywhere under pressure This pattern is not confined to major failures like those Alex and Sam faced. It appears in everyday moments. A serious complaint is raised, only to be met with dismissal rather than exploration. A critical deadline is suddenly moved forward, and urgency replaces clarity. A team member challenges a leader and is met with defensiveness instead of curiosity. A major change is announced without explanation, and uncertainty spreads. The situations differ, but the pattern remains the same. Think of the last time pressure landed in front of you. In the first thirty seconds, what did you do? And what did that moment teach your team? Culture is shaped in signals Many leaders try to fix culture through surveys, initiatives, or annual off-sites. These tools provide snapshots rather than addressing root behaviours or sustaining change. They treat culture like a project to be managed, when in reality, it is a live performance capability. It takes shape in the first few seconds after pressure lands, when your team is not just hearing your words. Culture is not something you say. It is something you broadcast. Signals arrive in the sceptical glance, the arms that fold before words do, the exhale that carries the weight of disappointment. It appears as a flicker of impatience across your face or the moment you stand up when someone is still mid-sentence. None of this is said, but all of it is heard. Then there are the words. The reactive snap that cuts a conversation short before it has anywhere to go, the sharp “not now” that teaches people that now is never a good time, or the sigh that arrives in place of an answer. It is data your team is collecting. They are not all collecting the same data. The same signal can land differently depending on who receives it. When you transmit unfiltered frustration and anxiety, you are doing more than hitting a deadline. You are trading long-term trust for short-term compliance. In high-pressure moments, psychological safety becomes even more critical , not less. When this goes unchecked, the cost appears in slower decisions, avoidable rework, hidden risk, and reduced willingness to speak up. In high-stakes moments, a leader is not just managing a situation. They are transmitting a state. Teams do not just hear the words. They register the tone, the pace, and the tension, instinctively mirroring it. Over time, that emotional signal shapes how people think, respond, and engage under pressure. Pressure, the true culture revealer Most organisations declare their culture through mission, vision, and values. These describe what an organisation intends to embody. But culture is built and revealed through how people interact, how they respond to change, and how leaders live out their daily habits, consciously or unconsciously. When stakes are high, a leader’s behaviour reveals what the organisation actually prioritises and broadcasts a message more powerful than any corporate values statement. In those moments, values are either reinforced, overridden, or betrayed. This is why a leader’s response under pressure is not incidental to culture. It is one of the mechanisms through which culture is created, tested, and sustained. Under stress, people default to what is rewarded, tolerated, and ignored. Leaders do not just influence their teams. They shape the expectations of other leaders watching, who carry those patterns forward. This movement travels down through teams and laterally across organisations. No one is told to replicate them. Through repeated observation, people internalise what effective leadership looks like. This is sometimes described as a shadow effect , where a leader’s micro-behaviours are amplified as they cascade through an organisation. Once embedded in culture, they become invisible and self-reinforcing. This is how a moment becomes a pattern. What is repeated under pressure is observed, adapted, and normalised. Over time, it stops being seen as a reaction and starts to define how things are done. This is how culture forms. Leader behaviour under pressure is not the whole culture story. But it is one of the clearest moments in which culture is revealed, reinforced, and made visible to others. How performance is measured, how decisions are made, and how work flows through the organisation carry their own message. If these tell a different story, even the clearest leadership signals will struggle to hold. Signal integrity as a competitive edge Pressure will always exist. Leadership is not about removing pressure. It is about how it is transmitted. Transmit it unfiltered, and it erodes credibility, drives attrition, and drains performance. Transform it, and you build trust, engagement, and sustained resilience. Unless refined, a sharp tone becomes hesitation, hesitation becomes silence, and silence becomes culture. When this pattern takes hold, the question is no longer what your team is doing. It is what you are teaching. In the moment Alex lashes out or Sam pauses, neither leader is thinking about long-term advantage. Yet one is building a self-protective organisation that burns capacity, while the other is building a learning organisation that compounds it. The difference accumulates. It surfaces as faster problem-solving, lower cost of rework, and stronger talent retention. Leadership is defined by what your response repeatedly teaches. Over time, those lessons become patterns that shape culture. The question is, what are you reinforcing? Choose your signal with intention, and signal integrity becomes a genuine competitive edge. Follow me on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sharon Banfield Sharon Banfield, HR Consultant | Strategic Coach Sharon Banfield, the founder of Ikonix Business Solutions, is an internationally accredited HR Consultant, Master NLP Practitioner, and coach. Drawing on over a decade as a business owner, her advisory work spans talent, workforce technology, business, and leadership development. She partners with leaders to solve complex challenges and transform the way people work, using innovation and tailored coaching strategies to empower resilient growth. Through her strategic coaching, Sharon helps founders and leaders move beyond improvising on the fly or reactive firefighting to a greater state of calm, clarity, and confidence, achieving results once considered out of reach.

Brainz Magazine Exclusive Interview Dean Graziosi is an entrepreneur, investor, multiple New York Times bestselling author, and one of the most recognized voices in the world of personal growth and business education. Over the past two decades, he has helped millions of people rethink what is possible in their lives by teaching the mindset, strategies, and execution required to build success on their own terms. In this interview, Dean shares how his early life shaped his relationship with money and ambition, why so many people stay stuck in fear and perfectionism, and how AI is changing the game for entrepreneurs, creators, and experts. He also breaks down the mindset shifts that help people stop hesitating, start acting, and move toward the version of themselves they know they are capable of becoming. Dean Graziosi AI  is one of the biggest conversations in business right now. Some people see it as a threat, while others are excited by the possibilities. How do you think AI is changing the way people learn, build businesses, and share their expertise today? Any big change throughout history causes angst. I’m in my late 50s, so I’ve been around for a few. When electricity came out, people freaked out. When the car first came out, people thought it was evil. Every major invention has early adopters, and then there’s everybody else trying to decide if they should trust it. The challenge is that change is hard, even though change is the most consistent thing in our lives. We all say we can embrace it, but most of us fight it. Then you multiply that by something the world has never seen before, moving faster than anything we’ve ever seen, and it creates uncertainty. People are asking themselves what tool to use, whether they are already behind, and whether they can even keep up. What I know is this: the people moving forward with AI have found a way to first embrace the fear of it. Yes, it is changing things. Yes, it is scary. But yes, it is coming. If you said you were not putting electricity in your business, you would not be in business. If you said the internet was not for you, you would not be in business. AI is becoming that kind of shift. But I think there is a better frame. What if AI is the great human amplifier? What if it makes us more human by giving us back time for the things that actually matter? What if it removes 25 percent of the busy work, the mundane, the repetitive tasks, and gives creativity room to breathe again? What if it becomes the great equalizer, where a small business can suddenly move like a much bigger one? Yes, there are risks. But if all you focus on is what could go wrong, that is what you will feel. I would rather focus on what AI can help us do: cure disease, make businesses more productive, help entrepreneurs start faster, and give people time back for the things that matter most. You have spoken openly about your background, and it is clear you did not start with the advantages people often associate with success. How did your early life shape the way you think about money, ambition, and what was possible for you? I only share enough of my story to give context, because we all have one. It does not matter if you came from privilege or from struggle; we all face the human condition in some form. But for me, one of the biggest things I remember is watching my mom work three jobs and still barely make enough. My parents split when I was three. We moved a lot. My mother and father were both married multiple times. I moved 20 times by the time I was 19. My mom cleaned houses, cut hair, painted houses, and did whatever she could to support my sister and me. She would leave early, come home late, her hands hurting, exhausted, and still with a smile on her face. She never complained. I retired my mom when I was 25, and I’ve sent her a check every week since then. I’m 57 now. That has been one of the greatest gifts of my life. And when I look back, it was also one of my greatest drivers. We all need something that gets the rocket off the ground. For me, it was seeing what happens when money becomes a choke point in someone’s life. I use this analogy a lot: you do not think about oxygen when it is available. But if someone put their hand around your throat, oxygen would become the only thing you think about. That is how money felt in my family. It was choking every decision. My mom made choices based on survival. Where we lived, who she married, what she could and could not be present for, all of it was shaped by not having enough money. So I made a decision early on that I wanted money to be like oxygen. I wanted it out of the way, so life could be about more than survival. And one of the biggest lessons I learned from all of that is this: I may not have had resources, but I learned to be resourceful. In my opinion, resourcefulness beats resources every single time. “I may not have had resources, but I learned to be resourceful. In my opinion, resourcefulness beats resources every single time.” Many people carry the weight of their past for years, and it quietly shapes how they see themselves and their opportunities. How did you shift from survival mode into growth? First, I think it’s important to say that the voice never fully goes away. I’m 57. I’ve built businesses, written books, partnered with Tony Robbins, and that voice is still there some days, saying, “Why are you doing this? Are you sure this is your lane? What if this goes wrong?” The difference is not that the voice disappears. The difference is that, at some point, you stop listening to it. There was a time in my life when I had so little to lose that I made bigger moves because I was not protecting comfort. I took over my dad’s collision shop when I was 19. I did not really know what I was doing. I bought two tow trucks with bank loans. My dad thought I was making a huge mistake. He literally told me I was going to go bankrupt. Then I walked into Enterprise Rent-A-Car and just kept asking who handled their wrecked cars. I kept calling, kept pushing, kept asking, until eventually someone gave me a shot. Within a few years, that one bold move changed my business completely. That season taught me something I never forgot: most people are afraid to be bold, and because of that, there is often less competition than you think. People are not knocking on doors. They are not asking the question. They are not making the move. They are sitting back, assuming someone else gets those opportunities. That mindset stayed with me. It is part of why Tony and I have always thought big. When everyone was doing virtual events for hundreds or thousands, we aimed for a million people. We did not hit it the first time, but eventually we did. That kind of thinking matters more than people realize. Sometimes the biggest breakthrough is simply deciding to go bigger, ask for the thing you want, and stop playing a smaller game than the one you know you are capable of. So many people have the knowledge, experience, or expertise, but still hesitate to put themselves out there. Is lack of boldness one of the biggest limiting beliefs you see? Yes, but underneath that is the survival voice. That voice in all of us that says, “Be careful. What if it goes wrong? Isn’t this enough? Why risk it?” That voice always points to what could go wrong. So the shift is not pretending it does not exist. The shift is learning to stack what could go right beside it. That sounds simple, but it is everything. When that voice starts, I challenge it. I ask myself, when has listening to fear ever created the life I want? When has self-doubt made me more fulfilled? When has playing small actually served me? Then I remind myself of the moments where I was brave, the times I was bold, the times I moved even when I did not have proof. Those moments are usually what changed my life. I also think we normalize small too much. We model people playing safe, then wonder why we stay stuck. The fastest way to shorten the gap is to find someone who has already done what you want to do and start where they left off. You often talk about identity and belief. How does someone start to shift the way they see themselves before the external results are there? What you believe is what you achieve. If you believe only certain people get to succeed, then that belief will shape your actions. If you believe you are too old, too young, too behind, too broke, that story starts acting like the truth. So the first step is to catch the story and name it. That is the “I’m broke” story. That is the “I’m too late” story. That is the “I’m not enough” story. Once you name it, you have some distance from it. Then I think it helps to zoom out. One of the things I come back to is this idea of getting to the end of your life and being shown the version of yourself you could have become. The life you could have lived. The impact you could have made. That is one of the most painful thoughts imaginable to me. I would much rather see a life where I tried, fell, got back up, kept climbing, and kept growing than a life where I stood at the bottom of the mountain just staring at it. Most of us do not need more time. We need more leverage. We need something strong enough to move us. And sometimes that is the realization that we are already living inside the second chance we say we would want if we ever got one. Dean Graziosi “I would much rather see a life where I tried, fell, got back up, kept climbing, and kept growing than a life where I stood at the bottom of the mountain just staring at it.” You are helping lead major conversations around AI through initiatives like The AI Advantage . What are some of the most practical ways you are seeing entrepreneurs use AI to grow and work smarter? The first thing I tell people is to stop chasing every new tool and every new update. There is no way to keep up with all of it. Even the smartest people in the world cannot keep up with every development. What the best people are doing is going deeper, not wider. They are taking one platform and learning how to use it properly. A mistake a lot of people make is using AI like a fancy Google search. That is not where the real value is. The real value comes when you start treating it like an employee or a business partner. If you hired a brilliant employee on day one and just gave them a task with no context, you might get something decent back. But if you spent an hour telling them why your business exists, what matters to you, what has worked before, what your voice sounds like, what you are building, what your values are, and what your goals are, the quality of the work would be completely different. That is how people should think about AI. The more context you give it about your values, your goals, your constraints, your voice, your style, and your desired outcomes, the better it performs. Then, instead of just getting generic output, you start getting something that feels like a real strategic partner. And my practical advice is this: let it get you to third base, then you bring the human part across the finish line. The other thing is to make it a daily habit. We are the first generation learning to live and work with AI. That means you have to remind yourself to use it until it becomes natural. Put a note on your laptop if you have to. Build the reflex. You often say that action creates clarity. Why do so many people still wait until they feel fully ready before they begin? Because perfectionism is one of the most acceptable forms of fear. We tell ourselves we are waiting for the right timing, the right conditions, more information, more support, more certainty. We say things like, “Once my partner is fully on board,” or “Once the kids are older,” or “Once things calm down in the world.” But that perfect moment never arrives. Life is never fully lined up. The world is never calm. Everyone is never going to applaud and say now is the perfect time for you to finally do the thing that has been on your heart forever. So what happens is the brain creates this polished version of fear that sounds responsible. It says, “I’m not scared. I’m just waiting.” But underneath that, a lot of the time, it is fear. Courage is different from confidence. Confidence often comes after action. Courage is what lets you move before the proof is there. Courage says, this may be messy, but I am not staying where I am. And the truth is, the version of you that you want to become only comes out through uncomfortable action. It does not come out through overthinking. You talk a lot about the power of environment and proximity. What should people do if they do not have access to high-level circles or supportive people around them? First, realize that some of the people closest to you may not be qualified to advise you on your future. That does not make them bad people. It just means they do not have your lens. I heard my friend Trent Shelton explain this in a powerful way. He said it is like having your own prescription glasses. You can see your future clearly through them, but when you hand them to someone else, they cannot see what you see. It is blurry to them. That does not mean your vision is wrong. It just means it was given to you, not to them. That is an important distinction, because a lot of people are waiting for support from people who literally cannot see what they see. So you have to stop dimming your glow to make other people comfortable. Stop asking unqualified people for permission. Love them, respect them, but do not hand them authority over your bigger future. Then, on the other side, deliberately get around the right inputs. That might mean books, podcasts, events, masterminds, workshops, or communities where people think differently. You need reminders that you are not crazy for wanting more. You need rooms that stretch your standards. They do not make statues of critics. They make statues of the dreamers, the builders, and the people who were willing to do something bold. “Stop dimming your glow to make other people comfortable.” Looking back across your journey, what belief or mindset has made the greatest difference in your life? One of the biggest things is learning not to lie to yourself. We are all good at making decisions. We say we are going to do something. But execution is where it falls apart. So I try to live by this idea: when I say I am going to do something, I do it. If you keep telling yourself you are going to work out, change your habits, build the thing, make the move, and then you do not follow through, your brain starts learning that your word means nothing. That is dangerous. So build a culture with yourself where your word matters. Then the second piece is to narrow the outcome. Do not overwhelm yourself with the entire mountain. Focus on the next step. One action. One move. One outcome at a time. A lot of people are trying to hit home runs. But in real life, a lot of singles stacked consistently will outperform the person waiting for one giant perfect move. How do you run a thousand miles? One step at a time. How do you build the life you want? One narrow outcome at a time, followed by action. We always end with one final question. What mindset do you credit most for helping you become the man you are today? I would say this: follow decisions with uncomfortable action. Execution sounds clean as a word, but in reality, execution is uncomfortable. It means doing the thing before you feel fully ready. It means not breaking promises to yourself. It means taking the next step even when the whole path is not visible. When you pair that with consistency, your life starts to change. Do not get lost in the giant version of the dream. Focus on the next move. Do it. Then do the next one. Then the next one. And every now and then, turn around and acknowledge how far you have come. That is how people become who they were meant to be. Not in one giant leap, but in repeated moments of courage, honesty, and action. Dean Graziosi’s message is a reminder that growth doesn’t begin when fear disappears. It begins when action becomes stronger than hesitation. Whether he’s talking about AI, business, self-doubt, or personal reinvention, the principle stays the same: clarity is created through movement, and the biggest risk is not trying at all. To go deeper, Dean is hosting the AI Advantage Summit 2026, a free virtual event taking place April 23–25, with daily sessions running from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM PT and content releasing from April 6. You can learn more and register at www.aisummit999.com .

Sheryl Raphael Whitaker, MBA is a thought leader, leadership transformation expert, bestselling author, and Founder & CEO of EdenAnthony Elite Talent Solutions LLC. With over 35 years of Fortune 500 leadership experience, including senior roles at USAA, AIG, and State Farm, she helps leaders and organizations put joy at the center of their work and unleash the potential they already have. Her bestselling book, It Starts with Joy: The Inner Shift That Changes Everything, became a #1 Amazon Best Seller and introduced her signature JoyShift™ Method. Here, she shares the philosophy and practice behind her work. Sheryl Raphael Whitaker, Founder & CEO Your book opens with a story from when you were six years old. What does a broken purple crayon have to do with leadership transformation? My class had earned a reward for walking in a perfect straight line that week, and if you have ever been six years old, you know what kind of collective triumph that is. When we got back to the classroom, our teacher pointed to a broken purple crayon on the floor and told everyone that I had stepped on it. I had not, and my classmates said so, but it did not matter. She called me lazy and careless, took the reward from the whole class, and moved on as if the truth were beside the point. I still remember the heat in my face and the confusion in my chest, and I remember something else too. I was the only child in that room who looked like me. I had been bused into that district with my sister, and what happened that day was not just a false accusation. It was being marked as less than by someone whose position gave her the authority to rewrite the story, regardless of what really happened. Over the course of my corporate career, I went on to advise senior leaders, build leadership institutes from the ground up, and support the development of tens of thousands of employees across some of the most recognized companies in the world. I had earned that room many times over. And then, decades later, I found myself in a season under a leader whose style was controlling and psychologically unsafe, and I felt it again, that same dynamic where someone in power had decided that their version of events mattered more than what was real. My body registered it before my mind would admit it, and I started losing parts of myself I had worked very hard to protect. What that kind of environment does to a person runs deeper than performance. It reaches identity. A leader stops trusting their own instincts and starts performing strength instead of embodying it, and they get very good at looking fine while something essential is quietly draining away. I watched that pattern in myself, and then I kept watching it in leaders and organizations everywhere, this quiet erosion dressed up as drive. Joy became non-negotiable for me after that, not the performative kind but the steady, grounded, I-know-who-I-am version of it, and once I found my way back to it, I could not unsee what it cost people not to have it. That is where this work comes from. Your signature belief is, “If joy isn’t your COO, you’ll lose the right to call what you do leadership.” What does that mean? Start with what a COO actually does. That role exists to make sure the organization operates the way leadership intends it to, closing the gap between vision and reality and deciding what gets resources, what earns attention, and what the culture rewards day to day. Now ask yourself honestly what is doing that job in your organization right now, because in most organizations it is not joy. It is fear, urgency, and the pressure not to fall short, and those forces are making the real operational decisions about what gets said in meetings, what gets left unsaid, and who eventually leaves for somewhere that costs less of them. When I say joy is my COO, I mean grounded alignment is running operations. Joy, the way I define it, is the steady experience of leading in a way that is consistent with who you are, what you value, and why you are doing this work. It is the thing that decides what earns your energy, what deserves your time, and how you stay human while leading through hard things. When that becomes the operating standard, for the individual leader and for the organization, everything shifts. Decisions get cleaner, trust builds faster, and people stop leaving for jobs that pay less but feel better. The potential the organization already has finally has room to show up. That is the foundation of the JoyShift™ Method, and it is what my book It Starts with Joy walks leaders through in four stages, Joy Aware, Joy Embraced, Joy Committed, and Joy in Motion. Each stage builds on the last, and each one asks something real of the leader willing to do the work. Joy is not a perk or a Friday feeling or the thing you get to after everything else is done. It is the infrastructure, and leaders who build on it lead differently, and more durably. The book exists because I needed people to stop waiting for joy and start building toward it. “If joy isn’t holding the center, something else will. Most of the time, that something else is fear.” What does misalignment look like in a leader or an organization, and how do you recognize it when you see it? The signal I listen for sounds deceptively simple, a leader who says, quietly, “I don’t feel like myself anymore.” That sentence carries more information than any performance review ever will, because it tells me that somewhere between the climb and the achievement, the person and the position got disconnected from each other. And once that happens, everything downstream drifts with it, the decisions, the culture, the people they lead. The organization feels it even when no one can name it yet. Most of the leaders and organizations I work with are genuinely accomplished, and they have built real things. But success has a way of demanding more than it returns over time, and leaders start performing leadership instead of living it, while organizations start optimizing for optics over actual outcomes. The gap between who a leader is and who the environment requires them to be grows quietly until it becomes impossible to ignore. My job is to close that gap. For the individual leader, it means getting honest about who they are when they are at their best and then building the conditions that allow them to lead from that place consistently. For the organization, it means constructing the human foundation that makes the strategy land, because when joy is the operating standard, alignment is not a soft idea. It is the competitive advantage. High-performing organizations are often the ones most at risk of burning out their best people. How do you address that contradiction? Most of them are running on borrowed energy, and what makes it complicated is that they know it. They just do not say it out loud. The results look good, and the metrics hold, and underneath all of it, people are exhausted in ways they have learned not to name because naming it feels like a failure of commitment. Leaders have normalized urgency as a style, confused depletion with dedication, and quietly stopped asking whether any of this is sustainable because asking started to feel like ingratitude. When joy is the infrastructure, that equation changes in a fundamental way. Excellence stops being something you extract from people and starts being something your culture produces, and the difference is in where it comes from. Pressure-driven performance has a ceiling, but joy-driven performance compounds, and I have watched it happen enough times in enough organizations to say with confidence that this is not theory. The JoyShift™ Method gives leaders a practical framework for auditing what is fueling their results. Are you and your people operating from overflow or from overload? Are the decisions being made from clarity or from fear? Those are not soft questions. They are the most strategically important questions a leadership team can sit with, and the organizations willing to answer them honestly are the ones that keep their best people and sustain their growth. How do you help leaders and organizations stop chasing the wrong things and start building toward the right ones? The question I ask every leader early in our work together is this, who are you when you are leading at your best? Not your title, not your credentials, not the version of you that shows up when everything is on fire and you are just trying to hold it together, but who you are when you are fully present and engaged, and the work genuinely feels like it belongs to you. Most leaders have to sit with that for a moment, because somewhere in the drive to achieve, that answer got blurry. For organizations, I ask a version of the same question. What does this culture produce in people? Not what the values wall says, but what the culture rewards quietly when no one is watching, because the gap between the culture an organization believes it has and the one it is living is almost always where the real work begins. When those answers come into focus, the right direction becomes clear on its own. The right move for a leader is the one that requires the version of them they are at their best, and the right strategy for an organization is the one built on what it genuinely does well rather than what looks impressive from the outside. When joy is the operating standard, that kind of clarity arrives with it, and you stop defaulting to urgency and start making decisions from intention. Leaders and organizations that do this work do not just find better opportunities. They become the kind of place those opportunities seek out. Joy as an operating standard is not a destination. It is a daily practice, and it is one every leader and every organization can build toward. If this conversation has sparked something in you, that is exactly where the work begins. You can find me at sherylraphaelwhitaker.com, and my book It Starts with Joy is available on Amazon. The conversation is just getting started. Follow me on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , and visit my website for more info! Read more from Sheryl Raphael Whitaker

Healers, coaches, and practitioners are invited to contribute to Abundance Capacity: The Healing You Need to Receive with the S.I.M.P.L.E. System – a 25-expert collaborative book curated by Diane Lauer, Founder & CEO of S.I.M.P.L.E. Systems for Thriving. Nationwide – Brave Healer Productions and S.I.M.P.L.E. Systems for Thriving have announced an open call for 25 expert contributing authors to join a landmark collaborative anthology: Abundance Capacity: The Healing You Need to Receive with the S.I.M.P.L.E. System, curated by lead author and project founder Diane Lauer. Healers, coaches, therapists, and practitioners whose work supports women in moving from depletion to sustainable abundance are encouraged to apply. This expert collaboration, produced in partnership with 17-time award-winning publisher Laura Di Franco of Brave Healer Productions, offers qualified contributors the opportunity to share their story and expertise alongside 24 fellow practitioners in a professionally edited, traditionally formatted anthology reaching women across the country. “This book exists because there are women right now who are exhausted from over-giving and ready for something to change. I want 25 experts who hav e lived that change and can show others how to walk through it.” – Diane Lauer, Lead Author & Cura ting Editor About the project Abundance Capacity is a 25-chapter anthology structured as a six-section emotional and somatic arc, guiding readers from burnout and chronic overgiving through inner recalibration to sustainable, grounded abundance. Each chapter is a standalone teaching story anchored to one element of Lauer’s proprietary S.I.M.P.L.E. System: S – Simplify: Reduce what feels heavy I – Intentional Pause: Pause before reacting M – Mindful Capacity: Protect your energy P – Purposeful Action: Take your next aligned step L – Life Integration: Support your whole self E – Energetic Sustainability: Stay resourced long-term The book’s primary audience is mission-driven women leaders, midlife women in transition, and women navigating burnout, overgiving patterns, or chronic depletion. It will be published in e-book, paperback, and Audible formats, with a tentative publication date of October 15, 2026. Who should apply Brave Healer Productions and Diane Lauer are seeking contributing authors who: Work with women as coaches, healers, therapists, practitioners, or educators. Have a personal story of moving through overgiving, depletion, burnout, or self-abandonment – and can teach from that lived experience. Are ready to contribute a 2,000–3,000-word teaching story that is honest, grounded, and practically useful. Want to expand their visibility, grow their audience, and be published alongside 24 fellow expert practitioners. What contributing authors receive Each contributing author receives: Professional editing and full publishing support from Brave Healer Productions Listing in a 25-expert anthology distributed on Amazon and major retail channels A YouTube interview opportunity to expand reach and visibility A complimentary speaking engagement at Diane Lauer’s online symposium Unlimited author copies for signings, client gifts, and events Writing coaching from Laura Di Franco and the Brave Healer team Access to a dedicated author community and launch support The right to repurpose chapter content in future solo books with proper attribution Key dates Author Commitment & Deposit Deadline: May 11, 2026 Author Kickoff Call: June 8, 2026 Chapter Due to Brave Healer: June 29, 2026 Advanced Reader Copy Distribution: October 1, 2026 Tentative Publication Date: October 15, 2026 How to apply Interested practitioners are invited to reach out directly to Diane Lauer to learn more about the project, confirm available spots, and reserve their place with a $197 deposit. Spots are limited to 25 contributors and will be filled on a first-come, first-confirmed basis. Contact Diane Lauer: Email: Diane@simplesystemsforthriving.com Website: simplesystemsforthriving.com For publishing inquiries, contact Brave Healer Productions at bravehealer.com . About Diane Lauer Diane Lauer is the Founder & CEO of S.I.M.P.L.E. Systems for Thriving and the lead author and curating editor of Abundance Capacity: The Healing You Need to Receive. A seasoned project manager and host of an online women’s conference, Diane has dedicated her career to amplifying the voices of women healers and helping high-functioning women build a sustainable relationship with receiving. Her S.I.M.P.L.E. System provides a unified framework guiding clients from chronic depletion to grounded, lasting abundance. About Brave Healer Productions Brave Healer Productions, led by 17-time award-winning publisher Laura Di Franco, specializes in collaborative expert anthologies that amplify the voices of healers and practitioners. Brave Healer provides full-service publishing, editorial coaching, and marketing support to ensure every contributing author reaches the widest possible audience. Learn more at bravehealer.com .   Media contact Diane Lauer Founder & CEO, S.I.M.P.L.E. Systems for Thriving Brave Healer Collaborative Book Project | Abundance Capacity Diane@simplesystemsforthriving.com simplesystemsforthriving.com

Written by Tanya Tsikkos, Innovative Jewelry Designer & CEO of EntityUK Tanya Tsikkos is an innovative jewelry designer who promotes mental health and well-being. COVID-19 left her with emotional challenges, and she found a way to cope and to improve her mental health with her jewelry creations and empowering messages. Appreciating where you are, rather than where you think you should be, changes everything. April arrives with a particular kind of energy. The world around us seems to wake up longer light, warmer air, everything reaching and opening. And with it comes an unspoken invitation to do the same, to match the season’s momentum with our own. Yet not all of us feel that pull. I can vouch for that myself! Sometimes April finds us quiet when everything else is blooming. Sometimes we are still in our own winter, even as spring unfolds around us. I have come to understand that we move through seasons of our own. Internal ones. Ones that do not always align with the calendar, the weather, or the expectations we carry about how we should feel at any given time. Learning to honor those seasons, to recognize them, work with them, and stop apologizing for them, changes everything. Bloom in your own time with these gentle practices. The myth of constant spring There is a quiet pressure woven into modern life that suggests we should always be growing, always creating, always available, always on. That rest is earned, not needed. That slowing down means falling behind. But nature does not work that way. Trees don’t bloom all year. They rest. They shed. They pull their energy inward when the season calls for it, and no one questions whether they are doing enough. We are no different. Our bodies, minds, and spirits move through cycles, times of expansion and times of retreat. Seasons where everything feels possible, and seasons where simply maintaining feels like enough. The challenge isn’t the seasons themselves. It is the belief that we should override them. A small practice. Notice where you are pushing against your natural rhythm. Is there one area where you are forcing spring energy when you are actually in autumn or winter? Name it quietly to yourself. Just naming it can ease the pressure. Recognizing your season One of the gentlest practices I have found useful is simply noticing where I am. Not where I was last month or last year. Just where I am right now, without judgement. Sometimes that looks like energy that feels abundant, ideas flowing, momentum building, the desire to create and connect coming easily. Other times, it’s the opposite. Everything feels heavier. Creativity feels distant. Rest isn’t optional, it’s essential. Both are seasons. Both are valid. A small practice. Pause and ask yourself, what season am I in right now? Not metaphorically perfect, just honest. Am I in a season of growth? Of rest? Of transition? Of shedding something that no longer fits? There is no right answer. Just clarity. Working with your capacity, not against it Once you begin to recognize your seasons, the next step is learning to move with them instead of resisting them. This does not mean giving up or avoiding responsibility. It means adjusting your pace, your expectations, and your energy output to match what’s actually available, not what you wish were available. Creating feels natural in seasons of expansion. Saying yes comes easily, and energy flows without force. Lean into it, but gently. Even spring doesn’t bloom everything at once. And in seasons of quieter energy, rest becomes productive in ways that are not always visible, when saying no protects something deeper. Pulling back isn’t weakness, it is wisdom. The permission we often forget to give ourselves is this, you are allowed to do less when you have less to give. A small practice. Look at your week ahead. What can be softened? What’s non negotiable, and what’s negotiable? Where can you create a little more breathing room, even if it’s just five minutes here or there? Adjust one thing. Just one. The seasons of creative energy As I mentioned earlier, creativity moves in seasons too. There are times when creating feels effortless, when ideas arrive fully formed, when your hands know exactly what to do, and when the work feels like it’s moving through you rather than from you. And in the fallow times, nothing feels inspired. The work can feel heavy or disconnected, and you may find yourself asking the question, “Do I even want to keep going?” I have learned that the fallow seasons are not failures. They are simply part of the cycle. The key here is to let things settle, tend to the quiet parts that need attention, and trust that the making will return when it’s ready. Sometimes the most creative thing you can do is step back. A small practice. If you are in a creative winter, let yourself be there. Don’t force the bloom. Instead, just gather. Notice what catches your eye, what moves you, and what you want to return to later. Creation doesn’t always look like output. Sometimes it looks like noticing. Internal winters in external springs This is the tension that often feels hardest. When the world is waking up and you are still resting. When everyone around you seems to be moving forward and you are standing still. When April arrives full of possibility and you simply don’t have the capacity to meet it. There is nothing wrong with you. Your season is your season. It doesn’t need to match anyone else’s, and it certainly does not need to apologize for existing. Nature holds this paradox beautifully, even in the same garden, some plants bloom early, some late, some not at all in a given year. It doesn’t make them any less worthy. It makes them honest. You are allowed to be in your own season, even when it doesn’t match the one happening around you. A small practice. When the pressure to “spring” feels heavy, ground yourself in one small truth. I am exactly where I need to be right now. Say it aloud if it helps. Write it down. Let it soften the edges of expectation. The wisdom of cycles What I return to again and again is this, you are not meant to be the same version of yourself all the time. You will have seasons of doing and seasons of being. Seasons of certainty and seasons of questions. Seasons where everything feels clear and seasons where nothing does. All of it, every season, has something to teach. The growth happens not in the constant pushing, but in the honoring, in the noticing, and in the gentle adjustments we make when we finally stop pretending that we are something we’re not. A small practice. Reflect on a past season that felt difficult at the time. What did it teach you? What did it ask you to let go of, or what did it quietly prepare you for? Sometimes the wisdom of a season only becomes clear once we have moved through it. Just remember You are allowed to move through seasons. You are allowed to rest when the world is blooming. You are allowed to bloom when everything else is resting. Your capacity will shift. Your energy will ebb and flow. And none of that makes you less worthy, less capable, or less enough. The trees don’t question their cycles. Neither should you. Tend to your season, whatever it is, with the same care you would offer to something growing in soil. Water it. Give it light. And when it needs to rest, let it rest. You will bloom again when it’s time. Follow me on Faceboo k  and Instagram  for more info! Read more from Tanya Tsikkos Tanya Tsikkos, Innovative Jewelry Designer & CEO of EntityUK Tanya Tsikkos is an innovative jewellery designer who promotes mental health and wellbeing. COVID-19 left her with emotional challenges, and she found a way to cope and to improve her mental health with her jewellery creations and empowering messages. She has since dedicated her life to helping others to always feel good and empowered . She is the CEO of EntityUK, an online fashion jewellery company that combines jewellery with empowerment in each design. Her mission is to inspire, uplift, and empower all to live their best lives with confidence and style!