Before Leor Zlotnik left Goldman Sachs to run LZ Interiors full time, she spent years building the design business alongside her finance career – testing it with real projects, real clients, and no safety net – until the evidence, not a leap of faith, made the decision for her. A different kind of career pivot Most people who leave a stable finance job for a creative business talk about it as a leap of faith. Leor Zlotnik talks about it more like a decision that had been building for years, one that finally had enough evidence behind it to act on. Before LZ Interiors existed, Zlotnik worked at Goldman Sachs. The design work started alongside that job, not instead of it. Early projects were built in whatever hours were left after a demanding finance schedule, and as a single mom, that meant the margins of the day were thin. There was no long runway, no outside investment, no built-in client base. There was a firm belief that the work was good enough to stand on its own, tested in real time against a full-time job that left little room for error. Why the business came first, then the exit Zlotnik did not quit finance to try interior design. Design was already working before the exit happened. That order matters. It meant the decision to leave Goldman Sachs was made from evidence, not hope: a growing body of projects, a visual identity that was starting to resonate, and enough client interest to suggest the demand was real. This is a different story than the one usually told about creative founders. There was no single dramatic moment of quitting to chase a dream. Instead, there were years of building two things at once, until one of them was strong enough to carry the weight on its own. Building an eye for design while working in finance Spending years inside institutional finance, before founding LZ Interiors, shaped how Zlotnik approaches design projects now. Finance rewards precision, documentation, and the ability to explain exactly why a decision was made. That habit carried over directly. LZ Interiors is not built around mood boards and vague inspiration. It is built around specific decisions: which material, which finish, which vendor, and why. Homeowners come to LZ Interiors with a vision they found on Instagram or Pinterest. What they often lack is the ability to execute it: the sourcing knowledge, the sequencing, the understanding of what a material actually costs and how it actually performs once it is installed. That gap between an inspiration photo and a finished room is where the firm's work concentrates. Building a business through visual identity Long before LZ Interiors became known through word-of-mouth referrals, its Instagram presence was doing quiet work in the background. Zlotnik treated the platform less as marketing and more as a portfolio, a place to show finished work in enough detail that a prospective client could see the actual decisions behind a room, not just the final photo. That approach built a following inside the high-end design community over time, not through a single viral moment but through consistency. Every project posted was another data point proving the same thing: that the aesthetic was real, repeatable, and grounded in craft rather than trend. What the transition actually required Leaving a Goldman Sachs career to run a design studio full time was not simply a matter of confidence. It required the business to already be functioning as a business: a portfolio, a reputation, and enough demand to replace a finance salary. Zlotnik built that foundation first, then made the change. As a single parent, the calculation could not be purely emotional. It had to work financially and practically before it could work personally. That constraint shaped the discipline behind the eventual transition. There was less room for a slow build once the leap was made, so the leap only happened once the earlier work had already proven itself. Alignment as the real measure Zlotnik does not describe the move from Goldman Sachs to LZ Interiors as a story about escaping one industry for another. It reads more like a story about closing the gap between the work and the person doing it. Finance built the discipline. Design became the outlet for something more personal. The two years spent doing both at once were less a transition than a test, one that had to pass before the rest of the story could happen at all.

Written by Julie Zdravkovski, Spiritual Advisor & Medium Julie Zdravkovski is a spiritual advisor and thought leader redefining how we engage with intuition, transformation, and personal power. Known for her direct, no-bypass approach, she challenges spiritual narratives and guides people back to grounded, embodied truth. There is a particular kind of avoidance that has become so seamlessly integrated into the modern spiritual world that almost no one recognises it as avoidance anymore. If I am being honest, that is what makes it more dangerous than any of the more obvious forms of denial we tend to talk about. It hides within the very practices meant to bring us home to ourselves. It disguises itself as growth, elevation, consciousness, and being on the path. Because it uses the language of the work, it becomes almost impossible to see, even for the person doing it, and often especially for the person doing it. Spiritual bypassing is not what most people think it is. It is not the person who refuses to do the inner work, nor the person who denies they have wounds. It is not the person outside the spiritual world at all. It is almost always someone deeply inside the work, someone dedicated, sincere, articulate, and highly evolved in the language of the path, who has quietly built a way of moving through their life that uses spiritual concepts, practices, and identities to sidestep the exact places where real transformation was being asked of them. This is why it is so difficult to name, because naming it would require the person doing it to look honestly at the possibility that some of what they thought was healing has actually been a very sophisticated form of running away. This article is not written to accuse anyone. It is written for the reader who has already been suspecting, quietly, that something in their spiritual life has not been fully honest with them, and for those who are ready to look at what has been sitting just underneath the practices, the vocabulary, and the version of themselves they have been so committed to becoming. What spiritual bypassing actually is In its simplest terms, spiritual bypassing is when someone uses spiritual language, practices, or beliefs to avoid feeling something they don't want to feel, or to sidestep an aspect of their humanity that hasn't been properly acknowledged. It looks like healing on the surface, but it functions as avoidance beneath the surface. It sounds like wisdom in conversation, but it feels hollow when you look closely at what it is actually doing in the person's life. The reason it is so difficult to detect is that it wears the same face as genuine spiritual work, which means the person doing it can hold entire conversations, teach entire workshops, and post entire pieces of content about the very thing they are quietly not living, without ever recognising that they are the case in point. The truth is that spirituality was never meant to be a way out of the human experience. It was meant to be a way through it. Genuine spiritual work brings you deeper into your body, deeper into your relationships, deeper into the ordinary and messy fabric of your daily life, and deeper into the parts of yourself you would rather not look at. It does not lift you above them. The moment you notice that the work you are doing consistently helps you rise above things rather than move through them is often the moment you have quietly stopped doing the work and started doing something that looks a lot like it, but functions as its opposite. That noticing, when it comes, is usually very quiet. It is the small, private recognition that a practice you have been leaning on for years is not actually changing anything in your life, or that the language you use to describe your growth no longer matches what is actually happening underneath it, or that you have been performing a version of yourself for so long you can no longer remember who you were before the vocabulary arrived. The most common forms it takes The most familiar version of spiritual bypassing is what is often called toxic positivity, which is when someone insists on staying in a high vibrational state at all times, refuses to acknowledge anything that is not aligned with light, love, or the highest good, and quietly weaponises optimism against anyone who is trying to express something honest and difficult. It looks spiritual, but what it actually does is shut down real feeling, both in the person doing it and in the people around them, and it teaches an entire community that grief, anger, disappointment, and pain are somehow less enlightened than gratitude, joy, and manifestation. There is also the version that uses detachment as an excuse not to feel. Detachment, when it is real, is the natural result of fully feeling something and releasing the need to control its outcome. But when it is used as a bypass, detachment becomes the reason never to feel it in the first place, and the person becomes floaty, distant, disconnected from their own life, and unable to meet the people around them in any way that requires presence. Then there is the very common phrase, everything happens for a reason, which can be true in a broad cosmic sense, but is almost always dropped into a conversation to dismiss someone else's grief, rage, or lived experience of loss. Real spiritual work does not skip over what is painful to arrive at meaning. It sits inside the pain for as long as the pain needs to be sat with, and it lets meaning emerge in its own time, or not at all. Forgiveness that skips the anger is another one. Someone is hurt, someone violates a boundary, someone causes real damage, and the spiritual response becomes an immediate leap into forgiving them, releasing them, wishing them well, and moving on, without ever allowing the anger to be fully felt. That is not forgiveness. That is bypass, because real forgiveness only becomes possible on the other side of honestly feeling what was done to you, the anger that came with it, and the grief underneath the anger. Gratitude is often used the same way. It becomes a tool to silence a legitimate need, a legitimate longing, or a legitimate frustration by reframing the situation as something to be grateful for rather than what you are actually feeling. Gratitude in its true form is expansive and honest, and it can hold the reality of what is difficult alongside what is beautiful. Gratitude as a bypass is used to close the door on anything that is not immediately acceptable. The phrase ‘raise your frequency’ has been quietly weaponised against difficult conversations in a similar way, because it implies that if you are struggling, if you are in conflict, if you are needing to address something hard, the answer is to elevate yourself out of it, rather than actually to address it. Meditation, breathwork, ceremony, and ritual, all of which are powerful and legitimate when used well, can become the equivalent of emotional numbing when used to soothe yourself out of the discomfort of your own life rather than to help you integrate what you are moving through. Why it is so hard to see in yourself Spiritual bypassing is almost impossible to detect from the inside because a whole identity gets built around it, and once that identity is in place, honestly questioning it feels like a threat to your entire sense of self. You become the person who is doing the work. You become the person who is evolved, awakened, conscious, elevated, or intuitive. That identity, over time, becomes so wrapped up in your sense of who you are that admitting the work may not be doing what you thought it was, or that some of your practices may be functioning as avoidance rather than integration, feels like losing yourself entirely. The spiritual community itself often rewards the bypass. There is real social currency in appearing evolved, using the correct vocabulary, posting the right kind of content, and being seen as someone who has done a lot of inner work. The people most invested in that identity are often the ones who receive the most affirmation for holding it, which makes honestly questioning it that much more costly. Nobody in your circle is going to gently point out that your gratitude practice looks like avoidance, or that your endless retreats might be functioning as escape, or that your polished spiritual persona might be sitting on top of something quieter and more unresolved. If anything, the environment around you will keep affirming that you are doing beautifully, which is precisely what makes the pattern so difficult to break. A subtle superiority also builds over time, and it is one of the hardest things to name honestly. You start to see yourself as further along than the people around you. You start to feel a quiet distance from those who are still angry, still messy, still struggling with the ordinary human things you believe you have moved beyond. That distance, however unspoken, is one of the clearest signs that a bypass has taken hold, because real spiritual work does not create separation between you and the humanity of others. It deepens your capacity to be present with all of it, including the parts of yourself you thought you had transcended. The smartest, most articulate seekers are often the most hidden inside this pattern, because their intelligence makes it easy to construct sophisticated explanations for why every practice they are doing is genuinely serving them, why every uncomfortable feeling they are not feeling has been legitimately released, and why their spiritual life is genuinely as advanced as they present it to be. The capacity to think and speak fluently about the work becomes the very thing that keeps them from actually doing it, and this is one of the great, quiet ironies of the spiritual path. What the bypass is actually protecting Underneath every bypass is something ordinary, human, and painful, and this is the part almost no one is prepared to name. The bypass is rarely protecting the person from something dramatic. It is protecting them from something quiet and unresolved that they have not yet allowed themselves to feel fully. It is often protecting grief that was never fully felt, a loss that was moved through too quickly because the spiritual framing arrived before the pain had a chance to be honoured. Someone dies, and the person goes immediately into their soul completed its journey, or their soul is with me now, or everything happens for a reason. The honest devastation of losing another person is quietly bypassed in favour of a spiritual explanation that soothes rather than heals. It is often protecting anger that was never allowed to surface. Anger is one of the most spiritually inconvenient emotions in the modern spiritual world, because it does not fit into the aesthetic of high vibrations and elevated consciousness. So many people who have done significant inner work have quietly exiled their own anger entirely, without realising that the anger itself was pointing them toward something that needed to be honoured, corrected, or protected. It is often protecting the fear of being ordinary, needy, or messy. There is a version of the self that most seekers on the spiritual path are terrified of returning to, which is the version that has needs, that gets jealous, that feels petty, that wants things it does not want to admit it wants, that is not always graceful, not always kind, not always evolved. Spirituality can become a very sophisticated way of never having to acknowledge that this version of yourself still exists, still has something to say, and still deserves the same care you extend to the more presentable parts of yourself. Most of all, the bypass is protecting the parts of the self that were exiled long before spirituality entered the picture. The parts of you that were told they were too much, parts that were shamed, that were not welcomed, and were not safe to be. Spirituality, when it is being used as a bypass, becomes a very elegant way to keep those parts exiled, because now you have a language, a framework, and a community that all reinforce the idea that those parts of you should have been transcended by now, which means they must continue to remain hidden, only now under a much more spiritually acceptable disguise. The cost of continuing to bypass The cost of continuing to bypass is not always dramatic, which is part of why it is so easy to keep doing it. The cost shows up quietly, over time, in the parts of your life you may not immediately associate with your spiritual practice. Relationships stay shallow, because you cannot go where the other person needs you to. If your friend, partner, family member, or colleague is in genuine grief, genuine rage, genuine confusion, and you can only meet them with spiritual reframes and elevated language, you are not actually with them. You are performing spirituality at them, and they can feel the difference, even if they cannot name it. Over time, the people closest to you begin to withhold what is most honest in them, because they have learned that you cannot receive it. The relationships flatten into something that looks connected on the surface but is quietly starving underneath. Creativity dries up similarly, because real creativity requires access to the full range of your humanity, including the parts you have been quietly refusing to let surface. When your inner life is curated to include only the elevated and the acceptable, your creative output begins to reflect that same narrow band. It becomes polished, sometimes even beautiful, but rarely alive, because aliveness requires access to everything, including the parts that do not fit the persona. Your spiritual life itself begins to feel performative rather than alive. The practices stop moving anything, the insights stop landing, rituals stop transmitting anything real, and underneath it all, a quiet exhaustion sets in from constantly maintaining the elevated version of yourself, because performance is exhausting, no matter how sincerely it began. Perhaps most importantly, your intuition begins to dull, because intuition depends entirely on your honesty with yourself. When you have stopped being able to name what you are actually feeling, what you actually want, what you actually think, and what you actually know, your intuition has nothing to work with, and it slowly quiets. The very capacity you have been trying to develop through your spiritual practice begins to fade, precisely because the practice has drifted into being a way of not knowing yourself rather than a way of knowing yourself more deeply. What honest spiritual work actually asks of you Honest spiritual work asks for the one thing the bypass has been protecting you from: the willingness to feel the very thing you have been rising above. It asks you to come back down, back into the body, the mess, the ordinary unresolved parts, and back into the ordinary humanity you have been trying to transcend. It asks you to drop the vocabulary when the vocabulary has become armour. There is nothing wrong with spiritual language when it is genuinely describing your experience. Still, when language becomes a way of avoiding the experience, the practice is to speak plainly, in ordinary words, about what is actually happening inside you, without reaching for terminology that keeps things at a comfortable spiritual distance. Real transformation, when it is genuine, is almost always unglamorous, uncomfortable, and quiet. It rarely arrives through a peak experience, a breakthrough moment, or a dramatic release. It arrives through the small, honest choices to feel what you have been avoiding, to say what you have been withholding, and to be with what you have been rising above. Once the bypass begins to loosen, the work itself changes. It becomes slower, less performative, less articulate, and far more real. Your relationships deepen, because you can finally meet the people around you in the fullness of what they are actually experiencing. Your creativity returns, because you have access to the whole of yourself again. Your practices start to move things again, because they are no longer functioning as avoidance. Your intuition, which had been quietly dulling for years, sharpens, because you have stopped lying to yourself about what you are feeling, wanting, and knowing. The work does not disappear. It simply becomes honest, and honesty, in the end, is the only thing spirituality was ever really asking of you. What you already know You already know whether some part of what you have been calling your spiritual work has been quietly functioning as avoidance, and you know it in the moments when a piece of your life is asking to be genuinely felt, and you find yourself reaching for a practice, a phrase, a reframe, or a ritual that soothes the discomfort rather than allowing you actually to meet it. The invitation is not to abandon the work. It is to allow the work to become honest. To let the parts of you that have been quietly exiled under spiritual language come back home, allowing the human to be on a spiritual path, rather than a spiritual person trying to escape the human experience. Being human is the work, and the moment you stop trying to bypass it, everything you have been building finally becomes real. A note from me, and an invitation If something in this piece raised a question you have been carrying, about a practice that is no longer moving anything, a feeling you have been quietly rising above, or a version of yourself you have been performing for longer than you would like to admit, send it to me. Each month, I choose questions from readers and channel a response in this column. You will not be named. You will be heard, and through you, others sitting with the same thing will be heard too. Send your question here. If at some point you want to work with me more directly, you can find ways to do so here, where spiritual advisory sessions, classes, books, and more are available when you are ready, not before. I am Julie. I am a medium. I am genuinely interested in what you already know but have not yet trusted. Follow me on Instagram for more info! Read more from Julie Zdravkovski Julie Zdravkovski, Spiritual Advisor & Medium Julie Zdravkovski is an international spiritual advisor, teacher, and thought leader known for challenging the norms of the spiritual and self-development space. With over 30 years of experience, she cuts through surface-level spirituality to deliver grounded, direct insight that prioritizes truth over comfort. Beginning as a child medium, Julie has spent decades refining her intuitive abilities while also building a corporate career in leadership and human behavior. This dual lens has allowed her to bridge spirituality with real-world application in a way that is both practical and transformative, propelling her in building a professional, spiritually-led business, Modern Day Medium.

Written by Dr. Omosefe Christina, Medical Doctor, CEO and Founder Dr. Omosefe Christina is a Medical Doctor, Entrepreneur, and Founder of Elite Exams. She blends frontline clinical practice with medical education and community programmes to help International Medical Graduates (IMG) and African families flourish in their careers and communities in the UK. The National Health Service (NHS) could not open its doors on Monday morning without internationally trained doctors. That is not a metaphor. Internationally qualified clinicians now make up 42% of the UK's licensed medical workforce, and in general practice, half of all first-year trainees in 2024 qualified outside the UK. Yet the dominant public narrative about these clinicians is not one of contribution. It is one of crisis, or competition, and that narrative directly costs the careers of the people it claims to describe. Two framings, one profession diminished In the UK, media coverage of international medical graduates (IMGs) has settled into two recurring frames. The first is the emergency frame, overseas doctors presented as filling gaps a chronically underfunded domestic training pipeline failed to produce, useful, necessary, but reactive. The second, hardening since 2023, is the competition frame, that the growing number of IMGs is blocking UK graduates from securing training posts. Both framings dominated coverage of the GMC's 2024 Workforce Report. Neither paused to ask what was happening to the IMGs themselves. The answer, buried in the same report, is stark. Of the IMGs who passed their Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) Part 2 examination in 2024, only 2.4% secured formal training posts, and nearly 80% were not connected to a designated NHS employer, meaning thousands of qualified, GMC-registered doctors were left without stable employment in the system that recruited them. The emergency frame explains why the NHS needs them. It does not explain why, once here, so many are left without a clear pathway forward. How language becomes policy The connection between media language and career outcomes is not abstract. It runs through a specific chain. The words used in public debate shape how hiring managers and training committees perceive internationally trained clinicians. Those perceptions inform selection decisions. Those decisions determine whose career advances and whose stalls. Terms like "foreign trained," "reliance on overseas doctors," and "filling gaps" appear so routinely in NHS workforce commentary that they've become invisible. But each one positions internationally trained clinicians as contingency rather than profession, as a response to a problem rather than a core part of the workforce. When institutions that control training applications and consultant appointments absorb that framing, it produces measurable results. The GMC's own data shows that in 2024, internationally trained doctors applying for specialty training in England had a 23% success rate, against 69% for UK-trained doctors. Research into differential attainment in UK medical careers confirms the pattern: career outcomes for doctors in the UK are consistently shaped by ethnicity, country of training, and immigration status, not by clinical ability alone. The narrative creates the permission structure. The data shows what that permission produces. What internationally trained clinicians actually experience A mixed-methods study of IMG experiences found that more than 75% of those reporting workplace discrimination in the preceding five years described subtle, interpersonal forms, being overlooked for opportunities, second-guessed on clinical decisions, and held to standards their UK-trained colleagues were not. Institutions and senior staff were the primary sources. These are not random acts of bias. They are the predictable consequence of working inside an institution that has absorbed a public narrative positioning you as secondary. For Nigerian-trained GPs working in England, many of whom completed rigorous training in Nigeria before passing PLAB, International English Language Testing System (IELTS), and further UK licensing requirements, this reality is well known. The credentials are recognised. The contribution is relied upon. The professional standing, too often, is not. What solidarity looks like in a GP surgery Acknowledging this is not about blame. It is about accuracy. The internationally trained clinician working in a GP surgery in Bradford, Birmingham, or Bristol is not a stopgap. She is a GP, with the same registration, patient responsibilities, and professional standards as anyone else on that rota. The question is whether her colleagues, her practice managers, and her training supervisors treat her as one. In practical terms, solidarity looks like this–introducing a colleague by their specialty rather than their country of training. Reading a job application for what a candidate demonstrates, not where they qualified. Noticing when a clinician is consistently talked over in a practice meeting, and recognising it as a pattern worth interrupting. The internationally trained clinicians sustaining NHS general practice, from Nigeria, Ghana, India, Pakistan, Egypt, and across the world, arrived with qualifications, with commitment, and with a reasonable expectation of professional respect. The stories being told about them in public shape what they encounter in private. It's time those stories were more honest and more human. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Dr. Omosefe Christina Dr. Omosefe Christina, Medical Doctor, CEO and Founder Dr. Omosefe Christina creates digital learning platforms that turn frontline experience into practical support for international doctors in the UK. She is the CEO of Elite Exams, which supports the medical education of internationally trained doctors aspiring to become independent GPs. She builds digital systems, courses, platforms, and automated learning pathways to support doctors who migrate to the UK. References: GMC – The State of Medical Education and Practice in the UK: Workforce Report 2024 Employment and Access to Training for IMGs in the UK (2022–2024) Differential Attainment in Career Progression for Doctors in the UK – Sushruta Journal Inequitable Treatment Among IMGs: Mixed Methods Study – PMC Discrimination Against IMGs in Residency Selection – BMC Medical Education Reliance on Migrant Healthcare Workers: Critical Discourse Analysis – PMC

Written by Dr. Omosefe Christina, Medical Doctor, CEO & Founder Dr. Omosefe Christina is a Medical Doctor, Entrepreneur, and Founder of Elite Exams. She blends frontline clinical practice with medical education and community programmes to help International Medical Graduates (IMG) and African families flourish in their careers and communities in the UK. There is a moment many Black professionals recognise, the one where an invitation arrives, and it feels, genuinely, like progress. A seat on a diversity committee. A keynote at a conference. A request to join the equity task force. The phone calls come more frequently, and the visibility is real. But somewhere along the way, a quieter realisation sets in: the invitation was to be present, not to decide. To contribute, not to lead. To represent, not to govern. It is a distinction that rarely gets named out loud. That silence is part of the problem. More than a pipeline problem The numbers have been documented extensively, but they are worth sitting with. A McKinsey & Company report on Black professionals in the United States (US) private sector found that, at current rates, it would take approximately 95 years for Black employees to reach proportional representation across management levels. With deliberate, best-in-class interventions, that timeline drops to around 25 years. Still a generation. At the top of organisations, the gap is even more pronounced. A 2025 study in the Journal of Accounting Research found that while Black professionals make up 9.4% of the overall workforce, they hold just 3.1% of board seats and 1.9% of top executive positions. The researchers describe this as "diversity tokenism," a pattern where organisations increase high-visibility appointments without making structural changes at every level of the pipeline. In other words, the face changes. The power structure often does not. It is not the ceiling, it is the rung The "glass ceiling" has long been the dominant metaphor for this conversation. But the evidence suggests the more urgent problem sits much earlier in the journey. McKinsey's research identifies what it calls the "broken rung". The point at which Black professionals, well represented in entry-level roles, fall significantly out of the pipeline at the first step into management. In the companies studied, Black employees made up 14% of the overall workforce, but just 7% of managers. The ceiling is almost irrelevant if the ladder is broken halfway up. For internationally trained professionals, including overseas-trained clinicians who often enter new systems mid-career and carry both expertise and the added weight of cultural navigation, this dynamic tends to be even sharper. Many arrive with strong credentials and years of experience, only to find themselves channelled into roles that value their presence more than their authority. Sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter identified three experiences that tend to follow professionals in token positions: heightened performance pressure, boundary heightening, and role entrapment, where individuals are repeatedly called upon to perform identity rather than capability. In practical terms, this often looks like being invited to every diversity panel and none of the strategy meetings. The sponsorship gap nobody talks about enough Mentorship has had a lot of good press. Sponsorship gets less press, and that disparity matters. A mentor offers guidance. A sponsor uses their own credibility and influence to put someone's name in the room before they arrive. It is the difference between being told how to navigate a system and having someone hold the door open. Research by Catalyst, surveying Black professionals across the UK, Canada, and the United States, found that the absence of sponsorship is one of the most consistently cited barriers to career advancement. It does not exist in isolation. McKinsey's data shows that Black employees are 23% less likely to report receiving meaningful support to advance and 41% less likely to view promotion processes as fair. What makes this particularly worth examining is what it is not. It is not a gap in ambition, or effort, or qualification. Research by Korn Ferry on senior Black leaders found that nearly 60% had taken highly deliberate, strategic approaches to their career progression, proactively building skills, networks, and visibility. They were doing everything right. The system was simply not designed to reward it equally. What the move from visibility to governance actually looks like The shift is not inevitable. But it is possible, and the research offers a reasonably clear picture of what it tends to require. For African diaspora professionals and internationally qualified clinicians building their authority in new environments, studies on Black leadership development point consistently to a few distinguishing factors. Deliberate network-building that extends well beyond an immediate peer group, a professional identity shaped around organisational priorities rather than diversity representation alone, and a purposeful pursuit of sponsors, not just mentors, who will advocate openly. For organisations, the responsibility sits at the structural level. The Journal of Accounting Research study poses a question worth taking seriously–are institutions genuinely expanding access to decision-making, or simply redistributing visibility within the same old structure? Meaningful progress means tracking not just who is hired, but who is promoted, who gets the high-stakes projects, who is invited into the spaces where institutional influence is actually concentrated. It means creating pathways, not gestures. Why it matters beyond the individual There is, of course, a strong equity case for getting this right. But there is also a plain organisational one. Research consistently links diverse leadership to stronger decision-making, better responsiveness to complex challenges, and improved organisational performance. In healthcare, where the representation of internationally trained professionals and African diaspora clinicians in governance roles shapes how services are designed and who they actually serve, the stakes extend well beyond the boardroom. When people with lived migration experience, globally trained professionals, and Black leaders are confined to roles that are visible but light on authority, institutions miss more than an equity opportunity. They lose the full depth of what those professionals bring. The real question The evidence is clear. The barriers are structural, well-documented, and, this matters, addressable. The professionals navigating these systems are not waiting to be deemed ready. Many are already doing the work, building the networks, and proving the value, often at a disproportionate personal cost. The more pressing question is whether the institutions they work within are prepared to move beyond performative inclusion, to offer not just a seat at the table, but a genuine voice in what happens there. Representation and governance are not the same thing. The sooner organisations stop treating them as interchangeable, the sooner both can mean something. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Dr. Omosefe Christina Dr. Omosefe Christina, Medical Doctor, CEO & Founder Dr. Omosefe Christina creates digital learning platforms that turn frontline experience into practical support for international doctors in the UK. She is the CEO of Elite Exams, which supports the medical education of internationally trained doctors aspiring to become independent GPs. She builds digital systems, courses, platforms, and automated learning pathways to support doctors who migrate to the UK. References: JINGDANTAN. (2025). Diversity Tokenism. Journal of Accounting Research. McKinsey & Company. (2021). Race in the workplace: The Black experience in the US private sector. Catalyst. (2025). Performance feedback and support crucial for retaining Black employees. Korn Ferry. (2021). Leadership lessons from senior Black leaders. Pepperdine University Digital Commons. A phenomenological study on tokenism and leadership style. National Center for Biotechnology Information/PMC. (2021). Atypical Black leader emergence: South African self-perceptions.

Written by Agnes Szabo, Entrepreneur, Author, and LifeArchitecture Creator Agnes Szabo is an entrepreneur, author, and creator of LifeArchitecture, with more than three decades of experience. Built through LifeCode, LifeCommand, and LifeInspiration, LifeArchitecture is a methodology connecting clarity, decision-making, and the development of solutions. There comes a point when we know exactly what is wrong. We know why we are unhappy in a certain situation. We recognize what we are afraid of, what we keep postponing, where we give too much, and which decisions we repeatedly avoid. Often, we also understand where all of it comes from. Still, we do not change anything. We stay in the same job, the same relationship, with the same conflicts. We avoid a decision for months or even years while knowing perfectly well that, sooner or later, we will have to make it. Self-awareness can change the way we understand ourselves. That does not mean it changes our lives. This is one of the starting points of LifeArchitecture. Recognition is not change Self-awareness matters. It can show us how we operate, why we react the same way in certain situations, which experiences have shaped us, what we fear, and what we want. But understanding something does not change the situation itself. If I know why I am afraid to leave my job, I still go back to the same workplace the next morning. If I understand why I allow someone too much, I still have not set the boundary. If I recognize why I keep avoiding an important decision, I still have not made it. Recognition matters, but it is not the end of the process. It gives us information about what is happening. It does not change it for us. I find this distinction important because it is easy to confuse the distance we have traveled in our thinking with the distance we have actually traveled in our lives. They are not the same. We can understand ourselves without changing anything We can spend a long time analyzing the same problem. We learn to describe it more accurately, see more of the connections, and eventually understand when it began, what reinforced it, and why it has been so difficult to leave behind. Meanwhile, the situation itself remains unchanged. The reason is simple: understanding alone has no external consequence. A realization does not submit a resignation letter. It does not say no. It does not change a relationship. It does not move to another place. It does not take a risk. It does not reorganize our daily lives. We have to do those things ourselves. This is where self-awareness reaches its limit. Not because it is unimportant, but because it has a different job to do. Self-awareness and clarity are not the same For me, self-awareness primarily tells me how I operate. Clarity goes further. It does not only ask why I feel or think something. It also asks what is actually happening in my life. What do I keep choosing? What do I keep accepting? What am I sustaining through my own decisions? What am I failing to do even though I know it needs to be done? What do I claim is important to me while my time, attention, and decisions tell a completely different story? These are no longer simply questions about who we are. They are questions about the reality we are living. We can believe freedom is important to us while repeatedly making decisions that restrict it. We can say we want change while postponing every decision that would have a real consequence. We can believe we have left something behind while continuing to organize our lives around it. Clarity begins when we stop looking only at what we believe about ourselves and start looking at what our lives actually show us. This is where LifeCode begins LifeCode is the first part of LifeArchitecture, the methodology of clarity. Its purpose is not to help us analyze ourselves endlessly. Its purpose is to identify what we need to see clearly so that we do not keep living the same life simply because we are used to it, because we built it, or because it is what we have chosen until now. For this reason, change does not begin with setting goals for me. First, we need to see our current situation accurately. What works? What does not? What are we still sustaining? What are we holding on to even though it no longer belongs in the life we want? Above all, "What is actually not working in my life the way I want it to?" It sounds like a simple question. It is not. Because once we answer it honestly, it becomes much harder to claim that we do not know what is happening. The harder part begins after recognition Self-awareness can take us as far as understanding ourselves. Clarity can take us as far as seeing our situation accurately. But neither one makes the next decision for us. This is where understanding and change finally separate. What changes our lives is not what we already know about ourselves. What changes our lives is what we begin to do differently because of what we know. That is why I do not see recognition as an ending. I see it as a dividing line. On one side, we are still asking, "What have I understood?" On the other, the question becomes, "What am I going to do with what I can now see clearly?" This is where LifeArchitecture continues. Have you come to the same conclusion? Subscribe to LifeArchitecture on Substack, connect with me on LinkedIn, follow me on Instagram, and visit my website for more information. Read more from Agnes Szabo Agnes Szabo, Entrepreneur, Author, and LifeArchitecture Creator Agnes Szabo is an entrepreneur, author, and creator of LifeArchitecture, with more than three decades of experience in real estate development, education, and building businesses. LifeArchitecture is the conceptual and methodological system developed through her three books, LifeCode, LifeCommand, and LifeInspiration, guiding the process of consciously shaping one’s life from clarity through decision-making to solutions. Her work is defined by creating, thinking independently, and building systems that work both in theory and in practice. She is also the founder of Nilvara, which extends the ideas behind LifeArchitecture into a new physical form.

Written by Zachary Greene, Owner of a Pennsylvania-Based Publishing Company Zachary Greene overcame a childhood in foster care and years in prison to become a self-taught investor and author. He is the founder of All Handz On LLC and wrote "Becoming of a Wolf," a jargon-free guide to investing for beginners. There is a question millions of people can relate to, “I work hard, earn money, but I still don't know how to make my money grow.” That question represents a much larger problem than simply not knowing how to buy a stock. It represents a gap in financial education, a gap between earning money and understanding money. People are taught to go to school, find employment, earn an income, pay bills, and support their families. But many people reach adulthood without ever receiving a practical education in how money works, how investing works, how risk works, how financial decisions compound over time, or how to begin thinking about wealth building. That is the problem Becoming Of A Wolf by Zack Murphy seeks to address. Becoming Of A Wolf was created around the idea that financial education should not remain trapped in terminology, theory, or concepts that people struggle to connect to everyday life. Financial knowledge becomes powerful when people can understand it, apply it, question it, and use it to make better decisions. The book is not simply about stocks. It is about learning to think differently about money. It is about helping readers recognize that earning an income and building financial knowledge are two different things. It is about encouraging people to become students of their financial future instead of remaining spectators while other people make financial decisions around them. Most importantly, it is about making financial education more approachable for people who may have never had someone sit down and explain the fundamentals to them. The external problem: “I work hard, but my money isn't growing” One of the most frustrating financial realities is working hard without feeling financially ahead. A person can work overtime. They can get another job. They can receive a raise. They can sacrifice. They can save when they are able. Yet they may still find themselves asking, “Why am I working this hard and still not getting ahead?” The answer is not always that someone is lazy, irresponsible, or incapable of becoming financially successful. Sometimes the problem is that they were never taught the fundamentals. A person can know how to earn money without knowing how to manage it. They can know how to save money without understanding investing. They can know that stocks exist without understanding what owning a stock actually means. They can hear people talk about retirement, compound growth, diversification, risk, and the market without having enough foundational knowledge to understand the conversation. That creates a dangerous cycle. A person earns. They spend. They pay bills. They save whatever is left. They repeat the process. Years pass. Then they look around and wonder why their financial position hasn't changed significantly. The problem isn't necessarily a lack of effort. It can be a lack of financial education. That is where practical financial literacy becomes important. The internal problem: “Nobody taught me how money actually works” The external problem is visible. The internal problem is emotional. People can feel embarrassed that they don't understand investing. They may feel behind. They may believe they should have started earlier. They may be afraid to ask basic questions because they don't want someone to think they are financially inexperienced. They may see friends, coworkers, influencers, or relatives talking about stocks and investing and think, “I should know this already.” But how can someone know something they were never taught? That question matters. A person shouldn't have to feel ashamed for not understanding something they were never given the opportunity to learn. Instead, the response should be education. Not judgment. Not hype. Not unrealistic promises. Education. Becoming Of A Wolf is positioned around that principle. The goal is to help make financial concepts easier to approach and understand so that readers can begin developing the knowledge necessary to make more informed financial decisions. “Nobody taught us how money works” This statement captures a generational problem. For many people, financial education has historically been learned through experience, sometimes expensive experience. People learn about credit after damaging their credit. They learn about debt after getting buried in debt. They learn about investing after missing opportunities. They learn about financial planning after experiencing a financial crisis. They learn about retirement after realizing that time matters. They learn about risk after losing money. But education shouldn't have to begin with a financial mistake. People deserve the opportunity to learn before the consequences arrive. That is why financial literacy matters. The purpose of financial education is not to guarantee wealth. It is to provide people with knowledge that can help them make better informed decisions. That distinction is important. Becoming Of A Wolf does not need to promise that reading a book will make someone rich. Instead, its value is in helping people develop a foundation, knowledge, awareness, understanding, curiosity, and practical application. Those are the building blocks. Should hard work be enough without financial knowledge? There is a deeper philosophical question underneath all of this, "Should people be expected to work their entire lives without being taught how money works?" America has long emphasized the importance of education. We teach mathematics, science, history, language, technology, and career preparation. But financial literacy asks a different question, "How will students use the money they eventually earn?" That question matters because financial decisions follow people throughout their lives, the decision to borrow, to save, to invest, to take financial risks, to purchase an asset, to start a business, to prepare for retirement, and to understand financial products. These decisions can influence someone's future for years. This is why the history of financial literacy education in the United States is so important. Utah provides a significant example. In 2003, Utah passed Senate Bill 154, legislation requiring financial literacy instruction and establishing a financial literacy graduation requirement. In 2004, the Utah Board of Education approved a one semester General Financial Literacy course, with the graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2008. Utah's Office of State Treasurer describes this as the first state financial literacy high school graduation mandate in the nation. That history demonstrates something important, financial literacy is not merely a personal preference. It has been recognized as an educational priority at the state level. Utah's financial literacy framework has also evolved. State materials describe topics ranging from financial planning and money management to saving, investing, and retirement. That creates an important philosophical question for educators, communities, parents, and organizations across the country, if financial knowledge can influence the quality of decisions people make throughout their lives, shouldn't practical financial education be accessible to everyone? Becoming Of A Wolf enters that conversation. The financial literacy gap Imagine graduating from high school knowing how to solve complex mathematical problems but not understanding the difference between saving and investing. Imagine entering the workforce knowing how to earn a paycheck but not understanding how inflation affects purchasing power. Imagine hearing about the stock market for years but never learning the basic principles behind owning investments. Imagine being interested in building wealth but being too afraid to begin learning because the terminology seems complicated. This is where the financial literacy gap becomes real. Financial literacy isn't simply knowing definitions. It is developing the ability to understand financial concepts and apply them to real life situations. That's the philosophy behind practical education. Knowledge should lead to understanding. Understanding should lead to informed action. The stock market knowledge problem For many beginners, the stock market can seem intimidating. They hear terms like stocks, shares, dividends, indexes, markets, risk, diversification, volatility, portfolio, returns, long term investing, and short term trading. The terminology alone can create a barrier. Someone may think, “I need to know everything before I can even begin learning.” That mindset can keep people from learning at all. Becoming Of A Wolf seeks to make the subject more approachable by introducing financial concepts in a way intended to connect knowledge with practical thinking. The goal isn't to overwhelm the reader. The goal is to encourage the reader to become curious, to ask questions, to understand fundamentals, to recognize risk, to think long term, to understand that investing isn't a magic formula, and to recognize that financial education should come before financial decisions. “I need stock market knowledge” That is the external problem many readers may recognize. But beneath it is something deeper, “I don't want to be financially ignorant anymore.” That is a completely different motivation. Someone may not be looking for a get rich quick scheme. They may simply want to understand what everyone else seems to know. They may want to open a conversation about investing, understand what they're hearing on television or reading online, know what questions to ask before making an investment decision, or simply want to stop feeling lost. That is where education creates value. “I should know more about money by now” This is one of the most powerful internal thoughts behind the financial literacy problem. A 25-year-old may think it. A 35-year-old may think it. A 45-year-old may think it. A 55-year-old may think it. The feeling of being financially behind doesn't belong to one age group, and neither does the opportunity to learn. It is never too late to improve financial knowledge. Someone who has made poor financial decisions can learn. Someone who has never invested can learn. Someone who has lost money can learn. Someone who has always been afraid of the stock market can learn. Someone who has spent years living paycheck to paycheck can begin learning about financial planning. The first step is education. “Tired of feeling behind financially?” This is not simply a marketing question. It is a question about awareness. If someone is tired of feeling financially behind, the answer shouldn't be another empty promise. It should be, learn. Learn how money works. Learn the fundamentals. Learn about risk. Learn about investing. Learn about financial decision making. Learn before acting. Becoming Of A Wolf is designed to be part of that learning process. “Afraid to start investing because you don't want to lose money?” Fear can be rational. Investing involves risk. There is no responsible financial education message that should suggest otherwise. That is exactly why education matters. A person shouldn't be encouraged to invest simply because someone tells them they will become rich. They should be encouraged to learn enough to understand what they are considering. Financial literacy doesn't eliminate risk. It helps people understand risk. That distinction is critical. Becoming Of A Wolf is not about promising guaranteed returns. It is about practical financial knowledge, about encouraging readers to understand the environment they are entering instead of blindly following someone else's financial decisions. “Still living paycheck to paycheck?” Living paycheck to paycheck can create an exhausting cycle. There may be little room for unexpected expenses, mistakes, opportunities, or long-term planning. Financial education alone cannot solve every economic challenge. Income matters. Housing costs matter. Debt matters. Employment matters. Economic conditions matter. Family circumstances matter. But financial knowledge can still play an important role. Understanding how money works can help people begin asking better questions, "Where is my money going? What financial decisions are costing me? What can I control? What should I learn? What financial goals do I have? How can I prepare for the future? What does investing actually mean? What risks am I taking? What don't I understand yet?" Those questions can be the beginning of financial growth. “It's not too late to learn” This may be the most important message of all. You don't have to know everything. You don't have to become an expert overnight. You don't have to pretend you understand something you don't. You simply have to be willing to learn. Financial education is a process. Becoming Of A Wolf is intended to help readers enter that process with a practical mindset. Why the wolf? The concept behind Becoming Of A Wolf is symbolic. A wolf represents awareness, adaptability, discipline, strategy, observation, and survival. The wolf doesn't simply move because everyone else is moving. It observes its environment. It evaluates. It adapts. It understands that survival requires awareness. Those concepts can also apply metaphorically to financial education. The financial world rewards knowledge, preparation, discipline, and patience. That does not mean financial markets are predictable. They aren't. It means that people who educate themselves may be better positioned to understand the decisions they face. The objective is not to turn readers into reckless risk takers. It is to encourage them to become more informed participants. Don't blindly chase the market. Learn to understand it. That is the spirit behind becoming a wolf. Why practical education matters There is a difference between knowing a definition and understanding an application. A student can memorize the definition of compound growth. But can they explain why time matters? A person can memorize the definition of diversification. But can they explain why putting everything into one investment can increase risk? Someone can recognize the word “stock.” But do they understand what owning a share represents? Practical education tries to bridge that gap. It asks, “How does this work in real life?” That is the approach that makes financial literacy meaningful. A resource for more than investors Someone doesn't need to be an experienced investor to benefit from financial education. In fact, beginners may be among the people who need it most. Becoming Of A Wolf can serve as an entry point for readers who are curious about financial literacy, stock market fundamentals, investing concepts, risk awareness, long-term financial thinking, wealth-building principles, personal responsibility, financial decision-making, and practical education. The objective is to help people become more informed, not to tell them what individual investments they should buy. That makes the educational message broader than simply “buy stocks.” It becomes, learn how money works before you make decisions about money. Why schools should pay attention Schools prepare students for adulthood. That preparation increasingly includes financial literacy. Utah's example demonstrates how seriously financial education can be incorporated into public education. Its current framework includes financial and economic literacy concepts and calls for curriculum resources, assessments, and educator professional development. That creates an opportunity for resources that can supplement classroom instruction. Becoming Of A Wolf can be presented as a potential supplemental resource, not as a replacement for a school's required curriculum, standards, or qualified educators. Its practical approach can support conversations around financial literacy, investing fundamentals, decision-making, and real-world financial awareness. The goal is simple, help students understand that financial education isn't just something they learn for a test. It is knowledge they may use throughout their lives. Why parents should care Parents often want their children to become financially independent. But many parents are also learning financial concepts themselves. That is why financial literacy can become a family conversation. A book can open a discussion, “What did you learn?” “What does investing mean?” “What risks did you learn about?” “What financial goals do you have?” “What would you do differently?” Those conversations can extend learning beyond the classroom. Financial literacy shouldn't end when the school bell rings. Why nonprofits should care Nonprofits serving youth, adults, underserved communities, entrepreneurs, and reentry populations often focus on helping people build stronger futures. Financial literacy can complement those goals. For a nonprofit, Becoming Of A Wolf can potentially serve as a workshop discussion resource, a participant reading assignment, a financial literacy supplement, a conversation starter, a personal development resource, or a component of an entrepreneurship program. The opportunity isn't simply to distribute books. The opportunity is to create educational experiences around the book. That is where All Handz On LLC can create additional value. From book to educational experience The long-term vision should not be limited to “Buy my book.” The bigger vision is, “Use this resource to start a conversation about financial education.” That could involve reading, discussion, questions, activities, financial scenarios, workshops, virtual presentations, entrepreneurship conversations, mentorship, and community partnerships. The book becomes the doorway. Education becomes the destination. Why All Handz On LLC? All Handz On LLC was built around the idea of practical education and real-world application. That philosophy matters because people don't live inside textbooks. They live in the real world, with bills, jobs, families, goals, debt, and opportunities. They make mistakes. They start businesses. They try to invest. They experience setbacks. Education should help people navigate that reality. The mission is not simply to distribute information. It is to help turn knowledge into action. A different conversation about wealth The word “wealth” can sometimes create unrealistic expectations. People see luxury cars, large houses, designer clothing, private jets, and social media lifestyles. But wealth-building education should go deeper than appearances. The real questions are, Do you understand your financial position? Do you understand risk? Do you understand the difference between saving and investing? Do you understand the decisions you're making? Do you understand what you're putting your money into? Do you understand the importance of time? Do you understand that financial markets can go down as well as up? Do you understand that there are no guaranteed shortcuts? Those questions are far more important than pretending everyone can become rich overnight. Becoming Of A Wolf is about learning, not pretending. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Zachary Greene Zachary Greene, Owner of a Pennsylvania-Based Publishing Company Zachary Greene grew up in Philadelphia's foster care system before being incarcerated as an adult, where he lost close family members and watched life continue without him. Determined to rebuild his life, he turned to the prison library and taught himself the fundamentals of the stock market, despite the dense, technical material. That journey inspired him to write "Becoming of a Wolf," a beginner-friendly guide that breaks down investing concepts like common stocks and economic trends using plain language and relatable examples. Today, Zack is the founder of All Handz On LLC, a publishing company focused on financial literacy, with several titles now available on Amazon. His story is one of turning hardship into a mission to help others gain confidence and control over their financial futures.

Reena is the creator of the 6R Ascension™ Process and a passionate advocate for healing beyond symptoms and transformation beyond awareness. Drawing from her personal journey of grief, spiritual awakening, and conscious growth, she combines intuitive insight, spiritual/energy healing, Ancestral healing, Inner Child healing, Regression therapy, and Qi Gong to support meaningful and lasting change. Through her work, Reena helps individuals reconnect with who they truly are and step into lives of greater clarity, purpose, and alignment. Reena Pathak, Creator of the 6R Ascension™ Process What inspired you to create the 6R Ascension™ Process, and what makes it different from other approaches to healing? The 6R Ascension™ Process was never something I sat down and decided to create. In many ways, it grew with me, through my own healing, my losses, the questions I carried, and the privilege of holding space for others along the way. Some of my earliest memories of healing are connected to my mother. As a child, I remember placing my hands on people under her gentle guidance. I didn’t understand it deeply then, and I certainly didn’t know where life would take me, but those moments stayed with me. Losing my brother later opened a much deeper search for meaning and consciousness. Then, when I lost my mother during the pandemic, that journey deepened again. Grief taught me that healing isn't always about finding answers. Sometimes, it begins with having a safe space to feel, understand and simply be. Over time, I began noticing threads beneath the very different stories people brought to me, old emotional wounds, beliefs, family patterns, disconnection from self, or parts of themselves they had learned to hide. That understanding became the 6R Ascension™ Process, Recognise, Release, Restore, Reconnect, Rebuild and Radiate. What makes it different for me is that it isn't about fixing someone. I believe we already carry so much wisdom within us. Sometimes we simply need compassion, support and the right space to find our way back to it. You often say healing goes beyond symptoms. What does that look like in practice when someone begins working with you? For me, healing often begins before we use any particular technique. It begins with a very simple but meaningful moment, “I’m ready.” Ready to understand, to be supported, or perhaps just to acknowledge that something no longer feels right. When someone comes to me, I don’t begin with an assumption about what they need or where their journey should take them. I listen. I connect intuitively, and together we gently explore what may be sitting beneath what they are experiencing. Sometimes that takes us towards an old emotional wound, grief that was never fully expressed, a belief they’ve carried for years, a repeating family pattern, or a deeper spiritual question. At other times, what someone needs most is simply a safe space to speak and feel heard without judgement. That is what going beyond symptoms means to me. We’re not just asking, “How do I make this feeling go away?” We’re gently asking, “What might this be showing me?” I don’t see healing as something I do to another person. I walk beside them while they reconnect with the strength, understanding and wisdom that is already within them. Very often, that is where meaningful change begins. Your work blends therapeutic methods with intuitive guidance. How did learning to trust your clairvoyant abilities change the way you help people heal? Learning to trust my intuitive and clairvoyant abilities was a journey in itself. I questioned them for a long time. During Past Life Regression sessions, I would sometimes receive an image, a feeling or a piece of information that seemed to come from nowhere. My first instinct was often to doubt it. What slowly changed that was my clients. They would recognise or validate things I couldn’t have known. Over time, those moments taught me to trust what I was receiving, while also remaining humble about it. Today, intuition is simply part of how I hold a session. I listen to the person in front of me, but I also pay attention to what I sense intuitively. Sometimes something comes through that opens a door to a deeper conversation or helps us notice a pattern from another perspective. But I never want my intuition to become more important than the person’s own inner knowing. I share what comes through gently, without presenting it as an absolute truth. If it resonates, we can explore it. If it doesn’t, we let it go. For me, intuition isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about listening more deeply, while always leaving the person free to trust what feels true for them. You believe awareness alone is not enough for lasting transformation. Where do you see people getting stuck after they've gained insight? Awareness is such an important beginning. There can be real relief in finally understanding why we respond the way we do. But I’ve also seen how frustrating it can feel when you understand a pattern completely and still find yourself repeating it. I know this personally. For me, one of those patterns was around receiving. I could recognise it, talk about it and understand where it came from, yet I still found it difficult to receive support or even a simple compliment. Knowing was important, but something deeper still needed my attention. That’s often where we get stuck. We expect understanding something to automatically change how we feel or respond. But old emotional patterns can be deeply familiar, and in difficult or triggering moments, we can easily return to them. This is why the 6R Ascension™ Process doesn’t stop at Recognise. We move through Release, Restore, Reconnect and Rebuild, so that awareness can gradually become something we actually live. For me, transformation isn’t about never being triggered again. It’s that beautiful moment when you notice the old pattern, and realise you now have the awareness, compassion and choice to respond differently. Your approach brings together emotional, energetic, ancestral, and spiritual healing. Why is it important to address these layers together instead of separately? I don’t think we experience life in separate compartments, so for me it doesn’t make sense to approach healing that way either. Something we are feeling emotionally may affect how we feel physically or energetically. A belief we carry about ourselves may have roots in an earlier experience or a family pattern. Sometimes what we are searching for isn’t about the past at all, it’s a deeper sense of connection, meaning or purpose. That doesn’t mean I assume every difficulty has a spiritual or ancestral cause. I think it’s important to remain open and curious rather than deciding someone’s story for them. When I work with someone, I meet the person in front of me, not a symptom or a modality. I listen, connect intuitively and allow the session to unfold around what feels most relevant for them. For me, bringing these different layers together simply means honouring the whole person. We are complex, beautiful human beings, and healing can be too. Sometimes when we stop trying to separate everything, we begin to understand ourselves with much more compassion. For someone who feels disconnected from themselves but doesn't know where to begin, what is the first shift you encourage them to make? The first thing I would say is, you don’t need to know where to begin. When we feel disconnected from ourselves, there can be a temptation to immediately look for answers or wonder what has gone wrong. I gently encourage people to begin somewhere much simpler, with curiosity rather than judgement. Life asks so much of us. We adapt, take on responsibilities, meet expectations, care for others and sometimes simply do what we need to do to keep going. Somewhere amongst all of that, our own voice can become quieter. I don’t believe that means we’ve lost ourselves. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” try asking, “What part of me is asking to be seen, heard or understood right now?” That small shift can change the way we meet ourselves. You don’t need all the answers, and you don’t need to make a big change. Begin by noticing what you feel, what you need, and what no longer feels true for you. I believe the way back to ourselves often begins quietly, with a little honesty, a little compassion, and the willingness to listen. Grief has been a significant part of your own journey. How has that experience changed the way you guide others through loss and major life transitions? Grief has taught me some of the deepest lessons of my life. Losing my brother, my father and later my mother changed me in different ways. It also taught me that there is no right way to grieve, no timetable, and certainly no point at which someone should be expected to be “over it.” My brother’s passing began a search for meaning that eventually led me towards Past Life Regression and a deeper exploration of consciousness. Losing my mother during the pandemic took me deeper still into my own healing and spiritual journey. But perhaps the most important thing grief has taught me is not to rush someone’s pain. When I sit with someone who is grieving or moving through a major life change, I don’t try to make it better or find meaning before they are ready. Sometimes people are searching for answers. Sometimes they need hope. Sometimes they simply need someone who can sit beside them without asking them to be anywhere other than where they are. I don’t believe healing means leaving those we love behind. We learn, slowly and in our own way, to carry the love differently, while finding our way back to life, and to ourselves. You often describe healing as remembering who you truly are rather than becoming someone new. What does that idea mean to you personally? For me, this is at the heart of healing. Life leaves its mark on all of us. We take on responsibilities, expectations, fears and beliefs about who we should be. We experience love, loss, disappointment and change. Sometimes, without even realising it, we become so used to adapting that we lose touch with what actually feels true for us. My own journey has taught me that healing isn’t about becoming a “better” version of myself. It has been much more about gently letting go of what I no longer need to carry and reconnecting with the parts of myself that were always there. Even some of the most painful experiences of my life have brought me closer to that understanding. They have shown me strength I didn’t know I had, deepened my compassion and helped me understand what truly matters to me. That is what I hope to offer through my work too. Not a path towards becoming someone else, but a safe space to come back to yourself. Because perhaps healing isn’t about finding a new you at all. Perhaps it’s about remembering the person who was there all along. If you could leave readers with one perspective that could change how they approach healing, what would it be? If I could leave someone with one thought, it would be this, healing doesn’t ask you to become someone else. It asks you to meet yourself with a little more compassion. Life touches all of us in different ways. Love, loss, relationships, childhood experiences, responsibilities and disappointments can leave their mark. Sometimes we adapt simply to keep going, and somewhere along the way, we can lose touch with parts of ourselves. Healing, for me, is not a race back to some perfect version of who we were. It has its own rhythm. There are times when we are ready to look deeply, times when we need to let go, and times when the most healing thing we can do is simply rest. So wherever you are, begin there. Be gentle with yourself. If you need support, allow yourself to receive it. Whether that comes through professional help, someone you trust, spiritual support or simply a safe space to be heard, you don’t have to have all the answers alone. Sometimes transformation begins very quietly, with one small choice to turn towards yourself, rather than away. Follow me on Instagram, WhatsApp, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Reena Pathak

Written by David Bovis, Founder of Duxinaroe Ltd. David Bovis is a leadership strategist and founder of Duxinaroe, specialising in the neuroscience of decision-making, behaviour, and performance. Creator of the BTFA (Believe-Think-Feel-Act) framework, he works with senior leaders to address the neurological root causes of misalignment, disengagement, and failed change. For decades, organisations have invested significant amounts of time and money attempting to change human behaviour. We develop leadership competencies, introduce values and behaviours frameworks, run engagement programmes, establish performance management systems, redesign incentives, create accountability structures, and train managers to communicate differently. When something goes wrong, we usually describe the problem in behavioural terms too. People are resistant to change. Managers are not holding people accountable. Departments are working in silos. Leaders need to communicate better. Employees need to take more ownership. The language shifts from organisation to organisation, but the underlying assumption is remarkably consistent: if we can change the behaviour, we can change the result. After forty years working across manufacturing, change, and transformation in automotive, aerospace, defence, and beyond, I have come to believe this is one of the most expensive assumptions in modern leadership. Not because behaviour is unimportant, but because behaviour is the output. If we keep intervening at the output level while ignoring the neurological processes producing it, we should not be surprised when change proves difficult to sustain. Behaviour has a history Imagine walking into a meeting and asking a question. Nobody answers. What happened? Traditional management language offers plenty of explanations. The team lacks confidence. People are disengaged. There is insufficient accountability, or there’s a culture in which speaking up feels unsafe. All may be reasonable descriptions of what is visible, even if they also portray an unhealthy level of blame and projection. None tells us what actually happened. Every person sitting around that table has a brain interpreting that question through an existing architecture of experience. Has speaking openly been rewarded here before? What happened the last time someone challenged this director? How certain am I that I understand the question? Will answering expose something I don't know? What will the people around me think? Do I trust the person asking? Much of this processing occurs without conscious deliberation. Existing neural wiring helps the brain predict what is likely to happen next. Those predictions influence which thoughts become available. Chemistry changes accordingly, and behaviour emerges from that biological process. What the leader sees is silence. What they cannot see is everything that happened before it, in milliseconds. This distinction matters enormously because where you locate the problem determines where you intervene. We keep starting at the wrong end In engineering, if an output consistently falls outside specification, we understand the multiple variables that can cause the inconsistency and investigate the system producing it to determine the cause. We would not repeatedly adjust the final stage of the process while refusing to examine the process steps upstream. That would be recognised immediately as a failure of root cause thinking. Yet with people, that is remarkably close to what organisations do. Someone appears disengaged, so we introduce an engagement initiative. People resist change, so we create a change management programme. Managers are not demonstrating the desired behaviours, so we provide behavioural training. Teams are not innovating, so innovation becomes an objective in the performance review cycle. The intervention may be well-intentioned and may even produce visible improvement in the short term. But if the conditions generating the original behaviour remain unchanged, the brain gradually returns to what it already knows. It is not stubbornness or defiance. It is biology. The nervous system does what nervous systems do: it conserves energy by reverting to established patterns when new inputs stop arriving or when the initial threat to conform loses its teeth over time. That is why so much organisational change looks genuinely promising during a programme and disappointingly familiar six months later. We have modified the output without sufficiently understanding the system producing it. BTFA™ Believe, Think, Feel, Act This is the problem that eventually led to the development of the BTFA™ framework and associated leadership development programme. The model sounds deliberately simple because its purpose is to make an extraordinarily complex biological process easier for leaders to recognise and work with in everyday life. At its simplest, what is already wired into the brain through genetics, childhood, education, relationships, failures, successes, and every environment survived up to this point shapes what we (B) believe about ourselves, others, and the world. Those established patterns influence how we interpret what is happening and therefore what we (T) think. That thinking contributes to the neurochemical and hormonal state we experience as (F) feeling. From that neurological state come assumptions, attitudes, and (A) action, the behaviour other people can finally observe. Believe. Think. Feel. Act. The point is not that human beings operate through four neat sequential boxes. Neuroscience is considerably more complex than that, and these processes interact continuously in all directions, recursively and at extraordinary speed. The value of BTFA and Act, Feel, Think, Believe (AFTB) is that it gives leaders a usable language for something that otherwise remains invisible. It makes the chain traceable in both directions. Once you see behaviour as the end of a biological process rather than its beginning, affected by inputs from the environment being survived, many familiar leadership problems start to look different. "He's lazy" is not a root cause Consider a phrase heard in workplaces everywhere: he's lazy, she's difficult, he's not leadership material. It sounds like an explanation. It is not. It is a judgement of observable behaviour, filtered through the beliefs of the person making it, and it closes the investigation before it has properly begun. Perhaps someone is not completing work as quickly as expected. Perhaps they no longer volunteer ideas. Maybe they avoid responsibility or do precisely what is required and nothing more. Calling that person lazy, difficult, or disengaged allows my brain to locate the problem conveniently inside somebody else. It is comfortable, quick, and neurologically efficient. It also tends to be wrong. A neurological perspective requires staying curious for longer. What does this person's brain currently believe about this environment? What have they learned happens here when someone takes initiative? Do they feel genuinely competent, or are they constantly braced for exposure? Has the work provided agency and purpose, or has control gradually stripped both away? Are they conserving energy because experience has taught them that additional effort is more likely to bring criticism than recognition? None of those questions remove personal responsibility. Understanding cause is not the same as excusing behaviour. But it gives us a considerably better chance of intervening somewhere that might actually change it, rather than simply labelling what we can see and moving on. The uncomfortable part This is where the lens turns back towards leadership, because it always does. If behaviour is partly an output of the environment being experienced, then leaders have to consider their own role in creating that environment. That requires a level of honest self-examination that most leadership development programmes are not designed to include. Our beliefs about people become systems. If a leader fundamentally believes that people cannot be trusted without monitoring, they will design controls that reduce agency. Reduced agency changes how the environment is experienced. That experience shapes thinking and emotional state. Behaviour changes accordingly. The leader then observes the changed behaviour and uses it as confirmation of the original belief. The system becomes self-reinforcing. The leader experiences it as objective evidence rather than the circular logic it actually is. This is one reason culture is so difficult to change through conventional programmes. Culture is not simply how we do things around here. It is also the accumulated output of beliefs that have become embedded in structures, processes, language, targets, measures, reactions, and routines. We walk into cultures built by yesterday's brains and ask today's brains to behave differently inside them, then wonder why the results stay the same. This becomes particularly visible under pressure. Most leaders can demonstrate patience and curiosity when things are going well. The real test arrives when quality falls, a customer escalates, Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) is under pressure, or the board wants answers. Under those conditions, the leader has a brain too. Established neural wiring begins predicting danger. Stress chemistry shifts. Familiar responses become easier to access. We interrupt. We demand. We increase reporting. We tell people what to do because allowing time to think suddenly feels too risky. Imposed control reduces agency in others. We then observe the dependency and disengagement that follow and wonder why the organisation cannot function without us. The behaviour we describe as poor leadership in others is itself an output of exactly the same neurological system we so often fail to recognise in ourselves. BTFA™ helps us see it. Where this leads This is not an argument against accountability. Accountability matters. Performance matters. Behaviour absolutely matters. The argument is about where in the chain leadership chooses to intervene. The approaches most commonly described as practical, tighter targets, clearer consequences, better reporting, another change programme, have been applied consistently across organisations for decades. The engagement scores, the resistance patterns, the stalled transformations, and the productivity figures that prompted the first article in this series suggest they are not delivering at the level leaders need them to. That is not a failure of effort or intent. It is a failure of depth. Those approaches intervene at the output. The system producing the output remains untouched. When leaders understand that behaviour is the end of a neurological sequence rooted in belief, prediction, and emotional response, they gain access to something behaviour management alone cannot provide: the ability to change conditions rather than simply react to outputs. That means fewer recurring problems, less management time absorbed by the same issues in different forms, and change that does not quietly unravel six months after the programme ends. Instead of asking, “How do I get people to behave differently?” the question becomes: What conditions would allow their brains to produce a different response? That shift moves leadership upstream, away from judgement and towards curiosity, from control towards capability, and from repeatedly treating symptoms towards understanding and removing cause. It is not a softer approach. It is a more precise one. In environments where margins are under pressure, talent is difficult to retain, and the same problems keep appearing in different quarters, precision is exactly what sustainable performance requires. “The biology does not change because we decide to ignore it.” Once leaders understand that, a great deal of what has shown up as red on reports for years begins to make sense and, more importantly, becomes something that can finally be addressed at the level where it actually originates. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from David Bovis David Bovis, Founder of Duxinaroe Ltd. David Bovis is a leadership strategist and founder of Duxinaroe, specializing in the neuroscience of belief, decision-making, and performance under pressure. He is the creator of the BTFA (Believe-Think-Feel-Act) framework, a practical model that helps leaders understand why change, culture, and strategy often fail despite good intent. David works globally with senior leaders to address the neurological root causes of misalignment, disengagement, and stalled performance. His work bridges neuroscience, leadership, and systems thinking to enable sustainable behavioural change where traditional approaches fall short.

Written by Mike Falkow, Strategist, Creative Director, and Writer Mike Falkow is the CEO of Meritus Media, a PR and digital marketing agency based in Los Angeles. He is also known for his work as a creative director at Falkow Creative and Rogue Magazine. He's the author of the novel Desert Storm, released in 2025, and the host of the ProActive Podcast. Most companies have more software than ever. They have systems for sales, finance, operations, production, projects, customers, analytics, messaging, and automation. On paper, this should create a more connected business. In practice, it often creates something else–a company that has to piece together its own reality from too many disconnected sources. The CRM says one thing, the ERP says another, and the dashboard is close but not always current. The spreadsheet has the latest exception, the email thread explains what actually happened, and someone on the team knows the answer because they have learned how the business really works around the system. This is one of the most important and under-discussed problems in modern business technology. The software stack was supposed to create visibility. For many companies, it has created a new kind of uncertainty. The problem is not a lack of software Most growing companies do not have a shortage of tools. They have too many tools doing too many isolated jobs. A sales team adopts a CRM. Finance uses accounting or ERP software. Operations adds scheduling tools. Leadership asks for dashboards. Teams create spreadsheets to manage exceptions. Someone builds a custom app to fill a gap. Integrations are added so all of these systems can exchange information. Each decision may make sense at the time. The problem appears later, when the company realizes its tools don't share one live understanding of the business. Customer data is updated in one place. Order status changes somewhere else. A production issue is tracked manually. A delivery date changes, but the report does not reflect it yet. A manager has to ask three people which number is right. The result is not just inefficiency. It weakens operational confidence. Leaders are not only asking, “What does the report say?” They are also asking, “Can we trust it?” The hidden cost of unreliable operational data Unreliable business data rarely announces itself dramatically. It shows up as friction. Reports need to be checked before meetings. Teams spend time reconciling numbers. Employees re-enter the same information into different systems. Customers wait while someone manually checks the status. Departments disagree about the same order, job, shipment, margin, or customer issue. Over time, this becomes normal. People stop calling it a data problem. They call it “how things work here.” But the cost is real. When a company cannot trust its operational data, decisions slow down. Accountability becomes harder. Growth creates more complexity instead of more leverage. Reporting becomes a negotiation. Automation becomes risky. AI becomes harder to deploy meaningfully because the underlying business record isn't reliable enough. This is where software stacking becomes more than an IT issue. It becomes a leadership issue. How the stack creates several versions of the same business The modern software stack often creates what can be called assembled software, one business represented across many systems, databases, reports, spreadsheets, and workarounds. The company is one operating entity, but the software environment behaves as if it is several. Sales has its version. Finance has its version. Operations has its version. Reporting has a delayed version. The spreadsheet is the version people trust when the main system doesn't fit the real process. This happens because most software is built around standard workflows. But real businesses are specific. Every company has its own way of quoting, approving, scheduling, handling exceptions, serving customers, managing margins, and getting work out the door. When the software does not match that reality, the business has to choose. It can change the way it works to fit the software, wait for the vendor, build around the system, create a spreadsheet, add an integration, or commission custom software. Each workaround may solve the immediate problem. But it also creates another place where the business can drift away from a single reliable record. That drift is where operational data breaks down. The business should not have to translate itself One of the clearest signs of a broken software foundation is when the business constantly has to translate itself. A manager translates the report into what is actually happening. An employee translates the system workflow into the real workflow. Finance translates operational updates into numbers it can trust. A customer service person translates between what the system says and what the customer needs to know. Leadership translates dashboards into decisions, often with caveats, follow-ups, and manual checks. This translation layer is usually invisible in software budgets, but it is everywhere in daily operations. It lives in meetings, messages, spreadsheets, side conversations, manual fixes, and experienced employees who know where the official system falls short. The danger is that the company begins to depend on this translation layer without realizing it. The official system says one thing. The real business runs somewhere between the systems. Artificial intelligence raises the stakes AI is making this problem more urgent. Many companies are now asking AI to summarize, recommend, answer, automate, and act. But AI depends on the business context it can access. If the operating data is fragmented, AI inherits the fragmentation. If the dashboard is delayed, AI may answer from outdated information. If the latest exception lives in a spreadsheet, AI may miss it. If two systems disagree, AI may not know which one should govern the decision. If the real process lives outside the official system, AI may produce a technically plausible answer that does not reflect how the business actually operates. This is why AI readiness is not just a model selection problem. It is not only about choosing the best chatbot, copilot, or agent platform. It is about the foundation underneath those tools. A business that cannot maintain reliable operational data will struggle to make AI useful beyond narrow productivity tasks. AI can accelerate work, but it can also accelerate confusion when it acts on incomplete or inconsistent information. Before leaders ask what AI can do, they should ask what the AI is being asked to stand on. The next shift: From stacked tools to defined systems For years, the default response to operational complexity was to add another tool. That era is reaching its limits. The next phase of business technology will likely be less about adding more software and more about creating systems that reflect how the business actually works. This is the idea behind Business-Defined Systems. A Business-Defined System lets the business define how work needs to move, while the underlying foundation remains standardized and managed. It is not a giant application that forces every department into the same interface. It can include different applications, workflows, permissions, reports, and AI support for different roles. The key difference is that these parts operate from one live operational foundation rather than from separate databases and reporting copies. In plain language, the business defines the work, and the system keeps the work coherent. Where Yolm fits Yolm is an example of this approach. Rather than adding another disconnected application to the stack, Yolm helps companies bring standard workflows, company-specific processes, reporting, permissions, and AI onto one live operational foundation. The goal is not to force a business into a vendor-defined process. It is to let the business define how work should move, while avoiding the familiar trap of creating another separate database, another reporting copy, or another place where operational data can drift. That distinction matters because many companies need software that fits how they actually operate. But they don't want the burden of maintaining a fully custom software estate, and they don't want to keep stacking packaged tools that solve only isolated pieces of the operation. A Business-Defined System offers a different path: standardize the foundation, not the business. What leaders should be asking The warning signs are often easy to spot. Do reports need to be manually checked before they are trusted? Do different teams use different numbers for the same issue? Do important workflows still depend on spreadsheets? Do people re-enter the same information into multiple systems? Do customers wait while employees check several places for an answer? Does the business depend on a few key people who know what the software does not? Are AI or automation projects stalling because the systems cannot provide reliable context? These questions are not only technical. They are strategic. They reveal whether the business is operating from a reliable foundation or from a collection of partial records held together by people, workarounds, and reconciliation. The bottom line The modern software stack gave companies flexibility, speed, and choice. But it also created a new challenge–too many businesses now run across disconnected tools that cannot fully agree with each other. That creates a deeper problem than software frustration. It creates uncertainty at the operating level. When the business has to keep checking, translating, reconciling, and explaining its own data, something important has been lost. The next advantage will not belong only to companies with the most software or the newest AI tools. It will belong to companies that can build a more reliable foundation underneath the work. A business cannot move with confidence if its systems cannot agree on what is current and reliable. AI cannot create clarity from a business foundation that is already fragmented. The future belongs to companies that stop managing around the gaps and start designing systems around the way the business actually runs. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Mike Falkow Mike Falkow, Strategist, Creative Director, and Writer Mike Falkow is the CEO of Meritus Media, a PR and digital marketing agency in Los Angeles. He helps founders and brands turn expertise into coverage, thought leadership, and measurable growth. Previously a creative director at Falkow Creative and Rogue Magazine, he is the author of the 2025 novel Desert Storm and host of the ProActive Podcast.

Written by Jenifer Lyn, Executive Fitness Coach Jenifer Lyn is the founder of G3 Wellness and the author of "Holy Core," a Pilates philosophy book. With 25+ years of experience, she specializes in helping busy, high-performing people manage back pain and build sustainable fitness habits that fit their actual lives. Each year, people force themselves through the ritual of committing to a New Year’s resolution to lose weight, stop smoking, and yes, in my line of work, I meet people who come into the Pilates studio to finally fix their aching backs. The story I hear is always a variation on the following. They have loads of enthusiasm and great intentions, and they want to come in every day, an hour a day, and do as much as they can. They describe all of the other fitness programs they have tried, and they swear that no doctor in the world has been able to figure out what is causing the pain. Maybe it’s true, I don’t know. They have tried cortisone shots, chiropractors, and every other solution du jour. Their efforts end the same way. After a few weeks to a couple of months, they wear themselves out by overscheduling sessions to “fix it now,” and they burn out. Or worse, they exert themselves too hard, too fast, reinjure what they came in to fix, and fall off the wagon. Then, sometime right before summer arrives, they find themselves in my studio, ready to learn how the art of taking one step at a time and building slow, steady micro-habits will open a road to healing that will last years longer than a New Year’s resolution. How I became a back care guru But before I tell you how I help my clients relieve back pain with micro-habits, here is a little context for how I ended up being a go-to back care guru in the Pilates and breathwork sector. My journey started as a 19-year-old college student with a dance class background. It was my junior year, and between classes, on my way to the cafeteria, a master’s student offered me a job teaching aerobics for $50 an hour instead of working in the neighborhood mall for minimum wage. Saying “yes” to that offer wasn’t easy. I did not know anything about the science of anatomy, I didn’t have a picture-perfect physique, I was curvy and short, my sense of athletic style was torn sweats and more torn sweats, and I was skilled in double pirouettes, not sit-ups. I was hardly a 90s-era cardio-sculpt diva. What I did have was enthusiasm to learn and empathy for those who struggled to move freely and pain-free. My back care clients today Flash forward more than two decades, and I am in my own Pilates studio. My body is still short and curvy, but much stronger and leaner, and my wardrobe is trending tracksuits and leggings, with an occasional pair of my favorite torn sweats for posterity’s sake. Most importantly, I have years of anatomy and Pilates training centered on physical therapy under my belt, as well as the confidence to guide others to better health. My specialty leans into special populations, including multiple sclerosis (MS), scoliosis, athletes and dancers with back injuries and, of course, the uber-busy, stressed and powerful executives of talent agencies and film companies who sit in their chairs or stand on a film set 12 hours a day. My clients want results fast. I can give that to them, but I don’t. Here is why. After more than 25 years of working with all types of bodies and personalities, I know that back pain relief is not a one-off. It is a lifelong journey. Anyone who has healed from a serious injury can attest to that. Bits and pieces of the “healed” injury will come back. It’s not a sign of failure, it’s just the nature of injuries and chronic pain. They can come back when you are on the dance floor at a wedding, crouched under a desk looking for a dropped earbud, or randomly pushing a grocery cart down the produce aisle. Injuries have a way of reminding you they happened, especially the ones you tried to “fix” quickly. How I know micro-habits work In my experience, performing a daily micro-habit for a particular point of back pain at key moments throughout the day over a few weeks or months yields longer-lasting results than doing too many back-relief exercises hard and fast for a short time. You can really apply that practice to any pain, or even weight loss and muscle building. I did not always know this. When I was a young teacher, I did whatever the client wanted me to because I wanted to please them and, let’s face it, most people in a fitness studio want a better body sooner rather than later. But it was a client’s sardonic quip that led me to develop the back pain relief micro-habits program. We were finishing a session, and I remember her commenting, “God, it must be so nice to work in a Pilates studio. You get to take care of your body all day.” I smiled politely and thought to myself, “You have no idea! I spend all day helping clients get into their skinny jeans, a few extra hours on studio admin, and another hour cleaning my apartment. There’s no me time.” At first, I dismissed the comment, but it kept creeping into my brain, so I paused to look at it. My client wasn’t totally wrong. Working in fitness gave me access to something I had not given much thought to: the power of micro-habits and the consistency of weaving them into my 12-hour teaching day! With every client, I did spend time demonstrating each movement. Even if it was only one repetition, that’s dozens of demonstrations every hour. In a micro-habit way, I was tending to my body over time rather than cramming a workout or rehab session into a single solid hour. The best revelation I had was that, as I was doing this, I wasn’t even noticing it. It wasn’t getting in the way of my work. So, I started teaching it to my clients. I would video one stretch and tell them to commit to doing it three times a day: when they wake, at lunch, and before bed. Do it every day for a month. Before you roll your eyes and say, “How can I heal my back or lose weight with something so simple?” let me point you to the real science behind this concept. A landmark University College London study on habit formation found it takes an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic, with a range anywhere from 18 to 254 days, depending on the person and the habit. My client Kay and her back pain This way of training became my nonnegotiable with clients, especially those with knee or back pain, athletes healing from major injuries, and those glued to their jobs who always find reasons to miss their sessions. Take my client “Kay,” who was a big partner at a big talent agency in Hollywood. I knew Kay was either in her car on the way to work, in an office chair, or on a movie set, 12 hours a day, sometimes more. It was Kay’s back pain that finally forced her to come to my studio twice a week. But let me tell you, I had to fight to keep her off the phone and focused on her rehab. After a couple of sessions, it was clear her pain came from sitting in chairs and car seats not designed for the natural curve of the spine and, of course, a lack of daily mobility beyond going from the desk to the car to the sofa at home. So, I proposed this to Kay: “Instead of me fighting to get you to focus in here, are you able to set an alarm on your mobile phone for every hour?” She answered, “My assistant can do it, yes.” “Great!” I said. “When that timer goes off each hour, I want you to sit tall in proper supported alignment and breathe for 60 seconds. After that, I want you to do this one stretch that reverses the stress on the back for 60 seconds. Do that every hour. The only time you get a break from that routine is when you are sleeping. I don’t care if you are eating dinner at a celebrity’s private party. When that alarm goes off, politely excuse yourself to the toilet and then sit, breathe and do the stretch. Two minutes. That is the average time it takes a person to go to the toilet.” She looked at me like I was nuts, but then like it was a challenge, and Kay agreed to try this “awful” suggestion for one week. I trusted Kay to do this. Kay was the most motivated person I knew. When Kay returned to my studio a week later, I expected to hear “Nothing changed” or “I was too busy to do it,” but instead I was greeted with “It worked!” Did it solve all of Kay’s issues? No. But what it did do was open the door to the reality of making time for a micro-habit that can create cumulative results, which can become habits that, in turn, make room for more micro-habits. These can build a way of being in the body all day, every day. That way of being is what builds a stronger back with less pain, a back that can break free of the New Year’s resolution loop. Science backs this up It turns out I wasn’t just making this up as I went. Systematic reviews of office workers since then have found that scheduled microbreaks, often just 30 seconds to a few minutes of movement every 15 to 60 minutes, can measurably reduce musculoskeletal discomfort without hurting productivity. Exactly the tradeoff Kay was worried about. What lasting results look like I have been working this way for years. Yes, I still take full-hour sessions with clients, but the ones who take this bit of homework with them and come back for adjustments and additions are the ones who go for longer stretches of time without back pain. They are the ones who keep the weight off, and they are the ones who build a relationship with their bodies that is able to support them through life’s ups and downs. I also see fewer clients giving up or finding reasons to skip sessions. I see an increase in bodies getting stronger, leaner, and living pain-free, or with less pain, depending on the severity of their condition. How to get started The great news is that experiencing this kind of micro-habit work, which leads to longer, more meaningful results, does not require a full Pilates studio or gym. Because so many of my clients travel and lead busy lives, I developed a program that lets them touch base with me and get my guidance wherever they are. The biggest win for the argument for training in a micro-habit, bite-sized way is that the movements are woven into your daily life. You are no longer trying to cram drive time plus the whole session into your schedule three to five times a week. Instead, you have a place to return for check-ins, program adjustments, healing solutions, and a place to celebrate wins, staying healthy and strong all the way along that path. If you’re ready to stop cramming your healing into one rushed hour a week and start building the kind of micro-habits that actually stick, book a session with me at G3 Wellness, and we’ll design a routine that fits into the busiest of days, no studio required. Follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Jenifer Lyn Jenifer Lyn, Executive Fitness Coach Jenifer Lyn spent 25 years watching high-performing people suffer through back pain, tech neck, and desk drain and do nothing about it because nobody showed them how to fit wellness into the life they actually live. So she built a system that does exactly that. She is the founder of G3 Wellness, a Beverly Hills-based back care and movement program, and the author of Holy Core, a philosophy of Pilates. Her approach is built on micro-habits, small consistent movements practiced throughout the day that rebuild the body from the inside out. She works with private clients and corporate teams in a hybrid in-person/online approach. Her mission: moving your body is your birthright.

Written by Paul Adamson, Trusted Advisor to Founders & Leadership Teams Under Pressure Paul Adamson is a global keynote speaker and leadership strategist who helps organisations navigate change, build resilient teams, and create breakthrough performance. His work blends real-world experience from being a professional sailor and pivoting into the business world. Over 25 years at sea and in the boardroom, I have developed a framework that sits at the heart of everything I teach. I call it SHINE. Each letter represents a dimension of leadership that every founder and senior leader needs to master, not in theory, but under the real pressure of running a business and leading people. Over the next five months, I am going to take one letter at a time and go deep. We start at the beginning. S is for State. There is a moment every captain knows. It arrives in the early hours, somewhere in the middle of an ocean crossing. The weather is building. The crew is tired. The boat is working harder than anyone would like. Somewhere below decks, there are people lying in their bunks who are not quite asleep because they are listening. Not to the forecast. Not to the instruments. To you. They are listening for the quality of your footsteps on deck. For the tone of your voice when you call down to check on the watch. For the pace of your breathing when a wave hits the hull harder than expected. They are reading every signal you give, consciously or not, to decide how they should feel about the situation. That is the moment that defines a captain. Not the decision you make. But the state you are in when you make it. What state actually means State is not your mood. It is not your personality. It is not whether you had a good night's sleep or a difficult morning. State is your internal condition in any given moment: your energy, your presence, your emotional temperature. It is the single most powerful leadership variable that most founders never deliberately manage. We spend enormous amounts of time on strategy, execution, process, and performance. Almost no time at all on the internal condition we bring to every conversation, every decision, and every room we walk into. That is a significant oversight. Because your state does not stay with you. It travels. The most uncomfortable truth in leadership I have seen it at sea more times than I can count. A captain who walks into a difficult situation carrying visible tension, even subtly, even without a word, instantly changes the energy on the boat. The crew feels it. They start second-guessing. Confidence drops. Friction appears. Suddenly you are dealing with two problems: the one in front of you, and a team now operating below its capability. The reverse is equally true, and far more powerful. A captain who walks into the same difficult situation with calm, quiet certainty, not performing positivity, not pretending nothing is wrong, but genuinely centred, raises the performance of everyone around them. Not because the situation got easier. Because the team now believes it can be navigated. Boardrooms work exactly the same way. The leader who walks into a difficult meeting carrying last night's argument, this morning's cash flow pressure, and next quarter's uncertainty has already compromised the outcome before the first person has spoken. The team reads it. They adjust. They hold back. The conversation you needed to have never quite happens. This is not about emotional suppression. It is not about pretending to be fine when you are not. It is about something far more deliberate: choosing the state you bring, rather than simply arriving with whatever state you happen to be in. The habit that athletes practise and leaders rarely do High-performing athletes often have a pre-performance routine. A sequence they run before they compete, not to rehearse their skills, but to calibrate their state. To move from wherever they are to wherever they need to be before the moment of performance arrives. Leaders face exactly the same performance demands. Multiple high-stakes conversations in a single day. Decisions with real consequences. Rooms full of people who are looking to them to set the tone. Yet almost no leaders have a pre-performance routine at all. They move from one meeting to the next, carrying whatever emotional residue the last one left behind, and wonder why the quality of their leadership feels inconsistent. The simple practice I give every founder I work with is this: "Before your next significant meeting, conversation, or decision, take five minutes on your own first. Not to prepare your content. Not to check your messages. Just to notice where your state actually is. Then consciously choose where you want it to be before you walk through that door." Sailors call this getting your head in the game. Athletes call it their pre-performance routine. For leaders who do it, it can be a game changer. The question that changes things There is one question I ask every leader I work with when we start talking about state. It is short, but it is honest, and the answer is almost always revealing, "How are you showing up right now, and is that serving your team?" Not how you intend to show up. Not how you showed up in your best week. Right now, today, in this moment, is your internal state an asset to the people around you, or is it quietly getting in the way? The leaders who ask themselves this question regularly lead differently. They catch themselves earlier. They recover faster. They create environments where people perform better, not because they have better people, but because they have learned to lead from a better place. State is not fixed. It is not a personality trait you are stuck with. It is something you build, deliberately, every single day. It starts before you say a single word. Where do you stand across the full SHINE framework? State is just the first of five dimensions I work with. The others, Horizon, Identity, Navigate, and Energy, each carry their own weight in how you show up as a leader. If this has landed for you, the next step is to see where you actually stand across all five. I built a free five-minute assessment called The Lighthouse Check. Ten questions. A radar chart showing how you are tracking across each dimension of SHINE. An honest snapshot of which letter is quietly carrying the most weight in your leadership right now, with immediate, practical recommendations you can act on today. Take The Lighthouse Check here. It takes about as long as a cup of coffee. It might be the most useful five minutes you spend on your leadership this month. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Paul Adamson Paul Adamson, Trusted Advisor to Founders & Leadership Teams Under Pressure Paul Adamson is an international keynote speaker and leadership strategist known for helping organisations navigate change, build resilient teams, and unlock high-performance cultures. His journey began at sea, where he skippered a 27,000-mile global circumnavigation before leading the commercial turnaround of Oyster Yachts from administration to a £185M order book. Paul’s work blends high-stakes decision-making with practical leadership tools that drive real-world results. A cancer survivor, he speaks powerfully about resilience, purpose, and optimistic leadership. Today, he works with entrepreneurs, founders, and executive teams worldwide, helping them create breakthroughs that move them from where they are to where they want to be.

Written by Vangee Dyer, Founder of Bare Sunshine Vangee Dyer is the founder of Bare Sunshine, a brand rooted in self-love, resilience, and transformation. Drawing from lived experience, she inspires others to reclaim confidence and glow from the inside out. Summer arrives, temperatures rise, vacations begin, and suddenly sunscreen appears everywhere. We pack it for the beach. We apply it before the pool. We remind the children to put it on before spending the day outside. Then fall arrives. The sunscreen slowly makes its way to the back of the cabinet, where many of us forget about it until the following summer. But here's the truth, "The sun doesn't take the winter off, and neither should your sunscreen." Ultraviolet radiation reaches our skin throughout the year, including on cloudy and cooler days. That makes sunscreen much more than a summer beauty product. It is one of the most important protective steps we can incorporate into a daily skincare routine. If you're concerned about hyperpigmentation, dark spots, uneven skin tone, or premature signs of aging, sunscreen deserves an even more important place in your skincare conversation. What does sunscreen actually do? To understand why sunscreen matters, we first have to understand what we're protecting our skin from. The sun produces ultraviolet radiation, including UVA and UVB rays. An easy way to think about them is: UVA means aging: UVA exposure contributes to premature signs of skin aging, including wrinkles, discoloration, and age spots. UVB means burning: UVB rays are a major cause of sunburn. Both forms of ultraviolet radiation can damage the skin, which is why choosing a sunscreen labeled broad spectrum matters. It means the product provides protection against both UVA and UVB rays. Sunscreen essentially helps reduce the amount of damaging ultraviolet radiation reaching the skin. Why is sunscreen important? Many people think sunscreen's only purpose is preventing a painful sunburn. That's only part of the story. Consistent sun protection can help protect against: Sunburn Premature skin aging Sun-related dark spots and discoloration UV-related skin damage Skin cancer That changes the way we should think about SPF. Sunscreen isn't simply something we use when we're planning to spend hours outside. It's preventative skincare. Sunscreen and hyperpigmentation: The connection we don't talk about enough At Bare Sunshine, hyperpigmentation is an especially important conversation for us. Many people invest in products designed to improve the appearance of dark spots and uneven skin tone but overlook one of the most important parts of that routine: protecting their skin from continued sun exposure. Think about it this way. You can spend months carefully addressing the appearance of discoloration, but if your skin is continually exposed to ultraviolet radiation without adequate protection, you may be working against your own skincare goals. For people prone to hyperpigmentation, sun protection isn't simply an optional extra at the end of a routine. It should be part of the foundation. For some people dealing with dark spots, a tinted sunscreen containing iron oxides may offer additional protection from visible light. But I have melanin, do I really need sunscreen? Absolutely. This is one of the skincare myths we need to leave behind. Melanin does provide some natural protection from ultraviolet radiation, but it does not make darker skin immune to sun damage. People of every skin tone can experience sun damage and develop skin cancer. For melanin-rich skin, there is another important consideration: discoloration. Dark spots and uneven pigmentation can be particularly persistent in deeper skin tones, making sun protection an important part of maintaining an even-looking complexion. Having melanin doesn't mean skipping sunscreen. It means understanding how to protect the beautiful skin you're already in. Why sunscreen matters in summer Summer is when sun protection tends to receive the most attention, and understandably so. We spend more time outdoors. Days are longer. We're swimming, vacationing, attending outdoor events, exercising outside, and enjoying the sunshine. Sweating and swimming also mean sunscreen can wear away more quickly. This is why sunscreen should be reapplied regularly while outdoors, particularly after swimming or sweating. But summer sun protection shouldn't stop with SPF. Shade, hats, sunglasses, and protective clothing all work together with sunscreen to reduce UV exposure. Think of sunscreen as one part of your sun protection wardrobe, not an invisible shield that makes unlimited sun exposure harmless. Why sunscreen is still important in winter Here's where many skincare routines fall apart. Cold weather can fool us into believing the sun is somehow less relevant. But temperature and ultraviolet radiation are not the same thing. You don't need to feel hot for your skin to experience UV exposure. UV rays are present throughout the year, which means exposed areas such as your face, neck, ears, and hands still deserve protection during winter. If you're around snow, sun protection becomes particularly important because snow can reflect UV rays. That beautiful bright winter day may feel completely different from sitting on a beach in July, but your skin still needs protection. What about cloudy days? Another common misconception is, "There's no sun today, so I don't need sunscreen." Clouds don't eliminate UV exposure. In fact, the American Academy of Dermatology notes that up to 80% of the sun's harmful UV rays can penetrate clouds. So while you may not see bright sunshine when you look out the window, your skin can still be exposed. This is exactly why sunscreen works best as a habit rather than a weather decision. Instead of asking, "Is it sunny enough for sunscreen?" Make SPF part of your morning skincare routine. SPF 15, 30, 50: What does it actually mean? SPF stands for Sun Protection Factor. One common misconception is that SPF tells you how many hours you can safely remain in the sun. It doesn't. SPF indicates the level of sunburn protection a sunscreen provides when used as directed. For everyday sun protection, the American Academy of Dermatology recommends choosing sunscreen that provides: Broad-spectrum protection SPF 30 or higher Water resistance Remember: a higher SPF doesn't mean you can apply sunscreen once in the morning and forget about it for the rest of the day. Application matters. Are you actually applying enough sunscreen? Owning sunscreen and using sunscreen effectively are two different things. Sunscreen should be applied generously to exposed skin before going outdoors. Don't forget commonly missed areas such as the ears, neck, hands, tops of the feet, hairline, exposed scalp, and lips, using an appropriate SPF lip product. When spending time outdoors, sunscreen should generally be reapplied at least every two hours and after swimming or sweating. Consistency is where protection happens. Sunscreen is also an antiaging essential We spend enormous amounts of money searching for the perfect serum, moisturizer, brightening treatment, or antiaging cream. But sometimes we overlook prevention. Unprotected UV exposure contributes to premature skin aging, including wrinkles, age spots, and changes in skin texture. That means your sunscreen isn't competing with your antiaging routine. It is part of your antiaging routine. If we're investing in products to help our skin look healthy tomorrow, we should also protect it from preventable damage today. The Bare Sunshine philosophy: Protect the glow you're working for At Bare Sunshine, our philosophy has always been about more than chasing perfect skin. We believe in helping people understand their skin, care for it intentionally, address concerns such as hyperpigmentation and dark spots, and ultimately feel confident enough to Love the Skin You're In™. But there's another part of the glow conversation that deserves attention, "Protecting the glow you're working so hard to achieve." Skincare isn't only about correcting. It's also about protecting. It's hydration. It's consistency. It's understanding your skin. Yes, it's sunscreen. Whether your routine includes products designed to address dark spots, uneven skin tone, dryness, or simply support healthy-looking skin, sun protection should work alongside those efforts. Summer skin. Winter skin. Every shade. Every season. Perhaps it's time we stop thinking of sunscreen as something we pack for vacation. It's not a beach product. It's a skin health product. Summer or winter. Sunny or cloudy. Light skin or deeply melanated skin. 25 or 65. The goal remains the same: protect the skin you're in today so it can remain healthy and radiant tomorrow. At Bare Sunshine, we talk a lot about the glow. But protecting your glow matters just as much as achieving it. So tomorrow morning, after you've cleansed, treated, hydrated, and moisturized, don't forget one final step. SPF. Your future skin will thank you. Ready to glow smarter? Explore more skincare education, hyperpigmentation conversations, beauty insights, and products designed to support healthy-looking, radiant skin here. Follow me on Facebook and Instagram for more info! Read more from Vangee Dyer Vangee Dyer, Founder of Bare Sunshine Vangee Dyer is the founder of Bare Sunshine, a skincare brand born from a deeply personal journey with hyperpigmentation and self-acceptance. With a background in public relations and promotions, she has supported community-centered initiatives that celebrate culture, confidence, and empowerment. Vangee serves on the governing board of her local church assembly, where she helps integrate outreach and community-focused events. Her work blends storytelling, purpose-led entrepreneurship, and advocacy for self-love. Through Bare Sunshine, she encourages others to embrace healing, confidence, and the best version of themselves.