Written by Eszter Noble, Clinical Hypnotherapist & Coach Eszter Noble is a Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT®) practitioner, clinical hypnotherapist, and coach specializing in anxiety, fears, and depression. Her method utilizes effective techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), psychotherapy, and hypnotherapy, with the ability to provide freedom from any issues and deliver permanent, lasting solutions. Throughout your career, you picked up skills, business cards, and contacts, but when and where did you pick up the idea that compulsive behaviour would fix the fears you’re feeling? You weren’t born with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Your mind developed it at some point as a coping mechanism, and what can often seem like relentless perfectionism is actually a draining and debilitating disorder that you seem to have a lifelong contract for. So, the billion-dollar question is: Are you thriving or trapped and terrorized by compulsion? You've built your wealth on precision, focus, and an intolerance for mediocrity. But what happens when those same traits start working against you? Research has identified "High-Functioning OCD," a pattern where exceptional achievement coexists with clinically significant obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The paradox? The qualities that fuel your success can, under pressure, morph into compulsive patterns that erode mental resilience and diminish the satisfaction that should come with achievement. Understand your past before you can plan your future Many of us believe that with enough preparation and grit, we can push through and achieve what we desire, but it's extremely hard to succeed when you're incorrectly equipped. You can't conquer the oceans with a vessel built for land. You will inevitably drown. In the same way, it will be nearly impossible to thrive in a high-stakes environment with a nervous system primed to collapse, fuelled by crippling thoughts and fears rooted in old, unprocessed experiences. OCD, at its core, is the constant fight for certainty, a desperate attempt to control what feels dangerously unpredictable. So, ask yourself: What were the moments growing up that made you feel out of control, unsafe, or powerless? Often, perfectionism and compulsive behaviours are protective strategies formed in childhood to manage chaos, criticism, or emotional neglect, and until those patterns are understood and rewired at the subconscious level, they'll continue to sabotage your present, no matter how successful you become. Excellence vs. Obsession: Where’s the line? You have the drive to excel. It’s what pushes you to build businesses, lead teams, and create exceptional outcomes. But when that drive becomes a relentless inner critic that steals your peace, sabotages your sleep, and makes “good enough” feel dangerous, you’ve crossed from healthy striving into pathological perfectionism and, for some, into the territory of OCD. Healthy perfectionism is goal-oriented and flexible. You set high standards, enjoy the process, and can move on when something is “done.” Pathological perfectionism is rigid, dependent on self-worth, and exhausting. You over-prepare, overwork, and struggle to prioritize because anything less than flawless feels unacceptable. OCD, by contrast, is defined by obsessions, intrusive, unwanted thoughts that spike anxiety, and compulsions, rituals or mental acts performed to neutralize that anxiety. In “perfectionism OCD,” often called “just right” OCD, the obsession is the terror that a mistake, asymmetry, or imperfection will lead to something catastrophic. The compulsion is the endless checking, redoing, reordering, or reassurance-seeking that briefly relieves the dread until the cycle restarts. Is your environment helping or hindering your healing? If you’re a successful individual, entrepreneur, or leader, you’re not immune. In fact, you may be at higher risk. Research shows that excessive pressure to achieve, isolation, and identity fusion with performance can fuel anxiety, depression, and perfectionistic distress. Wealth and success don’t protect against mental health struggles, they can amplify them when your self-worth is contingent on being “the best” and never making mistakes. Many entrepreneurs describe a specific kind of loneliness: being constantly surrounded by advisors, staff, and peers, yet feeling profoundly disconnected, where trust becomes complicated and relationships feel transactional. Over time, this skepticism leads to social withdrawal, and studies show that nearly half of highly successful individuals report symptoms of emotional numbness or anhedonia linked to this disconnection. For entrepreneurs and leaders, fusing your identity with your business or role can drive performance in the short term, but it also means that any setback feels like a personal failure, keeping your nervous system in chronic overdrive and further fuelling burnout and anxiety. Wealth often comes with expectations to maintain status, secure legacies, and never show vulnerability, creating a silent burden where seeking help feels like weakness and suffering in silence becomes the norm. If your work culture rewards overwork, your social circle is based on status, your routines leave no room for rest, and your inner dialogue mirrors external pressure, your environment keeps you in survival mode and makes healing feel impossible. The good news is that reshaping your surroundings, curating honest relationships, setting boundaries with work, reframing success beyond output, and seeking specialized support can turn your environment from a trigger into a foundation for sustainable excellence and peace. Red flags and when to take it seriously It's one thing to care about quality, it's another when that care turns into a cage. Consider that your perfectionism has become pathological, or possibly OCD, if you notice these warning signs showing up consistently, not just occasionally: You're stuck in the loop: You spend more than an hour a day trapped in checking, redoing, or mentally reviewing, rereading emails five times, rechecking your own voice notes, or replaying conversations in your head to make sure you didn't "mess up." Tiny mistakes feel catastrophic: A minor error, a typo, a slightly off presentation, or a missed detail triggers intense shame, rage, or despair that lingers for hours or even days, hijacking your mood and focus. Avoidance becomes your default: You start avoiding tasks, decisions, or opportunities because you can't guarantee a perfect outcome. Promotions get declined, projects get delayed, and life shrinks to only what feels "safe" to control. Relationships pay the price: Your standards, for yourself and others, create friction, control dynamics, or emotional distance. Partners feel criticized, colleagues feel micromanaged, and you feel increasingly isolated. Your body and mind are burning out: You feel mentally exhausted, lose sleep, or develop anxiety and depression that are directly tied to your performance and self-expectations. The rituals feel non-negotiable: Your behaviours feel compulsory and tied to a specific fear: "If I don't do this exactly right, something bad will happen," rather than simply wanting things to be neat or organized. When these patterns become your norm, not an exception, it's time to take them seriously. Perfectionism at this level isn't a personality quirk, it's a signal that your nervous system is in overdrive and your brain is stuck in threat mode. These patterns are treatable, and recognizing them is the first step toward reclaiming your energy, relationships, and peace. You’re not alone: Even the most influential struggle OCD doesn’t discriminate. In fact, it affects people across every level of success and visibility. One of the most well-known examples is David Beckham, the globally celebrated footballer, entrepreneur, and cultural icon. Beckham has spoken openly for years about living with OCD, describing how he needs everything in his life to be symmetrical and perfectly ordered, from arranging hotel room items in straight lines to pairing his drinks so they’re always in even numbers. He’s called it the condition that “haunts my life,” yet he’s also shown that OCD doesn’t have to stop you from reaching the highest levels of performance, influence, and success. The question becomes: “Do you want to be haunted?” Another important element to note is that OCD shows up in many different ways. A colleague or an acquaintance may not be putting his pencils in perfect order all the time, but he may still be struggling with looping thoughts and rumination he can’t escape. OCD can manifest itself in many different ways. Around 1 in 4 people will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, and approximately 1 in 40 people will develop OCD in their lifetime, so if you’re struggling with it, you are definitely not alone, and there is hope. Practical help: Reclaiming excellence without the torment You don’t have to choose between success and sanity. Here are evidence-based, practical steps to shift from pathological perfectionism to empowered excellence and, if OCD is present, to break the obsession-compulsion cycle. 1. Run a perfectionism audit Grab a notebook and answer: Where is perfectionism strongest: work, health, relationships, appearance? What thoughts show up (“If I’m not perfect, I’m a failure”)? What behaviours follow (over-editing, rechecking, avoiding)? What’s the cost (time, energy, joy, connection)? This creates awareness, which is a crucial first step toward change. 2. Challenge the rules Pick one rigid belief (e.g., “I must give 100% at all times”). Ask: What proof do I have that this is always true? Would I expect this of someone I love? When have I made mistakes and still been respected or successful? Write a balanced alternative: “I aim for excellence, and I allow myself to be human.” 3. Practise “good enough” on purpose Choose a low-stakes task (email, tidying, a report section). Set a timer (e.g., 30 minutes). Do your best in that time and stop. Resist the urge to perfect it. This retrains your brain to tolerate imperfection and reduces the anxiety spike over time. 4. Make small, intentional mistakes Leave a tiny typo in a casual message. Don’t fix a crooked pillow before guests arrive. Speak up in a meeting even if your point isn’t “polished.” These micro exposures teach your nervous system that imperfection is safe and it won’t have catastrophic consequences. 5. Use mindfulness to interrupt the spiral When you notice perfectionist overwhelm: Try 4-4-6 breathing: inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 6. Use the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique: name 5 things you see, 4 you can touch, 3 you hear, 2 you smell, 1 you taste. Notice the thought (“I’m noticing harsh self-judgment”) without buying into it. 6. Prioritise with a matrix Sort tasks into: High importance: Worth extra care Medium importance: Good enough is fine Low importance: Just get it done This protects your energy for what truly matters. 7. If OCD is present: Target the cycle OCD responds best to specialised treatment, particularly Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), which gradually exposes you to the feared imperfection while preventing the compulsion. For “just right” OCD, this might mean sending an email after one review, leaving a picture slightly off centre, or making a decision without rechecking, then sitting with the anxiety until it subsides without ritualising. Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) can also be powerful for perfectionism, especially when it’s rooted in early beliefs about worth, safety, or identity. RTT blends hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to access the subconscious, reframe limiting beliefs (“I’m only valuable if I’m perfect”), and install new, empowering narratives. You’ve built success by setting high standards. The next level of mastery is learning to direct that drive with flexibility, self-compassion, and boundaries. Excellence is sustainable, pathological perfectionism and OCD are not. If your standards are costing you sleep, joy, or connection, it’s not weakness to seek help, it’s strategic. Try this today: Pick one task you’d normally over-perfect. Set a time limit. Stop when the timer ends. Write down: “I did good enough, and I’m safe.” Repeat this exercise daily. If you recognise OCD patterns (obsessions plus compulsions, more than 1 hour per day, significant distress), reach out to a therapist trained in ERP or RTT. You can keep your excellence and reclaim your peace. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Eszter Noble Eszter Noble, Clinical Hypnotherapist & Coach Eszter Noble is an established Clinical Hypnotherapist using the RTT® (Rapid Transformational Therapy) method, trained by world-renowned hypnotherapist Marisa Peer. She is known for handling extremely difficult cases and clients who have been stuck for years and have tried it all. Specializing in anxiety, fears, and depression, she is extremely intuitive and honest, dedicated to empowering her clients to become the best possible versions of themselves. Offering her expertise in English, German, and Hungarian, Eszter’s mission is to take the taboo out of therapy.

Anne Anyia, a multi-award-winning Registered Nutritional Therapist, Nutritionist, and Certified Health Coach, has announced the release of her new book, “Goodbye Constipation: The Complete Natural Guide to Lasting Relief.” The book is now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions, with additional online retailers expected to follow shortly. This practical guide offers readers a natural, evidence-informed approach to understanding constipation and achieving lasting digestive relief. It helps individuals move beyond quick fixes and common misconceptions by exploring the potential causes of constipation. The book also provides practical strategies to support better digestion, improve gut health, and build greater confidence in everyday life. Early reader feedback underscores the book’s broader value. One Amazon reader, Ofe, calls it “Great Book! Very Informative & Well Worth Reading. Much More Than Constipation.” The review highlights the book’s comprehensive focus on digestive health and the practical steps readers can take to achieve lasting relief. Constipation is a common digestive issue that can affect people of all ages. Symptoms include infrequent bowel movements, hard or lumpy stools, straining during bowel movements, and a sensation of incomplete emptying. Common contributors include insufficient dietary fibre, inadequate fluid intake, low physical activity, changes in routine, and certain medications. In the UK, adults are generally advised to aim for 30 grams of dietary fibre per day. "Goodbye Constipation: The Complete Natural Guide to Lasting Relief" is a practical guide that addresses these aspects of digestive health, helping readers better understand constipation and explore lifestyle and dietary changes that may support healthy bowel function. About the Author Anne Anyia, BSc, MSc, is a multi-award-winning Registered Nutritional Therapist, Nutritionist, and Certified Health Coach based in London. With expertise in digestive wellness, nutritional rehabilitation, and sustainable weight management, Anne is passionate about reshaping how people view food and helping them make practical, sustainable choices that support long-term health. She is the author of Goodbye Constipation: The Complete Natural Guide to Lasting Relief. Goodbye Constipation: The Complete Natural Guide to Lasting Relief is now available in paperback and Kindle formats on Amazon. Readers can discover the book and explore a practical approach to understanding constipation and improving digestive health. Media contact Anne Anyia Registered Nutritionist & Certified Health Coach 07958058070 anne@awesconutrition.com

Written by Funk Roberts, Fitness Expert for Men Over 40 Funk Roberts is one of the world’s leading health, fitness, and longevity experts for men over 40. He created the Over 40 Alpha Brotherhood, is a bestselling author, a certified hormone specialist, and the founder of National Testosterone Awareness Day, helping men reclaim strength, energy, confidence, and vitality as they age. There was a definitive turning point in the trajectory of my online fitness business when I realized a truth that completely revolutionized how I understood recurring revenue models: the workouts were never the real product. Nor were the meal plans, coaching videos, downloadable Portable Document Format (PDFs), structured challenges, or training programs. While these operational assets certainly mattered and had to deliver high-quality, tangible results, the stark reality is that workouts have become entirely ubiquitous. In today’s digital ecosystem, any individual can access thousands of free workouts online, Google a nutrition guide in seconds, or simply task an artificial intelligence engine with generating a personalized training regimen or meal plan instantaneously. This reality begs a fundamental question for modern digital entrepreneurs: why would an individual choose to pay month after month to belong to an online membership? By shifting our focus from a standard subscription site to building a high-engagement, identity-driven community, we turned a struggling membership into a global movement. Using our exact 27 Tribe Secrets blueprint detailed in this article, we successfully scaled my Over 40 Alpha Brotherhood from a stalled 2,100-member business that was dwindling month after month into a 10,000-member, highly active, multi-seven-figure business, earning ClickFunnels Two Comma Club awards along the way. If you are looking to escape the client-chasing hamster wheel and create predictable, lifetime recurring revenue, this exact framework is the blueprint to turn your own community into an unstoppable, self-governing tribe. This paradigm shift is particularly urgent in the age of artificial intelligence We are entering an era where information has been thoroughly commoditized. While information was historically valuable due to scarcity, search engines and generative AI have accelerated its democratization. AI can draft a business strategy, synthesize a book, or compose a meal plan in thirty seconds. This does not render human expertise irrelevant, as audiences still require trusted guides and proven systems, but it dramatically elevates the value of what cannot be simulated: authentic human connection. AI can dictate the biological steps of fat loss to a fifty-two-year-old man, but it cannot replicate the profound psychological impact of another fifty-two-year-old man inside a community saying, "Brother, I have stood exactly where you are standing right now, keep going." The former is mere information, the latter is raw belief. Your funnels, pricing, features, and content can easily be copied by competitors, but your community culture is an uncopiable moat. Membership owners often mistakenly believe that more content increases value When user engagement begins to dwindle, the immediate, reactionary impulse of the creator is to record another course. When user retention dips, they add another live training, when login rates drop, they upload more PDFs. Consequently, the membership area devolves into a digital labyrinth of hundreds of unorganized videos and resources. This creates an exhausting treadmill for the creator and paralyzing overwhelm for the subscriber, who no longer knows where to begin. Overwhelmed, members quietly stop logging in and eventually cancel their subscriptions. The problem is rarely a lack of value, rather, it is an excess of raw information paired with a deficiency in human connection. Instead of constantly asking what else we can give our members, we must start asking how we can help them become more connected, actively involved, and profoundly transformed. Pillar I: Tribe attraction, converting strangers into aligned believers The foundation of any thriving community tribe begins before a customer ever opens their wallet. Under the first pillar, Tribe Attraction, a business must intentionally construct a brand personality that acts as a beacon, drawing in the ideal customer while purposefully repelling those who are not a cultural fit. This process completely bypasses clinical features and logical checklists, aiming instead at the subconscious narratives where buying decisions are actually made. The primary mechanism used to establish this immediate alignment is the Origin Story, which relies on a relatable struggle told through the lens of the Hero’s Journey. Rather than attempting to influence prospects by inflating credibility, a tribal leader gains trust by sharing their raw vulnerabilities. In my Over 40 Alpha fitness membership, I do not lead with athletic achievements. Instead, I share my agonizing struggle with low testosterone, low motivation, belly fat, and muscle loss in my late 30s. This storytelling approach establishes immediate empathy and trust, proving to the prospect that the leader has successfully navigated the exact storm they are currently facing. Once connection is built, attraction must be solidified through the creation of a Collective Identity. Humans naturally use groups and social identities as sticky notes to define who they are and how they should behave. Under the Tribe Method, you must explicitly rename your audience When I renamed my men over 40 target demographic from a generic program name to the collective identity of an "Over 40 Alpha," it immediately shifted the dynamic. Customers were no longer just buying a workout plan, they were choosing to step into a new version of themselves. This new identity generally encourages the opposite behaviors of those that caused the new member to search for help in the first place. This psychological identity shift is crucial because humans will consistently invest capital and effort to maintain an identity they have claimed. To finish the attraction process, a brand must methodize its curriculum If prospects believe your offering is just another version of something they have tried and failed at before, they will walk away. Differentiating yourself requires wrapping your process in a unique, trademarked methodology that opens a powerful curiosity loop in the consumer's mind. Rather than selling generic exercise and diet tips, I packaged my entire system as the proprietary "Meta Test Boost System," consisting of metabolic workouts, a specialized test-boosting diet, and recovery protocols. By naming and trademarking the process, the business transforms a commodity into highly valuable intellectual property that cannot be duplicated by competitors. Pillar II: Tribe experience, indoctrination and the momentum of progress Once a customer is attracted and brought through the door, the business enters the second major phase: Tribe Experience. This pillar is designed to solve the critical leaking bucket problem that plagues the average membership business, where high customer acquisition rates are entirely wiped out by rampant churn within the first ninety days. Just because an individual buys a product does not mean they are motivated to do the necessary work to get results, the experience must be meticulously gamified to keep them moving forward. This journey begins with immediate indoctrination. The first moments following a sale represent a neurological high where dopamine and anticipation are at their peak, yet most businesses waste this window with a sterile checkout page. A Tribe Leader rides this hormonal wave to immediately teach the newcomer the beliefs, behaviors, and expectations of the group. Micro commitment leverages the psychological principle of consistency A highly effective tactic used in our onboarding process is the written micro commitment. When a member registers for a trial, they are sent an automated text message instructing them to pick an official start date and write it back. This micro commitment leverages the psychological principle of consistency, once a person writes down a goal, they feel a deep responsibility to follow through to avoid betraying their own word. To sustain this initial momentum, a community tribe must map out clear, linear milestones. Human brains are progress-oriented and naturally crave seeking new horizons, but presenting a customer with a massive, multi-year curriculum creates immediate overwhelm and subsequent paralysis. By breaking a one-year-long transformation journey down into smaller three-month milestones, such as Month 3, Month 6, and Month 9, the customer can easily reorient themselves, focusing only on reaching the next stepping stone rather than crossing the entire river at once. At each milestone, the business must inject incentives to reward their hard work and elevate their status within the community. In Over 40 Alpha programs, members earn different colored milestone T-shirts reflecting their progress, much like earning belts in karate. When a member reaches the twelve-month milestone, they are rewarded with an exclusive black shirt featuring the title "Official Over 40 Alpha" alongside their last name on the back. This T-shirt acts as a highly coveted jersey, instilling an immense sense of pride and team camaraderie. Crucially, because these milestone shirts can only be earned through physical effort and cannot be purchased with a credit card, their perceived value is extraordinarily high. This progress is fed directly into a self-sustaining proof loop, collecting progress photos, transformation stories, and data that fuel front-end marketing while publicly celebrating the senior members inside the community. Pillar III: Tribe bonding, creating chemical connections for lifelong loyalty The third and final pillar of the Tribe Method is Tribe Bonding, which represents the transition from a traditional community into an unbreakable brotherhood. This phase pulls the deep psychological levers that dictate human social algorithms, systematically increasing the emotional and chemical connections between members. When done correctly, cancellation is no longer a financial decision, it becomes a psychological crisis. To cancel their membership would mean losing a piece of their identity, their shared rituals, and their lifelong friends. The physical space where this bonding occurs is the Tribe Hub. You do not have a tribe if your members are merely consuming your content in isolation, they must be able to interact, share vulnerabilities, and form lateral relationships with one another. Platforms like Facebook Groups serve as the town square where strangers quickly convert into familiar faces with daily ritual posts. To maintain absolute order within this hub and prevent chaotic self-promotion, the leader must establish clear, non-negotiable rules. Rules influence group behavior and program the community’s social norms For instance, the Over 40 Alpha Brotherhood operates under strict guidelines: members are not permitted to complain, and they cannot post or talk about politics, religion, or pop culture, or post random motivational memes. This keeps everyone focused on similarities rather than differences and increases the power of community support for each other. These rules also ensure that the feed remains focused on authentic, user-generated content, forcing members to post rituals like their own daily sweaty selfies, meals for peer accountability, birthday burpees, and Sunday Accountability posts. This daily activity is driven by rituals and the neurological power of mirroring Rituals are symbolic actions that give deep meaning to otherwise routine tasks. The Over 40 Alpha Brotherhood community incorporates daily meal preparation, follow-along workouts, and Sunday morning live coaching calls and check-ins as sacred communal rituals. Through mirroring, humans naturally synchronize their behaviors with those of the group leader and their peers. By having the founder constantly post raw, unedited, sweaty selfies and dinner plates in the hub, the members instinctively mirror the exact same behavior. This continuous flow of shared action creates an intensely cohesive narrative, wrapping the brand’s daily habits directly into the member’s personal lifestyle. Ultimately, the crowning secret of tribal retention is significance In a fast-paced, highly isolated world, the vast majority of consumers suffer from an emotional deficit of recognition. Fulfilling this existential need for your members makes them members for life. Inside the Over 40 Alpha Brotherhood, we implement a system of weekly Spotlight System, where members who hit major milestones are celebrated publicly each week. Fulfilling this deep desire to be seen, heard, and validated by the tribe creates an emotional debt that far transcends the monetary cost of the membership, dropping monthly churn to unprecedented lows. By implementing just a handful of the 27 Tribe Secrets, you will reduce churn and increase retention and revenue by shifting the product value from commodity information to human-to-human connection and identity preservation. Because cancellation requires the member to sever their relationships and forfeit their status within the tribe, they are psychologically disincentivized from leaving. The Tribe Method is a proprietary three-part marketing, community building, and customer retention framework designed to shift a digital business from a content-heavy subscription model into an identity-driven, high-retention community. What are the three main pillars of the Tribe Method? The framework is built upon three foundational pillars: Tribe Attraction: Focuses on brand positioning, relatability, and identity shifting to attract high-value customers on the front end. Tribe Experience: Focuses on micro commitments, indoctrination, linear milestones, and status incentives to drive initial engagement. Tribe Bonding: Focuses on community rules, shared daily rituals, mirroring, and personal significance to maximize customer lifetime value. If you want help mapping out your membership retention strategy, book a discovery call and let me give you three action items to take away and implement in your business free of charge. Book a call with Funk Roberts, Tribe Method Coaching. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Funk Roberts Funk Roberts, Fitness Expert for Men Over 40 Funk Roberts is a former professional athlete and now is one of the world’s leading health, fitness, and longevity experts for men over 40. After overcoming addiction, depression, and low testosterone himself, he dedicated his life to helping men reclaim their strength, energy, confidence, and purpose as they age. He is the founder of the Over 40 Alpha Brotherhood, a multi-seven-figure fitness community with thousands of members worldwide, and the creator of over 100 transformation programs for men over 40. Funk is a bestselling author, certified hormone specialist, Harvard Extension School graduate, and creator of the Men Over 40 Global Health Summit. His mission is to help one million men over 40 transform their health and lives naturally.

Written by Edmund McKillop, Counsellor and Psychotherapist Edmund is a counsellor, psychotherapist, trainer, consultant, and founding director of Rosny House Limited. With over twenty years of experience in high school education, including leadership roles in pastoral care and subject management, he blends psychodynamics with business and education to deliver effective and positive change. A pupil storms out of class after being asked to put away their phone. Another quietly withdraws, never causing trouble but never participating either. Most schools focus on changing behaviour, but what if the behaviour isn't the real story? Nearly everyone has an opinion about schools and how they should be run. Perhaps this is because most people in the world have experienced the school environment. I have heard the phrase on countless occasions among friends and family that “it wasn’t like that in my day”, behavior in schools has become more and more challenging. Having been a high school teacher for over twenty years, I have seen a lot of changes in education, including an increase in pupils with additional learning, social, emotional, and behavioural needs. This has made me rethink the way that I work and communicate with young people. In this article, I’m going to explore how my work as a psychotherapist has informed and improved my approach to behaviour management and teaching, and how this can be applied to teaching practice in general. Unconscious processes When I began my teaching career, I realised that I made all the usual textbook mistakes and “schoolboy errors.” For example, as a young teacher, I wanted to be liked by my students, so I was kind and gentle, genuinely wanting them to have a positive learning experience. In reality, I was lacking the positive assertiveness required to create a safe, secure learning environment in which the young people could flourish. Therefore, when challenging behaviour arose, I took it personally and saw myself as a “bad” teacher, to the point where I considered giving up the profession. Understanding myself I had been considering working in pastoral care within high school education and decided to participate in a counselling skills course, validated by COSCA (Counselling & Psychotherapy in Scotland). Through this course, I began to understand how I interacted with others and what was motivating such interactions. I realised that I needed reassurance from others to feel safe and secure. This new understanding helped me to begin to accept myself and find security from within. Relating to others When I applied this newfound understanding to the classroom, I noticed that I was no longer fixated on how I or my teaching was perceived by the students. Rather, I was able to be at peace with myself, which allowed me to be a secure anchor in the classroom for others. I noticed that my classroom environment became a happier, more successful environment, wherein the pupils felt safe, secure, and encouraged. Why schools need more than behaviour management Most people in the teaching profession would agree that adolescent mental health has become a more complex subject over the last few years. When in the past, behaviour may have been understood as “good” and “bad,” the focus has changed to understanding behaviour as a communication of something deeper. The notion that rewards and sanctions will suffice is no longer valid. The Scottish Government has addressed adolescent mental health in their recently published factsheet on Psychological trauma and adversity including ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) - gov.scot. In this, it describes the central importance of having trauma-informed professionals within many areas, including education. This means that educators are being trained to recognise the signs and symptoms of trauma in young people and how this manifests in their behaviour. Understanding trauma aligns perfectly with psychodynamic thinking. Making sense of the impact of trauma allows the practitioner to understand the behaviour of a young person and make a lasting and empowering connection with them. What is becoming apparent is the need for a focus on robust, secure, and nurturing educational relationships. Looking beneath the surface So how can psychodynamics help educators in building positive educational relationships? Let’s dive into some of the main elements of psychodynamic thinking that can be applied here: Unconscious emotional processes Central to psychodynamic thinking is the idea that our behaviour is largely controlled by unconscious emotional processes. One way of thinking about it is that everyone has an operating system (OS) in which the core programming has been written at the very early stages of our life (0–18 months). This early programming is designed to ultimately keep us (our psyche) safe and secure, and it is the building block for how we interact with others and with ourselves. Most of this programming runs in the background, dictating our behaviour and feelings, and is perfectly fine until it becomes problematic or dysfunctional. As we grow up, we add layers of programming to the OS. Challenges arise when we are put in a position that makes us feel threatened or insecure. It is like pressing the “restore factory settings” button. Despite all of our learning and reasoning, we go back to the original OS. Therefore, when a child behaves in a particular way in the classroom, they are potentially unaware of the motivating factors behind their behaviour. Knowing that something else is going on can help the teacher to act positively in the situation. Attachment Attachment theory has existed since the mid-twentieth century but has recently become more popular through social media. The basic principle is that a person’s attachment style is formed in those early stages of development (0–18 months) with the primary caregiver (usually a parent). Depending on the way in which the person experiences their needs being met, they will form a particular attachment pattern. There are four basic attachment styles, and being able to identify these in a young person can help inform best practice when it comes to teacher interaction: Secure attachment: This is when a person feels comfortable with closeness and independence. They can trust that people will show up for them, can describe what they need without panicking, and do not assume that conflict means the relationship is ending. Anxious attachment: This is when a person craves closeness and worries about losing this. They will be hypervigilant, noticing tiny changes in tone or behaviour. If someone pulls back, they might reach out more, seeking reassurance. If they are under stress, they can feel easily rejected or unsure of themselves. This style is shaped by inconsistent caregiving. Avoidant attachment: This is when a person values independence and becomes uncomfortable with emotional intensity. They often deal with feelings alone, and when things get heavy, they may pull back to reset. A partner’s need for closeness can feel like pressure. This comes from early experiences where self-reliance felt safer than depending on others. Disorganised (fearful-avoidant) attachment: This is when a person swings between anxious and avoidant behaviours. They want connection but also fear being hurt. They may reach out and then retreat quickly. This style often comes from early environments that felt unsafe or unpredictable. Defence mechanisms Defence mechanisms are unconscious coping mechanisms that keep our psyche safe. These are perfectly valid ways of keeping us mentally secure. Challenges arise when they begin to get in the way of everyday activities and our relationships. Let’s explore the main ones and what these might look like in a classroom setting: Denial: This is when a person pretends something painful isn’t happening. For example, a young person may simply say that they are “fine” when it is clear from their body language that they are not. Repression: This is when a person buries distressing memories or feelings so deeply that they are not aware of them. This is perhaps more challenging to observe in a classroom setting. Signs of repression can sometimes be seen when a young person’s behaviour appears to have been triggered by something where the connection is not very apparent. It can also be apparent in a person if they have difficulty recalling a particularly traumatic experience. Projection: This is when a person sees their own uncomfortable feelings in someone else. For example, a teacher could feel angry with a colleague but is unable to accept these feelings, and so thinks that the colleague is angry with them. Displacement: This is when a person takes their feelings out on a safer target. For example, if a young person trips over a chair leg in the classroom, then they may kick the chair, blaming the chair for the experience rather than accepting the pain, surprise, and embarrassment they are feeling. The chair is a safe target for these emotions. Regression: This is when a person may begin to act younger than their age. In schools, young people are already teenagers, but a person may observe tantrum-like outbursts more closely related to toddler behaviour. Reaction formation: This is when a person may act the opposite of how they are feeling in order to mask the emotions. For example, a young person may be overly nice to someone whom they do not like. Intellectualisation: This is when a person focuses on the facts in order to avoid emotional pain. For example, if two individuals in the classroom have fallen out with each other, one of them may view this as a practical problem rather than acknowledge the hurt experienced. Sublimation: This is when a person channels difficult feelings into something constructive. For example, a young person who is angry at being bullied may channel that energy into a creative anti-bullying campaign in the school. This is often considered to be a healthy form of defence. Compartmentalisation: This is when a person may keep different parts of their life separate so that they do not clash emotionally. For example, a young person may have a difficult and unstable home life and will keep this separate from school life, which is a haven and wherein they can thrive. Every classroom has an emotional climate Seeing the classroom through a psychodynamic lens can really make a difference to how we see behaviour and respond to it. It is important to remember that some classroom environments contain over thirty individuals, each with their own unique “operating systems,” attachment styles, and defence mechanisms. Thinking about the emotional climate in this way helps us to become more aware of the unconscious processes that are working away in the background, beneath the surface. This can help the teacher to modify their approach to the young people in order to focus on connection rather than behaviour management. When the classroom becomes an emotionally secure environment, everybody thrives. Going back to attachment theory, a secure base is an experience of stability, security, and predictability. If a classroom routine is regularly maintained with clear boundaries, then young people will feel safe and secure enough to grow and learn. A sense of belonging is the foundation upon which learning can begin. So what can this look like in the classroom? If a young person is upset and emotionally dysregulated, then the first step is containment. This means that the teacher can hold the emotions presented by the student. Holding means being aware of the impact that these emotions have on the teacher as well as the young person. Containment leads to acceptance, and co-regulation of emotions can begin. The goal of the teacher is to create an environment in which the student can begin to self-regulate their emotions. When the teacher becomes part of the story Having an emotionally secure classroom is the goal, but how do we reach that point? What happens when you have that one class that you dread every week, where certain young people “push our buttons”? For example, a pupil could be constantly talking over you when you are addressing the class. This may cause a feeling of anger towards the pupil, as it may trigger feelings of disrespect or “not being heard”. This is where a psychodynamic perspective comes into its own. Knowing about unconscious processes, attachment, and defence mechanisms is really helpful for understanding the pupils, but it also shines a light on our own emotional processes. When one of our buttons is pushed, unconscious processes are being activated, resulting in responses that can be unhelpful. The key to bringing the unconscious into our consciousness is self-reflection and reflective practice. If we are aware of our emotional responses to a particular situation, then we can become less reactive and more responsive to the young people. We need to ask ourselves, “What is this young person making me feel, and why?” A different way of seeing behaviour With all this in mind, the psychodynamic lens helps us to see pupil behaviour differently. We are able to respond differently in a way that supports the young person. For example, if a pupil is angry, we can wonder about what the anger might be protecting. If a pupil has the reputation of “class clown,” then we can see the humour as a self-defence mechanism. If one pupil is particularly quiet in the class, perhaps they are withdrawing as a form of self-protection. If another pupil is deeply affected by losing just one mark in a test, then we may see perfectionism as a form of anxiety. In all these cases, when the teacher changes their perspective, we begin to see behaviour as a communication of something deeper. Five questions every teacher can ask Here are five straightforward questions that you can ask yourself if you are in the teaching role: What might a pupil’s behaviour be communicating? What has happened to this young person? What emotional need might sit underneath this behaviour? How am I feeling in response? What relationship does this pupil need from me today? By answering these questions, a practitioner can become more reflective and build a lasting, successful connection with the young people in their classroom. Final thoughts: Changing the lens builds connection By experiencing, learning, and improving my teaching practice over the last twenty years, I am hopeful about the future of education in high schools. I can see that teachers today are much more psychologically aware than in the past, and this, together with greater self-awareness, can only be a positive force in education. Psychodynamic thinking is less about analysing pupils in school and more about cultivating curiosity, compassion, and reflective practice. In Scottish secondary schools, where relationships are central to learning, adopting this lens can shift the focus from asking “What's wrong with this young person?” to “What might they be trying to tell us?” Psychodynamic thinking is not a luxury but a necessity in modern education. When educators learn to look beneath behaviour, they don't simply manage classrooms more effectively, they create spaces where young people feel understood, safe enough to learn, and able to thrive. Connection is key. You can find out more about the work that I do in this area here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Edmund McKillop Edmund McKillop, Counsellor and Psychotherapist After studying philosophy and theology, Edmund McKillop trained to be a high school teacher. Early in his career, he became curious about the emotional interactions in the classroom and their effect on the educational experience. This led to a study of psychodynamic counselling. Fast forward twenty years, and Edmund now runs his own successful private practice and consultation service, using his unique skills and experience to transform the lives of individuals and enhance business and education performance.

Written by Rita Farruggia, CEO & Founder of Happy Being Well Rita Farruggia is the CEO and Founder of Happy Being Well, a platform dedicated to awakening a billion people globally to the power of self-love and daily spiritual practices. Through her mission, she teaches others how to reprogram their subconscious, align with universal truths, and incorporate self-care rituals into everyday life for greater personal transformation. What if you could pause the noise of your everyday life long enough to see yourself, not as you are today, but as the person you're becoming? The future can feel abstract. Your goals may be clear one day and completely buried beneath work, relationships, responsibilities, uncertainty, and self-doubt the next. But psychological research suggests that the way we relate to our future self may matter more than we realize. Researchers refer to this concept as future-self continuity: the degree to which we experience our future self as connected to who we are today. Research has linked stronger future-self continuity with differences in decision-making, motivation, intentions, behavior, and aspects of psychological and physical health. That raises an interesting question, "What happens when you intentionally create a stronger connection with the person you're becoming?" What is future-self connection? Every person has a present self and an imagined future self. Your future self might be the person who has finally started the business you've been thinking about, completed a degree, developed healthier habits, left an unfulfilling situation, built stronger relationships, become more confident, or simply learned to live differently. But sometimes that future person can feel like a stranger. Psychological research suggests that when people perceive their future selves as more similar, vivid, realistic, and connected to their present selves, they may be more willing to make choices today that benefit them later. In other words, the future becomes easier to care about when it feels like it belongs to you. 1. Connecting with your future self can bring long-term goals into the present One of the biggest challenges with long-term goals is that the rewards often feel far away. Saving money today doesn't feel as immediately rewarding as spending it. Going for a workout may be less appealing than staying on the couch. Working on a difficult project may not provide the immediate gratification of scrolling through your phone. Future-self research explores what happens when people feel more psychologically connected to the person who will experience those future consequences. A review by psychologist Hal Hershfield found that when the future self is perceived as more connected, vivid, realistic, and positive, people can become more willing to make choices today that benefit them in the future. That doesn't mean thinking about your future automatically guarantees better decisions. Rather, it suggests that how you mentally represent your future self can influence how you approach decisions in the present. 2. Future-self connection may support healthier behaviors One particularly interesting study examined future-self continuity in the context of health. Participants were asked to write a letter to themselves either three months or 20 years into the future. Those whose connection with their distant future self was strengthened subsequently exercised more in the days following the writing exercise. That's especially interesting because it demonstrates something important, "You don't necessarily have to completely change your life to begin engaging with your future self." A simple writing exercise can be enough to create a measurable shift in how connected someone feels to their future self, and in that study, greater exercise behavior followed. Other research has also examined the relationship between future-self continuity and health behaviors. One study of 344 adults found that, among people experiencing body dissatisfaction and negative affect, stronger future-self continuity was associated with greater engagement in healthy behaviors. These findings are promising, but they shouldn't be interpreted as proof that future-self exercises will produce health improvements for everyone. Research in this area is still developing. 3. Your future self can give you a different perspective Your present self is living inside today's circumstances. You're experiencing today's emotions, today's problems, today's uncertainty, and today's decisions. Your imagined future self gives you an opportunity to step outside of that immediate perspective. You might ask: What will matter to me five years from now? What am I currently tolerating that my future self wouldn't? What would the version of me who has accomplished this goal want me to know today? What decision would move me closer to the life I actually want? These questions don't predict the future. Instead, they create an opportunity for reflection and perspective-taking. And newer research continues to investigate whether structured exercises that make the future self more vivid can strengthen future-self continuity and support behaviors aligned with personal values. A 2026 study, for example, found that a text-based “day preconstruction” exercise reliably increased future-self continuity across its studies; one study also found an increase in valued living over one week. 4. Connecting with your future self can help clarify what you actually want There's another part of the process that can be easy to overlook. Sometimes the most valuable part of imagining your future isn't imagining the outcome. It's asking why you want it. Do you want the career, or the freedom you believe it will give you? Do you want the relationship, or the feeling of being deeply understood? Do you want financial success, or security, choice, and independence? Do you want to become more confident, or do you want to stop allowing fear to make your decisions? Future-self reflection can create space to explore these questions. That matters because goals become more meaningful when they are connected to your personal values rather than simply borrowed from what society, family, social media, or other people tell you that you should want. 5. Writing to your future self can make the future feel more vivid Writing is one way people have long used imagination and reflection to explore their future. Instead of simply thinking, "Someday I want my life to be different," you can write from the perspective of the person who is already living that future. What does that person know? What did they learn? What choices did they make? What did they stop worrying about? What would they tell you not to give up on? The act of putting those ideas into words forces an otherwise abstract future to become more concrete. Importantly, you don't have to believe that you can literally predict your future for this exercise to be meaningful. The value can come from the perspective-taking itself. What if your future self could write back? This is the idea behind Future You Letters. Most future-self exercises ask you to write to your future self. Future You Letters turns that idea around. Instead, you receive a physical letter written from the perspective of the person you're becoming. But it isn't a generic motivational letter. When you order a Personalized Future You Letter, you first answer a series of thoughtful questions about yourself. Your responses can include your values, goals, dreams, desires, challenges, relationships, beliefs, current circumstances, and vision for the future. Those answers become the foundation for creating a letter specifically for you. The finished letter is written from the perspective of your future self and mailed to your physical mailbox. The purpose isn't to predict what will happen. It's to create a personalized reflection of the future you're working toward. Why make it a physical letter? There's something different about receiving a physical piece of mail created specifically for you. You aren't opening another notification. You aren't scrolling past another motivational quote. You're holding an envelope. You open it. You read words written around your life, your goals, your challenges, and your vision. Then you can keep the letter and return to it. That physical ritual is an important part of what Future You Letters is designed to create: a tangible reminder of the person you're becoming. Your future self isn't a prediction Perhaps the most important distinction is this, "A Future You Letter doesn't claim to know exactly what your future will look like." Your future isn't predetermined. Your circumstances can change. Your goals can evolve. You can change your mind. The letter is instead an imaginative and reflective exercise, one that asks you to consider your future through the lens of your own values, desires, challenges, and aspirations. Research on future-self continuity gives us a reason to be interested in that connection. That's what makes the idea so interesting. You're not trying to magically become your future self overnight. You're simply giving yourself a chance to see that person more clearly. Your future self starts with the choices you make today The person you're becoming isn't created someday in the distant future. They're being shaped by what you do today. The decisions you make. The habits you build. The boundaries you set. The risks you take. The goals you pursue. The things you decide are worth your time. Connecting with your future self can be one way to bring that longer-term perspective into the present. Sometimes, a letter can be the reminder that makes you stop, reflect, and ask, “What would the person I'm becoming want me to do next?” That's the question at the heart of Future You Letters. "Most people write to their future self. Future You Letters lets your future self write back." Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Rita Farruggia Rita Farruggia, CEO & Founder of HappyBeingWell Rita Farruggia is the CEO and Founder of Happy Being Well, with the mission of being the 1 Self-Care Community in the world. Her mission is to awaken a billion people globally to their love while teaching them how to love themselves, reprogram their subconscious, align with truth, universal laws, and create a daily spiritual practice that involves self-care practices. Happy Being Well offers the tools/products, education, and inspiration to use in our daily spiritual & self-care practice. Rita believes a daily spiritual practice is not limited to yoga and/or meditation. The truth is, when we are manually cleaning our dishes, we often go into a trance. This is also a form of meditation. Rita believes our personal hygiene (self-care) and home cleaning sessions can also be our spiritual practices. Self-care and spiritual practices changed Rita's life and increased her ability to love herself.

Written by Alexandra Bronckaers, Independent Journalist Alexandra Bronckaers, an independent journalist who blends fashion, technology, and culture into sharp, contemporary storytelling. Moving seamlessly from entertainment television to print publishing, she now writes globally on beauty-tech and the trends shaping creative industries. There was a time when buying second-hand clothes was mostly a matter of necessity. You stepped into a thrift store to spend less, rummaged through endless racks and, with a little luck, walked out with a perfectly wearable jacket for a fraction of its original price. Those days are over. Today, walk into a second-hand boutique in Copenhagen, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam or Berlin, and you might stumble upon a Balenciaga jacket from a long-gone collection, a perfectly worn-in pair of vintage Levi’s, an Isabel Marant dress worn twice, a 1990s bag or a coat with its original tags still attached. Second-hand has become desirable. More importantly, its status has changed. We no longer buy pre-owned simply because it is cheaper. We buy second-hand because it feels more individual, smarter, more responsible. Sometimes, quite simply, because it is cooler. The numbers confirm that what was once considered a trend has become a serious market. According to ThredUp’s 2026 Resale Report, conducted with GlobalData, the global second-hand apparel market could reach $393 billion by 2030 and grow at roughly twice the rate of the overall apparel market. In the United States, the second-hand market grew nearly four times faster than traditional clothing retail in 2025. More than 70% of the growth expected through 2030 is projected to be driven by Millennials and Gen Z. Second-hand is no longer a small alternative market orbiting the fashion industry. It is starting to take a piece of it. The luxury of paying less The first reason is obvious: price. Buying pre-owned gives us access to brands, fabrics, and levels of quality we might not be able, or simply no longer be willing, to pay full price for. “Second-hand” no longer necessarily means “old clothes.” Our wardrobes are full of shopping mistakes: something bought one size too small, a dress purchased for an evening and never worn, a jacket we adored in the fitting room only to forget about it for six months in the back of a closet. Some pieces therefore enter the resale market virtually new. Sometimes, the tags are still attached. So why pay full retail when the same piece, or almost the same, is sitting a few streets away for considerably less? The dopamine of the find But price doesn’t explain everything. Traditional retail struggles to replicate something: serendipity. Walking into a second-hand store means never knowing exactly what you'll find. An extraordinary size 38, naturally, when you are a 36. A bag you haven’t seen in ten years. A dress from a collection you thought had disappeared forever. Every now and then, the gem. The one you have been searching for for months. The one that is no longer made. The one nobody else is likely to be wearing at the next party. It is treasure hunting, fashion edition. In a world where the same collections circulate from Stockholm to Madrid and Paris to New York, second-hand offers a luxury that has become surprisingly rare: not looking exactly like everyone else. Vintage's spectacular comeback is only amplifying the phenomenon. The 1990s and 2000s have reclaimed wardrobes and social media feeds alike. So why buy a copy of a 1998 jacket today when you might just find the original? A store, but above all, an eye This is also what makes physical stores relevant again. Online platforms democratized second-hand fashion. But the best boutiques have something else to sell: a point of view. Curation. The owner becomes retailer, buyer, stylist, and sometimes an unofficial personal shopper. In a small town or neighbourhood, she knows her customers. She knows one is looking for beautiful Italian labels, another loves bohemian pieces, while a third will never resist a great early 2000s bag. So she doesn’t accept everything people bring in. She selects what fits her universe, and her customers’. Ultimately, a great second-hand boutique looks less and less like a thrift store. It looks like the person who created it. The new concept store Some are taking the idea much further. Vintage clothing, contemporary second-hand pieces, jewelry, books, ceramics, curated furniture, and worlds begin to overlap. In one corner, a few armchairs and a tiny bar: matcha, cappuccino, a slice of cake. You came in to look at a jacket. You stay another twenty minutes. Shopping meets lifestyle. The boutique becomes an atmosphere, almost an informal little club. A place where people share not only a certain way of dressing, but also a way of consuming, and sometimes, a way of looking at the world. In smaller towns, that sense of community can become even stronger. One customer drops off a skirt she no longer wears. A few days later, another woman from the neighbourhood buys it. The boutique no longer simply circulates clothes. It circulates them within a community. Green is the new black Of course, you can't talk about second-hand fashion without talking about sustainability. Extending the life of what already exists rather than systematically producing something new makes sense. Behind something as simple as a pair of jeans lies a far greater environmental footprint than most of us imagine. According to the European Environment Agency, average textile consumption in the European Union rose from 17 kilograms per person in 2019 to 19 kilograms in 2022, the equivalent of a large suitcase filled with new textiles every year. Producing the clothes, shoes and household textiles purchased by Europeans that year required around 234 million tonnes of raw materials and 5.3 billion cubic metres of so-called “blue water”, surface water and groundwater. Around 85% of that water consumption takes place outside Europe, particularly in regions where fibres are produced and textiles manufactured. Growing, manufacturing, dyeing, washing, treating, transporting: a new garment has an environmental story long before it ever reaches the rack. Wearing existing clothes longer, reusing them, repairing them, and putting them back into circulation are therefore among the measures the European Environment Agency has identified to reduce the sector’s footprint. But second-hand isn’t an environmental free pass either. Buying ten pre-owned pieces you don’t need isn’t necessarily more virtuous than buying one beautiful new piece and wearing it for fifteen years. Perhaps the real revolution isn’t simply about moving from new to pre-owned. It’s about moving from consuming more to consuming better. A generation that wants something else Young consumers have understood this perfectly. Price matters. So does the environment. But rarity, the story behind a piece, and the ability to express an individual sense of style have become just as important. Social media is accelerating the movement even further. According to the 2026 Resale Report, nearly half of the second-hand consumers surveyed now discover their next pieces through social media, content creators, and influencers rather than through traditional search. The paradox is delicious. The internet has homogenized fashion on a scale we have never seen before. Partly thanks to the internet, an entire generation is now searching for what everybody else doesn’t have. Fashion comes full circle Second-hand once picked up the clothes fashion no longer wanted. Today, fashion is watching second-hand. Platforms are becoming more professional. Boutiques are turning into concept stores. Major brands are developing their own resale programmes. Clothes once considered outdated are becoming desirable precisely because they have disappeared. But one thing remains that no algorithm can perfectly reproduce. Walking into a little boutique without looking for anything in particular. Sliding a few hangers along the rail. Stopping. Going back two hangers, and seeing it. The right label. The right cut. The right size. From a collection that disappeared eight years ago. No one promised it would be there, and that is precisely why you want it. Visit my website for more info! Read more from Alexandra Bronckaers Alexandra Bronckaers, Independent Journalist Alexandra Bronckaers is a widely recognized independent journalist, former editor-in-chief and publisher, with 30+ years of expertise across fashion, beauty-tech, art, culture, and lifestyle. Her work blends sharp analysis with modern storytelling, exploring innovation, creative shifts, and industry transformation. Working internationally, she highlights the leaders, creators, disruptors, and cultural forces reshaping our era.

Oleksandr Matsiuk is the founder and CEO of RiseGuide, a microlearning app that has been downloaded more than a million times and offers expert-led, human-written lessons built on the experiences of role models. Before RiseGuide, he led growth at the venture builder SKELAR and built and sold Trible, which taught him that a product can’t be built for everyone and that you have to commit to a specific audience. Having seen startups as an investor, growth operator, and founder, he looks beyond the idea itself to how well the founder, the team, and the environment fit together. He also believes that as AI fills the internet with content, accountable human expertise will only become more valuable. In this interview, Oleksandr shares what he has learned about product-market fit, competing for attention without addictive tricks, keeping a lean builder culture, and turning potential into action. Oleksandr Matsiuk, Founder and CEO of RiseGuide What did you see in the way people approach self-improvement that convinced you RiseGuide needed to exist? There are two approaches to self-improvement I’ve always believed in, and they were never combined in one product. The first is learning through people. We trust people more than brands or institutions, so when a trusted expert shares their insights, or the content is based on the insights of our role models, we want to engage with it. The second is microlearning, which fits 2026 well, because attention spans are short and people want knowledge that is quick and interactive. No product brought these two together. That struck me as a very big gap, both as a business opportunity and because people were missing out on something that genuinely helps them. That was the thinking behind RiseGuide, and these two approaches are the ones that help over a million people who downloaded our app. How has seeing startups as an investor, growth operator, and founder changed the way you judge whether an idea is worth pursuing? I no longer judge an idea on its own. What matters more is the match between the founder and the idea, and between the idea and the environment it is built in, because execution counts for more than the idea itself. And execution depends on the founder, the team, and where they are based. Location is a real constraint. Capital-intensive businesses are harder to build from Eastern Europe, where capital is scarcer, than from the United States. B2B SaaS is easier from English-speaking markets, where there are more companies and more connections to draw on. So the question I ask now is not just how strong the business model, product, and market are, and how much the team and its location help them actually execute. What did building and selling Trible teach you about product-market fit that you now treat as non-negotiable? The lesson I treat as non-negotiable is that you cannot build a product for everyone. One-size-fits-all does not reach product-market fit. You have to choose a specific audience and build for them as well as you can. With Trible, we tried to serve too many groups at once, and we only found product-market fit once we committed to a specific audience. We carry the same discipline into RiseGuide when we choose course topics. However promising a new trend looks, we only pursue it if it genuinely fits the audience we already serve and our human-first, expert-led approach. As AI makes information almost unlimited, why do you believe curated expert knowledge becomes more valuable? Experts stake their reputation on what they say, so they are accountable for being right. A language model is not. It feels nothing when it is wrong, and no one is responsible for the answer it gives. That accountability is what makes expert knowledge more trustworthy. It also makes it more valuable over time, because the internet is filling up with AI-generated content, increasingly produced by AI trained on other AI. There is a well-known idea called the dead internet theory, which argues that most online activity is bots talking to bots. It comes with some conspiracy, but it does have real grounding. And the more content is generated by AI, the more valuable real human knowledge becomes. Large platforms see this too. Meta, for example, has said it will prioritize human-made content because it is more valuable to users. That is why our lessons are written by humans and are based on role models' experience and real expert insights. Can self-improvement products compete with social platforms for attention without copying the same addictive mechanics? This is very hard, and to be honest, I don't have a final answer yet. In some ways it is an unfair fight. But something similar happened when newspapers arrived. People traded books for faster, more up-to-date information, and critics called it low quality, but over time even literature adopted those faster formats to stay relevant. So I would reframe the question. The mechanics that make social platforms engaging are not bad in themselves. What matters is the content you put behind them. Used to deliver something valuable, those same mechanics are perfectly fine. We are still working out how to do it well, but the mechanics are not the problem. What have you learned about turning passive scrolling into learning that people actually practice and apply? Our answer is variety. We ensure that back-to-back lessons always use different formats. One centers on reading, the next on short videos, and another on practice, with tools, simulators, or a small-talk game. Mixing the formats keeps the experience fresh, and that novelty is part of what keeps people going. We also make the material interactive rather than passive. Instead of a long page you simply scroll through, there are flip cards, spoilers, and questions built into the content, and even a video, which runs four minutes at most, can pause partway to ask you something. That mix of variety and interactivity is how we turn passive scrolling into active learning. How do you protect a builder culture as a company grows without creating unnecessary bureaucracy? We keep teams small. The company grows by creating more teams, rather than by increasing the size of each individual team. We follow Amazon's two-pizza rule: a team is the right size when two pizzas can feed it. Small teams are autonomous and get most of their work done internally, so they need very little bureaucracy and rarely depend on other teams to move forward. A side effect I like is that each team develops its own methods and approaches to work. Even teams within the same department, e.g., different marketing teams, work in noticeably distinct ways, with their own rhythms and checkpoint agendas. You often learn through biographies and other people's experiences. What makes a lesson from someone else's life worth applying to your own? You can learn from almost anyone, as long as you weigh it against your own situation. What matters is not whether you share someone's values but whether their experience is relevant to you at this specific point in time. If someone is driven by money and that is not your goal, their lessons may simply not apply, though that does not make them any less valuable in themselves. The right starting point is to understand your own goal, then see whether it lines up with theirs. It also helps to learn from people unlike you, so you are not only hearing from those you already agree with. I experienced this with a colleague whose background was the opposite of mine. He was a natural salesperson and relationship-builder where I was more of an analytic who relied on data and pure logic rather than charm, and I disagreed with his methods at first. But his approach worked; we came to respect each other, and I became far more of a people person because of him. What is one principle you believe people should follow if they want to turn more of their potential into action? You need to act more. As Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Most people are held back by the fear of failing, often because they feel unready, and that feeling is worth accepting rather than fighting. Here comes the Peter principle: people tend to rise to their level of incompetence. Each time you are promoted, you start out unready, because you earned the role through the previous one, not the new one. Becoming a manager for the first time is the classic case: you are promoted for being a strong individual contributor, not for the skills you have yet to build. That does not mean you should avoid it. Being unready is normal, and the only way through it is to try. Connect with Oleksandr on LinkedIn and discover more about RiseGuide.

Written by Kenneth J. Breniman, Grief Guide & Mindfully Mortal Therapist Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga therapist, and thanatologist guiding fellow mindful mortals at the threshold of life, death, devotion, and (r)evolution. His work blends neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration to invite braver ways of being human. On October 1, 2026, the first anniversary of Dr. Jane Goodall’s death, I find myself wondering what it means to inherit hope. We can rewatch Famous Last Words: Dr. Jane Goodall, celebrate her extraordinary life, and feel reassured that someone so compassionate once walked among us. But remembrance presents a more demanding, Mary Oliver-esque question, "What will each of us do with the life still available to us?" I never met Jane, yet she has been one of my precious teachers. Long before I knew words such as primatology, thanatology, or the Anthropocene, she helped me recognize something I already sensed, the distance between humans and other animals was never as great as we imagined. Humans have reached toward this realization for centuries, Jesus prayed “that they may all be one,” Buddhism teaches interbeing, Hindu wisdom offers Tat Tvam Asi, “Thou art That,” and Frankie Beverly sang it with R&B heart, We Are One. Dr. Goodall saw sentient individuals where others saw creature specimens. Her work helped generations recognize that chimpanzees did not need to become more human to deserve our care, we needed to become humble enough to recognize the complex social lives that dwell among the forests. Jane has now been gone a year. Eventually, I will die too. So will you. Many species sharing this planet with us may disappear. That is not nihilism. It is mortality. Personal death awareness strips away one of our favorite hiding places, later. Later I will speak honestly. Later I will repair the relationship. Later I will protect what I love. Later I will become the person I suspect I already am. The Anthropocene is making “later” an increasingly expensive place to store our good intentions. So, on Jane Goodall’s death anniversary, I am coming out again. Who you calling an ape? I first came out as a gay man at seventeen, though I knew much earlier that I was “different.” Publicly acknowledging my queerness taught me something I have never forgotten, naming who you are does not create who you are. Coming out is a lifelong process. Forty years later, I care to share something else I know. I experience myself as a chimp soul living in a human body. I sometimes think of this as my transspecies coming-out. I am not making a biological claim or asking science to certify my soul. It is simply the most honest language I have found for something deeply personal and spiritual. In kindergarten, I collected chimpanzee pictures, perched on bookshelves, ate bananas, and felt something deeper than fascination. Something in me recognized something in them. Adulthood supplied plenty of respectable identities. None canceled the chimp. I just kept my soul caged and safely hidden. An earlier version of me might have spent paragraphs making everyone comfortable with this revelation, or Ru-velation. Mortality has changed my ape-proach. I no longer feel much need to audition my soul before an imaginary committee. I know who I am. I hope my coming-out makes you curious about who you are. My Ru-velation is partly an affectionate nod to RuPaul Andre Charles, whose work reminds us that becoming ourselves can include celebration, humor, glamour, and self-love rather than shame. “Know thyself” is one of humanity’s oldest invitations, yet many of us spend more time reacting outward than listening inward. Beneath all our social costuming waits a quieter question, "Who am I when I am no longer performing for bananas?" My chimp soul is one answer. The point is self-awareness. Transspecies edutainment Popular culture has long invited us across the human-animal boundary. With ape-reciation to Robbie Williams, Better Man reminds us that a simian self can mirror the human one. His Dark Materials gives humans animal-shaped dæmons, The Animal Kingdom asks what happens when transformation is feared, and Nimona celebrates fluidity without treating it as something to cure. Second Nature brings us out of metaphor and back into a scientific, evidence-based reality, where biological and behavioral diversity complicates tidy categories. None proves my chimp soul, these films and this documentary simply widen what we imagine identity can be. Evolving in real time Jane’s teachings invite us to question the fantasy that evolution lifted us out of nature. We are animals. We are primates. We are great apes. Yet we speak about “animals” as though the word excludes us and “nature” as though it were somewhere we visit, or something we must tame, manage, or escape. The Anthropocene confronts us with an uncomfortable truth, we have become powerful enough to leave a planetary imprint while remaining reluctant to accept responsibility for it. When I speak of (r)evolution now, I am asking whether we can evolve culturally, psychologically, and ethically in real time. Can intelligence mature into wisdom? Can privilege mature into responsibility? Can grief become purposeful action? Urgency does not mean we should panic. It is a call to action and a reminder to live more deliberately, love more consciously, and act while action is still possible. Kinship has consequences Calling myself a chimp soul does not allow me to escape humanity. It makes my human responsibilities harder to ignore. This white male body has opened doors for me. My queerness has taught me something about exclusion, but it does not erase my privileges elsewhere. Self-knowledge without humility can become another mask or closet. I call myself an Empathic Commoner, someone trying to remain awake and responsive to the shared world without imagining a spiritual VIP lounge above it. Sometimes self-knowledge asks whether our surroundings still allow us to remain ourselves. James Baldwin left America for Paris in 1948 under circumstances profoundly different from mine. What I take from Baldwin is not equivalence, but permission to ask, "What environment allows me to remain truthful enough to do my work?" My answer, for now, is Borneo. At Matang Wildlife Centre, some of the clearest lessons were gloriously unglamorous, preparing enrichment, shoveling ape shit, and working beside local people whose responsibilities continued after I flew home. The sanctuary orangutans did not ask for my résumé, but some were receptive to my gifts, singing bowls and books. The humans caring for them needed me to listen, learn, serve, and give more than I took. A plane ticket changes geography, ethical and culturally attuned conduct determines contribution. The Anthropocene and the evolution of hope Dr. Goodall knew her final recorded words would reach us after she was gone. She chose not despair, but a charge, “Don’t lose hope.” Even at the end of her life, Jane was asking us to participate, not for her, but for the good of all. I want to honor my teacher’s legacy without turning hope into a museum piece, preserved behind glass and admired from a safe distance. Some species will disappear. Ecosystems will become unfamiliar. The world we know is already changing. Our work begins by sitting honestly with what is, grieving what cannot be restored, acting where our care can still make a difference, and cultivating the wisdom to know the difference. I refuse to pretend everything will be fine. Sometimes my chimp soul has no inspirational quote to offer, it answers the enormity with an anguished pant-hoot. But I also refuse despair’s seductive conclusion that because we cannot prevent every loss, nothing we do matters. There is enormous territory between denial and despair. That is where Neo-Hope lives. Neo-Hope is a kind of (r)evolving Serenity Prayer, acceptance without surrender, action without illusion, and care without requiring certainty about the ending. Inward: Know yourself. Onward: Take purposeful action. Upward: Care for the whole. Neo-Hope makes room for grief because grief tells us what we have loved. What it refuses to do is let grief calcify the heart. Dr. Goodall is gone, care remains Death does not end a relationship. A teacher we never met can shape our choices. Eventually, the teacher leaves the room, and the students discover whether they were actually listening. Perhaps we are all Jane Goodall now, not because any of us can replace her, but because noticing, questioning, protecting, and caring belong to those of us who remain. For me, Neo-Hope has taken form in Subversive Acts of Humanity and Primates, Privilege & Possibility, two ways I am turning reflection into purposeful action. Those are my offerings. Yours will take a different form, as they should. Evolution does not require sameness. It demands coexistence. Dr. Goodall spent her life paying attention and, in the end, asked us not simply to inherit her hope, but to pay it forward. Perhaps the most faithful way to honor her is to keep that hope alive enough to evolve through us. Jane is gone. We are still here. What will we do with the life still available to us? Follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Kenneth J. Breniman Kenneth J. Breniman, Grief Guide & Mindfully Mortal Therapist Ken Breniman is a queer author, licensed clinical social worker, certified yoga therapist, and thanatologist whose work lives at the intersection of mortality, meaning, and transformation. Drawing from neuroscience, primatology, Celtic wisdom, and psychedelic integration, he challenges the myth of human exceptionalism while honoring the precious role each of us plays in the ongoing evolution of our species. Ken is the author of a three-body solution and subversive acts of humanity, and the creator of the See-Soul children’s grief literacy series. Through writing, teaching, and ritual-informed practice, he guides mindful mortals toward deeper humility, resilience, and collective becoming.

Written by Lindy Lelij, Founder of Mpowerme Coaching Lindy Lelij is the founder of Mpowerme Coaching. With more than 30 years of leadership and international experience, she helps people navigate migration, cultural transitions, and identity to thrive personally and professionally. A few weeks ago, I returned to New Zealand after spending two wonderful months travelling through Europe. Three and a bit of those weeks were spent in the Netherlands, catching up with family and old friends and once again immersing myself in the country where I grew up and lived until I was 42. I still call the Netherlands home. But I also call New Zealand home. It has taken me a surprisingly long time to be able to say both without feeling that somehow I should choose between them. For many years, every trip to the Netherlands brought the same mixture of emotions. I would be excited about going home and then dread the inevitable goodbyes when it was time to leave again. I kept telling myself that surely, with time, it would become easier. It didn't. At least, not for a long time. Looking back now, I think I understand why. The belonging I never realised I had When I immigrated to New Zealand 23 years ago, I didn't just leave a country. I left behind 42 years of accumulated belonging. My closest relationships had entered my life at various stages, but there was something sitting underneath them that I had never really thought about. We had grown from the same cultural soil. We shared language, humour, cultural references, and ways of communicating that rarely needed explaining. My friends and family knew where I came from. They knew earlier versions of me and, perhaps most importantly, I knew that I was "one of us." There was enormous emotional safety in that. I just didn't realise it because I had never lived without it. This wasn't my first experience of living abroad. In my early twenties, I lived and worked for around eight months in Italy. But that experience felt different. I always knew I would return to the Netherlands. Home remained clearly defined and close enough that, if circumstances required it, I could get on a train or plane and return. New Zealand was different. At 42, I wasn't temporarily living somewhere else. I had immigrated with my kids in tow, and I didn't know where that decision would ultimately take us. When your cultural foundation travels with you As I left the Netherlands, my friends and family there continued to develop personally and professionally, just as I did. Careers changed. Families grew. Life happened. But my own development was now taking place within another cultural context. I was still Lindy, carrying the same history, values, and cultural upbringing with me. But as I continued developing as a mother, later a grandmother, in my career, and simply as a person, I was doing so in a society whose cultural codes I was still learning. I made friends, built relationships, and developed a professional life. Yet something felt different. My Dutch cultural foundation hadn't disappeared. It had travelled with me. What was missing was the everyday familiarity of living among people who instinctively understood that foundation because they had grown from much of the same cultural soil. I know of something similar my mother told me when I was growing up. My Dutch mother, who was married to my Kiwi father, spoke fluent English. Yet when things became challenging, English sometimes wasn't enough. She needed her Dutch language to truly express what she was feeling. We would joke about it, but I understand it differently now. I also notice it myself when Dutch friends here in New Zealand remind me of an old Dutch saying. Its meaning can easily be explained in English, and most people would understand it. But hearing those familiar words does something more. They carry humour, memories, and a way of looking at life that was around us when we were growing up. Perhaps that is one of the quieter ways culture lives within us. Some things can be understood across cultures but are felt differently by those raised within the same culture. I think that was part of what I had been missing. When home became a choice During my early return visits to the Netherlands, stepping back into my old world was relatively easy. Only a few years had passed, and I still felt very much like the Lindy who had boarded that plane to New Zealand. But as more years passed, my yearning for the Netherlands became stronger. Around seven or eight years after immigrating, I increasingly felt that I needed to decide where I should live. Which country made me happiest? Where did I feel most understood? Which lifestyle suited me better? Where did I really belong? New Zealand on one side. The Netherlands on the other. Pros and cons... I thought eventually one country would win, but instead, I felt increasingly stuck in that battle. By then, New Zealand wasn't simply the country I had moved to anymore. My family, friendships, professional experiences, and memories were accumulating here too. I was developing roots even while questioning whether they were deep enough. Looking back, I can see that I had been comparing two very different timelines. In the Netherlands, my sense of belonging had been developing for well over four decades. In New Zealand, I was expecting relationships, community, and cultural familiarity to provide that same sense of safety in just a fraction of the time. It couldn't, of course, and perhaps more importantly, it didn't need to. Another kind of belonging was already growing New Zealand couldn't give me the cultural familiarity I had known in the Netherlands, and, without realising it, I was using that familiarity as my measure of what belonging should feel like. Neither did New Zealand recreate my Dutch sense of belonging. Instead, I was developing another one. That notion took me years to recognise. I hadn't arrived in New Zealand empty-handed, waiting to become someone new. I had arrived with a lifetime of memories, experience, and expertise, as well as fears, dreams, and hopes for what this new life might become. For a long time, part of the journey was about fitting in, learning how things worked here, finding my place, establishing myself professionally, and building new relationships. But somewhere along the way, belonging stopped being about fitting in. New Zealand had shaped me, but I had also brought myself to New Zealand. I had made my mark here, and life here had made its mark on me. My belonging here didn't need to recreate what I already had. It developed as I did. Going home in both directions I felt that again during this recent trip. After three and a half wonderful weeks in the Netherlands, saying goodbye still hurt. I suspect it always will. But I wasn't abandoning one part of myself in order to return to another. Somehow, it felt easier. I was going home in both directions. I wonder how many immigrants unknowingly compare a lifetime of belonging in one country with the much younger roots they are growing somewhere else. So, if you have immigrated and still find yourself wondering where "home" really is, I would like to leave you with two questions, "When you say you are going home, which direction are you travelling?" Perhaps the harder one, "Are you asking your new home to give you a sense of belonging that took a lifetime to build somewhere else?" Your answers may be completely different from mine, but perhaps home isn't always asking us to choose. If you are navigating your own questions around identity, belonging, and finding your place after immigration, I would love to explore them with you. Visit MPowerMe Coaching to book a complimentary discovery call. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Lindy Lelij Lindy Lelij, Founder of Mpowerme Coaching With Māori and European heritage, Lindy knows firsthand what it means to live between cultures. She spent over four decades abroad before returning “home” to Aotearoa New Zealand. Today, as founder of Mpowerme Coaching, Lindy helps people navigate migration, cultural transition, and identity. Through positive psychology, deep journaling, energetic tuning, and narrative reframing, Lindy offers clients practical tools for growth and resilience. Backed by more than 30 years of leadership, governance, and business experience across Health, governance, and international trade, she brings both professional expertise and lived wisdom to her work.

Written by Sarah Frustié, Ecotherapist, Forest Guide, Nature Retreat Facilitator & Holistic Counselor Sarah Frustié is an ecotherapist, forest guide, nature retreat facilitator, and holistic counselor working between Australia and France. Through nature-based practices, she supports people in caring professions to navigate burnout, ease chronic stress, and reconnect with the Earth. We live in a time of heavy stress, overwhelm, disconnection from ourselves and others, and ecological uncertainty. Many of us feel it in our bodies through anxiety, depressive symptoms, and chronic stress. The truth is, there is no right or wrong. We all experience and feel differently. Living in this fast-paced, capitalist, modern world is not easy. Hard-to-feel emotions can arise. Some people feel big emotions. Others feel numb or feel “nothing.” Some feel anger. Some feel extreme sadness. Some feel fear. Some feel grief. Some feel the full spectrum of emotions. This is when nature therapy is, for me, the best way to navigate those emotions and regulate the body. On top of offering one-to-one outdoor counselling and forest bathing sessions, I also offer more immersive experiences such as nature retreats. Over four to five days, we experience a range of emotions and nature-based practices in a group setting, reconnecting with ourselves and others, honouring the Earth, and feeling what needs to be felt. This is where The Work That Reconnects, developed by Joanna Macy, comes into play. My nature retreats in France and in the Adelaide Hills are inspired by this work. What is The Work That Reconnects? According to Joanna Macy, “The Work That Reconnects helps people around the world discover and experience their innate connections with each other and the self-healing powers of the web of life, transforming despair and overwhelm into inspired, collaborative action.” The Work That Reconnects (WTR) was developed by American teacher and environmental activist Joanna Macy. It is a practice that helps us reconnect with ourselves, the community, and Mother Earth. The Work That Reconnects is based on the following theories: Systems thinking Deep ecology Deep time Ancient and enduring spiritual traditions It recognises that we are living through a time of great ecological and social change. It also recognises that we may experience difficult emotions because of what is happening in the world. Simply put, the Earth suffers, so do we. The work does not ask us to push these emotions away. Instead, it invites us to feel them. At the heart of the practice is The Spiral, which moves through four stages: Gratitude: We begin by noticing what is here. The people, the Earth, our lives, our bodies, the small things that still bring us joy. Honouring our pain for the world: We make space for grief, anger, fear, and sadness. We do not need to fix these feelings. We simply allow ourselves to acknowledge them. Seeing with new/ancient eyes: We begin to see ourselves and our perception differently. We remember that we are not separate from nature. We are part of it. Going forth: From this place of reconnection and with the community, we ask ourselves, "What can I do? Where can I begin? How can we move forward?" Why do we need to feel? We often live in a culture that encourages us to move on quickly. Be positive. Keep going. Stay productive. Look on the bright side. But some emotions cannot simply be pushed away. Ecological grief is one example. We may grieve the loss of forests, species, landscapes, or a future we once imagined, and we are allowed to do so. We may feel overwhelmed by the size of the problems around us. There is no need to carry all of this alone. Feeling does not mean we are powerless. Sometimes, feeling is the beginning of connection. From individual healing to belonging In my work, I often hear questions such as, “What can I do?” “Where do I even start?” The Work That Reconnects invites us to move from “I am separate from nature” towards “I am nature. I am part of the ecosystem.” We are not separate from the Earth. We belong to it. From this place, action can become possible. Coming together in nature Every year, I facilitate a nature retreat in France inspired by The Work That Reconnects by Joanna Macy. For several days, we slow down. We spend time outdoors. We share stories. We listen. We create. We feel. There is laughter, tears, contemplation, stillness, movement, and silence. There is space for all of it. Being together in nature reminds us that we are not alone in what we feel. Something changes when difficult emotions are witnessed and held by a group. We begin to remember that our wellbeing is connected to the wellbeing of the wider living world. A path back to the Earth Reconnection is about remembering something that has always been there. We are part of the Earth. We are nature. So today, I am asking you, "What is one small step I can take to reconnect with my home, the Earth?" If you’re ready to slow down, reconnect with your wild self, and explore nature's healing benefits, I offer a free 20-minute phone call to start your path. Visit my website or email me here. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for more info! Read more from Sarah Frustié Sarah Frustié, Ecotherapist, Forest Guide, Nature Retreat Facilitator, & Holistic Counselor Sarah Frustié is a bilingual ecotherapist, holistic counselor, and forest guide based in the Adelaide Hills and France. She supports people in caring professions to navigate burnout, release chronic stress and anxiety, and reconnect with themselves through nature-based practices, forest bathing, and guided nature and meditation retreats. With a deep belief in the healing power of the natural world, Sarah blends mindfulness, eco-psychology, trauma-informed, and whole-person approaches to create safe and sacred experiences. She is the founder of Sarah Frustié Therapy, where every session is an invitation to slow down, breathe, and connect with the living world.

Written by Franziska Ursula Stalder, Holistic Trauma-Informed Coach & Hypnotherapist Franziska Ursula Stalder is a Swiss trauma-informed coach, hypnotherapist and spiritual mentor. Through her practice FeritaS, a holistic wellbeing space near Bern, she guides children, adolescents and adults back to inner connection, safety and clarity using hypnotherapy, mental coaching, systemic constellations and gentle energy-based therapies. A deep sense of longing, loneliness, or not fully belonging can remain even when life looks successful and connected from the outside. For some, exploring the possibility of a lost twin can bring a new perspective on identity, relationships, emotional patterns, and the search for meaning. Do you know this feeling? You function, you perform, you are successful, you are surrounded by people, and yet this quiet question remains, "Why do I feel lonely? Where is the meaning?" I knew this feeling This deep longing. A loneliness that is there, no matter how many people are around me. A feeling of, "Am I in the right place?" I don't belong here. Searching for something, and I didn't know what for. Plus the question, "Do they need me here?" Only through my son and the resulting systemic and mediumistic trainings was I allowed to understand that I started in my mother's womb as a triplet. Only I came into this world. My son experienced the same. He also had a lost twin in my womb. Through this realization, my life suddenly made sense, and I found meaning through working through it. Around one in ten people are not alone in the mother's womb at the beginning of pregnancy. If twins are in the uterus and one dies, it can be a huge shock for the survivor, who is later no longer conscious. This may shape the lives of those affected. Tormenting longing, loneliness, inexplicable guilt, and unhappy relationships can be the result. Lost twins or multiples may say goodbye during the first weeks of pregnancy and therefore may not be detected via ultrasound. After birth, a veil of forgetting falls over everything we experienced before, but the body does not forget. Perhaps you were not alone at the beginning in your mother's womb. You can feel your brother or sister. You hear his or her heart beating, and you move together and play in the oceans of amniotic fluid. One day, the other stops growing. His heart gets weaker, and he dies. Then you are alone. This is also how the book Das Drama im Mutterleib by Austermann describes it, which at that time gave me words for my feelings. A hole remains in the soul. Today, I also accompany people who had to experience the same fate, from longing, guilt, grief, and loneliness towards themselves, peace, and joy of life. How it shows up in life and why we don't fully arrive My experience shows that people affected by this early experience often have not fully arrived here in their bodies. Something still pulls the soul home because the connection to the twin or multiples has not been clarified. In my work, I experience that this early experience can show up in very different patterns, for example, as great restlessness, which is often associated in the outside world with labels like colicky baby, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), or as a search for limits and extremes. Not as a diagnosis or medical cause, but as an expression of a system that has not yet been allowed to fully arrive here because a part is missing. We are always searching, but we don't know what for. Our children are never the problem, they are our mirror My son showed me that. He always hid behind. He didn't want to show himself. In daycare and kindergarten, he didn't find his place. He therefore acted as an entertainer, as the class clown. He let everything be done to him until he couldn't do it anymore and exploded emotionally. Emotional regulation was a challenge. Here lies the most important key to my work. The challenges that show up with children, especially children up to about 14 or 15 years old, can be approached so simply through the parents. The children are never the problem. They are our mirror. In my case, for example, I had already experienced the same phenomenon, knew nothing about it, and through looking at my son, I was able to discover this story, heal myself, and lead myself out of the deep longing and eternal searching. By looking at myself, I was allowed to bring healing not only to him, but also to myself. That is exactly what I experience in my accompaniment. When parents come into their own connection, into their own self-love and embodiment, the children also find their place, all by themselves. Your Lotus Path: Where this topic belongs At feritas.ch, this path is anchored in my Lotus Path. Self-love means you don't have to earn your right to exist. You are allowed to be here. Whole. Even without your twin. Vitality means your nervous system is allowed to learn that it is safe to fully arrive in the body. Connection means you are allowed to live closeness without losing yourself. It's not about getting rid of the twin. It's about giving him his rightful place in love. An open heart for research Since lost twins may leave so early, they may not be detected on ultrasound. Perhaps examinations of the placenta after birth could provide more insight here. I am open to studies on this if a doctor or gynecologist would like to support me. If you recognize yourself in these lines, I want to tell you, you are not broken. You just loved very early and lost very early, and you are allowed to fully arrive here now. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info. Read more from Franziska Ursula Stalder Franziska Ursula Stalder, Holistic Trauma-Informed Coach & Hypnotherapist Franziska Stalder is a trauma-informed coach, hypnotherapist and spiritual mentor from Switzerland. As the founder of FeritaS, a practice for holistic wellbeing near Bern, she supports children, adolescents and adults who feel overwhelmed, disconnected or shaped by early stress and trauma. After years of working with families and deep training in hypnotherapy, mental coaching and systemic work, she developed a gentle yet powerful way to guide people back to inner safety, self-trust and clarity. She believes that every person already carries the key to their own development and helps activate the inner resources needed for their true potential to unfold. Her mission is healing through love and reconnection.

Written by Tiffany Julie, High-Performance Coach Tiffany Julie is a Performance Coach, 7-figure entrepreneur, and Founder of the Success On Purpose Podcast. Through her transformative coaching programs, she helps clients unlock their potential and achieve extraordinary success. She's been featured in Forbes, Yahoo, and The London Times as a Top Business and Performance Coach to follow. One of the easiest mistakes to make as an entrepreneur is assuming that what is happening in your business today was created by what you are doing today. In reality, many of the results showing up in your business right now were set in motion weeks or even months ago. The client who signs today may have first discovered you six months ago. The referral that lands in your inbox may have originated from a relationship you spent years developing. The sales conversation happening this week may be the result of prospecting you did 60 days ago. The opposite is also true. The prospecting you stop doing today probably will not hurt you today. Revenue may continue coming in, your calendar may remain full, and your pipeline may still look healthy. The consequences often do not become visible until much later. I think of this as the 90-day revenue lag. After building multiple seven-figure companies and coaching entrepreneurs through different stages of growth, I have learned that understanding this lag is critical for creating more predictable, sustainable growth. But understanding the lag is only the beginning. The real opportunity is learning how to trace your results backward, identify the activities creating them, diagnose what is limiting growth, and build systems around what works. That is the purpose of what I call the 90-Day Revenue Audit. When a pipeline problem is not really a pipeline problem I was recently coaching a successful entrepreneur who was frustrated with his pipeline. His business had grown tremendously, his sales conversion had improved, and he had strengthened his team and systems. Yet suddenly, his pipeline did not look the way he wanted it to. The natural reaction was to look for something to fix. Was the marketing no longer working? Did he need a different strategy or another source of leads? Instead, I asked him to look backward. What had been happening 60 to 90 days earlier? He had welcomed a new baby and intentionally taken significant time away from the business. During that period, his prospecting activity declined considerably. What he was experiencing now was the downstream effect. But looking backward revealed something else. The strategy worked when he was actively executing it, but there was not enough infrastructure around it to keep generating opportunities when he stepped away. That distinction matters. The answer was not necessarily to find a new marketing strategy. It was to recognize what had created the decline and strengthen the system around an activity that was already producing results. Before changing the strategy, understand what created the result. The revenue roller coaster The 90-day lag can become particularly dangerous when business is going well. An entrepreneur spends months marketing, prospecting, following up, and creating demand. The pipeline fills, sales increase, and new clients come in. Success then creates a new demand on the business, fulfillment. As attention shifts toward serving those clients, the activities responsible for generating them can begin to decline. At first, nothing appears wrong because the business is still benefiting from earlier activity. Several months later, the pipeline softens, and marketing suddenly becomes urgent again. What appears to be a lead-generation problem may actually be a systems problem. The question is no longer simply, “How do we get more leads?” A better question is, “How do we make sure the activities responsible for creating opportunities continue happening when the business gets busy?” This is where the 90-Day Revenue Audit becomes useful. The 90-Day Revenue Audit The 90-Day Revenue Audit is designed to help you look beyond the results showing up today and understand what created them. Rather than reacting to a change in revenue or pipeline, you work backward to identify the activities driving the result, diagnose the real constraint, and determine what needs to happen consistently to support future growth. Here is how to work through it. 1. Trace today’s result backward Start with the specific result you are trying to understand. Perhaps revenue declined, the pipeline softened, lead volume increased, sales conversion changed, or the company experienced a record month. Then look backward 30, 60, and 90 days. What was happening in the business before the result appeared? Consider marketing activity, prospecting volume, sales conversations, follow-up, referral activity, advertising, content, partnerships, staffing changes, and even periods when you intentionally stepped away from the business. The purpose is not to find something to blame. It is to establish cause and effect. This exercise is equally important when things are going well. Entrepreneurs are often quick to investigate disappointing results but rarely investigate success with the same rigor. If you just had a record month, ask what created it and whether those activities are still happening today. If you do not understand what created your success, you can unknowingly stop doing the very things responsible for it. 2. Find what actually created the result Once you have traced the result backward, identify the inputs most closely connected to producing it. Inputs are the actions and activities you can control that contribute to future revenue. Depending on your business model, these might include outbound prospecting, follow-up activity, advertising spend and campaign activity, content creation and distribution, referral outreach, networking, email marketing, or partnership development. You do not need to track everything. You need to understand which activities have a meaningful relationship with the outcomes you care about. For example, if your strongest sales periods consistently follow periods of high prospecting activity, that tells you something about the relationship between that input and future revenue. If consistent referral outreach produces more qualified introductions, that reveals another relationship. If increasing advertising activity generates more leads but revenue does not increase, the constraint may exist further downstream in the sales process. The objective is to stop managing the company solely by today's visible results and begin understanding the inputs that contribute to tomorrow's results. 3. Diagnose the real constraint Once you understand what has been happening, the next step is to identify what type of problem you actually have. I generally look at four potential growth constraints, volume, conversion, execution, and infrastructure. A volume constraint means there are not enough qualified opportunities entering the pipeline. A conversion constraint means opportunities exist, but too few are becoming customers. An execution constraint occurs when the strategy works, but the activities required to make it work are not happening consistently. An infrastructure constraint exists when an activity produces results but depends too heavily on the owner or individual team members rather than on a repeatable system. This distinction can save entrepreneurs considerable time, money, and energy. If you have a volume problem and spend the next month rewriting a sales process that already converts well, you may be optimizing something that is not limiting growth. If you have an execution problem and respond by purchasing another marketing strategy, you have added complexity without addressing why the existing strategy is not being implemented consistently. Likewise, if you have an infrastructure problem and respond by telling yourself to be more disciplined, you may temporarily increase activity while leaving the company vulnerable to the exact same problem in the future. You cannot solve the right problem until you have identified the right constraint. 4. Turn successful activity into a system Once you know what works, the next question is whether the business can reliably repeat it. This is where I encourage entrepreneurs to examine successful activities through five lenses, documentation, scheduling, delegation, automation, and measurement. If referrals consistently generate excellent clients but you only ask for referrals when you remember, there is an opportunity to create a process around referral generation. If follow-up produces sales but leads only receive follow-up when someone has extra time, the business needs a stronger follow-up system. If content generates opportunities but publishing stops every time fulfillment gets busy, the business has not yet created a consistent marketing rhythm. If something works but only happens when you remember to do it or have extra time to do it, you have not built a system yet. Early in a business, the entrepreneur often is the system. You remember the leads, make the calls, follow up, market, sell, and notice when something needs attention. Growth eventually exposes the limitations of that model. The goal is not to become better at remembering everything. The goal is to build a company that increasingly does not require you to. 5. Catch the problem before it reaches revenue Revenue is a lagging indicator. By the time revenue tells you there is a problem, the activity responsible for that problem may have changed months earlier. But tracking leading indicators alone is not enough. You also need to understand the inputs creating them. For example, prospecting activity is an input, while the qualified opportunities it generates are an indicator. Follow-up activity is an input, while the sales conversations created from that follow-up are an indicator. Looking at both gives you a clearer picture of what is happening in the business and why. If sales conversations decline and prospecting activity also declined, you may have an execution problem rather than a strategy problem. If prospecting remained consistent but sales conversations declined, the issue may be elsewhere, such as targeting, messaging, or conversion. This is why I encourage entrepreneurs to identify a small number of critical inputs alongside the leading indicators they are expected to produce. Instead of waiting for revenue to tell you something has changed, you can recognize the shift much earlier and determine where it started. The better you understand the relationship between your inputs, indicators, and eventual outcomes, the less reactive your business becomes. You are not simply measuring what happened. You are paying attention to what is creating what happens next. Is it a business problem or a performance problem? There is another layer to this that numbers alone cannot always reveal. After years of building companies and coaching entrepreneurs, I have learned that you cannot always separate the performance of the business from the performance of the person leading it. A pipeline problem may be strategic, operational, or behavioral. Sometimes the marketing needs to change. Other times, the strategy is sound, but the owner has stopped executing it consistently. A team problem may require better systems, or the systems may already exist and the leader is not holding people accountable to them. A sales problem may require a stronger process, or the process may be effective while pressure, fear, or uncertainty has changed how the entrepreneur is showing up in sales conversations. This distinction matters. If you only coach the person, you can miss the business problem. If you only look at the business, you can miss the human behavior creating it. This is why my approach to coaching entrepreneurs combines high performance with business strategy. Sometimes we need to work on identity, leadership, decision-making, capacity, or the ability to navigate pressure. Other times, we need to open up the business and look directly at the numbers, pipeline, marketing, sales process, team, and systems. Sometimes the breakthrough is internal. Sometimes it is strategic. Sometimes it is operational. Very often, it is a combination of all three. Put the 90-Day Revenue Audit into practice The value of a framework comes from using it. Set aside time to review your business and work through these questions: What is happening with revenue or your revenue pipeline right now that you want to better understand? What was happening 30, 60, and 90 days before this result appeared? Which activities were consistently generating qualified opportunities and contributing to revenue during that period? Which of those revenue-producing activities increased, decreased, or stopped? Is the primary constraint affecting revenue volume, conversion, execution, or infrastructure? Which activities responsible for generating future revenue still depend too heavily on you? What could be documented, scheduled, delegated, automated, or measured to make those activities more consistent? Which three to five critical inputs drive future revenue in your business, and which indicators should those inputs produce? Are those inputs happening consistently today, and are the indicators responding as expected? If nothing changes and you continue operating exactly as you are today, where is your revenue likely to be 90 days from now? Entrepreneurs frequently focus on the revenue they want to create while overlooking the behavior already shaping what comes next. What will today's actions produce 90 days from now? The purpose of the 90-Day Revenue Audit is not simply to explain what happened in your business. It is to help you make better decisions about what happens next. Once you understand which inputs create your results, where your current constraint exists, and which successful activities need stronger systems around them, you can stop reacting to every change in revenue as though something has suddenly gone wrong. Instead, you can lead the business with a clearer understanding of cause and effect. Before changing your strategy because you do not like today's numbers, look backward. Trace the result, identify the inputs, diagnose the constraint, systematize what works, and monitor the inputs and indicators that tell you what may be coming next. The revenue showing up 90 days from now is being shaped by what is happening in your business today. The more clearly you understand that relationship, the earlier you can recognize what needs your attention and make intentional decisions about what happens next. If you are a successful entrepreneur who knows there is another level available in your business, I invite you to book a consultation with me. Together, we'll look at where your business is today, where you want to take it, and what may need to change in your strategy, systems, leadership, or performance to help you get there. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! Read more from Tiffany Julie Tiffany Julie, High-Performance Coach Tiffany Julie is a leading high-performance coach, 7+ figure entrepreneur, and creator of the Results Mastery Formula. Through this proven framework, she helps ambitious leaders reprogram their minds, master performance habits, and amplify their magnetism to create extraordinary success. Her expertise has been featured in Forbes and Yahoo Finance, and she has been recognized as a top business and performance coach by The London Times, LA Weekly, and the Coach Foundation.