When “No” Becomes a Negotiation This past weekend, a dream came true. I taught the first—of what I hope will be many—self-defense classes for high school girls. While preparing, I came across a quote that landed hard: “When a man says ‘No,’ it’s the end of the conversation.When a woman says ‘No,’ it’s the beginning of a negotiation.” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Because that same dynamic shows up every day in the workplace. We spend an extraordinary amount of time navigating...

“Fear is the most expensive leadership strategy we never budget for.” While not captured on a P&L, the loss is real. More than $1 billion dollars is lost each year to fear-based leadership—through disengagement, burnout, turnover, and rumination. One of the biggest culprits? Unconscious cognitive load. There’s a scientific term for this: Perseverative Cognition—the repetitive mental replaying of worries, assumptions, stories, and imagined futures.Not the event itself, but the thinking about...

I recently learned a term that stopped me in my tracks: “Bliss Station.” Coined by Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, it refers to a sacred place—or time—where you intentionally disconnect from the noise of the world and reconnect with your deeper self. Campbell spoke about carving out this space unapologetically, slowing down enough to listen, reflect, and create. I want to put a small spin on this idea. My first job in a hospital placed me in a sterile room—four blank walls, little...