Clarity Paves the Way For Confidence, Courage and Curiosity

Today is my birthday, and instead of balloons or cake, I wanted to give you a gift: a story. My story. The truth of why I do this work, why I show up for you here, and why I believe clarity can change everything.

Because there was a time I thought that if I just did all the right things, worked hard, showed up with integrity, I could make the kind of impact I longed for. But what I ran into was a system that cared more about protecting itself than doing what was right.

I experienced betrayal from peers who were afraid for their own safety. I carried moral distress, burnout, disillusionment. And in that dark season, I made a vow: never again would I be intimidated, sidelined, or silenced.

Pivot to purpose
That vow became a turning point. It shifted my mission.
I decided that I would rise—and help others rise.
I decided to use my voice—and help others find theirs.
I decided to get clear—and guide others into clarity too.

Because clarity is where it begins. When you know who you are, what you stand for, and what you’re here to bring into the world—your confidence grows, your courage strengthens, and your curiosity opens new doors.

 (the 4 C’s)
That’s the heart of what I want to share with you today:

• Clarity: knowing who you are and where you’re going.
• Confidence: trusting yourself to take the next step.
• Courage: acting even when fear is loud.
• Curiosity: staying open to growth, new ideas, and possibility.

When you have those four working together, you can’t help but move forward.

(birthday gift to listeners)
So here’s my birthday invitation to you: don’t just listen to my story—step into your own.

You can join me in my upcoming Clarity Workshop, where I’ll walk you through a simple science-backed framework to break out of overthinking and step into aligned action. If you can’t make the workshop, download the free Clarity Guide I created—it’s my gift to you today.

Because your life isn’t waiting for “someday.” The clarity you crave is available right now. And with it—you’ll rise with confidence, lead with courage, and live with curiosity.

(anchored in mission)
This is my vow, and my invitation: may you never again be silenced, sidelined, or stuck. May you rise into the extraordinary life you were created for—with clarity, confidence, courage, and curiosity.

Transcript

0:59

Welcome to another extraordinary week. I'm so honored to be on this journey with you. I am getting ready for a birthday. September is my birthday month, and when this podcast publishes, it will actually be the day of my birthday. And you probably know this as Labor Day, This year, labor Day falls on my birthday, and I will be celebrating in Chicago. I'm so excited about that. hope that you have. had a great weekend and that you're doing something special today. And if you're listening to this, in another time, this message hopefully will be a little timeless, but instead of balloons or a cake or throwing a party, I'm going to give you a gift and it's a story. My story. It's the truth of why I do this work and why I show up for you here and why I believe clarity can change everything. And if I'm quite honest, one of my goals was to take the podcast to this birthday. And then reevaluate. And I've done some rebranding and I, hired some help to see if I can create a little more engagement and make this even a better experience for me and for you. please let me know what you think of this. I would be, for my birthday, I'm gonna ask you to leave a review. Tell me what you think. Maybe email me and let me know what you're learning, what you want to learn, what you'd like more of. I know that I'd like to have more guests because I think those are fun to do, and I love to hear from people who are out there defaulting to their extraordinary self and making things happen, and I'd love to bring that to you that we can celebrate more of that. I have some of that planned as well. But for years, I believed that if I just did all the right things, if I worked hard and I showed up with integrity and poured myself into service, that I could make the impact that I longed for. I believed that. I struggled with that. If something good happened, I needed to work to leverage it. And I would think one good thing would L lead to another. And I knew that momentum, you had to be intentional for that. And I knew that to make an impact. or to make a significant contribution, that extraordinary effort would be involved in that. Regardless, it's not what happened. I encountered a pattern of betrayal and I found myself silenced and sidelined in more than one place. In my experience with the church, I tried to serve and lead, and I felt then just almost set aside by a system that cared more About comfort than courage and doing the right thing as a nurse and an employee, I was taken down by structures that were more interested in protecting themselves than doing the right thing as a leader, under a leader. I even took the fall for someone else's lack of courage. All of those things began to chip at. My mission and the way I showed up in the world, the way I viewed how things would work, and over and over again, I experienced that same story. It led to moral distress and burnout and some disillusionment. Working through those seasons led me to, as someone who has experienced the pain of that and the disillusionment, the disappointment and all the feels of, of that, I made a vow. Never again would I be intimidated, sidelined, or silenced. We automatically default to some of those things for good reasons, Our brains are really good at keeping ourselves safe, it throws up that wall of resistance when something else comes to protect ourselves. From going through that pain again, going back to the vow, that vow became a turning point. It shifted my mission. I decided that I would rise and help others rise. I decided to use my voice and help others find theirs. I decided to get clear and guide others into clarity as well. because clarity is where it all begins, I'm going to walk you through four pillars that have become foundational to the way, a kind of framework in which I think, and the way I unpack these things, that when I face this resistance, I can keep my vow, because clarity is where it begins, from clarity flows, the other pillars that allow you to live fully. Confidence, courage, and curiosity. Clarity is more than a to-do list or a vision board. It's the deep knowing of who you are and what you value and where you're going. Without it, you drift. You react to life. Instead of directing it, you end up living someone else's script. For me, clarity meant. Realizing that purpose isn't something that you wait to find. It's something that you bring with you. It meant refusing to let systems or other people's fear define my story. We may not be able to control the reactions or the actions of others or how those systems operate, but we can create our, how we operate within them. When you have clarity, you stop chasing every opportunity and start discerning the right ones. You stop asking, what should I do? And you start asking, who do I want to be? And this goes to confidence. The second pillar, confidence isn't arrogance. It's not pretending that you never feel fear. confidence is the quiet trust that even if you don't know every step or how it's gonna turn out, you can take the next step. Think about this. Clarity gives you direction, but confidence gives you motion, and without it, you'll hesitate forever at the edge of the starting line. You'll always be getting ready to get ready to get ready to get ready. In my own life, confidence was learning to speak up even when it cost me. it was publishing my research, stepping on the stage. Leading workshops, starting this podcast. Every time I acted, my confidence grew. Not because I knew I wouldn't fail, but because I proved to myself that I could keep going even if I did. Confidence is a muscle and you build it by using it. There's a lot of resistance and that doesn't sound fun, but it just is the way it is, and you don't know the joy of getting stronger until you start to get stronger. Now courage is what makes clarity and confidence real because sooner or later you'll face a moment where fear shouts louder than vision. fear doesn't always shout really loud, and it's not always clear in its message. Fear can be kind of sneaky. And in that moment, courage is the choice to move anyway. Courage is messy. It doesn't always look heroic, and sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like setting a boundary. Sometimes it looks like finally saying no to the thing everyone else expects you to say yes to. I had to learn that. Courage doesn't mean the absence of fear. It means fear doesn't get the final word. I had to learn how to call fear my friend. And then there's curiosity. what keeps us from getting stuck? It's that openness to growth, to new possibilities, to the idea that your best chapter might still be ahead of you. That the next conversation may shift everything, that that next day might be the day that everything changes. Curiosity is what shifts the question from why me to, what can I learn from this? Or what does this make possible? It is what keeps you innovating and experimenting and reinventing? When I was at my lowest curiosity was what? Whispered, what if there's more? What if you're not finished yet? What if you really are meant for more? What if you haven't even begun to experience what you were created for? Curiosity is how you stay awake in your own life. when you put these four together, clarity and confidence and courage and curiosity, you create momentum. You rise above the noise, and you lead from vision, not fear, and you begin to live that extraordinary life that you were created for. here's my invitation to you. I wanna invite you to not just listen to my story, but to step into your own, and you can join me in a clarity workshop if to really unpack some of this, this is where I'll walk you through a simple science backed framework to break out of overthinking and stepping into aligned action. And if you can't make the workshop, you could download the Clarity guide that I created for you. It's my gift to you today, your life isn't waiting for someday. The clarity you crave is available right now. It is within you, I believe in you. I believe that if you're here and you're still listening, I don't take that for granted. That is not an accident. I believe that with that clarity, you will rise with confidence, lead with courage, and live with curiosity. This is my vow and my invitation. May you rise into the extraordinary life that you were created for with clarity, confidence, courage, and curiosity. As you get up every day and default to yes, your extraordinary self.