Picture two spaces.

In one, a field kitchen bubbles over with life. Under a makeshift tent, pots clatter, onions hiss on a portable hot plate, and someone’s calling out, “We need more rice!” A neighbor who's just lost everything ladles soup for another who’s just walked miles through mud.

In the second space, a yoga studio, breath slows, shoulders drop, the air smells faintly of lavender, bodies move in a quiet synchronicity, finding flow after a day that was herky jerky at best.

Some people can build both kinds of spaces.

I’ve always been fascinated by what it takes to steady yourself when the world around you is in chaos. My guest today, Fiona Donovan, Vice President of Response Administration for World Central Kitchen, has built her career as a student of that very question.

WCK, a nonprofit founded by chef José Andrés, is famous for being first to the frontlines in times of crisis–hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, war zones–anywhere people are hungry and hurting. Their teams set up field kitchens that serve fresh, hot meals with dignity and heart.

Fiona leads those teams. She oversees global relief operations, coordinating thousands of volunteers, local chefs, and community partners to deliver nourishing food to people quickly.

Before joining WCK, she worked in international development and taught in the Peace Corps. She knows what it means to be in the field, boots muddy, adrenaline high, trying to make things better fast.

In our conversation, Fiona and I trace the thread between field kitchens and yoga studios, between cooking for hundreds and centering yourself for one slow breath. We talk about how to lead with listening, how to design trust before structure, and how to tell when your body’s in reactive mode versus responsive mode. And maybe most beautifully, how to come down from long seasons of urgency without losing your purpose.

Fiona’s story is what it looks like when compassion gets operationalized. So take a breath, soften your shoulders, and maybe imagine the smell of something delicious cooking.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• The practices and hobbies that Fiona has cultivated to ground herself as she transitions out of the field
• How the work of creating welcoming, safe spaces at WCK has translated into how Fiona approaches teaching yoga
• Why it’s so important for WCK to partner closely with communities when they’re responding to a disaster
• How Fiona approaches being responsive instead of reactive, for herself and her teams, even under immense pressure
• How WCK empowers its field leaders to make decisions during a crisis without getting hung up by perfectionism
• A simple, shared practice of what we’re currently grateful for

Learn more about Fiona Donovan:

• World Central Kitchen

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling, Stephen Cope

There are moments in life–many moments if we’re lucky–when we outgrow an old form. What once felt right starts to feel too small. Something inside insists: there’s more than this.

So the seed cracks. The old form gives way. And in that small rupture, something wild, something true begins to reach for the sun.

This episode is about those moments that pop us out of our own confines. The moments when the stories we’ve internalized–be helpful, hold it together, stay in the background–can no longer contain who we’re becoming.

My guest, Kriste Peoples, is a Boulder-based trail runner, writer, mindfulness teacher, and the Executive Director of Women’s Wilderness, where she helps women, girls, and nonbinary folks rediscover agency and belonging in nature.

I’m so excited for you to hear Kriste’s story about raising her hand to become Executive Director and what that moment stirred in her. In our conversation, she reminds us that becoming powerful isn’t about pushing harder; it’s about grounding deeper. And she offers some truly delicious wisdom about how to do just that.

Let’s learn what it means to shed what no longer fits so we can finally meet the sun.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why Kriste had to learn to protect breaks in her schedule herself and not rely on staff to do it for her
• How she called BS on her story of sticking to support roles and raised her hand for the role of Executive Director
• How a memory of literally jumping into the deep end helped Kriste recognize where she was bumping into internalized fears and limitations
• How Women’s Wilderness creates spaces for participants to meet their own personal edges without comparison or competition
• How Kriste is meeting her edges and modeling the culture and experience she wants to have at Women’s Wilderness

Learn more about Kriste Peoples:

• Women's Wilderness
• Kriste's Website
• Instagram: @kristepeoples

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

I was a shy and intense kid. The kind who always wants to sit at the grownups table instead of running around with the other kids.

But I noticed early on that my intensity could confuse or overwhelm others, so I learned how to be me more quietly. I poured my caring into outlets that wanted me there, like theater, writing, and my horse, who always understood me.

As an adult–at podiums, in boardrooms, and even alone on my yoga mat–I would feel words pressing at my ribs. There were things I wanted to say, wanted to ask about, to try articulating, but my earnestness got buttoned up under a well-honed, cool girl armor.

What if I showed my full self and it wasn't received? What if my passion made people uncomfortable?

I learned to modulate, because people love passion, just not when it's too much. And that voice–the good girl, the good boss, the earnest striver–worked. Until it felt like a compression vest.

Eventually, I realized that power that doesn't include caring for everyone in the room is not power I want. The bravest thing I could do wasn't to hold it all together. It was to let myself be seen caring.

Today, my guest, Samara Bay, and I imagine what a future could look like if more of us cared out loud. And because she is a coach and behavior geek like me, Samara offers us a delicious exercise that we can apply to our daily lives.

Samara Bay is a speech coach, author, and revolutionary voice in every sense of the word. If you haven't read her New York Times bestselling book, Permission to Speak, you're going to want to by the time our conversation is done. Samara is helping us reimagine what authority can sound like, what power can feel like, and how we can bring that into our daily practices.

Samara reminds us that giving ourselves permission to speak is not a surface level change, it's cultural transformation. We are quite literally changing the sound of power.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How internalized risk management patterns keep us from connecting and making a real impact
• How permission to speak creates paradigm-shifting opportunities for what power sounds like
• How rewriting the internal narrative about your audience changes how you show up
• Why we need to consistently practice speaking from connection instead of protection
• Why making our care and effort obvious matters for ourselves and our communities
• Three questions to ask yourself whenever you have an opportunity to speak

Learn more about Samara Bay:

• Permission Inc.
• Instagram: @samarabay
• Connect on LinkedIn

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity, Ruth Whippman
• Talk to Your Boys: 16 Conversations to Help Tweens and Teens Grow Into Confident, Caring Young Men, Joanna Schroeder, Christopher Pepper
• Building Joyful Reflective Practices with Sara Lawson

We are living in a world that currently feels unsettled, to say the least.

At best, people seem confused. At worst, frozen, or acting out. There is so much anger and uncertainty in the air.

One way I’m coping is by returning to art and story. Because here is what I know: Stories are more than entertainment.

They can be bids for understanding. They can be tests to see if you understand or even agree with another person. And for times like these, they can also be compasses that orient us when the world feels unmoored.

Since January, I’ve noticed myself reaching for historical fiction and speculative fiction as if story itself is a lifeline.

That’s what this first episode of season two is about: How story can hold us and help us make sense when the world we live in feels fractured.

I’ll share a few of the narratives that are nourishing me right now, and give you an exercise I use with clients when they’re ready to write a new story for their own lives.

This is also an introduction to our theme for season two: imagination. Over the coming weeks, you’ll hear from living sages, authors, educators, artists, and activists—people imagining new ways of being, and offering us tools to step into our own power.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Three narratives of agency, creativity, and community that offer fierce hope in the face of oppression and adversity
• A six-sentence exercise to write your own story of muscular hope
• How Emma Cote’s Pixar Story Spine can help us practice, and then live, with hope

To download the Story Spine Worksheet, click here.

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• Parable of the Sower, Octavia E Butler
• The Japanese Lover, Isabel Allende
• Harlem Rhapsody, Victoria Christopher Murray
• The Mars House, Natasha Pulley

Intuition can manifest as a sudden, sharp knowing or as a slowly dawning certainty.

Regardless of its speed, intuition carries a powerful sense of knowing, signaling us on a deep level, "Hey, pay attention. I have something to say."

Intuition is a powerful force rarely spoken about openly. And when it is talked about, intuition is often seen as a vague, almost mystical whisper rather than a credible guide.

What if embracing your intuition could lead you to tap into more of your power? What if, instead of dismissing odd symptoms or vivid dreams as mere quirks, you recognized them as valuable messages from your inner self and learned how to decode them?

What if you could refine your intuition so it becomes a helpful guide when you need it most?

Today, we’ll explore how we can reclaim this essential part of ourselves and recognize intuition not as a mystical or unreliable force, but as a skill that integrates our most profound wisdom into our everyday lives.

We’ll debunk two harmful myths about intuition and then I’ll guide you through an exercise to help you reclaim your wise, intuitive self.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How our cultural emphasis on rationality and logic disconnects us from our intuition from a young age
• Why intuition acts as a complement to, not a competitor of, data and logic
• How intuition reflects our experience and ability to recognize patterns in the world around us
• How we can compensate for implicit bias in our intuitive thinking
• How intuition helps our “emotional radar” and supports our relationships with others and ourselves
• A practice of listening to your yes and no to help you tune into your intuition

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Audre Lorde
• Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, Gary A. Klein
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell
• Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman
• Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Daniel Goleman
• The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings Are Trying to Tell You, Karla McLaren

This year, I’ve spent a lot of time feeling lost.

Since my layoff, I’ve been planting seeds and imagining myself into many new life shapes, wondering which seeds will take root.

This darkness can feel fruitful but can also be disorienting.

Recently, sitting in a coffee shop, feeling overwhelmed, a friend said to me, “You already know how to grow, even when you think you don’t.”

Could that be true? Deep down, is there a part of me that knows the way? Are we like acorns, carrying a quiet map, guiding our growth, even when the path seems obscured until we become an oak tree?

Can I tap into my intuition to help me through this challenging time?

Questions like these led me to ask today’s guest on the podcast.

Charlie Claire Burgess is a trans, nonbinary artist, author, and creator of tarot decks and I wanted to ask this excellent maker about their relationship to their inner life and intuition.

Charlie works at the intersection of tarot, spirituality, and queerness and is the author of Radical Tarot and the creator of the Fifth Spirit Tarot and Gay Marseille Tarot decks. Their second book, Queer Devotion: Spirituality Beyond the Binary in Myth, Story, and Practice, is forthcoming in 2025.

Whether you're new to tarot or not, Charlie's insights will inspire you to trust your intuition and take control of your journey of growth and power.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Charlie started coming back to their spirituality and embracing their true self after years of self-abandonment
• How tarot is a tool for externalizing thoughts and feelings to give them new awareness and perspective
• What Charlie had to unlearn about work to honor and support their creativity
• The practices that help Charlie ground in their spirituality
• How tarot can be an opportunity to create agency rather than using Tarot as a predictive tool
• Why following your intuition also means permitting yourself to screw up

Learn more about Charlie Claire Burgess:

• The Word Witch
• Instagram: @the.word.witch

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

After a recent bout of contending with my own perfectionism, I had a profound realization.

Perhaps calling myself a recovering perfectionist is incorrect.

Maybe my perfectionism isn’t something that I need to fix about myself. Perhaps the work is more about recognizing when I’m disconnected from my wise self and deploying the right tools to get back on track.

What if we’re all just perfectly imperfect works in progress? And what would it take for us to cultivate deep self-compassion when perfectionism shows up in our lives?

Today, I invite you to join me in this investigation of your perfectionism with a heart full of compassion for yourself and the messy, imperfect process we all go through.

Through mental rehearsal, or cognitive priming, I’ll lead you on a thought experiment designed to help you loosen your grip on perfectionism and move closer to right-sizing your effort.

This journey is about understanding and supporting yourself through the messy, imperfect process we all go through. (And how we can still get great results along the way!)

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Defining the spectrums of perfectionism and perfectionism’s underlying “promise”
• Differentiating between beneficial high standards and stress-inducing patterns and behaviors
• The benefits of mentally rehearsing a potential scenario
• A thought experiment to help you lower your internal bar and half-ass it

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• The Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale
• The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown
• The Perfection Trap: Embracing the Power of Good Enough, Thomas Curran
• The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control: A Path to Peace and Power, Katherine Morgan Schafler

Are you a perfectionist?

Has anyone referred to you that way before?

As a coach, I understand that the desire to “get it right” plagues most of us in some way. And these tendencies can be especially pernicious when working on something that matters to us a lot. The tug-of-war between our aspirations and our current level of skill or ability can stop us before we even really get started.

So when I came across writing instructor Amber Petty’s provocative invitation to half-ass your writing to manage the perfectionism demons, I had to know more.

In this episode we delve into Amber’s strategies for dealing with perfectionism, how she learned to reset her internal bar and “half-ass it,” and how this shift in mindset has not only transformed her career but also unleashed her creativity.

Amber Petty helps creatives say “yes” to their ideas, get bylines, and build audiences. After 13 years as a professional actor, Amber moved into freelance writing, working for the New York Times, Parade, Bustle, and more. She has also helped over 1000 students get bylines, start writing (for actual money), and begin newsletters to build a platform for their writing careers.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• How Amber has learned to question her inner critic and build real self-trust
• How she realized that giving 100% all the time wasn’t realistic or even desirable
• How she uses deadlines to “outrun” her perfectionist streak
• How Amber developed her confidence in her voice and point of view as she started her newsletter and business

Learn more about Amber Petty:

• Website
• Instagram: @ambernpetty

Learn more about Valerie Black:

• The Change Agency
• Becoming Power Newsletter
• Coaching

Resources:

• The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown