145. Verbal Sunshine: Encouragement as a Superpower for Leadership and Life

147. In a Chaotic World, the Deep Inner Work Has Never Been More Urgent with Amy Elizabeth Fox

For a long time, leadership was measured by how well we could perform under pressure, stay composed, and keep pushing through. But in a world that feels more chaotic, divided, and emotionally depleted than ever, I believe that model is breaking down. In this episode, I sit down with Amy Elizabeth Fox, CEO and co-founder of Mobius Executive Leadership and co-author with Nicholas Janni, of Leading in Chaos to explore why the inner life of a leader matters more now than ever. Amy shares what years of working with senior leaders have taught her about unresolved childhood wounds, emotional numbing, trauma, and the survival strategies that can quietly shape how we lead, relate, and make decisions. We talk about the insecure overachiever, the cost of carrying uncried tears, and why healing is not separate from leadership, but central to it. This conversation is an invitation to make peace with your past, extend more grace to yourself and others, and lead with more courage, wholeness, and emotional honesty. Because the old operating system of command and control is no longer enough. A braver, wiser, more humane kind of leadership is being asked of all of us. The Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mobius Executive Leadership Amy Elizabeth Fox, MA, is a leading expert in vertical development, transformational change and trauma informed consulting. Since 2005 she has led immersive executive leadership programs around the world and served as a pioneer in introducing healing into the field of organizational development. Get Leading in Chaos: https://amyelizabethfox.com/new-book-publication/ [https://amyelizabethfox.com/]

146. 5 Liberating Truths to Make Peace With Your Path and Purpose

Do you ever feel like you're off track, falling behind, or failing at this wild mystery tour we call life? The difficulties. The detours. The closed doors. The doubts and dreams that didn't survive contact with reality. The idealized "got it all together" version of yourself you thought you'd be by now… but clearly aren't. Let's face it: we're living in a time loaded with uncertainty — where plans feel fragile, the future impossible to read, and for many people, the gap between the life they have and the life they hoped for has never felt wider. So we do what humans do. We resist. We rail. We replay. We try to control the uncontrollable. And without meaning to, we add to our own suffering. Here's the paradox: it's through accepting that life is hard that it becomes less hard. Not giving up — but embracing life just as it is, with all its messiness and unanswered questions, so we can stop expending precious energy fighting what is and start finding what's possible within it. Because the struggle you're resisting right now holds something you haven't found yet. Purpose often lives not in the life we planned, but in what we do with the one we have. In this final solo episode of the series, I share five liberating truths — hard-won, not borrowed — to help you make peace with your problems and your path, and in doing so, live more purposefully within it. From the weight of self-doubt, to the labels that keep us small, to what it really means to be both more ambitious and more compassionate with yourself. Where you are right now is not the end of your story. It's part of how you're being shaped for it. The Courage Gap — Available on Amazon + independent bookstores https://margiewarrell.com/thecouragegap/ [https://margiewarrell.com/thecouragegap/] * The LinkedIn Course ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action [The LinkedIn Course ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action]

145. Verbal Sunshine: Encouragement as a Superpower for Leadership and Life

"I feel too encouraged," — said no one. Ever. Yet countless people are burdened with self-doubt. Which is why a few well-timed words of encouragement can make a profound difference. Encouragement isn't soft. It's a superpower - and research backs it up. In this episode, I explore why encouragement is like verbal sunshine and why giving it generously doesn't just lift the person receiving it, it transforms the person offering it too. I share the story of a new mother who nearly turned down the career opportunity of a lifetime until one phone call changed her mind, why one of America’s greatest CEO’s made encouragement a core leadership practice, and how speaking into who someone ‘can be’ - rather than their present fear -  can help them close the gap between where they are and where they're capable of going. If you want to be the kind of person others want to work with, work for, or just have more of in their life, this episode will remind you that you hold more power to impact others than you may sometimes think.  The Courage Gap — Available on Amazon + independent bookstores ⁠⁠https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Gap-Steps-Braver-Action/dp/1523007249⁠⁠ [https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Gap-Steps-Braver-Action/dp/1523007249] The LinkedIn Course ⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action [The LinkedIn Course ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action]

144. Beyond the Degree: Higher Education Must Disrupt or Decline — with Sharon Pickering, Vice-Chancellor of Monash University

We are not living through a period of change in higher education. We are living through a change of era — and while educational leaders see it coming, centuries of tradition run deep, anchoring them in place at the very moment bold action has never mattered more. As generative AI rewrites the rules of the workforce at breathtaking speed, a degree alone is no longer enough. The question facing every university leader today isn't whether disruption is coming - it's whether they'll have the courage to lead it, or be flattened by it. Sharon Pickering, Vice-Chancellor of Monash University - one of the world's top 50 and Australia's largest, with a growing global footprint - has the courage to say what others won't: the old educational models are broken, complacency is a slow death sentence, and imitation is the fastest route to irrelevance. In this conversation, Sharon makes the case for what higher education must become - and why getting there demands institutions to  disrupt themselves and dare to reinvent education for the 21st century. We explore what it really means to equip today's young learners for a world being remade in real time, why distinctiveness is a survival strategy and not a branding exercise, and why Monash's founding mission of social and technological transformation has never felt more urgent. If you care about the future of education, the leaders we're shaping, or what it takes to turn a bold vision into reality,  this one's for you. The Courage Gap — Available on Amazon + independent bookstores ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Gap-Steps-Braver-Action/dp/1523007249⁠ [https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Gap-Steps-Braver-Action/dp/1523007249] The LinkedIn Course ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action [The LinkedIn Course ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action]

143. Compare and Despair: How to Run Your Own Best Race

We live in a world that constantly invites comparison. Every time we pick up our devices, our newsfeeds flood us with curated images, updates, and highlights from everyone else’s lives. It’s designed to capture our attention—but all too often, it leaves us feeling “less than,” stoking insecurity and fueling endless comparisons. Comparison is human. Decades of research show it’s part of how we navigate the world. But when we measure our insides against other people’s outsides, or our weaknesses against their strengths, it drains our creativity, our energy, and our focus. It also shortchanges everyone else of what we might otherwise bring to the world (much less ourselves!) I’ve been there—more times than I care to admit. But over time, I’ve learned something powerful: no one else has your unique combination of talents, experiences, opportunities, passions, and hard-won wisdom. No one is positioned to make the impact you can make, right where you are. Your race. Your lane. Your pace. It’s time to stop scrolling, stop comparing, and start running your own best race. * Stop letting comparison steal your confidence. Learn how to bravely run your own race and close the gap between your doubts and your potential. The Courage Gap — Available on Amazon + independent bookstores https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Gap-Steps-Braver-Action/dp/1523007249 [https://www.amazon.com/Courage-Gap-Steps-Braver-Action/dp/1523007249] * The LinkedIn Course ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action [The LinkedIn Course ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/learning/activating-courage-transform-discomfort-into-bold-confident-action]