Some years start with crisp plans and fresh notebooks…and end with a pile of should’ves. Mine did. In 2017, right after publishing A Misfit Entrepreneur’s Guide to Building a Business Your Way , I mapped bold programs and growth goals. I was energized, clear, and ready. And then I wasn’t. A wave of unprocessed, complex trauma pulled me under. Tasks that used to be simple, sending a newsletter, attending a networking event, pitching a perspective client, felt like climbing a c

Many of us grew up with a single story about Thanksgiving - a harmonious feast celebrating the harvest between pilgrims and Native Americans filled with shared gratitude. We have traditions, gathering with friends and family to give thanks. That white-centric narrative leaves out another living truth. For Native peoples, Thanksgiving is a Day of Mourning rooted in profound loss, violence, and ongoing harm. If you’ve grown up believing one story of Thanksgiving, holding both o

In one of my recent coaching conversations, a leader described the entrenched behaviors on their team: gossiping, silos, and in-groups vs. out-groups. On the surface, it looked like toxicity. Underneath, it was something more primal—our wolf pack brain at work. The wolf pack brain (AKA the limbic system ) is constantly scanning for safety and belonging. It drives us to position ourselves in ways that help us survive in groups. And one of the predictable triggers it responds t

Lately, I’ve been fascinated by paradoxes—the tensions between what our human wiring tells us to do and what we actually need in order to...

I didn’t know it was wrong.   Because I thought it was normal. Growing up, there was a lot of arguing and yelling in my family. It was...

A few months ago, a mentor challenged me by asking, "When are you going to stop letting your Trauma define you, Ariana?" I back pedaled,...