In this episode of Finding Your FIERCE, Jodi Vandenberg-Daves explores what it means to lead with courage inside systems that were never designed for women to thrive.

Drawing on her work as a historian, leadership coach, and author of Leading With Courage, Jodi unpacks how women navigate careers, leadership, and caregiving within institutions that reward conformity, undervalue emotional labor, and often demand resilience without support. She challenges the idea that leadership belongs only to titles, emphasizing values-driven leadership, voice, boundaries, and integrity at every stage of career.

The conversation highlights expansive leadership for women, asking hard questions, resisting burnout, mentoring across generations, and building inclusive workplaces and communities that don’t require women to shrink, overextend, or assimilate to succeed.

This episode is a powerful reminder that courage for women isn’t just personal—it’s structural, collective, and necessary for real change.

Links and Resources:

1. Dr. Carolyn Colleen Website
2. Join RESET: a free daily reset for clarity, calm, and intentional living.
3. Jodi on LinkedIn

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Finding Your Fierce? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review!

What if healing doesn’t come from fighting your way through grief but from accepting what is, one honest step at a time?

In this powerful episode of Finding Your Fierce, host Carolyn Colleen sits down with John DeDakis: award-winning novelist, writing coach, and former Senior Copy Editor for CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer to explore the quiet, courageous work of healing through loss.

John shares the pivotal moments that shaped his life: facing an existential crisis as a young man during the Vietnam War draft, choosing acceptance over resistance, and discovering only in hindsight that grief had been woven through his writing for decades. What began as storytelling became an unintentional path to healing, clarity, and purpose.

Together, Carolyn and John reflect on why healing is often gradual, why it’s only visible in the looking back, and how creative expression, whether through writing, art, or reflection, can help us process grief without forcing outcomes. This conversation reframes fierceness not as pushing harder, but as the strength to surrender, listen, and trust what’s unfolding.

If you’re navigating grief, transition, or a season of deep uncertainty, this episode offers a compassionate reminder: acceptance can be one of the fiercest acts of healing there is.

Links and Resources:

1. Dr. Carolyn Colleen Website
2. Join RESET: a free daily reset for clarity, calm, and intentional living.
3. John on LinkedIn
4. Upcoming Retreat with John DeDakis: Writing Through the Pain of Loss

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Finding Your Fierce? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review!

What if chronic pain isn’t just physical? In this deeply personal and insightful episode, Brianna Greenspan—inspirational author, speaker, and CEO of Brianna Greenspan International (BGI)—shares her powerful journey of overcoming debilitating symptoms and unimaginable suffering to reclaim her life. As a global leader in educational training, tools, and support, Brianna reveals the unexpected truths about fostering a growth mindset and the catalyst moments that change everything. From navigating a lifetime of medical complications to discovering the transformative power of self-resourcing, she shares how she moved from a state of being "complete" to finding her fierce. If you've ever felt stuck in a cycle of pain and limiting beliefs, this episode will challenge what you think you know about healing and empower you to take control of your future.

Chapters:

1. 00:00:00 - Meet Brianna
2. 00:01:45 - Living in the Fire: Leading While Managing Complex Illness
3. 00:03:30 - Radical Authenticity: Choosing Visibility Over Hiding
4. 00:04:40 - Polished vs. Real: Letting Go of Perfection
5. 00:06:15 - A Critical Neurosurgery Appointment
6. 00:07:00 - Childhood in Crisis: Early Medical Trauma
7. 00:08:15 - Hitting the Breaking Point: Losing Basic Functions
8. 00:10:45 - A Call That Changed Everything: Losing Her Best Friend
9. 00:11:45 - From Despair to Curiosity: Asking What Else Is Possible
10. 00:12:45 - New Paths to Healing: Shortening Symptoms from Months to Minutes
11. 00:14:40 - Turning Pain into Purpose: A Global Impact

Links and Resources:

1. Dr. Carolyn Colleen Website
2. Join RESET: a free daily reset for clarity, calm, and intentional living.
3. Brianna Website
4. Brianna on Linkedin

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Finding Your Fierce? Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review!