Episodes

💬 message Denise https://ignite2026.lovable.app/ Join this IGNITE: The Inner Uprising ™ waitlist here, excited to see you in real life 😍❤️ We spend so much energy looking for the moment that broke us, when the real work only starts the day we stop looking outward for the blame. In this episode, I sit with Alexandra Dotcheva, a former professional violinist turned nurse, real estate investor, and martial artist, and the author of It Really Is Simple, A Holistic Approach to Self-Confidence. Al...

💬 message Denise https://ignite2026.lovable.app/ Join this IGNITE: The Inner Uprising ™ waitlist here, excited to see you in real life 😍❤️ There is a specific kind of tired that comes from solving problems you never actually looked at, patching the same leak over and over and wondering why it keeps coming back. In this episode, I sit with Barbara Wiseman, co-founder and president of the Earth Organization, a science-based nonprofit working in nine countries. Long before sustainability was a ...

💬 message Denise https://ignite2026.lovable.app/ Join this IGNITE: The Inner Uprising ™ waitlist here - excited to see you in real life 😍❤️ Have you ever finally reached the thing you worked so hard for, and it still didn't feel like enough? That's the exact place this episode lives. Denise sits down with Dave Williams, a number one bestselling author, international speaker, and multi-award-winning life coach and leadership strategist who has spent more than 40 years helping people move past...

💬 message Denise What happens when the identity you spent a lifetime building gets taken from you in a single day? Nhys Glover was a head teacher at one of Australia's most prestigious schools, after years working in education, including five years inside a medium security prison. Then everything changed at once: her 20 year old son died suddenly from an epileptic seizure, and on that very same day she was diagnosed with breast cancer. In this episode, Nhys shares how she quietly began processin...

💬 message Denise Cheryl Gordon has been teaching yoga for nearly 30 years and touched over 10,000 lives along the way, but when menopause arrived at the start of COVID, the practice she'd built her whole career on suddenly didn't fit. In this conversation, Cheryl shares how she rebuilt her personal practice and her teaching from the ground up, discovering along the way that midlife women aren't just looking to sleep better or lose weight. They're looking to come home to themselves. Cheryl and D...

💬 message Denise What does it take for a woman to finally get honest about her relationship with alcohol, not because anyone told her to, but because some quiet part of her already knew? Susan Larkin was a high achieving professional in higher education, working on her MBA, raising two kids, and reaching for wine every evening to downshift from the day. She wasn't falling apart. She was holding it all together, until she wasn't. In this conversation, Susan shares how she moved from managing her...

💬 message Denise What if the one day a year meant to be entirely yours has actually been quietly stealing your joy? Tamar Hurwitz Fleming is the world's only Birthday Coach and the author of How to Have a Happy Birthday, a book and companion workbook that has reached tens of thousands of women through national media, podcasts, and coaching. She has spent over 40 years studying birthdays, starting from the age of three, and what she has found is that so many of us carry hidden birthday wounds ro...

💬 message Denise She didn't learn leadership in a boardroom. She learned it at eight years old, in a house with no electricity, no heat, and six siblings to look after while her mother cared for someone else. Adaku Mbagwu is a firstborn daughter specialist, founder of the Heal community, and creator of a seven-figure recruitment business. Her work supports high-achieving women who are successful on the outside and quietly carrying the weight of everything and everyone within. In this conve...

💬 message Denise What if it was never about the food? Betsy Brenner didn't receive her eating disorder diagnosis until her 40s. She was a mother of three, a high school tennis coach, a woman who — by every visible measure — had it together. And she was quietly disappearing, not just physically, but from herself. What she eventually learned: the behaviours were never the problem. They were the symptom. What lived underneath was decades of internalized emotion, unspoken grief, profound anx...

💬 message Denise You've stood at the mirror and felt it — that quiet moment when what used to work simply doesn't anymore. And somewhere in that moment, you wondered if something was wrong with you. Nothing is wrong with you. No one ever taught you how to work with the skin you're in now. Gabriela Soares is a professional makeup artist and hairstylist with over 20 years of experience working with women across every age, skin type, and life stage. As a beauty content creator her work has ...

💬 message Denise A gentle heads up: Chad's honesty doesn't always come wrapped in pretty language — and that's exactly what makes it land. Some mild profanity ahead. The truth, as always, is worth it. You've done the work. And still — something keeps showing up the same way. Chad Taylor didn't choose to become a psychotherapist. Life chose it for him. Twenty-five years in recovery, a plumbing business, criminal charges, and a series of moments that cracked him wide open — that's what bui...

💬 message Denise How many times has your body known — long before your mind was willing to admit it — that this wasn't the love that was meant for you? Sara-Ann Rosen is a dating coach for audacious women who refuse to settle. With a background in law and counselling, she approached dating like a research scientist — gathering data not just on others but on her own patterns. That journey became the foundation for Decoding Dating Dilemmas, through which she has supported over 500 women in releas...

💬 message Denise A gentle reminder — Dana shares her personal journey through a blood cancer diagnosis and stem cell transplant. Her story is powerful and it is hers. If anything she shares stirs something in you about your own health, please reach out to your healthcare provider. What happens when someone who has spent decades inside the healthcare system suddenly becomes the patient? Dana Sherwin — healthcare executive, consultant, and almost seven-year survivor of a stem cell transplant for a...

💬 message Denise Sylvie Beljanski was living a fast paced life as a lawyer in New York when everything shifted. Her father was a groundbreaking biologist who discovered natural plant extracts to support the body through cancer. When his life's work was suddenly targeted and destroyed by the government, Sylvie refused to stand by. She stepped completely out of her comfort zone, walked away from her legal career, and dedicated the next 30 years to making sure his research survived and flourished...

💬 message Denise Terri Hanson Mead spent decades navigating predominantly male fields, but what really captured my heart is how she redefines midlife. Terri is a commercially rated helicopter pilot, an author, an investor, and a coach who helps women go from living on autopilot to taking intentional control of their lives. When she hit her forties, she did not experience a crisis; instead, she hit a wall of burnout and realized that the narrative about women shrinking as they age is completely...

💬 message Denise Ernest Ellender, who people call the Black Belt Trauma Coach, is a former clinical psychologist who realized that sometimes we need more than just talk....we need to train our hearts and bodies like a martial artist would. We dove deep into the idea that we don't have to let our past trauma be the boss of our future. Ernest shares about the "trauma lies" we tell ourselves just to survive childhood and how those stories follow us into midlife until we choose to replace them wit...

💬 message Denise Lili Udell Fiore grew up watching her father, a hospital chaplain, provide compassionate care, but she really earned her stripes during twelve years of navigating dementia and medical advocacy for her own family. She’s here to remind us that planning for the hard stuff isn't morbid. It’s actually one of the most profound ways we can love our families and protect our own peace of mind. We really get into the heart of the "sandwich generation" reality. Lili shares some incredib...

Kerie Logan is a human consciousness guide and hypnotherapist who has spent 25 years helping people untangle all the messy parts of being human. We dive into something so many of us carry: that heavy, constant hum of anxiety. But Kerie looks at it through such a beautiful, different lens. She explains how the stuff we’re struggling with...whether it's fear, hyper-vigilance, or just feeling totally stuck...isn't actually who we are. It’s often just a "set point" or generational energy we've abs...

Sairan Aqwari has the most incredible perspective on why we need to stop looking at midlife as some sort of waiting room for retirement. Sairan moved from Iraq to the United States and literally rebuilt her entire life and career from the ground up. She spent over 30 years as a heavy-hitter in the engineering world, and then, right in the middle of her doctoral program, she realized her soul was pulling her toward something else. She actually put her PhD "in the freezer" to follow a path of co...

Helen spent nearly thirty years in the high-stakes world of commercial leadership and accounting, even spending sixteen years at KPMG. She was the person who actually avoided sales at all costs, only to realize she was naturally incredible at it because she did it differently. She did it humanly. When she hit 45, life decided to shift the gears for her. Between the clarity of a family road trip and a sudden battle with early-stage breast cancer, Helen took the leap to stop doing things the "c...

Cheryl Holling is a total powerhouse in the world of podcasting and voiceover work, but what really struck me during our chat was her incredible heart and the way she’s navigating life at 65 with so much grace and curiosity. We really dive into the beauty of the "un-linear" path. Cheryl’s been in the industry for four decades, yet she’s still out here launching new projects like The Voice Kitchen and 19 Stories from Fear to Hope. She opens up about the legacy of her parents, the deep importan...

Ever feel like you’re talking, but not necessarily being heard? Brad Walsh, a speaker, photographer, and "soul visibility guide," has spent the last six years listening to the stories of over 800 women. He shares the incredible shift that happens when a man stops trying to "fix" and starts truly listening to understand the things that often go unsaid. We’re chatting about: Heart-Led Listening: Brad breaks down his "HEAR" method for holding space and listening with empathy r...

How many of us have spent years just "powering through" because we thought that was the only way to be successful. Shelley Martinez is a licensed psychotherapist and what she calls an "anxiety alchemist." She spent decades dealing with that invisible, high-functioning anxiety - the kind where you look totally composed and "together" on the outside while your internal world feels like it’s on fire. We really dive into why we've normalized being stuck in survival mode and h...

Running on fumes? Today we’re diving into something Rochel Lawson calls the "Duck Syndrome," that exhausting state where we look perfectly calm and collected on the surface while our feet are paddling like crazy underneath just to stay afloat. Rochelle is a total powerhouse - a registered nurse, Ayurvedic healer, and a CEO who has spent decades leading in high-pressure, male-dominated industries. She isn’t just speaking from a textbook; she’s lived the stress, felt the physical toll it...