ChangeMaker Leader Podcast

How do leaders build communities where people truly feel they belong? In this conversation, host Leigh Mitchell and Douglas A. Jones (author of Loosen Your Grip) explain why belonging is critical in sports, leadership, and daily life. Discover actionable ways to cultivate psychological safety, reframe mistakes, and build inclusive spaces across sports, healthcare, and community initiatives.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why "belonging is like oxygen" for community health
• Overcoming feelings of exclusion in sports and professional leadership
• How to create judgment-free environments for personal growth
• Lessons on vulnerability from tennis, music, and hospice volunteering

What are Haikus?

A haiku is a short, unrhymed form of Japanese poetry that traditionally consists of 17 phonetic units in a 5, 7, and 5 pattern.

Core Structure and Meaning

• Line count: Three lines.
• Syllables (English): Five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third.
• Traditional focus: Nature, seasonal changes, and capturing a specific, fleeting moment in time.
• Classic elements: Traditional Japanese haiku often include a kigo (seasonal word) and a kireji (cutting word that creates a pause or comparison).

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction to Douglas A. Jones & Loosen Your Grip

03:15 - Why is belonging essential for community leadership?

10:40 - Overcoming feeling out of place in sports and new pursuits

18:20 - Practical steps to build judgment-free spaces

26:10 - How small acts of connection impact community settings

Featured Resources:

Loosen Your Grip: For Your Wild, Precious Journey Through Life and Tennis by Douglas A. Jones

Purchase Doug's Book - Perfect for Any Special Occasion and consider leaving a review on Amazon https://a.co/d/0hUh8rAV

Doug Jones is a retired dentist who lives on the southern shore of Georgian Bay, Ontario, with his wife Diane. They have four children, their partners, and eight grandchildren. He's an avid tennis player and coach, and he sings and plays guitar for friends and family and at local churches and hospitals.

What happens when you stop performing the life other people planned for you and start trusting your own voice? For most women, that shift is the real leadership work. It is quiet, it is uncomfortable, and it changes everything.

In this episode of the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, I sit down with Karoline Bourdeau, founder of KRB Consulting and one of the most compelling voices in accessibility and inclusion in Canada. Karoline arrived in this country at age 12 as a blind immigrant with no formal education. She went on to earn two Arts degrees and a Law degree from Queen's University, build a career in accessibility and inclusion with organizations such as Fable Labs and Access Labs, and launch her own consulting company, designing training and educational programs that actually work for everyone.

Karoline knows what it means to be handed a script for your life and to hand it back. In our conversation, we talk about how she learned to trust her own judgment when the world kept underestimating her, why resilience is built and not born, and how to tell the difference between what others want for you and what you actually want for yourself.

If you have ever felt the pull between the path expected of you and the one calling you, this conversation is your permission slip.

Connect with Karoline Bourdeau on LinkedIn and learn more about KRB Consulting.

The ChangeMaker Leader Podcast is hosted by Leigh Mitchell, Founder of Women in Biz Network and creator of the Own Your Imprint leadership framework.

We are Canada’s most welcoming community for women who love business and want to make positive change in the world together. We believe every woman deserves a place where she is welcomed before she is judged, encouraged before she is evaluated, and connected before she is expected to succeed on her own. Our job board is where opportunity meets belonging, with every employer vetted for benefits and culture that help women build a future they actually want.

What does it actually take to go from a side hustle to a full time business? In this episode of the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, Leigh Mitchell sits down with David Kwok of YSpace, York University's pan-university entrepreneurship and innovation hub, to talk about what real support for founders looks like at every stage of the journey.

David has spent over a decade building the programs and partnerships that help entrepreneurs move from idea to mass retail, from local hustle to international opportunity. In this conversation, we get into what YSpace offers, who it is for, and how founders at any stage, including women stepping into business for the first time or scaling what they have already built, can access it.

What you will learn in this conversation:

• What YSpace is and how it supports founders across every stage, from side hustle to scaled venture
• How equity driven programs like ELLA, powered by Desjardins, are creating real pathways for women led ventures
• What it takes for agri-food and product based businesses to break into mass retail
• How sector focused initiatives like SmartTO are shaping innovation in mobility and automotive
• Why YSpace's three physical hubs across Toronto, Markham, and Georgina matter for entrepreneurs building locally and globally
• 
  

This conversation is for the woman who has an idea she has not acted on yet, the founder juggling a side hustle alongside a full time job, and the established business owner ready to scale with the right support behind her.

Connect with David Kwok: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkwokk/

Learn more about YSpace: https://www.yorku.ca/yspace/

Leigh Mitchell is a Trauma-Informed Leadership Brand Strategist, Founder of Women in Biz Network (35,000+ members), and host of the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast. She helps Women+ ChangeMakers own their imprint, unapologetically.

Learn more: https://changemakerco.org

Join WIBN: https://womeninbiznetwork.com

Subscribe for weekly leadership, branding, and AI insights for women in business.

Welcome back to the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast. Today is for The Art of the Possibility: Leading a Non-Linear Life with Christine Brooks-Cappadocia 

Your career was never supposed to look like a straight line. Women Changemakers are often rebuilding, pivoting, or finally giving themselves permission to lead differently. Here at Women in Biz Network, we support women in being themselves unapologetically and in leading from their strengths and values.

In this episode of the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, I sit down with Christine Brooks-Cappadocia, Vice-President of Continuing Studies at York University, to talk about what it really means to lead with curiosity, navigate a non-linear career path, and reclaim joy without sacrificing effectiveness. Christine went from a fine arts degree to running one of the largest continuing education schools in North America, and the through-line was never a plan. It was a mindset.

What you will learn in this episode:

• Why a non-linear career path is a leadership advantage, not a liability 
• How to stay connected to curiosity and creativity when institutional demands pull you toward convention
• What reclaiming balance actually looks like for a senior woman leader, beyond the polished version
• How lifelong learning shows up in real life, not just on a resume 
• Why the art of the possible is not optimism but a practiced leadership skill 

Christine Brooks-Cappadocia is a social intrapreneur, educator, and community builder whose career spans healthcare, the arts, social services, and higher education. She leads York University's School of Continuing Studies, serving approximately 6,000 learners annually, and has spent her career building ecosystems where opportunity is the point.

Christine hosts the Successfully Ambiguous Podcast across all major platforms.

Connect With Leigh Mitchell and Women in Biz Network

After 15 years of building Women in Biz Network (with 35,000+ supported and 1,500+ women mentored in Mentor Your Biz), I know this: visibility barriers are confidence barriers. The Own Your Imprint & Positioning Prism framework is trauma-informed for inner leadership and brand building, and the results are unapologetically real. Visit womeninbusinessnow.com to become a member today.

#ChangeMakerLeaders #WomenInBusiness #OwnYourImprint #LeadershipDevelopment #PodcastForWomen #PersonalBranding #WomenEntrepreneurs #ImpactLeaders #MentorCulture #BusinessGrowth

Suggested tags

women in business, leadership podcast, non-linear career, women in leadership, lifelong learning, ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, Women in Biz Network, Leigh Mitchell, Own Your Imprint, Christine Brooks-Cappadocia, York University continuing studies, career pivot for women, how to lead with curiosity, reclaiming balance as a leader, how to navigate a non-linear career path

The Brave Move That Changes Everything: Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone to Unlock Your Purpose

What if the thing you have been searching for is not ahead of you, but already inside you, waiting to be seen?

In this episode of the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, host Leigh Mitchell sits down with Jill Valentine, founder of Ugo Impact and creator of the Ugo Triple Change Effect Model, for a conversation about purpose, identity, and what it really means to do brave things before you know where they will lead.

About This Episode

Leigh shares her personal story of joining a transformational trip to Costa Rica nearly a decade ago, not fully knowing what she was looking for, and walking away with the discovery that would reshape her entire career. Jill walks us through the three pillars of her framework and explains why transformation is less about changing who you are and more about returning to who you have always been.

What You Will Walk Away With

• A new understanding of why stepping away from the familiar is often the fastest path to clarity
• The three pillars of the Ugo Triple Change Effect Model: Change Yourself, Change Your Community, and Change Your World
• How purpose evolves across the decades of a woman's life and why that shift is something to lean into
• Why ego-driven ambition eventually gives way to something more meaningful, and what to do when it does
• How clarity about your values can reveal misalignments in your work and relationships you did not even know were there

Leigh Also Opens Up About

• Her personal experience on a Ugo transformational trip and what it unlocked in her
• Perimenopause, brain rewiring, and the science behind why midlife can feel like a turning point
• Releasing shame around failure and learning to roll with it
• Rebuilding Women in Biz Network on her own terms and what that taught her about owning her imprint

This Episode Is For You If

• You feel like you have drifted from yourself
• You are successful on paper but quietly wondering if there is more
• You need permission to say yes to yourself for once

Connect With Our Guest

Jill Valentine is the founder of Ugo Impact and creator of the Ugo Triple Change Effect Model. Visit ugoimact.com and follow Ugo Impact on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Nepal trip details for November are live on the website. Visit at: https://ugoimpact.com/

Connect With Leigh and Women in Biz Network

Join a membership community built for women who are ready to grow with purpose. Visit womeninbusinessnow.com to become a member today.

Fifteen years ago, Leigh Mitchell was building a business that required her to stand in front of rooms full of people, and she could barely get through a sentence without wanting to disappear. She studied the speakers she admired. She tried to become them. It was a disaster.

In this episode, Leigh gets personal about her journey from stage fright to keynote stages, university classrooms, and boardrooms. She breaks down the four decisions that changed how she shows up every time she speaks, and none of them have anything to do with faking confidence.

In this episode you will hear about:

• Why trying to be a "great speaker" was the thing that held her back
• The difference between performing and resonating
• A one-sentence exercise that stops rambling and commands the room
• Why silence is authority
• How to shift your focus from self-consciousness to service
• The nervous system truth about stage fright that nobody talks about

This episode is for any woman who has ever held back from speaking up, stepping forward, or taking the stage because she thought she needed to be someone else first. You don't. Your voice, your story, and your lived experience are exactly what the room needs.

Learn more about membership: changemakerco.org

Read the full article and get the resources mentioned in this episode: changemakerbusiness.substack.com

Subscribe to Own Your Imprint on Substack for weekly insights from Leigh.

Searches for "feel overwhelmed," "stress relief," and "burnout from life" are all at all-time highs in 2026 — and if you're feeling it too, you're not alone. This video gives you a science-backed, 20-minute nervous system reset routine you can do twice a day to regulate stress, reduce cortisol, and reclaim your calm.

This routine integrates vestibular (balance/inner ear), visual (gaze/tracking), and limbic (emotional regulation) techniques — the same tools used in trauma therapy and nervous system rehabilitation.

⏱ IN THIS VIDEO — YOUR 20-MINUTE ROUTINE:

Why your nervous system needs a daily reset

Phase 1: Limbic Grounding & Centring (5 min)

↳ Orienting to Safety

↳ The Voo Breath (vagus nerve activation)

↳ Self-Soothing Touch

Phase 2: Visual & Vestibular Coordination (10 min)

↳ Gaze Stabilization (VOR x1)

↳ Saccades — Rapid Eye Shifts

↳ Smooth Pursuit

↳ Head Nods & Turns (Eyes Closed)

Phase 3: Dynamic Integration & Proprioception (5 min)

↳ The Arch and Flatten

↳ Heel-to-Toe Stance

↳ Shaking Out Tension

Morning vs. Evening — how to use this routine

📊 WHY THIS MATTERS RIGHT NOW:

Search interest in cortisol has nearly doubled since January 2026 and hit an all-time high for the third consecutive month. "Burnout at work" and "burnout from life" are also at all-time highs. "Emotional flooding" has doubled in searches this year. Your nervous system is under more pressure than ever — this routine is your daily antidote.

🔗 RESOURCES & NEXT STEPS:

📥 Download Exercise Card Set

🌐 Join the Women in Biz Network Community

📺 Watch on ChangeMaker Leader YouTube Channel

What actually happens when ambitious women stop scrolling 

and start showing up?

In this episode, Leigh Mitchell sits down with Kim and Linda 

of My Creative Break for a conversation about the magic that 

unfolds when driven women gather in person — the spark, the 

stories, and the sisterhood that no DM can replicate.

"The most powerful thing we ever did was create a space where women felt safe enough to be ambitious out loud."

If you've been craving connection that goes deeper than a LinkedIn comment — this episode is your sign to show up differently. Leigh Mitchell, Founder of Women in Biz Network, sits down with Kim and Linda, the creative duo behind My Creative Break, to explore what truly happens when ambitious women meet face-to-face.

This is a conversation about more than networking. It's about what becomes possible when women feel seen, supported, and surrounded by others who get it. In this episode, we cover:

🔹 The story behind My Creative Break and why Kim & Linda knew women needed a different kind of space

🔹 What shifts emotionally when ambitious women gather in person versus online

🔹 Why creativity and community are deeply connected for women in business

🔹 The moments of belonging that neither of them expected — and never forgot

🔹 How to build a room where ambitious women actually feel free to be themselves

🔹 What Leigh, Kim & Linda have all learned about showing up — for others and for yourself

This is the conversation you didn't know you needed. Pull up a chair. You belong here. ✨ Women in Biz Network has been creating spaces like this since 2010 — because community isn't a perk.

Dr. Jim is a Generation-0 immigrant and lifelong revenue leader who now runs a GTM consultancy for stage-zero founders. He integrates sales, marketing, and partnerships into a single buyer-aligned motion to create frictionless, loyalty-building experiences.

We dig into why the old “more activity = more revenue” playbook falls flat in the attention economy — and how AI can actually help you become more human, not more spammy. From ditching funnels for buyer-journey “rivers” to embedding a content layer that educates and inspires, this episode is a masterclass in modern go-to-market, leadership, and values-driven brand building.

Critical Takeaways

1. Use AI to be more human, not more scalable. Automation that prioritizes volume over relevance tanks trust. Deploy AI to research, personalize, and reduce friction not to mass-blast your TAM.
2. Replace the funnel with the river. Align to the buyer journey, flow with their priorities, and collaborate rather than push them through stages. That shift turns resistance into partnership.
3. Embed a content layer to reduce sales friction. Earned media and consistent teaching create rapport at scale and let buyers pre-qualify you before the first call.
4. Lead with service; reputation takes care of itself. Treat every interaction as an experience. Own mistakes, fix them with the customer, and play the long game: customers for life.
5. Great leaders listen 3–4x more than they talk. Your job isn’t to clone yourself — it’s to discover team strengths and put people in positions to win.
6. Values are a strategy. Say who you serve (and who you don’t). Focus your brand, decline misaligned work, and super-serve the aligned audience.

Quotes

• “AI should make you more human — not more of the same spam.”
• “Stop forcing people through a funnel; align to their river.”
• “Content lets you have meaningful conversations with 100% of your market.”
• “Money is a byproduct of doing the right thing, over and over.”
• “As a new leader, listen more, talk less, and unlock strengths.”
• “State your values out loud — you can’t be all things to all people.”
• “Don’t be the mosquito of someone’s inbox.”

Episode Chapters

• 00:00 – Welcome & why “feet on the street” stopped working
• 03:20 – Dr. Jim’s origin story: from early entrepreneurship to GTM
• 06:40 – AI in sales: more volume ≠ more trust
• 10:00 – Earned media, authenticity, and the content layer
• 13:20 – Ditching funnels: the buyer-journey river metaphor
• 16:45 – Becoming a partner, not resistance: meeting buyers where they are
• 20:00 – Reputation as an outcome of service (and owning mistakes)
• 23:20 – Leadership 101: listen, ask, and play to strengths
• 26:40 – Values as filter: who to serve and who to avoid
• 30:00 – Platform choices, attention economy, and showing up
• 33:15 – Personal brand basics: rapport, trust, and credibility
• 36:30 – Work-life integration vs. balance; avoiding “pot-committed”
• 39:50 – Wrap and AMA

In an attention economy drowning in automated outreach, “more” is a race to the bottom. My mentor and ChangeMaker Leader Speaker, Dr. Jim, laid it out plainly: AI should make us more human, not more robotic.

Legacy revenue models were built for a world where sellers controlled information. We don’t live there anymore. Buyers show up armed with research, peer reviews, and opinions — often more context than the average rep has. When we respond with volume tactics (auto-DMs, sequencers, zero-context LI pitches), we don’t look “proactive”; we look lazy. Worse, we burn the relationship before it starts.

The result: inbox fatigue on the buyer side, reputation damage on the seller side, and a pipeline that looks busy but converts like a desert.

AI isn’t the problem; the way we use it is. If the goal is “touch more people,” you’ll ship noise. If the goal is “understand this person better,” you’ll ship relevance. I’m doubling down on AI for research, note-taking, pattern spotting, and content repurposing — the unsexy stuff that creates a better 1:1 experience. Automation should reduce friction, not trust.

I’ve taught funnels for years, and I still use the mental model — but Jim’s river metaphor hit home. Funnels encourage us to move buyers. Rivers force us to move with buyers. Practically, that means anchoring campaigns to the stages buyers actually experience (problem aware → options aware → change-ready), and measuring progress by buyer momentum, not our internal stage gates.

Content isn’t a side quest; it’s the friction reducer. Teaching in public earns the right to sell in private. Earned media — the ideas people seek out without ad spend — compounds credibility. I see it every week: first calls feel like third meetings because people already “know” me from the feed. That’s pipeline acceleration you can’t manufacture with spray-and-pray.

How I’m applying it:

• Publish one deep, useful idea weekly (podcast or blog), then atomize it into shorts/snippets.
• Map content to buyer questions at each stage — not just features and benefits.
• Treat distribution like product: message-market-platform fit matters.

You can’t “protect” a reputation created by misaligned behaviour. The fix is boring and effective: give people a great experience, even if they never pay you. When you mess up, own it and make it right with the customer. Long term, that creates evangelists who sell for you when you’re not in the room.

Most first-time managers were promoted for personal performance, then fail by trying to clone themselves. Your actual job: discover each person’s strengths and set the stage for them to win. That starts with questions and listening, not directives and dashboards.

Tactical moves I’m stealing:

• 1:1s that start with “What’s the obstacle I can remove this week?”
• Role design around strengths, not generic job ladders.
• Clear team agreements on how we decide, communicate, and recover from misses.

“Who do we want to be?” is a filtering question, not a brand vanity exercise. Say who you serve — and who you don’t. Declining misaligned work is scary in the short term and clarifying in the long term. Focus lets you super-serve your right audience and build a community that talks about you when you’re not around.

There’s no perfect platform. Pick your poison, set your red lines, and show up where your buyers are. A personal brand isn’t about selfies and slogans; it’s portable credibility. When someone tells me, “I feel like I already know you,” that’s compounding trust.

My simple brand loop:

• Publish (teach something real)
• Converse (listen to the market)
• Iterate (tighten the POV)
• Repeat (weekly forever)

Balance implies neat, equal slices. Real life is seasonal. Integration acknowledges that some weeks are family-heavy, some are ship-heavy, and your job is to avoid going “pot-committed” on a single lane for too long. I’m building guardrails: daily outside time, a hard stop twice a week, and one creative project that isn’t monetized… yet.

• AI is a force multiplier for empathy when used for research and personalization.
• Switch from forcing stages to flowing with the buyer’s river.
• Make content the connective tissue of your GTM; let teaching do the heavy lifting.
• Lead by listening; design roles around strengths.
• Say your values out loud and use them to focus your market.
• Build a portable brand that pre-loads trust.

Integrate work and life; don’t go pot-committed on one dimension.

If this resonated, share the episode with a founder who’s still “doing more” and getting less. Subscribe on your platform of choice, drop a review, and tell me one “river move” you’re going to test this week. I read every note.

Want more advice? Check out our ChangeMaker Leader Podcast Directory here. 

Membership Includes online leadership and personal branding course plus:

1. Podcast Interview: One interview on the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, so our community can get to know you.

2. Transition Coaching Session with Leigh Mitchell, Founder & Brand Strategist for Leaders in Transition. 

3. Monthly Peer Leader Support: Regular In-person and online mentorship from Leigh Mitchell and team with your fellow members.

4. Courses & Membership Directory: You gain practical skills that strengthen your leadership and can connect with supportive peers through our member directory to grow your impact. 

5. Leadership Retreats: Members leave each retreat feeling renewed with clearer focus, stronger connections, and practical ideas they can bring back to their work and community. (member pricing)

6. AI Marketing Mastermind for Business Owners: Online AI Marketing Mastermind for Business Owners (preferred rates for members) with Susan Diaz

7. Preferred Rates for Go-To-Market Coaching: with Dr. Jim Kanichirayil

8. Leader DNA Branding & Tech Implementation Services: Preferred rate for Leigh Mitchell’s strategy and execution services including group training options. 

9. Private & Active WhatsApp Group for networking:  Connect with ChangeMaker Leaders to share resources and ask for advice, etc. 

10. Mentor Matching: Get connected with a short to long-term mentor to ease you through your transition (6 weeks, 3 months to 6 months )  

You’re probably looking at this pricing and asking, “Can this really be true?”

I want to assure you that, as a social-impact, values-driven ChangeMaker Leader, my goal is to help you first, before any money is exchanged. I want to remain affordable and accessible for leaders in transition.

Will this pricing stay in place long-term? No, it is not sustainable forever. But for now, I want to support as many ChangeMakers as I can.

Before you sign up: Let’s have a phone call. I want to ensure this is the right fit for what you are currently tackling. 

Schedule a call with me here.

Together, we will explore: How writing memoirs, personal essays, or even short reflections can help you process big life transitions, grief, burnout, or change your relationship with alcohol.

Ann Dowsett Johnson is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and psychotherapist. For more than 25 years, she worked at Maclean’s magazine, where she was perhaps best known as the chief architect of the Maclean’s university rankings. She worked as Vice-Principal (Development, Alumni and University Relations), McGill University. Since writing Drink, Ann has worked hard to destigmatize mental health and addiction, earning an honorary Doctor of Laws from Queen’s University for her efforts. She is also the recipient of a Transforming Lives award from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), the American Research Society on Addiction’s Media Award, plus the T. A. Sweet Award from the Ontario Psychiatric Association for helping address stigma related to mental health and addiction. Ann followed a dream to get a Master’s of Social Work program at Smith College and now has a psychotherapy practice specializing in working with women in life transitions.

Ann is the bestselling author of Drink: The Intimate Relationship Between Women and Alcohol, named one of the 10 best books of 2013 by the Washington Post. 

Purchase

We all have a story—or stories—to tell. Excavating those narratives, finding the courage to give voice to our secrets, takes time. I believe writing is a process of discovery. At the heart of good writing is finding a compelling, authentic voice. To locate that voice, each individual must get in touch with what is most integral in their experience.

Learn More