In this deeply personal episode, Bree Johnson shares the third major lesson from the “Winter of 2026”: the incredible power of community rooted in service.

What began with a phone call from a grieving teacher — and a devastating story involving a young student — became a catalyst for Bree’s immersion into community care work across Minnesota. Through rapid mobilization, fundraising, storytelling, and connection-building, Bree discovered a radically different understanding of community than she had previously experienced in her career and life.

This episode explores how authentic community is not an audience, not followers, and not transactional relationships. Instead, it is a two-way exchange grounded in service, mutual learning, and shared humanity.

The difference between being “part of” something and being truly in community

How crisis can catalyze purpose and clarity

Service as the foundation of meaningful connection

Moving from transactional audiences to reciprocal communities

The emotional reality of witnessing others’ pain

Why businesses and leaders must center impact, not ego

The connection between work stress, societal disruption, and the need for recovery

Love as the underlying force of both community and work

The richest communities are built on a two-way street.

Bree connects her experiences to her broader mission:

Work stress is intensifying due to economic instability, industry disruption, and AI-driven change

Many people are experiencing panic, uncertainty, and identity disruption related to work

Recovery from work harm is not just an individual issue — it is collective care

Work Recovery is not self-care. It is community care.

Where in your life are you truly in community versus simply adjacent to people?

What gifts, resources, or skills do you have that could lessen someone else’s pain?

Does your work create impact for people you care about?

What kind of community do you want to build or belong to?

“There’s a difference between being part of something and being in community.”

“If you are serving a real need, you are meeting people in their pain.”

“The work is to love. Work in action is love in action.”

“Work recovery is community care.”

What happens when the map you’ve followed your entire life suddenly disappears?

In this conversation, Bree talks with writer, speaker, and podcast host Heather Morgan to explore what it really looks like to move through a major life reset — divorce, career change, identity loss, and rebuilding from the ground up.

Heather shares her journey from Fortune 500 strategist to creator of Wandering the Wild Mess, a platform devoted to self-trust and reinvention. Together, Bree and Heather unpack the uncomfortable middle space between who you were and who you’re becoming — a place many people find themselves after layoffs, relationship endings, burnout, or any major life disruption.

This episode dives into the emotional realities of identity deconstruction, nervous system recovery, breaking behavioral loops, and the micro-decisions that build confidence and self-trust over time.

In This Episode, We Explore

Key Takeaways

Connect with Heather Morgan

Connect with Host Bree Johnson

Why Courage Isn’t Fearlessness—It’s Action in the Face of Fear

In this powerful second lesson from the Winter of 2026 series, Bree Johnson explores what courage really looks like when life feels unstable, overwhelming, and uncertain.

We’re often taught that courage belongs to the bold, the confident, the fearless.

But real courage?

It’s feeling scared out of your mind… and choosing to move forward anyway.

In this episode, Bree shares personal stories—from speaking out about work harm and community care, to navigating self-doubt and obstacles on the TEDxDuluth stage—to show how courage is built through action, not perfection.

This conversation is for anyone who has been questioning their voice, shrinking their dreams, or waiting to “feel ready” before taking the next step.

Why courage is not confidence—and never has been

How fear, doubt, and uncertainty are part of the courage process

What Bree learned from speaking publicly despite relationship loss

Behind-the-scenes reflections on preparing for TEDxDuluth

The “lion within” metaphor and what it reveals about inner strength

Four practical pathways to building courage in your own life

Why action—not motivation—is the foundation of bravery

How courage supports nervous system regulation and work recovery

Ways to move forward even when you feel unqualified or afraid

This episode begins a new series where Bree reflects on leadership, community care, and whole-human resilience shaped by living through a season of social and political reckoning in Minnesota.

Each episode offers grounded insight for navigating uncertainty without losing yourself in the process.

If this conversation resonated, Bree and Andrea are opening a four-part Leadership Lab designed to help leaders move from inner pressure to inner integrity—through regulation, decision clarity, truth-telling, and self-trust.

Email [email protected] to express interest today, spots are limited. 

In this deeply personal episode, Bree shares the first lesson from the Winter of ’26: learning that she had been too quiet.

After years of compartmentalizing herself to “protect” her growing business, Bree reflects on what it cost her—and her community—to edit her voice, soften her truth, and outsource her authenticity in the name of success. She opens up about leaving the employment law firm she co-founded, building Executive Unschool from a place of rupture and realignment, and choosing healing over hustle.

This episode is about leadership that starts inside. About reclaiming your voice in a time of pressure. About choosing wholeness over palatability.

If you’ve ever felt torn between being yourself and being “marketable,” between staying safe and staying true, this conversation is for you.

Why Bree believes silence doesn’t keep us safe—it keeps us small

The story behind leaving her law firm and building Executive Unschool

How “polishing” herself for growth diluted her impact

What it means to lead from nervous system regulation, not survival mode

Why authenticity is not a liability—it’s the source

A vision for leadership rooted in care, integrity, and collective healing

An invitation to reclaim your full voice in uncertain times

You don’t have to fragment yourself to succeed

Your lived experience is part of your leadership

Neutrality often costs more than honesty

Regulation, rest, and reflection are leadership skills

Your values are not separate from your work—they are the work

This episode begins a new series where Bree reflects on leadership, community care, and whole-human resilience shaped by living through a season of social and political reckoning in Minnesota.

Each episode offers grounded insight for navigating uncertainty without losing yourself in the process.

If this conversation resonated, Bree and Andrea are opening a four-part Leadership Lab designed to help leaders move from inner pressure to inner integrity—through regulation, decision clarity, truth-telling, and self-trust.

Email [email protected] to express interest today, spots are limited. 

What if the leadership skills we’ve been taught to develop are no longer the ones that matter?

In this episode, Bree Johnson co-hosts with Andrea Tessier to name what many leaders are quietly feeling as we move toward 2026: the old playbook is breaking down.

Strategy isn’t enough. Performance is no longer sustainable. And certainty is gone.

Together, they explore what leadership actually requires in this next chapter—inner steadiness, emotional literacy, intuitive discernment, and the capacity to lead without abandoning yourself. This isn’t about becoming softer. It’s about becoming more integrated.

This conversation opens the door to a different kind of leadership—one rooted in regulation instead of pressure, clarity instead of urgency, and integrity instead of over-functioning.

If you’ve been feeling the weight of leadership more acutely, questioning your decisions, or sensing that something has to change—but aren’t sure what yet—this episode will meet you right where you are.

Why leadership in 2026 will require capacity shifts, not new tactics

How chronic pressure and over-responsibility quietly erode decision-making

The difference between intuition and reactivity—and why it matters now

Why community and collaboration are becoming survival skills, not “nice-to-haves”

How emotional intelligence becomes a stabilizing force in uncertainty

What it means to lead from inner integrity instead of external expectations

Why regulation—not hustle—is emerging as a leadership strategy

The future of leadership is less about control and more about internal steadiness

Intuition becomes clearer when the nervous system is regulated

Over-functioning is not strength—it’s nervous system debt

Leaders don’t need more certainty; they need self-trust

Sustainable leadership requires spaces where people can set down what they’ve been carrying

If this conversation resonated, Bree and Andrea are opening a four-part Leadership Lab designed to help leaders move from inner pressure to inner integrity—through regulation, decision clarity, truth-telling, and self-trust.

Email [email protected] to express interest today, spots are limited. 

There’s a quote I keep returning to: Some years are questions, and some years are answers.

For me, 2025 was an answer year.

Not because everything was easy but because the growth was undeniable. In this episode, I share five lived lessons from a year that asked me to stop negotiating with myself, simplify radically, experiment with contentment, trust the timing of the universe, and listen to my intuition more deeply than ever before.

These aren’t theories or best practices. They’re answers that showed up through real decisions, real risk, and real trust.

Takeaways

Why honesty about fear creates faster clarity than overthinking ever will

How simplifying became both a financial and nervous-system strategy

What happened when I stopped striving and experimented with contentment

Why control blocks alignment—and trust opens better outcomes

How trusting my intuition led to unexpected opportunities without chasing visibility

Connect with Host Bree Johnson

The Creative Reset Sat. January 17 in St. Paul: http://eventbrite.com/e/the-creative-reset-for-women-rediscovering-their-creative-voice-tickets-1968857473704 

The holidays have a way of amplifying what we’ve been carrying all year.

In this brief year-end episode, Bree explores why resentment often shows up during the holidays—and why it’s not a personal failure. Drawing on Brené Brown’s research, she unpacks how resentment is frequently rooted in unmet needs and unspoken envy, especially for rest, ease, and space.

This episode invites listeners to stop judging resentment and instead listen to what it’s pointing toward. Because when we understand the need underneath, we can give ourselves the comfort, pause, or care we’ve been postponing—and begin the new year from a more regulated place.

A quiet reminder that recovery doesn’t start in January. It starts with honesty.

We’ve been sold the wrong story about wellbeing.

The real problem?

Leaders are hemorrhaging energy trying to control things that were never theirs to manage in the first place.

In this episode, I break down the single biggest barrier to wellbeing I see across founders, people leaders, and women running entire households: letting external uncertainty steal time, focus, and nervous system capacity.

Takeaways

Control is the illusion. Influence is the work.

Fear is an energy leak. Focus is a stabilizer.

Your humanity is your advantage.

Leadership doesn’t require certainty.

Recovery is essential work, not a reward.

Positive focus isn’t denial—it’s discernment.

If you’re tired of feeling braced for impact—and ready to reclaim your energy—this episode is for you.

Connect with Host Bree Johnson

The Creative Reset Sat. January 17 in St. Paul: http://eventbrite.com/e/the-creative-reset-for-women-rediscovering-their-creative-voice-tickets-1968857473704 

We’ve been sold the wrong story about wellbeing.

The real problem?

Leaders are hemorrhaging energy trying to control things that were never theirs to manage in the first place.

In this episode, I break down the single biggest barrier to wellbeing I see across founders, people leaders, and women running entire households: letting external uncertainty steal time, focus, and nervous system capacity.

Takeaways

Control is the illusion. Influence is the work.

Fear is an energy leak. Focus is a stabilizer.

Your humanity is your advantage.

Leadership doesn’t require certainty.

Recovery is essential work, not a reward.

Positive focus isn’t denial—it’s discernment.

If you’re tired of feeling braced for impact—and ready to reclaim your energy—this episode is for you.

Connect with Host Bree Johnson

Soul Goal Free, Live Workshop 11:30 CST Dec. 16 

Soul Goal Workshop Sign Up: bit.ly/soulgoalworkshop

The Creative Reset Sat. January 17 in St. Paul: http://eventbrite.com/e/the-creative-reset-for-women-rediscovering-their-creative-voice-tickets-1968857473704 

Connect with Host Bree Johnson

Soul Goal Free, Live Workshop 11:30 CST Dec. 16 

Soul Goal Workshop Sign Up: bit.ly/soulgoalworkshop

The Creative Reset Sat. January 17 in St. Paul: http://eventbrite.com/e/the-creative-reset-for-women-rediscovering-their-creative-voice-tickets-1968857473704 

Bree Johnson hosts guest Stephanie Wall Morrow who advocates for integrating genuine self-care into daily life. They discuss the creation of The Self Care Circle, accessible self-care practices, the significance of mindfulness and intention, and the myths surrounding self-care.

Stephanie also shares insights on navigating self-care with ADHD, effective time management strategies, and the importance of creating supportive work environments for neurodivergent professionals. 

Takeaways

Connect with Guest Stephanie 

Gift for Listeners: My Self Care Circle