Have you ever looked around a room full of accomplished people and thought, "What am I doing here?" Last week at a conference in Tampa Bay, Lynsey did exactly that, and within ten minutes she had talked herself right out of her own résumé.

Then she walked up to one of the speakers, had a real conversation, and discovered that the woman she admired was carrying the very same worries. In this short solo episode, Lynsey shares what she realized on the walk away: you are comparing what you can see of someone else to what you can feel in yourself. That is apples and oranges, and it is never a fair fight.

If imposter syndrome has been whispering to you lately, this one is for you.

"Her outside was never meant to be measured against your inside."

Ask yourself: "What is the one thing I did this week that nobody will ever post about, but it's exactly who I want to be?" A better mom, a better listener, a leader who built her team up, someone who showed up for her community. Write it down. That is quiet win number one. Then add two more before the week is over.

If this episode helped, share it with one woman who needs to hear it, and leave a review so more women can find the show

When a senior leader calls Betsy Kauffman and says, I have this person and they need help, they usually mean the person is broken. Betsy's whole career is built on a different premise: your people are not broken, your system is.

Betsy Kauffman is the founder and CEO of Cross Impact Coaching, a TED speaker with over 1.6 million views, and the author of The Fix. After 25 years leading large-scale technology transformations, she now helps leadership teams close the gap between strategy and execution. In this episode, she and Lynsey get into why misalignment quietly drains companies, how to have the honest conversations most of us avoid, and the four-tip framework from her TED Talk that works whether you are the CEO or an individual contributor.

"Alignment does not always equal agreement. You may not agree, but you get behind it, and that is what alignment is."

Before your next hard conversation, use Betsy's four tips: lead with the confidence to speak up, know your intent, bring the data or the why, and come with a solution. Then practice it out loud, in the car or the mirror, before you walk in. Your brain files it as evidence that you can do it.

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I recently coached a client on boundaries, and about ten minutes into the conversation I knew it was something I needed to share with you too.

She told me she has such a hard time saying no that she gives everything away, and then feels hurt when someone does not choose her. Then she said the sharper version: I do not say no, I am always looking for how I can say yes. In this episode I walk through the reframe that changes that pattern, the three steps I gave her, and the quiet moment on the call when it finally clicked for her.

What you will learn

Join the Audaciously Unapologetic Retreat

Connect with Lynsey

If this episode landed, the kindest thing you can do is send it to one woman who says yes too fast

It is the end of August, which means sometime in the next two weeks you will open your calendar, look at what is left of the year, and feel one of two things. The sprint: grab every unfinished January goal and muscle to December 31st on caffeine and sheer personality. Or the quiet quit: eh, we will regroup in January, and coast through four months of your one precious life.

Both are traps. In this solo episode, Lynsey offers a third way. You do not have a time problem, you have an energy problem, and no planner has ever minted a 25th hour. She walks you through the energy ledger, a 10-minute audit of where your energy actually goes, and the year-end edit built on three lists: cut, park, and protect. Then she names the real reason we do not cut anything, and it is not discipline. It is fear.

"Renewal is not what you do after the important work. Renewal is what makes the important work possible. That is not indulgence, that is infrastructure."

Do the energy ledger, then make one cut and name one protect. Just one of each. Then tell someone about both, because a boundary spoken out loud is ten times stronger than one that only lives in your head.

October 15 to 18, 2026 at CIVANA Wellness Resort and Spa in Carefree, Arizona. Four days and three nights built around clarity, confidence, and connection: inner work to rebuild your foundation, the immunity map that x-rays what has really been in your way, a real action plan for your next chapter, plus sound baths, yoga, private dinners under the desert sky, and a burning ceremony. Co-facilitated by Lynsey Mulder and Paula Shannon. By application, intentionally capped.

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You have been waiting on a memo. The one where your boss, the board, or some committee of very official people sits you down and says you are now allowed to lead your way. Trust your gut. Push back in the meeting. Run the team the way you actually want to. Signed, everyone.

Lovingly, here is the truth: that memo does not exist. It was never in the mail. In this solo episode, Lynsey names why so many accomplished women keep their real leadership in a drawer, waiting at a window where no one is working. She traces it back to a lifetime of permission-based success, counts what the waiting actually costs, and hands you three permission slips to write yourself this week. Because the vetting is done. The only approval still outstanding is yours.

"Permission is not granted to leaders. It is taken, quietly, confidently, and usually without an announcement."

Write one permission slip this week. Your way, out loud, in present tense, as if it is already true. Put it somewhere you will see it every morning and read it aloud, even if it feels a little silly. Your brain believes what it hears you say, especially in your own voice.

October 15 to 18, 2026 at CIVANA Wellness Resort and Spa in Carefree, Arizona. Four days and three nights for high-performing women, built around clarity, confidence, and connection: coaching that gets underneath your patterns, sound baths, yoga, meditation under the desert sky, private dinners, and a curated circle of women who become the personal board of directors you have been missing. Co-facilitated by Lynsey Mulder and Paula Shannon. By application, intentionally capped.

If you are carrying a lot, leading a lot, achieving a lot, and still wondering why you feel exhausted underneath all of it, this conversation is for you.

Dr. Alicia Newsome returns for Part 2 of our series, and this time we zoom out from the body to the whole picture: the beliefs running underneath your leadership, the exhaustion our culture quietly applauds, and her new book, Worthy of Rest. This is the honest, practical half of the conversation, the one about the story you have been telling yourself since you were eight years old and how it is still shaping the decisions you make in the boardroom.

Together we will talk about:

One line to take with you:

"We live in a culture that worships exhaustion."

This week's challenge:

Look at what you have said yes to this month. Find the one that was never a full yes, the one you hesitated on, and ask yourself what you said no to in order to make room for it. Then practice the two-letter sentence. No is a complete answer.

Connect with Dr. Alicia Newsome:

Connect with Lynsey:

Follow Lead with Spark on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Podbean so you do not miss Part 2 with Dr. Alicia next week, and leave a review if this one hit home

Ready to go deeper? Learn about the Audaciously Unapologetic retreat in Carefree, Arizona at audaciouslyunapologetic.com

Start here: this is Part 2 of a two-part series. If you missed Part 1, go back for the conversation on hormones, chronic stress, and what your body has been trying to tell you.

When someone on your team is struggling, what is your first instinct? Do you coach them through it, or do you quietly take the thing and do it yourself? If you just went quiet, this one is for you.

In this solo episode, Lynsey names what she and her retreat co-facilitator Paula Shannon call the lifeguard trap: the habit of jumping in to rescue that feels like leadership, looks like dedication, and is quietly draining the life out of you. A lifeguard who saves everyone means no one learns to swim and the lifeguard is soaked and exhausted. A swim coach stays on the deck, builds stronger swimmers, and the pool does not fall apart on their day off. Lynsey unpacks the hidden commitment underneath the over-functioning, why you cannot delegate your way out of an identity problem, and three shifts you can start this week.

This episode is also the official invitation to the Audaciously Unapologetic Retreat, four days of clarity, confidence, and connection in the Arizona desert this October.

Together we will talk about:

One line to take with you:

"Your value was never in rescuing. Your value is in your clarity, your voice, and what you build in other people."

This week's challenge:

For one week, catch the rescue reflex. Every time you are about to take something off someone's plate, pause and ask: is this person actually drowning, or are they three feet from the wall? Do not change anything yet. Just notice how many times a day that reflex fires.

The Audaciously Unapologetic Retreat:

October 15 to 18, 2026 at CIVANA Wellness Resort and Spa in Carefree, Arizona. Four days of coaching, sound baths, private dinners under the desert sky, and a curated circle of women who are done running on fumes and ready to lead at full power. Co-facilitated by Lynsey Mulder and Paula Shannon. Attendance is by application and intentionally capped.

Connect with Lynsey:

If you have ever felt just a little bit off but could not quite explain it, this conversation will open your eyes in the best way.

This week kicks off a special two-part series with Dr. Alicia Newsome, a functional medicine practitioner, executive advisor, international speaker, and three-time bestselling author who helps high performers get to the root cause of what is going on inside their bodies, without drugs or surgery. Together, Lynsey and Dr. Alicia unpack the symptoms so many women have been told are normal (the fatigue, the brain fog, the PMS, the two o'clock crash) and reveal what your body is actually trying to tell you.

Together we will talk about:

One line to take with you:

"Headaches are common, but they are not normal. You did not have a headache because you had a Tylenol deficiency."

This week's challenge:

Pick one of Dr. Alicia's free routines and try it every day this week. Start with the morning practice: write down five things you are grateful for, actually feel them, then set two goals for your day. At the end of the month, read your running gratitude list back to yourself.

Connect with Dr. Alicia Newsome:

Connect with Lynsey:

Follow Lead with Spark on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Podbean so you do not miss Part 2 with Dr. Alicia next week, and leave a review if this one hit home

Ready to go deeper? Learn about the Audaciously Unapologetic retreat in Carefree, Arizona at audaciouslyunapologetic.com

Related listening: E58 The Expensive FYI, on how meeting culture keeps your body in the chronic stress this episode is all about.

Something big is happening this October, and in this episode you get the full reveal. Lynsey is joined by Paula Shannon, founder of Whole Leader Lab, former deputy superintendent, and a leader who spent 30 years in public education before clinical burnout forced a reckoning. Together they announce the Audaciously Unapologetic Retreat, a four-day wellness and leadership experience for women, October 15 to 18 at CIVANA Wellness Resort and Spa in Carefree, Arizona.

But this is not just a retreat pitch. Lynsey shares the moment she realized she was juggling so fast she could not even tell which ball she had dropped, and Paula tells the story of the mentor who told her to stop being a lifeguard and start being a swim coach, a shift that gave her 40 hours a week back. If you are the person everyone leans on, this conversation is your permission slip to press pause.

“I am two and a half years out of clinical burnout, and it has taken two and a half years to recover. That was the cost of not saying yes to myself sooner.” Paula Shannon

Ask yourself Lynsey's question: are you ready to invest in yourself to gain clarity, confidence, and join a community? What is the pattern you have created costing you? Apply for the Audaciously Unapologetic Retreat.

Eight hours of real work capacity. Fourteen meetings on the calendar. The math has never worked, and yet somewhere along the way we all agreed that this is what a workday looks like.

In this episode, Lynsey names the meeting culture problem for what it is: not a scheduling issue, but a culture that quietly turns you into a very expensive FYI. Drawing on 26 years in corporate leadership, including the day she logged on to find 21 meetings stacked into an 8-hour day, Lynsey breaks down the four hidden costs of meeting overload and hands you a practical playbook to change it from the inside, without a mandate, a memo, or permission.

Together we will talk about:

One line to take with you:

"Your calendar is full, but your real work is homeless."

This week's challenge:

Pick the single meeting on your calendar where you contribute the least, then either ask the organizer what is actually needed from you or ask for the notes instead. One meeting. Watch what it does for your energy, and for the people watching you.

Connect with Lynsey:

Follow Lead with Spark on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Podbean so you never miss an episode, and leave a review if this one hit home

Ready to go deeper? Learn about the Audaciously Unapologetic retreat in Carefree, Arizona at audaciouslyunapologetic.com

Related listening: E54 The Tactical Trap, on why tactical competence becomes a ceiling for senior leaders.