On today’s episode, I sit down with Renee Jackson-Smith, a leadership strategist who spent thirty years being the person everyone could hand anything to. She rose to Senior Talent and Performance Manager, walked away from her career twice, and built a practice around a question most leaders never stop to ask: is this confidence, or is this performance?

We talk about the twenty years she spent carrying her mother’s death unprocessed, the single question from her pastor that cracked it open, the survival pattern Validation Through Achievement, and what it looks like now when she leads from grounded presence instead of proof. 

Chapters:

00:00 Cold Open
00:33 Intro
01:07 Meet Renee Jackson-Smith
05:18 Losing Her Mom at Twenty-One
09:10 The Pastor Who Saw Through Her
19:09 Performing for Mastery vs. Performing for Approval
25:18 The Credential-Collecting Pattern
28:31 The Vacation That Changed Everything
39:11 The Work She Does Today
44:44 Stop Performing, Start Leading

Connect with Renee Jackson-Smith: linkedin.com/in/reneejacksonsmith | soar2win.com

Beth helps leaders, high-performers, and organisations understand that the survival patterns running leadership styles can be recognised, examined, and changed. Through my leadership performance transformation methodology, Leader Rewired™, I help leaders recognize that the survival patterns running their leadership style can be named, examined, and changed. You, too, can heal. And when you do you lead, live, and love better.

Connect with Beth: [email protected] | http://empoweredsurvivors.com | Substack: @‌bethjoneshealingmentor

Mike Orlowski spent years leading in a high-stress logistics and talent acquisition career while quietly heading toward a breaking point he told almost no one about. He's now the host of the Mojo, Motivation & Mental Health podcast and founder of MOJO Worldwide — but before any of that, he was standing six feet from ending his life, a little over a year after losing his mother, worn down by burnout he'd never named out loud.

In this conversation, Mike and Beth trace the survival patterns underneath that moment (imposter syndrome, a punishing inner critic, and a codependent habit of letting other people's words decide his mood) and what changed once he stopped outsourcing his happiness. They talk about walking, gratitude, why hosting a podcast about other people's pain became part of his own healing, and what he'd say to someone sitting at their own six-foot mark today.

Chapters:

00:01 — Introduction & Guest Welcome

00:49 — Life in Logistics, Talent Acquisition, and the Mission Behind Mojo

02:39 — Holding Space for Other People's Pain

04:41 — Setting the Stage: Bullying, Anxiety, and Years of Locking It Away

06:07 — The Breaking Point

08:58 — Imposter Syndrome and the Inner Critic

17:18 — The Turn

20:04 — Walking, Gratitude, and Rebuilding One Percent at a Time

29:15 — Codependency and Choosing His Own Happiness

33:43 — Leading and Loving Differently Now, and What He'd Say at the Six-Foot Mark

Connect with Mike Orlowski:

Michael Orlowski | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeorlowski/

MOJO Worldwide | Personal Transformation, Motivation & Mental Wellness: https://www.mojomotivates.com/

Connect with Beth:

mailto:[email protected] | empoweredsurvivors.com

What does it cost a team when their most composed leader is the one carrying the most? Jeff Johnston built a wealth management practice that eventually managed hundreds of millions of dollars in client assets and looked, from the outside, like the complete version of success. For over thirty years, he was also a daily drinker, present enough at work to never raise a flag and absent enough at home that he now names it directly: he was not present in his son's life.

This conversation goes past the loss Jeff has spoken about publicly and into the leadership behavior underneath it: the overfunctioning that let a real crisis run for decades in plain sight, the moment that performance broke, and what Jeff leads differently now. You, too, can heal.

Chapters:

00:00 Cold Open
00:45 Welcome and Introduction
02:00 Two Lives, Split at Fifty
09:45 Building an $800 Million Practice
12:10 The Call About Seth
16:50 “I Was a Narcissist, I Was Arrogant, I Wasn’t Present”
18:45 Thirty-Six Years of High-Functioning Alcoholism
22:50 Losing Prudence and Three Days in the Closet
39:56 Purpose Becomes Passion When It Gets Personal
53:25 Shattering the Self-Built Prison
1:02:35 Building Brightn and Leading Differently

Connect with Jeff Johnston: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-a-johnston/ | brightn.app | http://livingundeterred.org

Connect with Beth: [email protected] | http://empoweredsurvivors.com | Substack: @‌bethjoneshealingmentor

Jessica Hammock is the Director of Behavioral and Mental Health for one of the largest charter school networks in Texas, responsible for crisis response and mental health training across 100 campuses and 25,000 students. When a death on campus happens, she is the person every principal calls. From the outside: completely calm. From the inside, her words: "my little heart is fluttering away like little legs underneath the pond." 

In this conversation, Jessica and Beth go somewhere most leadership conversations don't reach. Jessica describes what it looks like to lead at scale while managing her own nervous system beneath the surface — the go mode, the over-functioning, and the moment she recognized that owning the weight of everybody else's outcomes was never hers to carry.

What survival mode leadership looks like when you're the designated calm one. Why "leave your problems at the door" is physiologically impossible. The performance-based identity that showed up long before the leadership title did. And what it looks like to lead from giftedness instead of a false sense of responsibility. 

Chapters:
00:00 — Cold open: the duck on the pond
00:19 — Leadership series intro
02:08 — Who Jessica is today
09:39 — What happens when the crisis call comes in
13:38 — “You’re not getting in the car” — when the boss says no
18:53 — “Leave your problems at the door is a lie”
21:05 — Owning what was never mine to own
26:14 — Resourcing vs. armor — where Jessica is today
32:33 — What healing taught her about leadership
38:23 — Sitting across from younger Jessica
40:59 — Closing / call to action

Connect with Jessica Hammock: vibrantvoice.life | https://www.linkedin.com/in/vibrantvoice/

Connect with Beth: [email protected] | http://empoweredsurvivors.com | Substack: @‌bethjoneshealingmentor 

What happens when the fear of losing a paycheck teaches you to swallow the truth — and what does that same fear look like once you're the one running the room?

My guest is Kathy Love: two-time TEDx speaker, self-care coach, author, and podcast host, whose ex-husband was convicted of white-collar crime and sentenced to federal prison. We go back to where the co-dependency pattern started, long before the FBI ever showed up at her house, and bring it forward into how she leads and works today.

Through The HEAL Framework™ — Hope, Evolve, And Love — Beth helps leaders recognize the survival patterns shaping how they lead. You, too, can heal.

Chapters

00:00 Cold Open & Intro
07:44 Meet Kathy Love: From Federal Investigation to Self-Care Coach
16:53 Naming the Pattern: “An Extreme People Pleaser”
17:41 Falling in Love at 23 and Missing the Red Flags
34:55 The Slow Unraveling: “You Just Don't Understand”
38:39 The Card from the FBI
45:23 Coming Home to an Unfamiliar Calm
49:15 The Root Cause: A Fear of Being Alone
1:00:16 Changing Her Name, Rebuilding Herself
1:05:38 What Changed at Work After the Healing
1:07:40 Debate, Not Argument: Truth as a Leadership Tool
1:10:04 Close

Connect with Kathy Love:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathylove111/
https://www.myselfcareshit.com/

Through The HEAL Framework™ — to Hope, Evolve, And Love, each as an action — Beth helps leaders, high-performers, and organizations understand that the survival patterns running leadership styles can be recognized, examined, and changed.

Connect with Beth:
[email protected] | http://empoweredsurvivors.com | Substack: @‌bethjoneshealingmentor

What happens when the skill that makes you an exceptional leader is the same skill that’s quietly exhausting you? Kristan Gainey Keene spent thirty years in enterprise technology building programs that helped people feel seen, heard, and included. What she didn’t know was that every one of those skills was forged in an unsafe childhood. In this conversation, Kristan and Beth go to the place most leadership interviews never reach: the personal history underneath the professional expertise.

Chapters:
00:00 Cold open
00:28 Intro
00:59 Meet Kristan Gainey Keene
01:51 Who Kristan is today
03:12 Why storytelling is an identity
04:24 The AAA Forum: storytelling as belonging
09:00 “Bring a Man” — including men in the conversation
11:58 Creating safe spaces during hard times
13:26 Work as the safe place
14:20 Where the warmth comes from
15:40 “I thought they were my feelings”
20:38 The healing journey begins
25:04 Leadership before healing
26:31 Beyond belonging — acceptance
28:23 Curiosity over resistance
35:03 The story that changed a C-suite leader
37:29 What would you say to her?
41:00 Connection as the opposite of addiction

Connect with Kristan Gainey Keene: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristangaineykeene/

Through The HEAL Framework™ — to Hope, Evolve, And Love, each as an action — Beth helps leaders, high-performers, and organisations understand that the survival patterns running their leadership styles can be recognised, examined, and changed.

You, too, can heal.

Connect with Beth:
Website: https://empoweredsurvivors.com
Substack | LinkedIn: @‌BethJonesHEALingMentor
Email: [email protected]
Book: Becoming an Empowered Survivor (Amazon)

#LeadershipPerformance #SurvivalModeLeadership #TraumaInformedLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #EmotionalIntelligence

Laura Roach is a partner at McCathern and one of the most recognized family law mediators in Texas. In this conversation, Laura shares what her breakdown taught her about leadership, why she tells her young attorneys to go home to their families, and the business case for doing your own work: better talent, stronger teams, and more revenue.

Beth explores how Laura’s story connects to tone at the top—the leadership behavior that determines whether people feel safe to be human at work.

Chapters:
0:00 Cold Open
0:13 Intro
0:50 Who is Laura Roach?
4:05 The protector and the blunt truth-teller
8:20 Laura’s breakdown and the road to recovery
12:45 What vulnerability changed about her leadership
14:00 Why her team isn’t afraid to bring her problems
22:45 Fighting ego to get help
26:00 The people you lose and the people you find
29:40 “Go home to your babies” — human-first leadership in practice
32:40 Work-life balance vs. life-work integration
36:15 The ROI of recovery: revenue, talent, and the cycle that repeats
38:30 Close

Connect with Laura Roach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-roach-09563467/ | [email protected]

Through The HEAL Framework™ — to Hope, Evolve, And Love, each as an action — Beth helps leaders, high-performers, and organizations understand that the survival patterns running leadership styles can be recognized, examined, and changed.

Connect with Beth: [email protected] | http://empoweredsurvivors.com | Substack: @‌bethjoneshealingmentor

Rick Hightower grew up in an all-Black neighborhood in Atlanta, arrived at TCU (a university in Ft Worth, TX) at 19, and discovered for the first time what it meant to be a Black man in a predominantly white world. That discovery shaped his entire career. In this conversation, Beth and Rick explore the survival patterns that navigating race creates, Rick introduces the concept of aversive racism, and Beth shares her own unconscious bias story and asks whether it crossed into how she led. Today’s lesson: conscious living.

Chapters:
00:00 Cold open
00:10 Intro
00:45 Meet Rick Hightower
03:25 Two heart attacks and a wake-up call
05:20 The courage to speak up before retirement
12:00 Right under your nose but you don’t see
13:15 “I haven’t had any major trauma”
14:48 I discovered I was Black at 19
16:32 The calculus class that changed everything
20:00 Working harder and watching others get more
22:05 The false arrest at TCU
24:00 Black professionals and the exceptional standard
27:45 Conscious living and picking your battles
29:50 Prepare to be wrong
32:05 What navigating race costs your relationships
35:03 Seeking joy and setting boundaries
35:35 Beth’s unconscious bias story
39:56 Aversive racism explained
43:13 The mask, the pandemic, and conscious living
47:10 Close

Connect with Rick Hightower:
LinkedIn:   / rick-hightower-3405bb179 

Instagram: instagram.com/hightower_rick

Facebook: facebook.com/rick.hightower.7
Website: therickhightower.com

Connect with Beth:
[email protected]
empoweredsurvivors.com
Substack

What happens when the fuel running your entire career is a lack of self-worth, and you don’t realize it until the validation spigot turns off?

Molly Moore Smith spent over 25 years in the tech industry, rising from entry-level to VP while her entire identity ran on external validation. In this episode, Molly names the survival patterns that drove her leadership for two decades — perfectionism, people pleasing, control, and numbing — and shares the moment she uttered the scariest words of her adult life to her boss on a Zoom call.

Chapters:
00:00 Cold Open — “If success in this role means I have to spend 50% of my time doing these things, then I’m not the right person for the role”
01:02 Introduction: Molly Moore Smith
04:50 Where the Drive Began: Scarcity, Divorce, and the First Job That Rewarded Effort
06:27 External Validation as the Only Fuel
08:50 The Validation Spigot Turns Off
11:30 The Cost at Home: Mommy Guilt and the 80/20 Marriage
14:35 Naming the Survival Patterns: Perfectionism, People Pleasing, Control, Numbing
17:55 The 2019 Health Pivot
20:10 The Biggest Funk: Misalignment, Stopping Drinking, and the Zoom Call
23:00 The Scariest Sentence She Ever Said to Her Boss
26:40 What Healing Freed Up: Writing a Book, Spiritual Awakening, Energy Healing
30:20 The Emotion Code: How Trapped Emotions Drive Leadership Behavior
36:52 What Would You Say to Her?
39:42 You, Too, Can Heal

Connect with Molly Moore Smith:

http://nextbeststep.co

linkedin.com/in/molly-smith-cecp-24345712

http://youtube.com//@mollypositivepants

Through The HEAL Framework™, Beth helps leaders recognize, examine, and change these patterns.

Connect with Beth:

[email protected]

http://empoweredsurvivors.com

Substack: @‌bethjoneshealingmentor

Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

What happens when the survival strategies that got you through childhood become the leadership behaviors your team has to navigate every day?

Chason Forehand spent years leading teams in hospitality while carrying unresolved trauma that shaped how he showed up: trust issues that became harshness, emotional walls that shut down empathy, and a need for control that kept his team at arm’s length.

In this episode, Chason and Beth name the survival patterns that drive leadership behavior, where they come from, and what it takes to recognize them. Through The HEAL Framework™, Beth helps leaders understand that these patterns can be recognized, examined, and changed.

Chapters:

00:00 Cold Open — “I was failing at that because I was struggling myself.”

01:02 The Leadership Series Begins: Why This Conversation Is Long Overdue

08:05 Chason’s Story: From Childhood Abuse to Running Restaurants

10:22 How Addiction Morphs — From Substances to Workaholism

17:55 Trust Issues at Work: When Survival Becomes Harsh Leadership

20:39 The Mask of High Performance: Succeeding While Struggling

28:09 What Emotional Intelligence Looks Like After Healing

29:48 Three Questions That Changed Everything: What Am I Feeling, Where Does It Come From, What Do I Want to Do About It

30:57 Why Healing Is a Career Imperative for Leaders

31:43 You, Too, Can Heal

Connect: [email protected] | empoweredsurvivors.com

Connect with Chason Forehand: Chason Forehand | Linktree or Chason Forehand | LinkedIn

Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.