The Designed Life

Louisa Jewell, founder of the Canadian Positive Psychology Association and author of Wire Your Brain for Confidence, has spent twenty years inside the science of well-being. In this conversation she makes the case that resilience, the ability to return to where you were, is not enough for a world being rewritten faster than our brains can track. The skill she teaches now is psychological adaptability, and she walks through the three-part model behind it.

IN THIS EPISODE

•  Why the brain cannot keep pace with the rate of change, and what to build instead

•  The three moves of psychological adaptability: think, respond, recover

•  The self-compassion test Louisa teaches to rocket scientists

•  What an adaptable leader does differently when her team is under real pressure

•  How to raise kids who embrace lifelong learning

CONNECT WITH LOUISA

louisajewell.com  |  Book: Wire Your Brain for Confidence  |  Instagram @louisa.jewell  |  Canadian Positive Psychology Association (cppa.ca)

CHAPTERS

•  00:00  Why this conversation, and who it is for

•  01:43  The two Louisas: life before and after positive psychology

•  07:24  Daily practice: move your body, nurture relationships, just say yes

•  10:24  Loneliness, belonging, and deciding to love the barista

•  15:11  Curiosity instead of judgment

•  16:55  Self-compassion and the way we speak to ourselves

•  23:05  When positivity is not the answer

•  29:39  Why resilience is not enough: psychological adaptability

•  31:50  The three-part model, walked through

•  34:10  Adaptable leadership: clearing the way for high performance

•  37:38  Raising kids who are ready for anything

•  41:37  The Louisa Jewell Impact Award and the drop in the pond

•  44:15  One shift to try tonight, and what a designed life means now

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

You know the relief. The call goes to voicemail, the proposal goes out by email, the price gets typed into a DM instead of said out loud, and for a day you don't have to hear the no.

Ameera used to pray for voicemail. In this solo episode, she pulls the threads from last week's episode with Gazzy Amin, on buying conversations, and shares how she rebuilt her sales mindset, from a 15-year-old on a retail floor to a founder making offers in her DMs today.

You'll trace your first memory of being sold to and the belief it planted. You'll pause for a short exercise to notice where the fear of selling lands in your body before you ask. You'll see how service can become a hiding place that keeps you from ever making the offer.

If you're a high-achieving woman who still feels it in her stomach before a buying conversation, this episode gives you a new way in.

Listen now, then send it to the woman in your life who still finds selling is something she braces for.

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

In her first year of business, Gazzy Amin had 113 buying conversations. Eighty-six of them ended in a no.

Before founding Sales Beyond Scripts, Gazzy spent nearly a decade running national-level campaigns for Canadian prime ministers, premiers, and cabinet ministers, often as the youngest person and the only woman at the decision-making table. Today she teaches women founders to sell in a way that feels like care, and to lead their businesses as CEOs instead of carrying every task themselves.

Ameera and Gazzy get into:

• The zone of genius audit, and why the work you are worst at quietly costs you revenue
• Why profit solves most of the problems founders try to fix with more content
• Where the fear of selling comes from, and how to stop taking a no personally
• Why 3,000 views with zero conversations is an expensive marketing spend
• How Gazzy's sales team posts every no in the group chat
• What salsa lessons taught her about control, trust, and letting a team lead

If this conversation shifts how you feel about selling, share it with one woman who needs to hear it.

Connect with Gazzy: authenticgazzy.com  |  Instagram @authenticgazzy

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

You said the goal out loud and waited for the room to rise. Some rose. Some went quiet. One asked if it was smart, this close to 50.

This solo is about the part of change nobody warns you about: the people. Ameera shares leaving a secure job with a pension, getting laid off 18 months later in a restructuring, and choosing to go further into the work instead of back to safe. Inside is the one question that tells you whether you'll hold your vision when no one claps, and the reframe that decides whose reaction gets to move you.

The Design Table waitlist is open. Link in the show notes.

Highlights:

01:20  Why this one matters: leaving the secure job with the pension, near 50

02:40  Laid off 18 months later, and choosing to go further in, not back

04:00  Callback to the last solo: becoming the person who already holds the change

05:00  The uncomfortable truth: you can invite them, you can't carry them

05:40  Would you go anyway?

06:20  Whose reaction gets to move you

07:00  Circle one: the people you build with, and shared authorship

08:40  Circle two: the people who love you regardless

09:30  Circle three: the lukewarm, and releasing the expectation

10:15  The new frequency, the RAS, and what clears out of the way

11:30  Grief, quieter roads, envy, compassion, their journey to come around

12:45  What I don't want for you, and the Design Table invitation

13:45  Community prompt and close

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

Chelsea Andreozzi connected one job to the next for years: bartending through college, interning at a nonprofit that funds small businesses for women recovering from war, spending ten years as a restaurant beverage director, before she built her own consulting business, First Call Imports. 

Just as that business started to scale, she found out she was expecting her first child, and she and her husband bought their first home, all in the same season. 

This conversation is a real look at what it took to hold both: hiring help before she could technically afford it, setting boundaries most founders are afraid to set, and telling herself, more than once, that she didn't have to do everything alone or do it perfectly. 

A story about what happens when a woman designs her own version of holding it all, instead of inheriting someone else's.

Connect with Chelsea Andreozzi

Website: https://firstcallimports.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chelsandreozzi/

Substack: https://chelseawashburnandreozzi.substack.com/

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

You reached a goal you'd wanted for years, the promotion, the relationship, the money, and you couldn't quite hold it or feel at home with it. This episode is about why, and what to do about it.

This is the finale of Ameera's three-part series on why change feels so hard. If you're new to the show, start with the Episode Titled: The Wiring, then come back here. In this one she reaches the heart of lasting change: you cannot transform your life without becoming a different version of yourself, not a better one, a different one, the version who can actually hold what you're calling in. She shares the one question that shows you exactly where to begin, the grief that comes with letting an old self go, and how to give your nervous system the safety it needs so it stops pulling you back to what's familiar.

If you're ready to embrace the change, the awakening, you can feel coming, this one will meet you there. The Design Table, Ameera's twelve-week room for exactly this work, is open now, with details inside the episode and in the show notes.

Highlights:

00:00   Welcome, and where the series has led

02:00   The thing you got, and couldn't quite hold

04:00   You can't change without becoming someone different, not better

06:30   You fall to who you are, not your goals

08:30   The series comes together: wiring, energy, becoming

10:00   The future-self question (the peak)

13:00   The gap is the map, not a verdict

14:30   Becoming her, one choice at a time

16:30   The grief of letting the old self go, the chiseling

19:00   Your nervous system, and how to give it safety

21:30   Grief makes space for joy

23:00   The invitation: The Design Table

25:30   Lead yourself with compassion. Close.

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

You think of a friend and they text you an hour later. You wish for a parking spot and it opens up. You glance down and there's money at your feet. Coincidence, or something you had a hand in?

This episode is about what happens when you stop letting your brain scan for what might go wrong and point it, on purpose, at what you want to receive and create. Ameera walks through the science first, the filter in your brain that decides what you notice out of the flood of information around you, and then shares what she believes about the energy underneath it, leaving you free to keep what resonates and set the rest down. 

You'll get a practice for calling something in, a true story of a speaking engagement that arrived days after she wrote it down, and a simple assignment for the week.

What doesn't change either way: your thoughts, your inner dialogue, and your actions are all within your control. Align those three and change stops feeling impossible.

00:00   Welcome, and a look back at last week

02:00   Your brain scans for threat. What happens when you redirect it.

03:30   Coincidence, magic, or manifesting: the moments you've felt

05:00   The filter: your reticular activating system, explained

07:30   Your brain. What is it filtering for?

09:00   What I also believe: energy, and drawing it toward you

11:00   The Instagram story: a speaking engagement I called in

13:00   How to hold it: keep what resonates, leave the rest

14:30   Trust the nudge: intuition over analysis paralysis

17:00   The practice: name it, feel it, hold it open, act on it

21:00   Come back to it, and this week's heart assignment

23:00   What's coming: the work of becoming

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

You commit to a change with everything you have. You hold it for a few weeks. Then life gets busy and you drift right back to where you started, and you quietly decide you just do not have the discipline.

This episode is about why that happens, and why it was never about discipline . Ameera walks through the wiring underneath every habit: the thermostat your nervous system keeps resetting, why a new behavior can register as unsafe, and how a rough new path becomes a smooth one through repetition. She shares the counterintuitive approach a trainer once handed her, the one that finally made a habit stick after years of quitting, and it begins so small it will surprise you.

You will walk away with a simple challenge for the week and a new way to read the discomfort of change, not as failure, but as proof you left the old road behind.

In this episode: the two kinds of change, the thermostat and the nervous system, how learning becomes automatic, the reframe that keeps you going, and the small-habit method that compounds.

Chapter markers 

00:00   Welcome, and why change is the one true constant

01:30   The two kinds of change: the one life hands you, and the one you choose

04:00   Why you snap back: the thermostat and a nervous system wired for safety

06:30   How learning becomes automatic: the drive to work

09:00   Neurons that fire together (Hebb), and building the highway

10:30   Why the new path feels unsafe: the gym and the growing discomfort

13:00   The reframe: discomfort means you left the old road

15:00   Start small on purpose: the trainer and the 15-minute rule

18:30   Your challenge: pattern interrupts to practice change

20:30   One small change this week, and a look at next week

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

What if rest belonged at the start of your day instead of the reward you finally earn at the end of it? This week Ameera sits down with Azia Ranea, a TEDx speaker, coach, and the founder of Pause with Azia Ranea, who teaches ambitious, high-functioning women how to slow down without guilt.

Azia shares how she moved from running on empty to building a life with room to breathe, and she walks through her five-part PAUSE framework: Prioritize yourself, Ask how you actually feel, Use small daily tools, Set boundaries that protect your energy, and Engage fully with the moment you are in.

The conversation goes deep on the difference between capacity and capability, the question of not just “can I” but “should I,” where the guilt around rest really comes from, and why Azia believes balance is a myth while intention is the real goal. Along the way, Ameera and Azia talk about what it means to model calm for the next generation and the small, whimsical practices that bring a busy woman back to herself.

Connect with Azia:

Website: http://www.aziaranea.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aziaranea/

Linked In

Episode Highlights:

00:00 Welcome and why the pause matters

01:07 From dance educator to burnout: who Azia was before

03:00 Hitting the wall and the question that started it all

04:16 What burnout actually felt like, day to day

05:49 How the nervous system quietly resets your baseline

06:30 The PAUSE framework, letter by letter

10:24 Why a no to someone else is a yes to yourself

11:29 Modeling calm for the next generation

14:22 Parenting, presence, and the practical pause

17:02 How to respond instead of react in the hard moment

20:10 Capacity vs. capability: can I, or should I?

22:35 Where the guilt around rest really comes from

24:10 A hard Tuesday: how to water yourself anyway

25:12 What boundaries changed in her relationships

26:02 Why she believes balance is a myth

27:07 Chasing whimsy: the surprising side of Azia

28:44 Where to find Azia

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.

Some anniversaries ask you to look forward. This one asked me to look back, and to count what a single year of honest conversations can hold.

In this solo celebration of one year of The Designed Life, I walk you back through the conversations that stayed with me, and with so many of you. 

Nadine Allaham on healing your relationship with food and your body. 

Katherine Dudtschak on the courage to finally live your truth. 

Jennifer Leigh on becoming the evidence of your own success. 

Danielle Amos on rewriting a money story, from six figures of debt to six-figure months. 

Melanie Wilson Strong on holding fear and faith in the same hand. 

Then my own story of starting over at fifty, out of work and deeply in debt, and what it taught me about money, wealth, and worth.

This is an episode about the power of one. One idea. One person. One change. If you are designing a more intentional life across relationships, career, wellness, wealth, or legacy, consider this your invitation in. 

Join me in studio and let's celebrate how far you have come.

[00:00]  Welcome, and the Pressure I Stopped Carrying

[03:30]  Wellness: Nadine Allaham on Healing Your Relationship with Food

[06:45]  Relationships: Katherine Dudtschak on Living Your Truth

[10:00]  Career: Jennifer Leigh on Being the Evidence of Your Success

[12:30]  Wealth: My Own Story of Starting Over at Fifty

[15:30]  Wealth: Danielle Amos on Rewriting the Money Story

[17:45]  Faith: Melanie Wilson Strong on Fear and Courage

[20:15]  Legacy: The Life You Get to Design Today

[22:45]  The Power of One, and Your Reviews

[25:15]  An Invitation, and Thank You

New Intro Feb 2026 

Connect With Ameera Virani

Website: www.ameeravirani.com
Instagram: @ameera.virani
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ameeravirani/

Substack

 The Design Table is set 

The Designed Life Weekly Edit

If this episode inspired you, please follow the show and leave a review. 

Disclaimer

The Designed Life with Ameera Virani and all associated content is intended for general informational, educational, and inspirational purposes only. The insights shared on this podcast, as well as any linked resources or materials, are not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast is not intended to replace the guidance of a licensed therapist, medical professional, financial advisor, or other qualified professionals. Always seek the advice of your personal support team.