The Way She Leads

You've blamed the exhaustion on your calendar, your kids, and your lack of discipline. But the reason you may feel exhausted may be because you're running a 28-day body on a 24-hour schedule.

In this episode of The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with Martina Pezzino, certified nutrition consultant, holistic health coach, and founder of Luia Wellness.

If you've accepted waking up drained, needing three coffees to function, and quietly wanting to burn your life down one week every month as "just how it is," this conversation is for you. Martina breaks down the four phases of your cycle, what each one asks of your energy, food, and calendar, and why so few of us were ever taught any of it.

This isn't about doing less. It's about leading yourself first, so your life fits your body instead of making your body wrong for not fitting your life.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why the 24-hour workday was built around a man's hormones, and what that costs you every month
• How to tell the difference between the cycle variation to accept and the symptoms that need support
• Why the frustration that shows up in your luteal phase might be a truth to listen to, not a mood to ride out
• The simple calendar trick that shows you, three weeks ahead, how much capacity you'll actually have
• Why under-eating in the second half of your cycle may be fueling the irritability you blame on yourself

RESOURCES

Martina Pezzino
Certified Nutrition Consultant & Holistic Health Coach | Luia Wellness
Instagram | Website | Thrive Mama podcast | Thrive Mama 2 Week Trial | 1:1 Coaching

📚 Abundant Ever After by Cathy Heller
📚 Filthy Rich Fae by Geneva Lee

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Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: QHIAG7XBTHWGRSR1

You're not a bad sleeper. You've been told an incomplete story about what's happening at 3 AM.

In this guest episode of The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with wellness coach and sleep expert, Cynthia Conigliaro, founder of Work Well Webinars, to talk about what really happens to women's sleep after 40.

If you're carrying a full leadership load, kids leaving home, aging parents, and shifting hormones, a rough night isn't a personal failure. It's simply information. Cynthia brings 20+ years in mental health and wellness to show why sleep is both a necessity and a skill you can rebuild.

Megan also shares what two sleepless nights did to her patience as a parent, and why rest is also a leadership tool. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why getting out of bed at 3 AM works better than lying there trying to force sleep
• How to retrain your brain so your bed means one thing (and why even reading there works against you)
• The 10-minute morning habit that sets up tonight's sleep before your day starts
• Why that "relaxing" glass of wine is quietly costing you the second half of your night
• The difference between a sleep-hygiene fix and a signal it's time to see a specialist

RESOURCES

Cynthia Conigliaro
Owner and Founder | Work Well Webinars
LinkedIn | Website

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You've tried the time blocking, the shorter meetings and taking digital notes. But the hours disappearing from your week were never on your to-do list, they're going somewhere else entirely.

In this guest episode of The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with strategic alignment consultant Becca Rusinko for a conversation that starts where most leadership advice won't: you are not bad at prioritizing. You are handed 25 priorities and told, “Make it work.” 

Becca has led through the dot-com bust and the Great Recession, and she left finance not from burnout, but because her world had gotten too small. What she brings back is infrastructure: two repeatable rhythms that turn a beautiful strategic plan into something your team can actually use, without asking anyone to work a 70-hour week to prove they care.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why the hours vanishing from your week were never on anyone's project plan
• The difference between a strategic roadmap and a strategic GPS 
• The two rhythms that reclaim time instead of costing it: monthly recalibration on outcomes, weekly execution sprints on the ground
• How to run a weekly sprint that develops your people while the work gets done
• Why dread before a meeting is data, not weakness and what your nervous system knows before your calendar does

RESOURCES

Becca Rusinko
Strategic Alignment Consultant & Speaker
LinkedIn | Instagram | Website

🎧 Becca's 5-minute primer on the two rhythms
📚 The Artist's Way | Julia Cameron 

Megan Akatu

Fall Remembrance Workshop

LinkedIn | Instagram | Website | Podcast

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Your closet is full of black, gray, and navy and you've told yourself that's professional. It isn't. It's camouflage, and the room can feel it before anyone can name it.

This week on The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with Julie Grimm, personal color consultant, stylist, painter, and energy healer to discuss color theory, the science of undertone and harmony so you can look and feel your best!

If you've ever stood in a store holding something beautiful you knew wasn't for you, bought it anyway, and returned it two weeks later, this episode is for you. Not because you need a new wardrobe. Because you've been spending energy on the wrong dial, and there's a formula underneath all of it. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The difference between a color that matches your clothes and a color that matches you The three dials (light/dark, bright/soft, cool/warm) that decide what actually suits you, and why most women only know one of them
• The frequency of color and how it can change your mood 
• Why people feel harmony on you before they can explain it, the same way they feel when something's off
• Julie's reframe on feminine leadership: my favorite answer yet!

RESOURCES

Julie Grimm

Founder, Joyful  Color Analysis and Spiritual Studies Institute

Website | Instagram | Spiritual Studies Institute

📚 Dream Symbolism by Manley P. Hall
📚 Wassily Kandinsky on the energy of color 

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You have heard the narrative, Young employees don't want to work, they can't take feedback, they're always on their phones.” But the reason your early-career team isn't showing up the way you want has almost nothing to do with them.

In this guest episode of The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with Amy Mosher Berry, CEO and Founder of Visions Internships, who has spent 20+ years working in the gap between young talent and the leaders managing them.

If you're the leader who is exhausted by giving constant feedback, and confused about what your Gen Z hires actually want from you, listen up!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• What actually happens when a young employee feels heard
• The Gallup finding that explains why 80% of today's college grads are checked out at work (and what they're actually asking you for)
• How to tell the difference between a young employee who's disengaged and one who's putting more pressure on herself than you realize
• The "and" that changes everything: why forcing young people to choose between doing well and doing good is costing you your best talent
• The one shift Amy teaches supervisors that turns them from "interesting" to unforgettable in the eyes of a young employee

RESOURCES

Amy Mosher Berry
CEO & Founder | Visions Internships
LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | TikTok | Website

📚 The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod
📚 Strong Ground by Brené Brown

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There's a reason you've stopped trusting your gut, and it's not a confidence problem. When you spend years leading like someone you're not, the instincts you built your career on go quiet.

This week on The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with Eve Kelly, a master of nuance, humor and truth-telling, even when it's uncomfortable. If you've ever felt the weight of being watched more closely than your peers, Eve names it all and provides practical ways to handle revealing situations and how to stay yourself through it all.

Megan and Eve unpack the hidden curriculum of hierarchical organizations, the real cost of self-abandonment, and how to decide, in the moment,  whether to speak up or let it go…and be whole either way.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why women who earn credibility by imitating men eventually struggle to make any decision at all
• The "hidden curriculum" of organizations and what to be more aware of, most especially as a person of color
• How to address a microaggression  in a room full of peers without making them wrong (and why being okay either way is the real power move)
• The difference between happiness you have to chase and joy you already carry
• What Eve's body figured out about regulation before her mind did, and the calendar practice that protects it

RESOURCES

Eve Kelly
Executive Director; Belonging, Engagement, and Mission | University of Notre Dame

📚 The works of Howard Thurman
📚 The works of bell hooks

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You've optimized your calendar, your morning routine, your systems, all in service of pushing harder. But the reason you're always running on empty isn't your time management. It's that you've been working against your own seasons and your own flow.

In this episode of The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with intuitive astrologer and artist Stevie Calista for a conversation that's equal parts soulful and shockingly practical. If you're a high-achieving woman who defaults to "I should be doing more" and carries the bricks in the backpack, plans every detail, and treats rest like something you have to earn, this one names the pattern out loud.

Stevie's gift is taking something vast and making it usable by tomorrow. Listen up as she explains how understanding your natural design helps you stop forcing momentum that isn't there, deepen self-trust, and lead from the version of you the room already sees.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why the relentless drive that built your career is the exact zone quietly keeping you stuck
• How to map your year into seasons of push, rest, and vision, so you stop forcing flow that isn't ready yet
• The reason "just meditate every day" has never worked for you, and what your mind actually needs to quiet down
• How you're already being read as a certain kind of leader whether you own it or not, and the cost of fighting it
• The two-day window each month worth protecting on your calendar, and why your body registers it before your mind catches up

RESOURCES

Stevie Calista
Intuitive Soul Blueprint Astrologer
Instagram | Substack | Website

🔧 Pull your free birth chart at astro.com (you'll need your date, exact time, and location)
📚 Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas 

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WHAT IF THE SYSTEM WAS NEVER DESIGNED FOR YOU…AND THE REAL POWER COMES FROM KNOWING THAT?

You've played by the rules. You've outperformed, out-hustled, and out-managed. And still, somewhere between the morning spin bike session at 5:30 AM and the third RTO announcement, your body started sending a different message than your résumé.

This episode of The Way She Leads is a conversation Megan has been waiting to have. Kelly Ferraro, founder, former Meta leader, and one of the most truth-telling women in the room, sits down to unpack what it actually costs high-achieving women and working mothers to succeed inside systems that were never built for their bodies, their rhythms, or their values.

This is not a conversation about quitting. It's a conversation about what it means to be satiated, sovereign, and fully alive, and what it looks like to design a life from that place.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why 63% of C-suite leaders report RTO has led to a disproportionate amount of women quitting, and what that statistic reveals about who the workplace was actually built for
• The concept of being "satiated,” and why a woman who knows she has enough is the one no company can hold power over
• How the male 24-hour testosterone productivity cycle shapes your daily huddle, your task list, and the quiet shame you carry when you can't check everything off
• Why your body registered a "no" before your brain had the words and what Kelly learned from following that signal even when she couldn't explain it

RESOURCES

Kelly Ferraro

Founder of Ferraro Growth Partners and the Rise and Build Collective

LinkedIn | Instagram

Reading: The Soul of Money | Lynne Twist

LinkedIn | Instagram | Web

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In this episode of The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with Laura Ravo, executive career and performance coach, COO of Shine Strategy, and 30-year retail veteran, for a conversation about the kind of influence that doesn't announce itself. The kind that walks in with red lipstick, asks one well-placed question, and changes the entire direction of the room.

If you've ever been told to "soften your edges" and had absolutely no idea what that meant, or if you've wondered why your competence alone isn't translating into the influence you know you're capable of, this episode is your answer.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why being told to "soften your edges" is actually an invitation and how to hear it without shrinking
• The difference between influencing with authority and influencing through curiosity
• How your nervous system is setting the tone for your entire team, before you say a single word
• Why asking instead of telling is the most underrated power move in leadership
• The inherited legacies that drive your "bad behavior" and how to shed what was never really yours

RESOURCES

Laura Ravo | LinkedIn

Strong Ground \ Brené Brown

Diary of a CEO podcast | Steven Bartlett

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WHAT IF THE RESENTMENT YOU'RE CARRYING AT WORK IS THE VERY THING BLOCKING YOUR NEXT LEVEL?

In this episode of The Way She Leads, Megan sits down with Casey Carrion, fractional Head of People & Culture and senior leader within Lightyear Leadership, for an honest, deeply human conversation about one of the most common (and least talked about) leadership traps: what happens when a decision gets made above you and you don't agree?

Casey offers a story, one where she sat stuck and angry for five months, convinced she was right, slowly realizing she'd become someone she didn't recognize. What she learned in that season became the foundation of the leader she is today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why having decision-making rights matters and what it costs you when you forget you don't have them in a given situation
• The principle "choice partnered with decision liberates" and how reclaiming your choice is the fastest path out of resentment
• How alignment doesn't have to mean agreement and why choosing to align can make you a more powerful leader for your team
• Why your body knows when you're out of alignment before your mind catches up
• The difference between fighting for your values and staying stuck in rightness and how one keeps you moving while the other keeps you small

RESOURCES

Casey Carrion | LinkedIn

Carrie Soto Is Back | Taylor Jenkins Reid 

Super Communicators | Charles Duhigg

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