Guest: Dr. Marilee Adams, author and pioneer of inquiry-based coaching and leadership

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

When the world feels complex or scary, we tend to narrow our thinking into rigid, binary judgments — and lose access to nuance, choice, and possibility. Dr. Marilee Adams, author of Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, joins Julie to unpack the Learner and Judger mindsets, the Choice Map that shows how we fall into — and can climb out of — reactive thinking, and why the questions we ask ourselves shape everything from our relationships to our physical health.

ABOUT MY GUEST

Marilee Adams, Ph.D. is an award-winning author and pioneer in the fields of inquiry-based coaching, leadership, and organizational effectiveness. She is the author of Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 14 Powerful Tools for Leadership, Coaching, and Results, which has sold over half a million copies in 25 languages. Her work focuses on showing people how to ask themselves the best questions to help themselves thrive, both personally and professionally.

WHAT WE COVER

• How Marilee developed Question Thinking and the Choice Map, starting with a spontaneous flip-chart exercise
• The two core mindsets: Learner (open, curious, creative) and Judger (closed, defensive, demeaning) — and why both are normal
• Why awareness is the first step, and how the body often signals which mindset you're in before your mind catches up
• The Choice Map: the fork in the road, the “Judger pit,” and the many off-ramps back to Learner
• Why Judger is our biological default — and why that's not something to judge ourselves for
• Self-compassion and giving yourself time before trying to “fix” a reaction
• Low-stakes vs. high-stakes triggers, and how to recognize which one you're in
• The cumulative cost of a Judger-dominant inner life — physiologically, emotionally, and relationally
• Curiosity as a healing, connecting force — and why you can't be angry and curious at the same time

Thank you for listening. We are so happy you found us.

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CONNECT WITH MARILEE

• Website (Check out the Choice Map download here): [
• Purchase your copy of Change Your Questions, Change Your Life

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Muscling through was never the answer. In this solo episode, Julie unpacks why willpower is a poor foundation for lasting change — at work, in our health, and in the goals we keep setting and quietly abandoning — and walks through four things that matter far more: the environment we build around ourselves, the identity we reinforce with every small action, whether a goal is genuinely ours, and how we treat ourselves when we inevitably slip.

WHAT WE COVER

• Why the “try harder” story about change is wrong — and why willpower gets too much credit
• Environment over willpower: James Clear's systems thinking and Angela Duckworth's new book Situated, including her Three Box Model and the idea of situational agency
• Identity-based change vs. outcome-based change
• Autonomous vs. controlled motivation, and the question: is this goal actually mine?
• The “what-the-hell effect” — why self-compassion after a slip predicts a faster comeback than self-criticism
• Four questions to sit with this week

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

• Where are you relying on willpower to fight an environment that's working against you?
• Is the goal you're chasing actually yours, or borrowed from someone else's expectations?
• What's one small environmental change you could make this week to take some of the daily fight off your shoulders?
• The last time you slipped, how did you talk to yourself? What would self-compassion have sounded like instead?

Thank you for listening. We are so happy you found us.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, follow Nine to Thrive: The Well-Being Podcast so our new episodes are automatically delivered to your favorite podcast feed, and please share it with a friend!

Reviews and ratings matter <3

We would be so grateful if you left a 5 star rating and a few words about what you liked (or loved) about this episode.

Want more tools and strategies for thriving and flourishing?

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It's never too late to change, pick up something new, or deepen a relationship. Ilene Berns-Zare — psychologist, coach, and author of You're Not Too Old and It's Not Too Late: Weekly Practices of Meaning, Mindfulness, and New Possibilities at Midlife and Beyond — joins Julie to talk about reimagining the second half of life with more curiosity, resilience, and possibility. We dig into what resilience actually means at midlife and beyond, how to question the negative labels our culture attaches to aging, and the daily practices — strengths, gratitude, connection — that support thriving in any season.

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT

• Resilience as a series of realizations, understandings, and choices — not a one-and-done trait
• Building resilience like a muscle, and why over-rescuing can interrupt that process in the people we love
• Questioning the negative labels and stereotypes our culture assigns to aging
• Reframing language: “growing older” instead of “getting old,” “seasoned” instead of “over the hill”
• Using your character strengths — including the free VIA strengths survey — instead of focusing only on what's wrong
• Hope theory, agency, and pathways thinking applied to midlife and beyond
• Self-compassion, flexibility, and adjusting timelines as life circumstances shift
• Daily gratitude practices, including the “three good things” exercise

Thank you for listening. We are so happy you found us.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, follow Nine to Thrive: The Well-Being Podcast so our new episodes are automatically delivered to your favorite podcast feed, and please share it with a friend!

Reviews and ratings matter <3

We would be so grateful if you left a 5 star rating and a few words about what you liked (or loved) about this episode.

Want more tools and strategies for thriving and flourishing?

-Check out Julie’s website and subscribe to her monthly newsletter here

-Follow Julie on Instagram or LinkedIn

More about Ilene:

Ilene Berns-Zare is a life and leadership coach, psychologist, educator, and author who helps people navigate their lives with resilience, meaning, mindfulness, and well-being. She's the author of You're Not Too Old and It's Not Too Late: Weekly Practices of Meaning, Mindfulness, and New Possibilities at Midlife and Beyond, and writes the blog Flourish and Thrive on Psychology.com. Her work focuses on helping people flourish by bringing mind, body, and spirit into flow with their strengths, purpose, and potential.

Website - https://ibzcoaching.com/

Blogs - http://ibzcoaching.com/blog

Psychology Today- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/contributors/ilene-berns-zare-psyd

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilene-berns-zare-psyd-pcc-cec-9062a39b/

Blue Sky Social - @ileneberns-zare.bsky.social

Expertise is supposed to make us better — until the moment it doesn't. In this episode, Julie explores beginner's mind: what it actually is, why it's not the same thing as knowing less, and why holding what you know a little more lightly might be one of the biggest advantages you can bring to work, relationships, and change.

WHAT WE COVER

• Why expertise can backfire — the Einstellung effect and how experience narrows what we're able to see
• The real difference between beginner's mind and growth mindset
• Cognitive flexibility and intellectual humility — what the research says about staying open
• How calcified expertise shows up at work — and what a true beginner would notice that you've stopped seeing
• Why becoming an “expert” on the people closest to you can be a trap
• Beginner's mind as an antidote to the fear of the unfamiliar
• Five self-coaching questions to find where certainty might be costing you more than not-knowing would

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

• Where in your work have you stopped asking questions because you're “supposed” to already know the answer?
• Think of someone close to you — what's one assumption about them you haven't actually checked lately?
• Where might your experience be narrowing your options instead of expanding them?
• If you approached this week as a total beginner, what would you notice that you've stopped seeing?
• Where is certainty costing you more than not-knowing would?

Thank you for listening. We are so happy you found us.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, follow Nine to Thrive: The Well-Being Podcast so our new episodes are automatically delivered to your favorite podcast feed, and please share it with a friend!

Reviews and ratings matter <3

We would be so grateful if you left a 5 star rating and a few words about what you liked (or loved) about this episode.

Want more tools and strategies for thriving and flourishing?

-Check out Julie’s website and subscribe to her monthly newsletter here

-Follow Julie on Instagram

-Follow her on LinkedIn

-Interested in working with Julie? Book an inquiry call here

We live in a culture that recognizes some griefs and quietly overlooks the rest. Nicole Collins — a former tech executive, twice-over caregiver, founder of Bea, and grief educator— joins Julie to talk about grief in all its forms and why processing it is essential to thriving

WHAT WE COVER

• Caregiving for two while leading a team — and the self-abandonment that came with it
• Grief beyond death: job loss, fractured friendships, family estrangement
• Why we have rituals for some griefs and none for others
• Collective grief and what we're still carrying from COVID
• Why processing grief is essential to thriving, not separate from it
• Humor as a legitimate grief skill
• Why the first year after loss is a dangerous financial window
• Nicole's three regular practices for thriving

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Anderson Cooper's podcast All There Is
• Tara Brach — Radical Acceptance

ABOUT MY GUEST

Nicole Collins is the founder of Bea, a voice AI guide that helps widows through the financial decisions of the first year after loss. Before founding Bea, she spent 15+ years leading people and marketing teams in tech, most recently as VP of People and Marketing at Innovasea. She was a caregiver twice over — for her mom and for her partner Christian, who died of brain cancer in 2023 — all while holding down an executive role. She's a certified grief educator and a believer that humor is a legitimate grief skill.

CONNECT WITH NICOLE

• Bea
• LinkedIn

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Mary Oliver's famous question — what will you do with your one wild and precious life — is easy to admire and hard to answer honestly. In this episode, I explore why: not because we lack imagination, but because answering it means admitting how much we quietly trade away for safety. We talk about the neuroscience behind why safety wins by default, the real cost of the unlived life, and how to start telling the difference between a genuine constraint and fear dressed up as a reasonable one.

WHAT WE COVER

• Why we don't fail to pursue what we want — we quietly stop letting ourselves want it
• Negativity bias: why the brain treats the unfamiliar edge as risk before it treats it as possibility
• Safety-seeking as an adaptive nervous system response, not a personal failure
• The cost of the unlived life — the quiet price we pay for staying safe
• Hope theory (C.R. Snyder): the difference between pathways and agency
• Self-determination theory and “autonomy-edges” — the choices that are fully ours
• Six self-coaching questions to explore this week

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

1. If fear weren't a factor for one day, what would you do differently?
2. Where in your life have you quietly downgraded a want into something more “reasonable”? What did the original version sound like, before you talked yourself down?
3. What's the story you tell yourself about why now isn't the right time? Is it true, or is it familiar?
4. Whose voice is in your head when you imagine going for the bigger version of your life? Is it yours?
5. What would it cost you — five years from now — to never find out? And what's one payoff if you tried?
6. What is one payoff to trying?
7. What's one edge, even a small one, you could explore this week without needing the whole path mapped out first?

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”
• Negativity bias — referenced from the self-compassion episode
• Hope theory — C.R. Snyder
• Self-determination theory — autonomy, competence, relatedness

We're wired to be hard on ourselves. In this solo episode, Julie unpacks the neuroscience behind our negativity bias and self-criticism, then turns to Dr. Kristin Neff's groundbreaking research on self-compassion — what it actually is, the biggest myths that keep us from practicing it, and why it might be one of the most essential (and misunderstood) tools we have for showing up for our goals, ourselves, and the people we love.

• Why self-criticism feels so automatic — and the evolutionary "negativity bias" behind it
• The difference between a fear response and genuine high standards
• Kristin Neff's three core components of self-compassion: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness
• Four common myths about self-compassion — and what the research actually shows
• Why self-compassion doesn't lower the bar, it changes the fuel
• Why this matters more than ever in a culture of comparison and optimization
• Five self-coaching questions to start shifting your inner voice today

Self-criticism is a fear response, not a character flaw. Our brains evolved to scan for threats — including threats to our own sense of adequacy. That inner critic isn't cruelty; it's an outdated safety strategy.

Self-compassion has three parts: self-kindness (versus self-judgment), common humanity (versus isolation), and mindfulness (versus over-identification with painful feelings).

Self-compassion is not self-pity, selfishness, weakness, or letting yourself off the hook. Research consistently shows the opposite — it's linked to greater accountability, more empathy for others, and more resilience after failure.

Care is a more sustainable motivator than fear. Self-criticism burns you out. Self-compassion keeps you going.

In a culture of constant comparison, self-compassion isn't optional — it's a form of resilience.

1. What would I say to a friend who was going through exactly what I'm going through right now?
2. Is there a difference between having high standards for myself and being cruel to myself when I don't meet them?
3. What is my self-criticism actually afraid of? What is it trying to protect me from?
4. Where in my life am I mistaking self-punishment for motivation — and what might it look like to try care instead, just for a week?
5. What would it feel like to treat a mistake as evidence that I'm human, rather than evidence that I'm failing?

• Dr. Kristin Neff — pioneering researcher on self-compassion; creator of the three-component framework (self-kindness, common humanity, mindfulness) and author of the book Self Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

"Self-compassion isn't about lowering the bar. It's about changing the voice that's talking to you while you reach for it."

Thank you for listening. We are so happy you found us.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, follow Nine to Thrive: The Well-Being Podcast so our new episodes are automatically delivered to your favorite podcast feed, and please share it with a friend!

Reviews and ratings matter <3

We would be so grateful if you left a 5 star rating and a few words about what you liked (or loved) about this episode.

Want more tools and strategies for thriving and flourishing?

-Check out Julie’s website and subscribe to her monthly newsletter here

-Follow Julie on Instagram

-Follow her on LinkedIn

-Interested in working with Julie? Book an inquiry call here

We all have blind spots. And if you’ve ever found yourself stuck, resentful, caught in the blame game, or struggling to take full responsibility for your life — there’s a good chance one of them is at play.

In this conversation, Julie is joined by Celi Arias, founder and CEO of ScalePilot and a strategic business coach who has advised over 500 businesses across 22 years. Together, they explore what blind spots actually are (and why they’re different from simply not knowing something), the role ego plays in keeping them in place, and what it takes to loosen the grip — in business and in life.

Celi brings a rare combination of strategic rigor, personal transparency, and hard-won wisdom to this conversation. She shares her own current blind spots, her framework for knowing when resistance is a signal worth investigating, and why the ability to sit in tension may be the single most underrated growth skill there is.

This one is for all of us.

Favorite Quotable Moments

“A blind spot is something you actually kind of know is there — and you’re avoiding it.”

— Celi Arias

“When you make it mean something about you and your enoughness and your worthiness, you turn it into a blind spot.”

— Celi Arias

“Play with the possibility that maybe you’re not seeing something. That’s the bridge.”

— Celi Arias

“The ego cuts off curiosity. And when my ego is really driving the bus, I have a very high need to be right.”

— Julie Fischer

“It’s not ‘I can’t.’ It’s ‘Am I willing?’”

— Julie Fischer

“Whenever I would get the ‘that’s impossible’ — there was always this other voice in me that said, but is it though?”

— Celi Arias

Thank you for listening. We are so happy you found us.

If you enjoyed today’s episode, follow Nine to Thrive: The Well-Being Podcast so our new episodes are automatically delivered to your favorite podcast feed, and please share it with a friend!

Reviews and ratings matter <3

We would be so grateful if you left a 5 star rating and a few words about what you liked (or loved) about this episode.

Want more tools and strategies for thriving and flourishing?

-Check out Julie’s website and subscribe to her monthly newsletter here

-Follow Julie on Instagram

-Follow her on LinkedIn

-Interested in working with Julie? Book an inquiry call here

About Celi Arias

Celi Arias is the founder and CEO of ScalePilot, a strategic growth operating system powered by the Six Growth Engines Framework. After building and selling a global fashion company and advising over 500 businesses across 22 years, Celi developed a diagnostic system that identifies what’s actually blocking business growth — and what to fix first.

Unlike conventional coaches who sell a formula, her framework provides custom strategic intelligence based on where your business actually is. ScalePilot makes that intelligence accessible through software, giving entrepreneurs an ongoing strategic operating system instead of one-time advice.

As a former COO with an MBA and Master of Divinity — and a professional tango dancer — Celi blends strategic rigor with practical systems to help entrepreneurs build profitable businesses without burning out.

Connect with Celi at celiarias.com

• Instagram
• LinkedIn

Your Reflection Prompt

Where in your life or work do you feel resistance or a strong pull to look away? That tension — the defensiveness, the grip, the need to be right — is almost always pointing toward something worth examining.

What if, just for today, you played with the possibility that there might be something there for you to see?