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In this conversation with Sharon Burstein, international leadership image expert and author of What’s Your Leadership Image?, we explore a dimension of leadership that most professionals underestimate: the image you project — and how it either reinforces or undermines your credibility.

But this is not about polishing the surface. It is about alignment.

Sharon distinguishes between leadership and leadership image:
Leadership is what you do.
Leadership image is who you are — and how consistently that identity is communicated through posture, voice, clarity, behavior, and presence

In Episode 110 of Lead Well!, I speak with adventurer, mountaineer, author, and former lawyer Jeff Rasley.

After a successful legal and business career, Jeff walked away from boardrooms and into the Himalayas. What began as a midlife trek to Everest Base Camp became a lifelong commitment to service, leadership, and cultural humility.

Today, Jeff is President of the Basa Village Foundation, partnering with a remote Nepali village to build schools, clinics, water systems, and even a hydroelectric project, all designed and executed by the villagers themselves

In this episode of Lead Well!, I explore one of the most underestimated cognitive phenomena in modern work life: attention residue.

Based on research by Sophie Leroy, we look at what happens in your brain when you switch tasks. Part of your attention stays behind. And that “mental leftover” reduces performance, increases reactivity, and makes it harder to truly recover after work.

This is not just a productivity issue.
It’s a nervous system issue.
And it’s a leadership issue.

What if presence doesn’t start when you are already stressed, but one moment earlier?

In Part 3 of the Presence series, I explore a subtle but decisive phase that most people miss: the orienting moment. The split second between perceiving something and reacting to it.

This is the moment where your nervous system decides whether to stay regulated or switch into fight, flight, or freeze. And it is the easiest point to access presence.

Presence doesn’t start in the mind.
It starts in the body.

In Episode 107, I explore why thinking alone won’t get you present and how your body becomes your most reliable feedback system.
A continuation of last week’s episode on Presence as a condition for living well.

In this solo episode of Lead Well!, I explore why so many capable, reflective people feel disconnected from their own lives. Not because they lack insight. But because they are rarely fully present in the moments that matter.

Presence is often misunderstood as meditation, slowing down, or stepping away from real life. That is not what this episode is about.

Presence means being where you already are.
Mentally. Emotionally. Physically.

Using a simple everyday metaphor. Missing an exit while driving. I show how absence quietly shapes our decisions, our productivity, and our sense of meaning.

At sixty years old, Anne Abel found herself at a breaking point.

After leaving a dangerous teaching job, the structure that had helped her manage lifelong depression disappeared. What followed was not a neat reinvention plan, but a radical decision that started as survival.

Anne followed Bruce Springsteen’s Australian tour.

What unfolded was a journey of connection, meaning, and unexpected healing. One that later became her memoir High Hopes.

How much does your environment influence your thinking, emotions, and decisions?

In this episode, Christine explores why environment is often the missing piece in change models. From hunger and sleep to safety, noise, and the people around us, small environmental factors can radically shift outcomes.

You’ll learn:

Why environment is a leverage point for change
How basic needs affect judgment and emotional regulation
A practical framework to decide what you can control, influence, or let go
Why changing where you are is often easier than changing who you are

Listen now and start noticing how your surroundings shape your day.

What really shapes our lives. Our thoughts. Our feelings. Our behavior. Or something deeper?

In this episode, I revisit familiar psychological models like CBT and expand them with two elements that are often overlooked.
Your environment and your inner state.

Drawing from neuroscience, nervous system regulation, and my work with humans and animals, I explain why outcomes alone are a poor measure of success.
And why lasting change starts with presence, not performance.

This episode also marks the beginning of a short series where we’ll explore practical levers for real change. Without overthinking. Without forcing positivity.

Looking back at a year usually means counting results.

This episode asks a different question:
How did those moments actually feel in your body and nervous system?

Not what happened.
But the state you were in before and after.

A gentle year-end reflection.