Stop Living the Default

What if the life you're living right now is based on definitions you never questioned? Kris has been thinking about home. Not just the physical structure, but what it means. She and her husband are considering selling their custom-built house to rent, to travel, to redirect their money toward experiences instead of a mortgage. And in the process of looking at options, she's realizing that the definition she chooses will determine everything about how she actually lives. But this isn't just about real estate. This is about how you define yourself in every role. How you define being a business owner. How you define being a mother. How you define what's possible for you. The definition you choose is what drives the result you get. What you'll learn: • How the definitions you're operating from shape every outcome you create • Why your choices are always choices, even when you tell yourself they aren't • How to deliberately redefine something instead of accepting the default • What happens when you decide to define your life on purpose • That you can change your definition and change everything The invitation is simple. Stop defaulting to how things have always been defined. Start choosing. Connect with Kris Ready to stop living the default? Explore SAGE at www.thevisionary.ceo/sageinvitation Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episode If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

What if the anger and resentment you think you're supposed to keep is actually what's keeping you trapped? Kris is on a walk thinking about grief, anger, loss, and what we do with it. 2026 has handed her several hard things. But this episode isn't about surviving them. It's about what happens after. Most of us believe we're supposed to hold onto our anger forever. Like letting it go somehow means we're creating permission for what happened. Like we're minimizing the people we lost or the pain we endured. Kris is offering a completely different way to think about it. What you'll learn: • Why holding onto negative emotions actually strips you of your agency • How acknowledging your role in circumstances is different from blaming yourself • The permission you're not giving anyone by letting an emotion move through you • How to honor what happened without carrying it forever • What "taking your agency back" actually means in practice There's vulnerability in this episode. There's also a quiet invitation to stop carrying things that aren't serving you. Connect with Kris Want to know about Sage? Visit www.thevisionary.ceo/sageinvitation to learn more and schedule a call with Kris. If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes. LinkedIn  Instagram  Facebook  Pinterest 

What if admitting you want more isn't selfish? What if it's actually the point? Kris has been thinking about greatness. Not achievement. Not goals. Greatness. And she's noticing that most women don't think of themselves as being in pursuit of it. They think of themselves as trying to achieve goals or make something happen. But not as women pursuing greatness. She's wondering what would shift if you actually claimed that. The women she works with know there's more to pursue, more to experience, more to become. And that hunger doesn't turn off. It doesn't take a break. It doesn't have an off button. Which means if it's not well-directed, it has consequences. In this episode, Kris is asking you to get honest about where you're still pursuing something. Not in a frantic way. In an expansive, invigorating, curious way. What you'll learn: What happens when your pursuit of greatness isn't directed How your superpower can become your poison if it's not directed What happens when you acknowledge that you want to be great Where greatness might be calling to you that you haven't named yet How to know if you're pursuing something real or something that isn't aligned About two opportunities opening up if you're ready to pursue your next level The question she leaves you with is simple. Where else is greatness calling to me? Connect with Kris Ready to pursue greatness for yourself? Visit www.thevisionary.ceo/sageinvitation to learn more about Sage. If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: thevisionary.ceo/letters Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes. LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

The only thing separating you from what you want is belief. Kris is in the car on her way to pick up her daughter from the airport during peak rush hour traffic on the Bay Area bridge. She hates that drive. She has anxiety about it. And yet she just knows she's going to do it. Not hopes. Knows. That's the difference she's naming in this episode. Most women spend their energy attached to why something is hard. Why they can't figure out where to start. Why they need to do all the research first. Why the goal is confusing. And somewhere in all that noise, they lose the simple fact: they already know what to do. They just don't believe it yet. What you'll learn: • The difference between wanting something and knowing it will happen • Why belief is the only variable that actually matters • What someone who already has what you want thinks about it (spoiler: different than you do) • How your story about why it's hard is keeping you stuck • What you would do differently today if you just knew it was happening • What's changing in her world and who she's working with going forward Stupid simple, she says. But simple means you actually have to do the uncomfortable thing. Connect with Kris ·      Know what you want but are spinning in the confusion? You can stop all that by joining Kris for Hot Seat Summer. Go to www.thevisionary.ceo/hotseatsummer to register for four Fridays of coaching to get what you want. ·      If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters ·      Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes.   LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

What you're not doing for yourself is actually harming everyone around you. Kris knows what's happening. You're in survival mode. Not because your life is falling apart, but because the last decade has been relentless. Your business is affected. Your family is affected. Your nervous system is affected. And so you've locked into the question: how do I keep this afloat? But here's the truth she's naming: when you thrive, everything around you thrives. And when you don't, nothing can. The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most women live. You nod along, you agree with every word, and then you go back to putting everyone else first. You skip the haircut. You don't get your nails done. You don't take the trip. You tell yourself there's no time, and the weight of that unattended desire just sits there, reminding you that you're not worth your own investment. In this episode, Kris walks through her own year of being pulled away from her dreams and then choosing to pull herself back. She's not talking about inspiration. She's talking about reinvestment in your own joy as a non-negotiable act. What you'll learn: • Why survival mode is contagious and whose job it is to break the cycle • What the smallest acts of self-care are actually telling you • How to know if you're in confusion, avoidance, or victimhood about your own desires • What happens when you finally attend to yourself • Why this is the time, not the time to wait Nothing feels worse and heavier than having desire that is unattended to. The question isn't whether you have time. The question is whether you're willing to reclaim your own agency. Connect with Kris ·      Ready to get out of your own way? Go to www.thevisionary.ceo/hotseatsummer to register for four Fridays of coaching to get what you want. ·      Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes. ·      If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

If the pattern keeps repeating, it's time to turn up the heat. Kris has spent her entire career helping other people get what they want. And she's watching women do the same thing. Pouring everything into helping clients, employees, family, friends figure out what they want, while their own desires sit dormant on a shelf. Here's the truth she's naming: You know what you want. You've always known. The problem isn't figuring it out. The problem is you're scared. You have more to lose now than you did when you started, so you've tempered your dreams. You've muffled the joy and aspiration. You've told yourself it's too risky. And the pattern keeps repeating. In this episode, Kris walks through her own journey of learning to help people get what they really, truly want. Not the surface answer, but the real one. She shares the Zig Ziglar quote that's followed her for decades, why Martha Beck's ten-minute coaching principle changed everything, and what it actually takes to reclaim your own wants. What you'll learn: • Why you keep tempering what you want as you get older and more successful • How to ask yourself the real question and cut through the fluff • Why helping everyone else get what they want is actually keeping you stuck • What happens when someone really sees you and asks what you want • How patterns repeat until you decide to turn up the heat • About the four-week coaching experience happening this summer This is Kris reminding you that you have so much left to create, to be, to experience. And it starts with being honest about what you actually want. Connect with Kris Ready for the Hot Seat Summer? Head to www.thevisionary.ceo/hotseatsummer to register. If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters. Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes. LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

You built something incredible. You made a thing that didn't exist. You're running a multi-million-dollar business, and yes, that's magic. But somewhere along the way, the dream you chased became a box you're trapped in. Kris calls this the quiet crisis. You've achieved the success you set out to create, but now you're drowning in it. You can't leave because too many people depend on you. You can't pivot because you're afraid of losing the revenue, the security, the key people. So you stay, spinning on all the ways it could fall apart. Sound familiar? In this episode, she's talking to the woman who built her empire and is now wondering if this is it. Is this the whole thing? Can you ever be free? And she's offering a completely different way to think about it. What you'll learn: Why the very thing that got you here (risk and adventure) is what you need to keep moving forward How fear becomes the cage you lock yourself into Why losing something might be the best thing that ever happened (and the evidence that proves it) The question she asked herself that changed everything Why you're more trapped when you're too close to the weeds What happens when you reframe from protection mode to belief mode There's a moment early in the episode where Kris talks about Elastigirl from the Incredibles, stretched so far she can't move. That's you right now. Completely maxed out because you've painted such a terrifying picture of what happens if you let go. But what if you're not done building? What if you don't have to just protect what you have, but build something on top of it? The woman who started this business would believe that. Connect with Kris Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes.   If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

Here's the thing people get wrong. When you see someone doing well, the instinct is to copy what they do. That job they have, that approach they take, that course they're selling. If it works for them, it should work for you, right? Wrong. In this episode, Kris walks through why mimicking someone else's playbook will never be your answer, and why the real issue is that you're looking in the wrong place. She shares her early sales career story, when she was surrounded by people killing it and she was, in her own words, "pretty bad at it." She tried doing what they did and still failed. It wasn't until she stopped copying and started trusting her own instincts that things shifted. What she learned then became everything. The people who get results aren't successful because of what they do. They're successful because of who they are and what they believe. And that doesn't transfer. What you'll learn: — The difference between tactics and wisdom, and why wisdom wins every time — Why copying someone's recipe will always feel off — The ocean metaphor and the undercurrent beneath the noise — How to actually tap into what you already know instead of buying someone else's answer — What happens when you stop looking outside and start listening to yourself — Why you need to invest in your own mind, not the next $37 course The bottom line? You already know. Not in a vague, future-tense way. Right now. The answer lives in you. It might be uncomfortable. You might not like it. You might have already tried it. But you know. The work isn't finding the answer. The work is figuring out why you haven't taken action on what you already know. Connect with Kris- Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes. -   If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

If you followed Leadership is Feminine®️, this is going to feel different. Better, actually. Kris takes a beat to explain why she needed to hit pause on the podcast, why she's back, and why the conversation has changed altogether. Turns out, after 15 years in this work and thousands of hours of content, she had some things to sort through. Specifically, what does she actually want her life to look like now? This isn't a philosophical question for her. It's a real one. In this episode, you'll hear about: -Why she restructured her entire life at 53, including moving houses and letting go of almost everything she owned -How she's evolved her approach to coaching and why it requires being in the room with women -What a "wisdom cocktail" is and why you've already got one brewing inside you -Why the path forward for you isn't someone else's instructions, it's your own discover The core of what Kris is building here is space for women who already know the answers to their biggest questions live inside them. Not in a book. Not in someone else's playbook. In them. Because here's the thing. You didn't build a multi-million-dollar business by following instructions. You built it by trusting yourself. And if you're still second-guessing yourself in other areas of your life, she wants to talk about that If you've been listening for years, you know. If you're brand new, settle in. This is the space where women who are done with someone else's version of how to live actually get to design their own. Connect with Kris- Be sure to hit the Subscribe button for this podcast so you don't miss new episodes. -  If this episode landed for you, subscribe to the Sage Letters to go deeper: www.thevisionary.ceo/letters LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Pinterest

What if the bravest act of leadership is knowing when it's time to pause? In this deeply personal episode, Kris invites listeners into the raw, honest crossroads she's currently  navigating—one marked by completion, uncertainty, and a longing for deeper, more human connection. After nearly 400 episodes, thousands of hours of recording, and decades spent teaching leaders how to lead, she shares the truth many high-achieving women rarely admit out loud: sometimes the thing we've mastered is the very thing we're meant to release. Kris reflects on how leadership hasn't fundamentally changed—and on the bittersweet realization that she has said everything she came here to say. She talks openly about shifting away from the isolating online model that has defined the last several years and into work that brings her back into rooms, back into community, back into the presence she craves. She also guides listeners through a powerful reframing of accountability—not as pressure, but as profound self-care. Because when we don't follow through on the promises we make to ourselves, the weight of that avoidance becomes its own burden. Here's what we explore in this episode: The emotional and practical reality of feeling "complete" in a long-standing body of work Why accountability to yourself is one of the highest forms of self-care The difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it The discomfort, fear, and liberation of honoring the commitments you've ignored What it means to pause with integrity, clarity, and agency This episode is a pause, not a goodbye—a moment of truth-telling, gratitude, and trust in what comes next. Contact Information and Recommended Resources If you'd like to stay in touch to receive updates about what we've got coming up, visit www.thevisionary.ceo    Linkedin Instagram Facebook Pinterest