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If you’ve been standing at a crossroads, torn between staying safe and betting on yourself, this revisited conversation is for you. Vivianne sits down with Behzod Sirjani, who built the Research Associates program at Facebook before leaving Slack to work for himself. Together they unpack the math of leaving, the illusion of abundance (and what to do when the world doesn’t see your worth) … YOU WILL LEARN-How Behzod de-risked leaving Slack with one formula-The two traps people fall into after leaving corporate (and how to avoid both)-Why “abundance isn’t overwhelming (and what's often the most overwhelming) YOU WILL BE READY TO-Ask “What would it look like if I took this seriously?” about more than just work-Separate what you’re proud of from what someone else wants for you-Give yourself permission to stop over giving in hopes of being chosen If this resonated, share it with someone who’s quietly wondering if it’s time to bet on themselves💙----Follow Behzod on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ for more on research, consulting, and building work that fits who you are.-Follow Vivianne on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.-Save your seat for our January event at ⁠EnoughGuessing.com

If you’ve ever said a lower number than the one in your head, or discounted the second a client pushed back, this short one is for you. Vivianne names what she keeps watching brilliant people who left corporate do on repeat: most underpricing has nothing to do with confidence. It’s a skills gap and there's good news: skills gaps can close. YOU WILL LEARN Why underpricing is a skills gap, not a character flawHow corporate taught you to find out what you were worth “on a letter from HR”The difference between building a price, protecting it with a contract, and staying in your body when a client goes quietWhy Vivianne refuses to “teach you to price from courage while then pressuring you to buy from fear”YOU WILL BE READY TO Recognize when you’re performing on a sales call instead of actually connectingSeparate the skills nobody handed you from your sense of worthGive yourself permission, even in the weeks where you feel full, to do less and honor what you need and wantIf this resonated, share it with someone who keeps quoting less than the number in their head💙 Resources Mentioned:-⁠Enough Guessing: Pricing and Sales Edition⁠, two days on pricing and sales (January 21–22), with 20% of every ticket going to a group home for children affected by violence and neglect.⁠-Dan Mall⁠, Vivianne’s co-host on pricing frameworks.⁠-Patrice Perkins⁠, Vivianne’s business attorney.-Follow Vivianne on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.

In this revisited episode, Vivianne speaks to anyone who looks successful on paper but feels hollow on the inside. She shares how she went from carrying 75 plus pounds of depression and stress weight from being in corporate / living a life she was no longer aligned to TO loving her life without disclaimers … and why the dream job is sometimes just “a well marketed nightmare with good benefits.” YOU WILL LEARN Why your body keeps receipts on every choice that goes against your grainWhy gratitude for opportunities that are slowly killing you isn’t virtue, it’s self abandonmentHow tying your worth to your work quietly sabotages every brave choice you try to makeThe difference between actually healing and just being busy YOU WILL BE READY TO Recognize the knot in your stomach on Monday morning as information, not just stressSeparate your authentic self from the performed self you’ve been rewarded forName which relationships are only working because you’re betraying yourself to maintain themGive yourself permission to bet on yourself, even when it’s messy and uncertain (because you too deserve to love your life) If this resonated, share it with someone who’s been recovering from living instead of actually living💙 --- Follow Vivianne on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.

If you’re the one everybody calls resilient, and you’re tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix, this episode is for you. Vivianne, a former therapist, names how corporate reward systems feed on childhood wounds. That voice telling you to keep going sounds like strength… but it’s often “a survival reflex that never got updated.” YOU WILL LEARN Why growing up enduring makes you more likely to normalize toxicityThe four childhood setups that make your talent easier to extractHow a company exploits your wounds without being evil, by paying you “in the currency little you was starving for: approval”Why your career decisions get made by a committee whose loudest members “are about eight years old”YOU WILL BE READY TO Ask whether you’re staying because this job is good for you, or because leaving feels like failing a test you’ve been taking since childhoodFind the pause between the ping and the panicStart planning before you’re fully healed, and stop letting the wound be the plannerGive yourself permission to stop measuring yourself by your capacity to absorb harmIf this resonated, share it with someone who’s always “fine”… and needs to hear they don’t have to endure anymore.💙 Resources Mentioned: Join The Walkout, Vivianne’s self-paced program for corporate and tech folks who are done enduring.Email Vivianne (mail to:[email protected]) to share what this episode named for you.Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.

Welcome to Choose Courage Inc.  where we skip the boring intros and jump straight into reimagining business and workplace experiences with we-ain't-afraid-to-go-there conversations. This week, we're going back to where it all started. We're revisiting our very first episode, featuring Vivianne Castillo, Founder and CEO of HmntyCntrd and moonpaws, in conversation with Ash Coleman Hynie, Founder and CEO of CountrPT. It's the unfiltered, deeply honest dialogue that set the tone for everything this show stands for.Whether you're hearing it for the first time or coming back for a second listen, Vivianne and Ash's take on what it really takes to thrive as an entrepreneur hits just as hard today. They get real about setting boundaries, healing from corporate trauma, and walking away from one-size-fits-all entrepreneurial blueprints. From redefining rest and resisting hustle culture to navigating guilt and embracing creativity, this conversation is a reminder that there's no single "right" way to build a business or a career, and that staying true to yourself is the strategy. Some conversations are worth having twice. This is one of them. Ready to reimagine your path (again)? Hit play and let's dive back in. Resources Mentioned: Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.Connect with Ash on LinkedIn for more on boundaries, healing from corporate culture, and building a business on your own terms.

If you've been quietly wondering who owns the work you made with AI's help… this episode is for you. Vivianne sits down with Patrice Perkins, founder of Creative Genius Law and her business attorney of six years, who has spent 16 years protecting the contracts and IP of creatives and thought leaders. It's the Wild Wild West, and the real question is what you hand to a machine, and what stays yours. YOU WILL LEARN Why even sophisticated prompting doesn't make you the authorThe difference between AI as a thought partner and AI as the creator (and why that matters)Why your framework needs a home on your own website before it lands on ThreadsYOU WILL BE READY TO Name what's too precious to feed into AI, like the thought leadership you plan to retire withAsk a contractor or publisher how they use AI, and treat offense at the question as a red flagGive yourself permission to be precious with what's original, deeply human, and from youIf this resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear their ideas are worth protecting💙 Resources Mentioned: Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.Connect with Patrice on LinkedIn for more on contracts, IP, and protecting your work.The Ownership Map from Patrice Perkins: An assessment tool to see what you actually own inside your brand, what is exposed, and what to protect first.

If you've ever built something that looked right on paper and still wasn't landing, this episode is for you. Vivianne sits down with Elizabeth Anne Burke, founder of Collective Expansion, who helps purpose driven entrepreneurs turn their existing work into courses, curriculum, and content that actually serves people. Together they untangle the real difference between a marketing problem, an offer problem, and an identity problem, and why most of us default to fixing the wrong one. YOU WILL LEARN The difference between a marketing problem and an offer problem, and why most people diagnose the wrong oneWhy trying to solve every problem in one offering waters down all of themHow corporate conditioning trains us to chase the urgent instead of the importantThe difference between capitalism and commerce, and why commerce is built on relationshipWhy repetition over research moves you forward faster than waiting for something to feel perfectYOU WILL BE READY TO Name whether what's stalling your offer is the product, the marketing, or your own resistance to being seenQuestion the belief that you have to solve every problem in one offeringRecognize when you're grinding instead of building from what you actually valueGive yourself permission to change an offer without treating the old version as wasted workAsk for help instead of treating entrepreneurship as something you have to grind through aloneIf this resonated, share it with someone who's still detoxing from corporate thinking💙 Elizabeth Anne Burke is the founder of Collective Expansion, where she helps purpose driven entrepreneurs and practitioners refine, rebuild, and expand their offers, from turning existing content into courses to weaving in somatic coaching. A former high school art teacher, she brings a background in curriculum design and audience first content strategy to her work, alongside training through the Hendricks Institute in somatic, body based coaching. Resources Mentioned: Collective Expansion — Elizabeth's business helping purpose driven entrepreneurs build and refine their offers.Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.

Vivianne keeps a short list of phrases she returns to, not affirmations, more like operating instructions for the moments she's scared, deciding something big, or losing track of her why. In this episode, she walks through five of them and the real work underneath each one: noticing that the language we repeat to ourselves quietly becomes the pace we work at. YOU WILL LEARN Why the phrases we absorb from scarcity culture ("move fast and break things," "sleep when you're dead") function as instructions for your nervous systemThe difference between Poco a poco and productivity language, and why patience and momentum rarely show up in the same phraseWhat "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" actually protects you from during a burnout-driven exitWhy "you fall to the level of your systems" isn't a character flaw, it's a systems problem (and why that distinction matters)Why "fortune favors the bold" only holds up when there's a floor underneath itYOU WILL BE READY TO Name the phrase you run on most and ask if you'd say it to someone you loveRecognize the difference between what's comfortable and what's actually okayGive yourself permission to build at a pace your life can hold, not the one everyone else is bragging aboutSeparate discipline from systems, and stop making it about your characterQuestion whether your version of "bold" has a floor under it before you leapIf this resonated, share it with someone who's still detoxing from corporate thinking💙 Resources Mentioned: Atomic Habits by James Clear — the book behind the "you fall to the level of your systems" line Vivianne unpacks in this episode.Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.

If you've been telling yourself you have to keep enduring, this episode is your permission slip to stop. Vivianne gets honest about being tired, heading into Rest and Resist Week, and what it's meant to close one business to build a life she actually wants instead of one she's just gritting her teeth through. It's a reflection on the difference between growing old and growing, and what it costs to keep choosing endurance over design. YOU WILL LEARN Why Vivianne built Rest and Resist Week into Choose Courage Inc., and the belief that rest is not a scarcityThe difference between growing old and actually growingWhy she wound down HmntyCntrd to lean fully into regenerative commerce over capitalismHow corporate systems condition people to endure more instead of live moreWhat it actually means to design a life instead of getting dragged through oneYOU WILL BE READY TO Name the difference between enduring your life and designing itQuestion whether you're increasing your capacity to endure instead of your capacity to liveRecognize that a "one foot in the door" approach to entrepreneurship still countsGive yourself permission to grow instead of just growing olderDecide what's actually grounding you when the world feels heavierIf this resonated, share it with someone who's quietly questioning their path💙 Resources Mentioned: AI, Creativity & Intellectual Property Webinar — a free webinar on September 16th with Vivianne's attorney on what you legally own when using AI to build your business.Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.

If you've ever felt that itch to build something of your own but couldn't quite picture the first step, this one's for you. Vivianne sits down with Phillip Hunter, a longtime voice and conversational AI product leader who left corporate life behind to build something new. Together they talk about what it actually looks like to stay steady while you're figuring things out, one small step at a time. YOU WILL LEARN-Why self-approval, not external validation, is often the real fuel behind becoming an entrepreneur-The difference between fearing failure and getting genuinely curious about it-How "hustle harder" culture quietly convinces us that slow progress means no progress-Why a clear, personal why keeps you going when things get dull or hard YOU WILL BE READY TO-Notice when hesitation is just your body catching up, not a red flag-Let a slow season count as real progress-Name your own reason for doing this, instead of borrowing someone else's-Take a step without having the whole map figured out-Give yourself permission to measure success by who you're becoming, not just what you've shipped If this resonated, share it with someone who's got an idea and just needs a nudge to take the first step.💙 Phillip Hunter has spent nearly two decades designing for voice and conversation, from early touch-tone speech recognition systems to leading experience direction for Amazon Alexa Skills. He now runs Conversational Collaborative AI Services, a consultancy focused on AI agents and conversational product design. After stepping away from corporate work, he's building new products at the intersection of his design background and the current generation of language models. Resources Mentioned:Follow Phillip on LinkedIn.Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.

If you've ever sat in the silence between sending a proposal and hearing back, wondering if you did something wrong, this episode is for you. Vivianne sits down with Ray Knickmeyer, a former corporate leader with 20 years at places like Verizon and Capital One, now running their own consulting business, to unpack what three months of B2B procurement actually felt like from the inside and how to hold your terms without turning rigid. YOU WILL LEARN-Why the dead zones between emails are often more anxious than the actual contract terms-The difference between a hard boundary (money down, IP protection) and one you can flex (payment schedule, signature timing)-How "you created your own luck" reframes years of quiet relationship building into real leverage-Why a corporate client's master service agreement almost always leaves wiggle room through the statement of work YOU WILL BE READY TO-Name the difference between catastrophizing silence and an actual red flag-Ask for a non-refundable deposit without apologizing for it-Separate what you're willing to negotiate from what protects your business and your IP-Give yourself permission to walk away from a client who won't respect your terms If this resonated, share it with someone who's still detoxing from corporate thinking💙 Ray is the Founder & Principal Strategist at Knickmeyer Strategic Facilitation where they partner with leadership teams to dismantle broken systems and build the human-centered scaffolding teams need to thrive. Blending architectural rigor with deep empathy, Ray helps organizations stop paying what they call the Misalignment Tax, the hidden cost of circular debates, strategic guesswork, and team friction. Their work replaces the standard corporate offsite with a diagnostic-first methodology that solves the root cause of a team's exhaustion instead of treating the symptoms.---Follow Vivianne on ⁠LinkedIn ⁠for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.Connect with Ray on LinkedIn

If you've ever wondered whether the second pivot is supposed to feel easier than the first, this episode will complicate that. Vivianne sits down with Michael Davis, founder of Tiny Cup Coffee and author of Coffee Rest Rituals, and a former participant in Choose Courage's From Corporate to Entrepreneurship cohort. This time, the shift isn't about escaping something broken. It's about protecting a vision he already believes in. YOU WILL LEARN-Why a pivot shows up in the body months before it shows up on a calendar (and why overriding that signal is a skill many of us were trained into)-The difference between emotional endurance and just enduring-Why a second pivot can feel harder even when it's easier, because there's no longer an outside villain to blame-How rest quietly turns into payment when it has to be earned first-The role old fear plays in disguising itself as something new YOU WILL BE READY TO-Name what your body has been telling you before your calendar caught up-Recognize when you're crashing out instead of actually in crisis-Question whether you're fighting a villain or just gathering provisions for the next leg of the journey-Separate rest as ritual from rest as reward-Give yourself permission to protect a vision instead of abandoning it If this resonated, share it with someone who's in the meantime season and needs permission to trust it💙 Michael is the founder of Tiny Cup Coffee, built around rest and resistance to grind culture, and the author of Coffee Rest Rituals. After nearly two decades as a designer working at the intersection of design and DEI, he left corporate to found his coffee company and now lives and works between Egypt and the U.S. He's also building Tiny Cup Studio, a creative offshoot supporting food and beverage brands with their identity and storytelling. Resources Mentioned:Tiny Cup Coffee — Michael's coffee company, built around rest and resistance to grind culture.Coffee Rest Rituals by Michael — his book on using the five senses to turn small daily rituals, like making coffee, into real rest. Try the code CHOOSECOURAGE for 15% off.Self-paced The Walkout — for anyone who knows they want something different but doesn't yet know what.Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually.

If you've been sitting in that in-between space, numbers pulled up on a spreadsheet, trying to talk yourself into or out of the leap, this episode is for you. Vivianne sits down with Nathaniel Deal, who left a director-level corporate role to bet on himself, to talk through what actually happened in his first 90 days of full-time entrepreneurship. Not the highlight reel. The real math, the real fear, and the healing nobody warns you about. In This Episode: Why "job security" is often just a story you tell yourself to stayThe difference between chasing wealth and building something sustainableHow a $40,000 hiring lesson taught Nate to trust his own decisions againThe role community played in turning stealth-mode grinding into real momentumWhy leaving corporate doesn't automatically mean you leave corporate habits behindWhat it actually means to heal financial trauma, even after you've "made it"The hidden cost of chasing a promotion that was never built for youYou're not just changing your income. You're unwinding a nervous system that was trained to endure. If you've been waiting for permission to trust your own timeline… if you've been quietly doing the math on what freedom might cost… you're allowed to move before you feel ready. You're allowed to bring your whole, unfinished self into the next thing. Resources Mentioned: Atomic Habits by James Clear: the "you don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems" line referenced in the conversation.The Walkout, self-paced version: explore what Nate worked through in this episode.Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you.Nathaniel Deal spent years as a corporate director before betting on himself and building his own contracting business, now working toward becoming a founder who buys back his own time. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

If you've been stuck on "what would I even do?" every time you think about leaving corporate, this episode is for you. Vivianne opens season four by naming the advice everyone gives before you leave, pick your niche first, and why that sequence keeps good people frozen instead of moving. She traces her own path across three careers, counseling, UX research, and Choose Courage Inc., to show that clarity was never the starting point. In This Episode:-Why "pick your niche first" turns a career question into an entry exam-How a frozen nervous system gets mistaken for a lack of direction-The difference between introspecting and gathering real data-Why paid attention tells you something polite attention never will-What "motion" actually means, and why it's not hustle-How the sunk cost pull shows up disguised as strategy-The one weekly practice that starts direction work with zero financial risk Direction isn't something you find by thinking harder about it: it's something you build by making contact with real work and letting the results tell you something. -----------------Resources Mentioned:⁠The Walkout⁠: Vivianne's self-paced program for corporate professionals in UX, design, and tech working through the exit, including the direction, readiness, and money pieces (https://choosecourage.samcart.com/products/sp-the-walkout).Follow Vivianne on⁠ LinkedIn⁠ for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you. If this resonated, share it with someone who's been waiting to feel certain before they'll let themselves move💙

This is the season three finale of Choose Courage Inc., and it's a live panel recording from The Walkout. Vivianne sits down with Rachael Dietkus, Behzod Sirjani, and Vincent Brathwaite to move through the questions people were too afraid to ask out loud: about fear and risk, about readiness, about money, about identity, and about the weight of where we come from. This is a conversation that ends the season the way it was meant to: together. In This Episode: Why fear that's warning you tends to get more specific when you look directly at it, and what to do with that list.The difference between uncertainty and risk, and why we keep collapsing them into the same feeling.Why "I wasn't ready" is almost always the honest answer, and why that doesn't mean you shouldn't go.What happens between day 30 and 60 after leaving, and why that emotional unraveling is actually a sign your body finally feels safe.How to price your work when your entire sense of worth has been shaped by institutions that underpaid you.The hidden cost of borrowed identity, and what it means when the panic of losing a logo tells you how much of yourself you quietly handed over.Why grief can do bad math for us, and the only way to find out those years were ever really yours to begin with.What it looks like to break generational chains, not by rejecting where you came from, but by moving with the same boldness your parents had to survive.You don't build a self from scratch.The company just rented you the storefront and let you forget that you're you. Clarity comes through doing, not waiting.And this journey was never meant to be a solo one. _________ •Follow Vivianne on LinkedIn for more reflections on courage, entrepreneurship, and building a life that actually fits you. •More on Rachael Dietkus LCSW: Rachael is an internationally recognized leader in trauma-informed design, civic tech ethics, and care-centered public interest technology. As founder of Social Workers Who Design, she works at the intersection of design, social work, and systems change, helping organizations build ethical, sustainable, and trauma-responsive practices that support both people and impact. •Vincent Brathwaite is a Caribbean American multi-disciplinary design leader, educator, and speaker. For the past two decades, he has worked to transform communities through disruptive design thinking. Driven by integrity, empathy, kindness, courage, and resilience, his mission is to design experiences that help leaders positively impact the world. •Behzod Sirjani is a consultant who is regularly sought out to navigate complex challenges, whether that's helping a fast-growing startup drive growth or a large public company restructure their innovation practice. Through Yet Another Studio, Behzod partners with companies ranging from small startups to industry leaders like Figma and Dropbox to build and scale research practices that drive better decision-making and growth. He is also a Program Partner at Reforge, where he built the "User Insights for Product Decisions" and "Effective Customer Conversations" programs and a venture partner at el cap.