Voices of Influence: The Podcast with Criss Madrigal

Hosted by Criss Madrigal | Voices of Influence

Business EducationInterviews guests

Website RSS feed

Episodes

Latest episode

Oct 2026

Language

About the show

A podcast for women over 40 navigating the season when the life they built no longer fits. Hosted by Criss Madrigal, Voices of Influence explores reinvention, alignment, and becoming who you are now through honest conversations, personal stories, and lived wisdom. crissmadrigal.substack.com

Listen to episodes

60 recent

October 15, 202640 min

Everything Looks Fine. Except You.

I had my back pricked more than a hundred times. It was supposed to be the appointment that finally gave me an answer. I’d been breaking out in hives, and I was certain it was an allergy. So I sat through the tests and waited. The doctor looked at me and said, “You’re not allergic to anything. You’re fine.” I walked out furious. I was covered in hives. Clearly, I was not fine. That was my late thirties. The heaviness. The lack of motivation. The brain fog. The weight that wouldn’t move. The hives lasted four years. Doctor after doctor, my labs came back perfect. All I knew was that I didn’t feel like myself anymore. Looking back, everything pointed to perimenopause. But I’ll never know for sure. I had a hysterectomy at 34, so at 39 I had no cycle to guide me. Even now, at 47, I can’t tell you exactly where I am in this transition. That’s the question my friend Dr. Erika Pimentel and I sat down to explore live: Why didn’t anyone tell us? What came out of that conversation wasn’t a list of symptoms. It was a reframe. And it starts with the frustrating word so many of us have heard: normal. When “normal” isn’t an answer Erika’s journey started at 36. It wasn’t one bad night of sleep. It was insomnia, day in and day out, with young kids at home and no room for a nap. She was crying over everything. Her cycles were off. She was sure it was her thyroid. When the endocrinologist called, Dr. Erika was ready for a plan. Instead, she heard that her thyroid was fine. And it was left at that. No guidance. No next step. Over the years, her symptoms were called rheumatoid arthritis, then fibromyalgia, then a long list of other things. In the back of her mind, one thought kept returning: this has to be hormonal. She didn’t trust it enough to push back. Here’s what struck me most. Dr. Erika explained that your labs can look normal during perimenopause and still not reflect how you feel. Hormones rise and fall across the month, and a single blood draw is a snapshot. A result can sit inside the “normal” range and still be a real drop from your normal. She was just as clear about the other side. Fatigue, hair loss and brain fog have many possible causes, so rule out things like iron deficiency and thyroid problems first. “This must be perimenopause” shouldn’t become a reason to skip the check. Her advice if you’ve done that work and still don’t feel right: * Track your patterns. Write down what’s happening and when. * Find a practitioner who listens. If one dismisses you, see another, especially if you’ve been told you’re “too young.” So here’s a question worth sitting with: How many times have you accepted “everything looks fine” as the end of the conversation? If you’ve ever been told “you’re fine” when you knew you weren’t, you’re in the right place. Subscribe for conversations that help you trust yourself again. Muscle is not about how you look For decades, women were told to stick to cardio. Lifting was for men. Weights would make us bulky. Dr. Erika called it plainly: that advice did women a disservice. Most of us think of muscle as something you see in the mirror. Dr. Erika said it’s an endocrine organ. Muscle sends signals that support the heart, the brain and the gut. Healthy muscle helps protect against type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It’s not just about living longer. It’s about how well you live in the years after menopause. Then there’s the simplest reason: strength keeps you steady. Climbing stairs. Getting up from a chair. Catching yourself before a fall. We lose muscle naturally as we age, starting as early as our 30s. For women, Dr. Erika explained, that loss speeds up between our 40s and 50s as estrogen declines. Weight training and enough protein are how we push back. When Dr. Erika mentioned hip fractures, I thought of my grandmother. She was in her 80s when she fell and fractured her hip. Then came the infections, the hospital stays, and eventually her passing. It all started with that fall. And I’ll be honest. I don’t weight train. The equipment is sitting right there, and I don’t make time for it. What I need to do is make a decision about it. I understand why muscle matters. Understanding was never the problem. What’s missing is a decision. What are you already sure of, but haven’t acted on yet? Sleep is recovery, not rest We all know sleep matters. But knowing that and understanding why are different things. Dr. Erika described sleep as the time the body repairs itself. In deep sleep, the brain clears out waste, which helps with brain fog now and supports brain health later. Sleep is also when muscle recovers. Lifting creates small tears in the muscle, and rest is what lets it rebuild. You can put in hours at the gym and still not build strength if you’re not sleeping. In perimenopause, falling estrogen can disrupt sleep. Stress and anxiety get harder to calm. The habits we got away with in our 20s stop working. Her starting point is the circadian rhythm, the internal clock that runs your sleep, your gut, your liver and your muscle: * Get sunlight early. Step outside in the morning before you eat. * Eat while it’s still light out. If that’s not realistic, finish two to three hours before bed, so your body can recover overnight instead of digest. * Be mindful of late workouts. Movement always beats none, but evening training can leave you wired. If you’re not sure where to begin, Dr. Erika’s answer is simple: start with sleep. It’s the foundation everything else builds on. We outsource our wisdom Dr. Erika teaches that we aren’t broken. Our physiology changed. When I asked her what she means by inner authority, she went back to her own story. “I’ve lived in this body for 54 years,” she said. “Who better to know and understand my own body?” And yet we hand that authority to someone else. We should see doctors. We need them. But Dr. Erika believes her journey would have looked different if she’d trusted the feeling in her body that said, this isn’t right , and pushed back. She doesn’t think the answer is endless research or falling down an internet rabbit hole. It’s curiosity. Notice what your body is telling you. Ask whether something else could be going on. Journal what’s happening so the patterns become visible, rather than relying on memory. We outsource our wisdom to trusted people, and often that’s right. But inside each of us there’s a quiet signal that knows when something is off. You’re allowed to request your records. You’re allowed to ask the next question. You’re allowed to question what you’re told. It’s your body. It’s your right. An explanation is not a plan What I wish someone had told me sooner is this: you are in control. I didn’t acknowledge it until four years into my journey. I finally got an answer from a holistic practitioner. My body had been living in survival mode for over a decade, and it was responding to the life I’d been living. I remember asking, “So I brought this upon myself?” Then I said, “If I caused this, I’m going to fix it in record time.” That was the moment. One decision. I would become Criss with a healthy body, and I would make every choice from that identity. That’s why I see perimenopause as an explanation, not a plan. An explanation helps you understand what you’re feeling. It doesn’t tell you who to become. That part is yours. When you step into the identity of the woman who is thriving and energized, the habits Dr. Erika talked about stop feeling like a to-do list. The woman who prioritizes herself just does them. She lifts. She protects her sleep. She asks the next question. Dr. Erika added the piece that makes it possible: permission. Most of us put everyone else first, and many women don’t give themselves a yes until midlife forces the issue. Her hope is that our daughters won’t have to wait that long. If they arrive at midlife with muscle, good habits and trust in their own bodies, the transition gets easier. That change can start with us. One decision away If you take one thing from this conversation, let it be this: perimenopause is an explanation. You get to decide what you do with it. The weight, the brain fog and the exhaustion aren’t inevitable. As Dr. Erika put it, there’s a place to start, and it doesn’t have to be everything at once. So choose yourself, even for a moment. Decide today that you’re going to prioritize you. That one choice ripples into everything else. You are one decision away from changing the trajectory of your life. Not sure where to start? Dr. Erika offers a free Midlife Reset Assessment to help you find your best first step. Keep the conversation going. Subscribe to both of our publications: * Criss Madrigal: Reinvention After 40 * Dr. Erika Pimentel: Midlife by Design This article is for education, not medical advice. Always talk with your own provider about your health. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

October 2, 202627 min

Midlife Women Don't Need Permission to Publish

There’s a stack of books in my home that my children have never opened. Every collaboration book I’ve written in, five now, I buy a copy for each of my kids. They’re 15 and 17. They know the books are there. They’ve never picked one up. I keep buying them anyway, because every time I write, there’s a piece I know is meant for them. One day they’ll open those pages and see their own stories in mine, and how they shaped me. I thought about that stack today, sitting on a Live with Angela Giles and Galit Ventura-Rozen, the founders of Everyday Woman Publishing. They’ve published over 16 books with more than 400 authors since 2021, and every one became a #1 bestseller. They’re publishing my next collaboration book, Voices of Influence: Women Leading in Alignment . We were supposed to talk about how publishing works. What we kept coming back to was permission. We Keep Waiting for Someone to Say Yes Most women don’t write their story because they’re waiting to be qualified. I’m not a writer. Who am I to write a chapter? Galit never planned to write a book. It wasn’t on her bucket list. Today she has chapters in 15 collaboration books and two solo books of her own. And 90% of the women who write in their anthologies have never written a chapter before. Here’s the part that stopped me. Even after women find the courage to write, they submit their chapter halfway believing in themselves, waiting for the publisher to tell them whether it’s good enough. Galit sees it constantly. An author sends in her chapter, and it comes back with a few periods and question marks fixed. She doesn’t believe it. She wants to be criticized. We have been trained to wait for a yes. But the yes was never going to come from outside. You’re already good enough. Your Voice Is the Credential The fear underneath “I’m not a writer” is usually this: They’ll rewrite me. It won’t sound like me anymore. I’m not a trained writer either. What changed everything was realizing I could write the way I speak, so that when someone reads my chapter, she can feel me. Galit oversees editing, and she was clear that they don’t change your voice or your words. They suggest fixes for grammar, for a sentence that doesn’t flow, or for a story that needs one more paragraph to land. They don’t question your expertise. When their grammar software tries to restructure an author’s sentences, they dismiss it. “This is the way she speaks,” Galit said. Your voice isn’t the thing standing between you and a book. It’s the reason the book needs you. Midlife Is When You Finally See the Thread There’s a reason this book is for women in midlife, written by women who’ve lived reinvention through alignment. I believe midlife is meant to wake us up, to remind us that we’re on this earth to fulfill a mission. But you can’t see that mission from the middle of the journey. You have to walk through it first. Then you look back and see the thread woven through every experience: the detours, the losses, the rooms you outgrew. Only then can you see the incredible woman you’ve become. That’s what makes a midlife story worth telling. It isn’t a list of events. It’s the thread. Over the past year, I’ve created spaces for women’s voices through events, my podcast, and guest experts in my community. I’ve watched powerful messages move through those rooms, and I’ve watched many of them disappear, because a virtual moment doesn’t hold onto anything. A book does. Angela asked us to imagine our grandchildren, just learning to read, opening a book and meeting us. That’s what a chapter becomes: not content, but legacy. And somewhere, a woman still in the middle of her own journey will pick it up, read your words, and think, that’s me. She’ll see someone a few steps ahead of her and know her thread is there too, even if she can’t see it yet. You Are the Woman in the Title Women often assume someone will tell them what to write. Galit’s answer was to stop asking what the title means to me, or to anyone else. Sit with Voices of Influence: Women Leading in Alignment and remember that you’re the woman in it. Write down what comes up. Ask what you want your reader to walk away with. Then write without stopping, editing, or fixing a word. Type it, or speak it out loud. Walk away, and come back when you’re less critical of yourself. You won’t write the same chapter as anyone else. Across more than 400 authors, Galit said, no two have told the same story. Your life is the angle no one else can take. Her advice for the fear that shows up was simple: “Start and end with the benefit that you can have to others, instead of making it about you, that’s when it gets a little bit easier.” What Waits on the Other Side What happens after you stop waiting for permission is the part no one tells you. Readers reach out. Your chapter was exactly what I needed today. Thank you for being so real. Galit says every author in their anthologies has received that kind of confirmation. Angela described the moment that follows, when you stop and say to yourself, I did it. You don’t walk it alone. You go through the process alongside every woman in the book, with Zoom gatherings, a private group, and a community that opens doors none of us can predict. Nothing is published until you approve your chapter, your photo, and your bio. And it opens doors for you, too. Your name is attached to a bestselling book that people find when they search for you. Galit has watched authors land speaking engagements, podcast interviews, clients, and even business partnerships with women they met in the book. The Invitation If you lead in alignment with your truth, and that alignment has led to a reinvention in your life, I want your voice in this book. You write a 2,000-word chapter and name it yourself. You get structure if you want it, editing that keeps your voice yours, your photo and bio in the book, professional graphics and a book video, and a 15-minute Facebook Live in a group of more than 40,000 women. Enrollment closes October 31. The book publishes in February 2027. 👉 Join Voices of Influence , and if you want to chat before send me a message on your favorite platform below and I’ll reach out personally. Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/criss.madrigal.7 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/crissmadrigal Angela said it best at the close of our Live, “ Come join us. It will change your life.” And don’t forget, it’s alignment first. Then evolution. That’s reinvention. — Criss Madrigal This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

September 29, 202648 min

Reinvention Is a Reframe

Some women reinvent once. Carol Boston has done it at least three times: collegiate and professional tennis player, Fortune 100 sales leader, and now an award-winning speaker, best-selling author, and certified CodeBreaker trainer. What struck me most wasn’t how many times she started over. It was how : rarely with a plan, often with resistance, and almost always because someone saw something in her before she could. The girl who wasn’t following the rules Carol grew up in rural Louisiana between two brothers. Sent home from a ball team at five for being too small, she came back at seven and was team captain within three weeks. “When you go back and look at the dots,” she said, “that’s where my leadership started.” In 1971 she became the first girl in her area to play Little League hardball with the boys. There were rules about how Southern girls should behave, and Carol wasn’t following them. Tennis didn’t come easily. With no money for lessons, she sat courtside listening to the pro teach other kids, then asked better players to play with her. She earned a partial scholarship to LSU and started at number six. One summer, while her teammates rested, she played the amateur tour. She came back ranked number two and finished the semester as number one and team captain. Trusting someone else’s vision Twice, Carol trusted someone who believed in her before she did. The first was her high school coach, when her father told her to forget a scholarship and get a job. The second was a telecom executive who met her in Dallas and told her to be in Miami in a week. When Carol asked how she could know Carol was strong enough, the answer was simply: trust me. That drive to Florida became a 26-year sales career and more than $70 million in revenue. “Find someone who believes in you, and trust in their vision until you can believe it for yourself.” Reinvention After 40 is for women who built a life that no longer fits. Subscribe free for alignment, evolution and reinvention in midlife. The email that ended a career In 2014, Carol’s territory was cut by 80%. She took a director role at a smaller company, and six weeks in, on vacation, her CEO asked her opinion. She gave it honestly. That night he told her not to come back. She had been fired for an opinion she was asked to give. Months of interviews followed, and she spent her entire 401(k) looking for another corporate job. Finally she prayed: You know I’m not cut out to be an entrepreneur. Two weeks later, a woman she’d met once gifted her a $3,500 ticket to an entrepreneurship training. “God has a sense of humor,” Carol laughed. The reluctant entrepreneur That training introduced her to empowering questions, the practice she has spent nearly 12 years mastering and the root of her Queen of Reframe title. But she didn’t go all in right away. In 2017, she heard Lisa Nichols draw a line between being committed to something and being convicted by it. People decommit every day. Conviction doesn’t let you rest until it’s done. In January 2018, Carol let go of everything else and went full-time into coaching. Even then, she was introduced on podcasts as “the reluctant entrepreneur.” When COVID pushed everything online, she didn’t even have a Facebook page. She hired a VA to tell her what to do, and she launched a Monday Facebook Live show that ran for three years. She added a Wednesday cocktail show to prove she wasn’t all business. On one early episode she accidentally went live in someone else’s group, performed the entire show to an audience that wasn’t there, and cheerfully told her real audience the following week what a great show they’d missed. It was mid-2022, more than four years after going full-time, before she finally let go of the idea of returning to corporate. Her biggest lesson from those years: “God only gave me a lamplight for my feet. My job is to trust the process and take the next step. If He had shown me the whole staircase, I would have quit.” The power of a better question Carol’s core teaching: an empowering question never starts with “why.” “Why” triggers defensiveness, and when emotion goes up, clear thinking goes down. Empowering questions start with who, what, how, or where. They’re specific and time-bound, and you can’t be attached to the outcome. Her favorite: “What else is possible today?” She shared a client who kept arriving late. Instead of asking why, Carol gave her one question to repeat daily: Where else in your life am I not showing up for me? The lateness stopped. Weeks later, the client found another place she was abandoning herself. They doubled her income in six months. Knowing how you’re wired Carol pairs empowering questions with B.A.N.K. (Blueprint, Action, Nurture, Knowledge), a personality framework that shows how a person makes decisions and what they value. We all have all four codes, but we speak mostly from our dominant one, which means we often miss the people who hear the world differently. Carol frames it as a sales tool, and she’s quick to reframe sales itself as influence. But its first gift, she says, is self-awareness. The line I keep coming back to: “It’s not personal. It’s personality.” What this means for your reinvention Carol’s story is proof that reinvention has no expiration date, and that it rarely looks like a clean leap. Sometimes it looks like losing a career, arguing with God, and saying yes to a door you never would have chosen. If something in your life feels off, something is out of alignment. Try Carol’s question this week: What else is possible today? Then let go of how the answer arrives. Alignment first. Then evolution. That’s reinvention. Connect with Carol Boston * Free gift ($99 value): Crack Your Code: codebreakerglobal.com/crackyourcode/carol.boston * Substack: carolboston1.substack.com * LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thecarolboston * Facebook: facebook.com/carol.boston.37 If this is landing, you’re in the right room. Subscribe free and I’ll send you The Alignment Report. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

September 28, 202623 min

The Invitation You Didn't Know You Were Looking For

Over the past year, I’ve spent most of my energy amplifying other women’s voices. I brought them into my community as guest experts. I interviewed them on my podcast. I gathered them in collaboration books. In June, I hosted a virtual event called Voices of Influence: Women in Alignment , which streamed on Apple TV, Amazon Fire, and Roku. It featured women leading in their power across health, wealth, relationships, and personal power. It was beautiful. And afterward, I noticed something. The messages slowly started to disappear. Where wisdom goes to fade A woman shows up, shares her hard-won wisdom, and someone in the audience feels it land. Then the Live ends. The replay gets buried. The post scrolls away. We’ve all seen what happens when a Facebook or Instagram account gets shut down overnight. Years of content vanish, including every collaboration that lived on that page. So I kept asking myself one question: How can I help these women’s voices become legacy? The answer was clear. A book. A Live can be taken down. A platform can disappear. A book lives in someone’s hands. It gets passed to a friend, handed to a client, read by your children years from now. It holds lived wisdom long after the algorithm has moved on. This will be my sixth collaboration book, and likely my last for a while, because my solo book is calling me next. That’s my own alignment in real time. But before I step fully into my own voice, I want to make room for as many women’s voices as possible. Why now We’re entering a new era. People are tired of influencer gurus. They’re looking for depth, connection, and women who’ve actually lived what they teach. That’s especially true for women in midlife. And I keep seeing the same patterns: * Women who have quietly abandoned themselves. * Women who hit their financial goals and still feel unfulfilled. * Women whose personal power has been minimized so they don’t outshine anyone else. Many of them are also moving through perimenopause and menopause, often feeling alone. Those conversations are only just starting to happen openly. They aren’t looking for another guru on a pedestal. They’re looking for a woman a few steps ahead of them, someone who has been where they are and found her way through. And that woman exists. She has the gifts, the expertise, and the lived wisdom. What she doesn’t always have is the reach. There is someone out there right now who is waiting for your message. She just can’t find it yet, because you haven’t put it where she can. Why a collaboration book multiplies your reach When you publish on your own, you reach your own network. When you’re an author in a collaboration book, you share it with your network, and so does every other author. With 15, 20, or 30 women in the book, your message reaches the audiences of all of them. Voices of Influence brings together women with many different expertise including health and wellness, finance, relationships, and personal power. Their audiences overlap in the best way. You aren’t just being amplified. You’re connecting and collaborating with women who serve the same woman you do. Voice vs. influence The title of this book was intentional, because having a voice and having influence are not the same thing. A voice is output. Influence is what changes in someone else. Alignment is the bridge between the two. Influence depends on trust, and trust depends on congruence. People don’t just hear your words. They read whether you mean them. When what you say matches who you are, how you live, and what you believe, people feel it before they can explain it. That’s when they lean in. When you’re out of alignment, there’s a gap between your words and your truth. You say what sounds right, or what you think you should say. People may not notice it consciously, but they sense it. Your voice gets heard, and then it’s forgotten. * Voice without alignment is noise. You’re speaking, but you’re performing, and performance doesn’t move people. * Voice with alignment is signal. Your words carry the weight of your life, and that weight shifts something in the person hearing them. Yes, you can get attention without alignment. But that influence is borrowed. It takes constant effort to maintain, and it drains you. If you feel exhausted by showing up, that may be your signal that you’ve drifted out of alignment. Aligned influence is sustainable because you’re not holding up a mask. “But I’m not a writer” I hear this from so many incredible experts. Here’s the truth: you don’t need to call yourself a writer to write a chapter. If you have a Substack publication, you’re already writing. And the most important thing is to write the way you actually speak, because that’s what people feel. Readers can tell when something doesn’t sound like you. The people who know you will notice it immediately. This is where you get to own your voice. And you won’t be doing it alone. I’m working with Everyday Woman Publishing, and together we’ll help draw your story out and shape it into a beautiful chapter. The invitation About 15 incredible women are already in Voices of Influence: Women Leading in Alignment , and I’ve opened space for a few more. These are women creating impact by leading true to who they are. Their stories help other women trust their inner voice and lead with clarity and purpose in their businesses, careers, communities, and everyday lives. So I’ll leave you with the question I asked on the Live: If your story were in this book, what message would you have for women in midlife? If something stirred while you were reading, if you’ve lived a reinvention and know your story could lead another woman back home to herself, you belong in this book. Let’s talk. Send me a message with the word AUTHOR : * On Substack: https://substack.com/@crissmadrigal * On Instagram: instagram.com/crissmadrigal * On Facebook: facebook.com/criss.madrigal.7 Already know you’re in? Secure your chapter here: everydaywoman.me/voices Thought of someone while reading? Send this to her. Some invitations are meant to be passed on. Alignment first. Then evolution. That’s reinvention. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

September 16, 202658 min

You're Not Finished. You're Remembering.

A woman sits across from Julie Ciardi in a business meeting. She’s 59. Behind Julie is a shelf of copies of her book, and the cover has three words: 50 Not Finished. The woman reads it and says one word. “Yep.” Julie says almost every woman near or over 50 reacts the same way. They don’t ask what it means or what the book is about. They just recognize it immediately, as if someone had finally said out loud what they’ve felt for years. I think that reaction says more than the book title does. When a woman agrees with three words that fast, she isn’t learning something new. She’s recognizing it. The story we were handed Most of us grew up with a simple timeline. Build the career by 30. Make the money by 55. Then wind down, slow down, and step aside. Julie watched that story play out in corporate. People over 50 were laid off and nudged toward retirement, treated as if their best work was behind them. I watched it too, over 20 years in corporate HR. I’m 47 now, a few years behind Julie. When I finally walked away, the question people asked wasn’t what are you building? It was how did you do it? What almost nobody says out loud is that this timeline runs backwards. Julie shared an idea from Ra Uru Hu, the founder of Human Design: purpose doesn’t really begin to flower until after 50. When you think about it, that’s obvious. Purpose is built from every hard season, every lesson, every time you were knocked down and got back up. A 27-year-old hasn’t lived long enough to have all of that. You have. So midlife isn’t the end of your usefulness. It’s the first time you have everything you need. Subscribe to Reinvention After 40 for conversations on midlife, change and reinvention. You already knew The moment in our conversation that stayed with me most was about a 13-year-old girl. When Julie was about that age, she remembers thinking she wished there were a job where she could read books and tell people about them. Today her book, 50 Not Finished , is built on the books that changed her life. That job she imagined as a kid is the job she has now. I have my own version. Last year I found an old notebook with a question in it: What would your 80-year-old self wish you hadn’t stopped doing? I had written one word: writing. I don’t remember writing it, but I remember what came after. Years in rooms that weren’t mine. Then publishing found me. Five collaboration books later, and a sixth on the way as I’m writing this to you. Julie describes this as a remembering, and I think that’s the most accurate word for what reinvention is. The woman you want to become was never a stranger. She’s the girl you were before everyone started deciding for you. The shoulds, the paths chosen for us, the choices made on our behalf all fogged the mirror. Reinvention is wiping it clean. Why we stay stuck If we already know, why is what do you want? the hardest question for women to answer? Julie gave two reasons, and both hit hard. First, we’ve never practiced asking it. For decades we’ve taken care of everyone else on paths someone else laid out. Second, the answer is scary. As soon as a real desire shows up, the how comes right behind it. How would I afford that? What would my husband say? What will people think? So we close the door before the idea can even finish forming. Julie kept that door half-closed for ten years. She ordered an entrepreneur binder by mail and took calls about franchises. She wanted out and couldn’t see how. What finally changed wasn’t a plan. It was a decision: enough. Once she stopped slamming the door on the question, the answers started arriving, in the form of the right podcasts, the right books, and the right people. The clarity never came all at once. It came one step at a time, which is how it works for everyone. You don’t need the whole map. You need to stop tearing up the first page. The rebellion no one sees Julie calls her community the Red Rebelle Room. She spells it the French way because this rebellion isn’t about marching in the street. It’s quieter and harder than that. It’s a rebellion against the voice in your own head. For Julie, it started with her hair. She’d colored it since she was 19. She went through a can of root spray a week and wouldn’t leave the house if a sparkle of silver showed. At 47, she let it grow out. It was messy, and people talked. “I know it’s just hair,” she told me. But once you stop hiding one true thing about yourself, you want that freedom everywhere else too. That’s what nobody warns you about. One aligned choice creates momentum for the next one. It never stays with you Here’s what I can’t overstate: when you change, the people around you change too. I left corporate as the breadwinner, and one plan. And it played out completely different than I had imagined. My husband was my biggest supported and would say, It’s all going to work out, Criss. You’re the one worried about it. Two months later he was offered a better position, with more pay and more room to do his own inner work. He’s a different man today. Then the ripple continued through my kids. Not to mention when I began to study Human Design and use it to understand my family better. When I learned my children’s designs, I stopped managing my son and started trusting him. My sister noticed the change in him before I said a word. It’s been absolutely magical to witness. Your reinvention isn’t selfish. It gives everyone around you permission to do the same. Not a pivot. A thread. Julie’s first business after IBM was a boutique. It seems unrelated to what she does now, except that women kept pulling her aside and asking, How did you do this? She was already coaching and it was the first clue she needed to continue on her journey. That’s why she can’t stand the word pivot . A pivot implies you turned away from something. Look back at your own life and you’ll probably see what she sees: one thread that runs through everything, even the parts that felt like detours. For years, my whiteboard listed coaching, podcast, publication, and books, and I thought I had too many directions. Then I realized they were all one direction: helping women’s voices be heard and helping them hear their own voice. So here’s my question for you What is that inner voices telling you that you already know? Julie compares your voice to a conch shell. When you blow it, your people come. Not everyone, just the people who need to hear exactly what you have to say. You’re not finished. You’re not starting over, either. You’re remembering. Alignment first. Then evolution. That’s reinvention . Your next chapter might be a real chapter Voices of Influence: Women Leading in Alignment brings together the stories and lived wisdom of women creating impact by leading true to who they are. Their stories inspire other women to trust their inner voice, lead with clarity and purpose, and make a difference in their businesses, careers, communities, and everyday lives. Julie is opening the book with the foreword and there’s still room for your voice in it. This book is for the woman who: * Has lived through a season that changed her, and came out knowing herself better. * Stopped following the path she was handed and started following the one that was hers. * Leads a business, a team, a family, or a community her own way. * Read this and thought, I have something to say about that. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. You need a story and the willingness to share it, because another woman is waiting to hear exactly what you’ve lived. If something in you knows your story belongs in this book, send me a DM with the word CHAPTER. Message me on Substack, or if you’re listening on the podcast, you can find me on Facebook or Instagram at @crissmadrigal . I’ll send you the details, and we’ll talk about whether this book is for you. P.S. Know a woman whose story belongs in this book? Send her this conversation. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

September 14, 202613 min

What If the Sign You’re Waiting for Is Already Within You?

What if the guidance you’ve been searching for has been with you all along? In the final episode of my Mini Audiobook Series, I’m reading my chapter, The Spark Within , originally published in the collaboration book Spark in October 2025. This chapter takes you into one of the most spiritual experiences of my life—from a brilliant light that first appeared in my sleep to a QHHT session that brought me back to moments of fear, motherhood, divine protection, and the unmistakable feeling that I had never been alone. But the realization that stayed with me was even bigger: The light didn’t come to me. It came through me. Sometimes we spend so much time looking outside of ourselves for the answer, the sign, the confirmation, or the next step that we miss what has already been speaking to us from within. And that feels like the perfect place to close this series. Because reinvention isn’t always about becoming someone new. Sometimes it’s about finally recognizing the woman who has been emerging through every experience you’ve lived. If you’re in that kind of season right now, I created the free Alignment Report to help you understand how you’re uniquely designed to move through life, make decisions, and recognize what alignment—and misalignment—can feel like for you. Ready to understand your own signals of alignment? Get your FREE personalized Alignment Report and discover how you’re uniquely designed to move through life, make decisions, and recognize when something is working for you—or when it’s time to pay attention. Grab your free Alignment Report through the link below. https://www.crissmadrigal.com/AlignmentReport Alignment first. Then evolution. That’s reinvention . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

September 2, 202624 min

When the Life You Built No Longer Fits

What happens when the life you built, the identity you carried, and the beliefs you once trusted no longer fit the woman you are now? In Chapter 4 of my Mini Audiobook Series, I’m reading A Journey to My Remembrance , originally published in the 2025 collaboration book Sacred Redesign . This chapter takes you into one of the deepest seasons of my own reinvention: leaving a 20-year corporate career, stepping into the unknown, releasing identities and generational patterns, learning to trust myself differently, and recognizing the places where I was still dimming my own light. But this chapter isn’t really about leaving corporate or becoming an entrepreneur. It’s about what happens when you realize alignment is going to require something from you. Sometimes it asks you to leave or to release. Other times it asks you to stop carrying what was never yours and to finally own the parts of yourself you’ve spent years minimizing. If you’re in a season where something no longer fits, but you’re still discovering what comes next, The Reinvention Room was created for this part of the journey. Inside, I share deeper teachings and conversations around reinvention, alignment, identity, and becoming the woman you know you’re ready to be. 🔑 Join The Reinvention Room through the link below. https://crissmadrigal.substack.com/p/the-room Alignment first. Then evolution. That’s reinvention . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

August 31, 202616 min

Your Book ROI Starts Before the Book Is Published

One of the questions I hear most often when I talk with women about becoming contributing authors in a collaboration book is how quickly they can expect to see a return on their investment. Most people assume the ROI begins once the book is published. I see it differently. The return begins the moment you say yes, because that is the moment the opportunity starts working for you. A collaboration book is not only about the finished book. It is about the visibility, relationships, positioning, content, and opportunities that can begin forming throughout the entire process. The simplest way I describe it is this: your chapter becomes content, your content creates conversations, those conversations create connections, and those connections can lead to opportunities. Start talking about the book before it launches One of the biggest mistakes I see authors make is waiting until publication day to tell people they are part of a book. The moment you commit, start sharing the journey. Talk about why you said yes, what you are learning through the writing process, and what it feels like to revisit the story you are choosing to tell. If this is your first time becoming a published author, that experience itself is part of the story. Let your audience see some of the process rather than only showing them the finished product. When people follow the journey with you, they become more connected to the book before it ever launches. By the time it is released, they already understand why the project matters to you. Build relationships with the other authors The second opportunity is in the word collaboration itself. A collaboration book gives you access to a group of people who are all contributing to the same project. Yet I often see authors participate in the book without ever truly connecting with one another. That is a missed opportunity. Find out who the other authors are. Introduce yourself. Learn what they do, who they serve, and what brought them into the book. There may be natural overlap between your audiences or your work. You may discover opportunities to host a Live together, interview one another, share referrals, collaborate on content, or simply build a strong professional relationship. This is one of the fastest ways a collaboration book can expand your network. You are not only gaining a place in the book. You are entering a new ecosystem of people, ideas, and relationships. Inside Voices of Influence: Women Leading in Alignment , we have a private Facebook group specifically for the authors so those connections can begin well before publication. Let your chapter become a bridge Your chapter should also give the reader a reason to continue the relationship with you. A powerful story creates resonance, but the opportunity becomes even greater when the reader can clearly see how your experience connects to the work you do today. Think about the transformation inside your chapter. Where were you before the experience? What changed? What did you learn? How did that lesson shape the way you lead, live, or serve now? That is where the story becomes a bridge. Someone may read your chapter and recognize herself in it. She may be navigating something you have already moved through. If your story gives her clarity or possibility, she may naturally want to learn more from you. Give her a clear next step, whether that is your website, newsletter, podcast, services, social media, or another resource. Every author who joins Voices of Influence also receives access to my From Story to Legacy workshop. The workshop helps authors identify meaningful stories, extract the wisdom from those experiences, and turn that wisdom into something that can serve others through books, podcasts, articles, speaking, and content. Use the chapter long after the launch Another mistake I see is treating publication day as the finish line. Your chapter can continue working for you long after the book has launched. One chapter can become months of content. The ideas inside it can become podcast conversations, Substack articles, social content, emails, workshops, masterclasses, speaking topics, or even a lead magnet. You have already done the deeper work of identifying the story and articulating the lesson. Repurposing allows you to keep expanding on that message without constantly starting from zero. Inside Voices of Influence , authors retain the rights to their individual chapters after publication, which gives them the ability to continue using their work strategically. The book may be the first place the story appears, but it does not have to be the last. Own the authority of becoming a published author Becoming published can also strengthen your positioning, but only if you actually use that credential. I often see women become published authors and then barely mention it again. Add it to your bio, website, social profile, speaker sheet, email signature, and media kit. Make it easy for people to see that you have contributed your perspective and lived experience to a published body of work. Authority is about allowing your body of work to reflect the depth of your experience and thought leadership. Create opportunities around the book The book can also become a reason to gather people. You might host an online conversation with several co-authors, organize a local book signing, or create a panel around the central theme of the book. The power is in the shared audience. Each author brings her own network, community, and relationships into the conversation. That creates the possibility for everyone involved to reach people they would not have reached alone. That is one of the biggest advantages of a collaboration book. Why I talk about 30X-ing the opportunity The vision for Voices of Influence: Women Leading in Alignment is to bring together 30 women. That means the book is not being shared by one person. It is being shared across many different networks, communities, industries, and circles of influence. That does not mean results multiply automatically simply because there are 30 authors. The value comes from participating in the collaboration. When authors connect with one another, share the book, create conversations, and continue using their chapters after launch, the reach of the project becomes much larger than what any one person could create alone. That is where the real opportunity lives. A collaboration book can become far more than a publishing credit. It can become a vehicle for visibility, authority, relationships, content, and new opportunities if you choose to use it that way. The ROI starts long before the book lands in someone’s hands. It begins with how you show up from the moment you say yes. If you have a story, experience, or body of wisdom you feel called to share, Voices of Influence: Women Leading in Alignment is currently open to contributing authors. Comment AUTHOR or send me a message and I’ll share the details. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

August 27, 20268 min

The Shift That Happens Before Your Life Changes

Sometimes the biggest changes in our lives begin long before anyone else can see them. In Chapter 3 of my Mini Audiobook Series, I’m reading “The Shift to Abundance,” originally published in Hispanic Stars Rising, Volume V in October 2024 during Hispanic Heritage Month. I wrote this chapter about a moment when our bank account was unexpectedly wiped down to zero and the surprising realization that came with it. Instead of fear, something inside of me shifted. For years, I had approached money from protection, scarcity, and limitation. That experience forced me to question what I believed about money, trust, possibility, and abundance. Within a year of that shift, I became a 4 time international bestselling author, launched a podcast, and walked away from a 20-year corporate career to become an entrepreneur. But reading this chapter today, I can see something I couldn’t fully see when I wrote it: The shift wasn’t only about money. It was about learning to trust what was changing inside of me before my external life reflected it. In this episode, I share the original chapter and my perspective today on what those internal shifts can teach us about reinvention. As you listen, consider: What has already shifted inside of you that your life hasn’t caught up with yet? If you’re questioning what’s next or wondering where you’ve become disconnected from who you are today, start with my free Alignment Report . It’s designed to help you recognize where you may be living in—or out of—alignment with your unique design. → Get your free Alignment Report: www.crissmadrigal.com Alignment first. Then evolution. That’s reinvention. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

August 25, 202626 min

When the Dream You Chased No Longer Feels Like Yours

What happens when you achieve the life you were taught to want then realize it no longer feels like yours? In Chapter 2 of my Mini Audiobook Series, I’m sharing my chapter Live Your Dream from Latinas Rising: Breaking Generational Chains and Becoming Changemakers , a collaborative book I brought together and published in 2024. This chapter takes you back to my childhood between Mexico and the United States, my pursuit of education and the American Dream, and the moment I realized that despite doing everything “right”—three degrees, a home, a family, a successful career, and a six-figure income—I didn’t feel free. I had broken some generational cycles, but there were others I was still living inside. This is a story about awakening. About unlearning the beliefs that tie our worth to productivity and achievement. About leaving behind what is familiar, learning to trust the unknown, reconnecting with faith, and giving yourself permission to want a different life. And maybe most importantly, it’s about recognizing that reinvention doesn’t mean rejecting where you came from. Sometimes it means honoring everything that got you here while choosing differently for where you’re going. If you’re in a season where the life you built no longer feels completely aligned with the woman you’ve become, start with my free Alignment Report . It uses your unique design to help you recognize how alignment feels for you and the signals that may be showing you where something in your life is ready to shift. Get your free Alignment Report here: www.crissmadrigal.com 🎙️ Listen to Chapter 2 of the Mini Audiobook Series now. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit crissmadrigal.substack.com/subscribe

Is this your show?

Claim this listing to keep it up to date, reach guests who want to pitch you, and manage bookings with Guestify.

Claim this listing

More Business podcasts

Business Of Weather | Weather Intelligence For Improved Decision Making

BusinessTechnology

Domain Details Page

BusinessInvesting

The Bottom Line

Alexander Spencer

BusinessInterviews guests