But I do remember, at a very young age, realizing right from wrong and how it affected me and specifically where I felt in my body—especially when it came to how people treated one another.

If I saw someone treating another person badly, my entire body would respond. I would wonder, Why does that angry person think they have the right to overpower someone else?

I didn’t have the language for it then. I just knew it was wrong.

And then there was the opposite reaction.

When I saw someone winning, especially a figure skater landing a flying spin, for some reason I would burst into happy tears. I still do this by the way.

I was recently watching a video of Heather Dorniden getting back up and winning the race for Minnesota. It’s a good reminder to dig deep and just finish with all you’ve got. Watch it HERE. I watched this on Tuesday…tears. I don’t know Heather! I am not a runner! What the heck.

But watching her get back up reminded me of something I believe deeply: we all have the freedom within ourselves to choose to get back up or stay down.

The things that make us irrationally angry, unexpectedly emotional, or incredibly motivated can give us clues about what matters most to us.

As a sales leader, I would see a team member struggling to make numbers or overcome imposter syndrome, or recognize a fear of failure or success, and I would schedule a strategy call. Before the call, I would reflect on that person.

Why did I hire them? What do I see that they may not see or have forgotten within themselves? What matters to them? What did they believe about themselves? How could I use what mattered to them to help them reconnect with their own ability to move forward?

With the person who was ready and open 9/10, they got back on track. The excuse makers, half-in-half-out, disengaged ones…it didn’t matter what we tried, because they were not in it to win or up to the work or flexibility within themselves.

The ones who wanted it and were open, the CoreWise Equation™ worked every time.

At the time, I didn’t have a scientific framework for what I was doing. I just knew it worked.

Fast forward to 2024, I started doing some research. And that’s when I found Shalom Schwartz. Schwartz has spent decades researching human values and developed one of the most extensively researched and widely applied frameworks for understanding them.

Schwartz shows us that there are ten primary human values. Each of us holds all ten; however, it is the priority we personally place on each value that makes us uniquely ourselves. I will continue to share the research in my articles; however, I want to start with the basic foundation.

A value is a guiding principle that influences how we think, feel, and act. Schwartz describes “values as beliefs with affect”—meaning they aren’t just ideas we hold intellectually. We have an emotional response to them. They matter to us. They influence what we choose and what we are willing to act on. The WHY behind the behavior.

The ten values and my reference words for better understanding are below.

The Ten Human Values

• Self-Direction — Independence or freedom

• Achievement — Accomplishment or progress

• Universalism — Justice or equality

• Hedonism — Happiness or enjoyment

• Benevolence — Compassion or caring

• Security — Stability or certainty

• Power — Influence or impact

• Conformity — Responsibility or compliance

• Stimulation — Adventure or discovery

• Tradition — Customs or culture

After reading the ten human values, did any one stand out to you? Spark a thought or feeling about you or someone else?

You can find out your core values by going to my website and taking the CoreWise assessment, which not only reveals your core values but also your satisfaction score in the primary categories of life and helps you understand the motives behind your behavior. This is complimentary, and we email your personalized report shortly after you submit your assessment. Visit www.MyCoreWise.com to take the assessment. But come back to read the rest of the article to keep learning how this applies to you!

Welcome Back! While researching this topic, I found it interesting that Schwartz’s work shows that values don’t operate in isolation. They interact, compete, and at times explain why making a decision can feel so damn complicated.

Our values are quietly directing us all the time. They influence what matters to us, what gets under our skin, what motivates us, and how we respond when life gets messy. They also point to what inspires us, what motivates or demotivates us, and what compels us to take action behind or stand for our beliefs. They truly show up as nonnegotiables.

Circling back to my stories above, let me show you how they reveal some of my core values.

Someone is being mistreated
→ I must act
→ Nonnegotiable
→ Universalism / Justice

Someone wins against the odds
→ Unexpected emotion
→ Hedonism / Happiness

Someone is struggling with success at work
→ Let’s understand what matters to them and use it to help them move forward
→ Achievement / Accomplishment

This is where my research and my experience started coming together. Once you understand your values and how you prioritize them, you begin to understand how they are directing you.

That became the foundation for what I built: The CoreWise Equation™

My research, which began in 2024, gave me the foundation and language to create the CoreWise Equation™: Learn → Align → Leverage.

Learn your core values and understand what really matters to you.

Align your choices, behaviors, goals, relationships, and work with those values.

Leverage that understanding to navigate life, make decisions, create meaningful progress, and measure the impact of those choices.

This is for the woman navigating a major life change—divorce, becoming a caretaker, becoming an empty nester, figuring out work-life balance, or simply asking, What the hell am I doing with my life now?

It’s for the leader who wants to unify and grow a team but doesn’t understand how to transform the culture from the inside out.

It’s for the person who feels lost and just needs a compass.

I believe that when we understand our values, we have another tool to navigate life. We can use them as leverage—not to manipulate the outcome, but to better understand ourselves, make choices that actually feel like us, and measure their impact; that is where alignment begins.

I’m going to keep exploring this here on my Substack.

There is a lot of research behind it. There are also plenty of opportunities to make it practical, personal, and maybe even a little fun. Because this can be a deep topic, and it can also be enlightening…and hopefully hilarious too.

Next, let’s get into what these values actually look like in real life—and how you might recognize them in yourself. If you haven’t already, please take the complimentary assessment to learn your core values at www.MyCoreWise.com.

Subscribe for more. And share with someone who could use a boost of self-understanding.

References

Schwartz, S. H. (2012). An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1).

Schwartz, S. H. (2022, May 10). Understanding values: Schwartz theory of basic values. Integration and Implementation Insights.

The teacher said there were some guests coming to talk to us. I was six years old, a kindergartner at Tomahawk Elementary.

I vaguely remember the details, because it was the early 1980s. Shortly after the teacher’s announcement, the guests came in with more enthusiasm than I was used to seeing at school—or really anywhere. They made the room feel like a party. They made the room feel happy. They made you want to be a part of it. Sales at its best, right? Even to a class of kindergarteners.

The guests were from the March of Dimes, a nonprofit fighting for the health of all moms and babies. Founded in 1938 to eradicate polio, it now focuses on ending preventable maternal deaths, preterm births, and birth defects. They invited us to compete to raise funds to help mothers and babies who needed care but couldn’t get it. (It’s another article entirely about enticing kindergartners to fundraise.) Each student was given a metal can to collect dimes and other coins and a certain amount of time to raise as much money as possible. They would come back, count the money, and announce the winners and prizes.

I was in! Competition? Money? Helping mommies and sick babies? I probably stood on my desk, did a happy dance, and screamed, “ME! I will do it!” It spoke to all my things, and it wasn’t schoolwork.

In addition, my Cabbage Patch doll, Jenny, was always getting injured thanks to my brother’s G.I. Joes, and we always needed “supplies” to help her get better. Funding was an issue even then, with allowance shortfalls and parental financial constraints for a doll.

So I got to work.

As soon as I got home, I passionately shared the need to raise money for a good cause and waited for my parents’ reaction. When their enthusiasm didn’t quite meet my expectations, I mentioned the competition part, which got my dad’s attention.

My dad always kept a large jar for spare change. He would toss coins into it and always said, “Pennies add up to dollars.” (Which makes me a little sad now that they’re not even making pennies anymore.)

He dumped his entire jar into my March of Dimes can, and when it overflowed, we grabbed a pillowcase for the rest.

Honestly, I’ve seen my dad cash in that jar when it’s full, and it can top $2,000. I think the amount that day was somewhere between $500 and $600. Thanks, Dad!

I didn’t stop there!

I thought, If my dad is willing to dump his whole jar in, others will too.

So I went door to door to the neighbors, family, friends, and strangers (even with stranger danger) who were already used to me selling rocks, coloring pages, and my dad’s business cards. Now, though, it was a really, really good cause, and I expected commitment.

When they threw in a few dimes, I challenged them for the entire coin jar. My mother must have been mortified.

I’m not sure how much I actually raised. However, I did it! I raised more money than anyone else in history at my age and for a student. I mean, my pitch was basically, Just give it all to me! So, of course! LOL.

My prize from the March of Dimes was a certificate, which I’m sure we don’t have anymore, and a chance to speak on television.

Now, as a child, I was pretty shy—you know, the whole “be seen, not heard” thing. However, something lit up inside me when I realized I was going to get a microphone, speak, and be on television. Even at six years old, I knew I’d been given an opportunity.

That was the real prize. To influence. To tell everyone how important it was to help mommies, sick babies, and anyone else less fortunate.

I was being given the opportunity to raise money and tell a television audience and a room full of hundreds of people why it mattered to me, encouraging them to do the same. At six years old.

I was being told I had a voice—and to use it.

Even though I don’t remember what I said, I do remember how I felt. I was shaking. I was so scared. However, I knew backing out wasn’t an option. I’d already done something hard. I’d raised a substantial amount of money to help, and my mission had to continue.

The opportunity had been earned, and I was going to give it my best—even if I did it while shaking in my kindergarten Mary Jane shoes.

I do remember they asked me how I did it, and I said something like, “It wasn’t that hard. You just have to ask and believe you can do it.”

I really believed that. And I still do.

Just get your plan, ask for what you want (start by asking your biggest enthusiast) , and believe.

I forget this sometimes. Many times lately, to be honest.

But the six-year-old me is reminding all of us that we need to get enthusiastic about what moves us, raise our hand, make the plan, do the work, and take the opportunity.

And, most importantly… Do it even if you’re scared.

What is your pivotal story or moment when something inside of you lit up and made you literally—or metaphorically—jump on your desk, do a happy dance, and scream, “ME!”

Share your story in the comments below. Include your Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bear, Jam, Gi Joe, or other childhood muses.

It may be just what someone else needs to empty their own “coin jar” for others to win.

She’s a woman I’ve admired from a distance—someone who moved to a new city, knew no one, and somehow built a strong community of women. She can pack a room. Women show up for her. On paper, she’s exactly the kind of connector we say we want more of in our communities.

She reached out recently and wanted to take my CoreWise assessment. I thought we were setting up a “get to know each other better” call and a space to answer her questions. Five minutes in, I realized her idea of the call was to coach me—unsolicited. I hadn’t asked for coaching. I hadn’t consented to being coached. That’s a lesson for all of us who coach: enthusiasm doesn’t replace permission.

After I willingly shared pieces of my life—two decades in corporate leadership, becoming a certified coach in 2022, earning my MBA in my 40s, two divorces, loving EDM and going to raves.. sober, my love of dancing, yoga- the weird kind, animals- especially dogs, traveling the world, moving from the Midwest to the East Coast, currently building a tech company—she asked me a question that landed like a slap.

“How do you navigate all the different masks you wear?” She goes on, as I do not have a poker face and god knows what look I had on my face, “I mean, how do you portray you’re an actual professional when you just told me you go to raves and all the stuff in your past?”

Um, excuse me? Her further explanation only sealed the judgment filling the virtual space. The word “masks” specifically lit something up in me. Authenticity is a core value I live by, so even my physical body reacted to her questioning. I had just shared openly and freely, and her response left me feeling defensive, judged, and as if she somehow had answers to life I didn’t have when it came to what an actual professional profile should contain and not contain.

I was seen through a lens that assumed I must be so busy changing the masks I wear, rather than owning a life where a woman can lead a board meeting on Tuesday and dance under lasers on Saturday. Maybe that sounds sensitive, but here’s where the research on belonging comes in—and why this kind of moment matters more than we think.

Belonging is not a soft feeling; it’s a health variable

A meta‑analysis published in 2025 pulled together 26 studies and more than 68,000 students and found that a sense of belonging—feeling accepted, valued, and like an integral part of your environment—has a moderate positive relationship with mental health.

MIT’s Teaching & Learning Lab summarized related work showing that when people feel they belong, they perform better, persist longer, and are more protected against depression and anxiety, especially if they’re underrepresented. Other work has linked a strong sense of belonging to better physical health, longer lifespan, and improved recovery from illness.

Belonging is a health intervention. Disrupting belonging—through judgment, exclusion, or subtle tone—has consequences.

So when a woman walks into a “community of women” and feels subtly judged for being too much, too layered, too rave‑and‑boardroom, that’s not a small social faux pas. It’s a micro‑fracture in belonging.

What happened in that moment

After her “masks” question, I did what many women with self‑awareness do: I regulated myself. (That’s a whole other article.) I chose kindness, compassion. I answered: I don’t see them as masks. I show up authentically in each scenario I find myself in. I have nothing to hide. I can dance at a festival and lead a board meeting. That’s the point of being human—we get to be many things.

The air in the virtual room was sucked out at this interaction, and I quickly found a way to give her back time in her day and end the call. But the conversation has stuck with me because, afterward, I noticed my own internal audit firing up. I have assessed—more than once—whether I’m “doing it wrong.” Whether living in my authenticity is going to cost me. And here’s the truth I keep coming back to: if it does, self‑attunement and alignment are worth the price. So I am excited about the festival I will attend this November and the workshop I will lead in December. Same person, different roles, no masks. I may even incorporate a rave in my workshop now that I think of it!

Belonging research helps explain why this rumination loop kicked in. When someone implies you are wearing masks, they are implicitly questioning whether all your parts “fit” and are valued in the space. Yet belonging is defined, in part, as feeling that your values and characteristics fit with others and that you are needed and important to them. That question pushed against my sense of fit. It flirted with non‑belonging.

For women, who already navigate constant judgment and self‑questioning, these moments don’t just sting; they aggregate.

What women’s communities can do differently (backed by the data)

If we say we’re building communities of women who want to help others and make an impact, then we’re saying we’re in the business of belonging. And belonging, as the data shows, affects health, performance, and persistence.

So what might we practice differently?

1. Ask permission before you coach or advise.
   Consent is belonging. When you ask, “Would you like coaching right now, or would you rather me just listen?” you’re telling the other woman she gets to define the space. That protects her autonomy and nervous system.

2. Recognize that your communication is powerful.
   What you say, how you say it, your tone, your word choices—they all affect whether another woman feels like she belongs as her full self. Research shows that belonging improves mental health outcomes for about one in three people; your words might be part of that outcome.

3. If you have an opportunity to support another woman, take it.
   A simple “Wow, that’s amazing—and inspiring for me” or “I struggle with that too” is not fluff; it’s a belonging intervention. You’re helping her feel valued and seen rather than suspect. Over time, that’s mental health, performance, and persistence.

4. Give grace—and what you need in return
   We will all misstep. If you catch yourself judging, pause and repair. If someone else missteps, remember that you can offer feedback and still maintain your own alignment. Grace preserves connection; connection builds belonging.

5. Don’t abandon your core values to fit in.
   Belonging, in the healthiest sense, is not about shrinking yourself to be acceptable; it’s about finding places where your authentic self is welcomed. The research suggests that being part of communities where you can bring your real identity is protective for mental health, especially for people who are marginalized or “different” in some way. For women who rave and lead and build companies and love deeply, that kind of belonging is medicine.

The Learning Xchange invitation

At the Learning Xchange, we talk about skills, tools, and frameworks—but underneath all of it is this mission: Show up as your whole self: Meet others where they are. Do your communities of women see you as you are and confirm, “Yes. You fit here. You are needed here.” This is the community I am determined to curate and build. I want it. I need it. I imagine I am not the only one.

The data tells us that belonging changes health, performance, and persistence. Your story and mine tell us that belonging is built or broken one conversation at a time.

If you’re reading this as a woman in business, a leader, entrepreneur, founder:
What’s one tiny way you can increase another woman’s sense of belonging this week—through a word, a question, a tone—and what might that do for both of your health and futures?

Create belonging in your circles this week!

In light and love,

Brandi

I didn’t understand why certain decisions were made, how priorities were being set in departments I interacted with, or why some challenges seemed to persist despite everyone agreeing they needed to be fixed. In addition, when you’re not in the room, there is always a nagging feeling that there are conversations happening somewhere else that contain information you don’t have access to.

At the same time, if you’ve spent enough years in corporate America, you eventually realize that a lot of what you’re worried about missing isn’t actually worth chasing. The politics are exhausting. The bureaucracy can be maddening. I wasn’t interested in climbing over people or any part of the political machinery. What I wanted was understanding. I wanted to better support my team. I wanted to understand the business well enough to remove obstacles so they could succeed.

So I did something about it. Every year, I made it a goal to connect with leaders in parts of the organization I had little visibility into. I set up peer growth sessions, mentoring conversations, and countless meetings that essentially revolved around one question: “How can we better support your department?” At the time, I viewed these conversations as part of my responsibility as a leader. If our team was running into friction somewhere, I wanted to understand why. If another department was struggling, I wanted to understand what they were dealing with. I also wanted to carry the voice of the customer and the sales organization up the chain. My curiosity wasn’t strategic. It was practical.

What I didn’t realize was that those conversations were slowly changing my career. As I built relationships across the organization, I gained context, which helped me become a better leader. I better understood how some decisions were made. I understood competing priorities. I understood where influence lived and where collaboration mattered. More importantly, our team began to see slow but meaningful improvements in areas we could influence because we had relationships with the people involved rather than making assumptions about them.

Eventually, those relationships opened doors I never anticipated. I was invited to participate in committees, focus groups, and strategic initiatives. At one point, I was asked to help create and roll out a culture initiative throughout the organization. This happened because I had spent years building relationships and trying to understand how the larger system worked.

One day, my work wife called me laughing. She told me my name had come up on every call she had attended that day. I asked why, and she said, “Because you’re the best networker I’ve ever met.”

I remember being genuinely shocked by that comment because I had never considered myself a networker. In my mind, networking was something different. It was cocktail events, exchanging business cards, working a room, and finding people who could help you get ahead. What I had been doing felt nothing like that. I had simply been trying to learn.

I think that was one of the most important lessons of my career. The best networking rarely feels like networking. It feels like curiosity. It feels like generosity. It feels like asking good questions and listening carefully to the answers. It feels like helping someone solve a problem, even when there is nothing in it for you. As a founder, I must curate my own networking opportunities.

I have attended countless networking events in the Atlanta metro… only to find that 80% or more of the room is men. I have nothing against men; however, my product is for women. Therefore, I want to talk to them about their needs, bounce ideas off of the wise women in business, and learn and share what I have learned.

Honestly, are you all in the car line, taking or picking up the kiddos from school? Probably, because that is what we do, right? We do it all, or at least attempt to on the daily. I want community. I want to know I can have a recurring event on my calendar where I can build relationships with other business-minded women. I cannot be the only one trying to help as many people as possible, leave a legacy, and make an impact. Bueler? Anyone?

So, I am creating this community since I cannot find it. Let’s see what happens?!? In researching this, because I can not do anything linear, the research closely mirrored what I had experienced firsthand while working at corporate. (Hence the prelude above)

An analysis conducted by Achor and Campbell following the Conference for Women found that women who attended their conference were 2x as likely to receive a promotion and 3x more likely to receive a pay increase of 10% or more within a year. I will also add that I earned a significant pay increase the year after I started my internal networking.

This same research showed that 78% of participants reported feeling more optimistic after attending the Conference for Women. (I do wonder if the analysis was conducted to validate their own conference; regardless, the women who showed up gained a great deal from doing so.)

I also found that the World Bank’s research on women entrepreneurs’ networks points to a similar pattern. Women who actively participate in strong professional communities gain access to information, opportunities, resources, and support systems that are difficult to build on their own.

A 2022 social network analysis of women-only groups found that connectedness itself becomes a form of capital. The stronger the connections, the greater the flow of information, support, trust, and opportunity throughout the network. That’s pretty telling.

Somewhere along the way, many incredibly capable women begin to feel isolated, invisible, or disconnected from the larger picture of what is possible for them. I want a community where women feel remembered, visible, heard, validated, important, and dammit, impactful and influential. Creating or expanding your circle with like-minded women has tremendous benefits.

That realization is what eventually led me to create The Learning Xchange.

Not because women need another networking group. Most of us have enough opportunities to connect virtually, collect random business cards, and LinkedIn connections. What feels much harder to find are intentional spaces where women can talk honestly about leadership, growth, communication, business, failure, opportunity, decision-making, and everything else that comes with building a meaningful career and life.

No single person has all the answers. Every woman in the room knows something to contribute. Every woman in the room has lived an experience that should be shared. Every woman in the room has a lesson that took years to learn and only minutes to pass on. That’s the real ROI I am trying to create.

It’s the opportunity to learn from one another, challenge one another, support one another, and leave a little wiser than we arrived.

If you’re a woman in North Fulton who values lifelong learning, meaningful conversations, and the belief that we grow faster together than we do alone, I’d love for you to help us build this community.

In Love & Light,

-Brandi

Find out more at www.thelearningxchange.com

Subscribe now

Today, I’m excited to share the launch of Learning XChange.

As I continue to move my company, CoreWise, forward, I’ve become increasingly aware of how important it is to create spaces where women feel safe, empowered, challenged, and elevated. Spaces where growth is not just encouraged but expected.

I’ve been searching for something like this for quite some time, and I haven’t found it.

So, as often happens when I can’t find what I’m looking for, I’ve decided to create it.

The Learning XChange is a curated community for women—and those who identify as women—in business who are committed to continuous learning, meaningful conversations, and supporting one another’s growth.

The Premise

Learning XChange is what I like to call The Anti-Book Club.

Most book clubs ask everyone to read the same book. We’re doing the opposite.

Each month, we select a business topic—leadership, negotiation, marketing, strategy, entrepreneurship, AI, innovation, and more. From there, every participant chooses her own learning source. It might be a book, ebook, podcast, course, newsletter, article series, or another resource connected to that month’s theme.

When we gather, everyone comes prepared to share the most valuable ideas, lessons, frameworks, insights, and takeaways they discovered.

The result?

Bring one lesson. Leave with many.

A room full of diverse perspectives and the collective wisdom of multiple books, courses, and experiences in a single evening.

One person may bring a leadership framework. Another may share a powerful negotiation strategy. Someone else may offer a fresh perspective on AI or entrepreneurship.

The part to stay tuned for is that I will be sharing these insights monthly here, on my substack. So tune in and follow so you can be a part of this dynamic curated community too!

The Why

Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of learning from extraordinary women leaders—visionaries who have navigated complexity, driven change, built organizations, and redefined what leadership looks like.

Again and again, I’ve found that the most valuable lessons rarely come from a single presentation or textbook. They emerge through conversation. Through shared experiences. Through the willingness to talk honestly about challenges, successes, failures, and growth.

Those insights deserve a place to live beyond a single event, conversation, or moment.

The curated gatherings are only the starting point. The real value lies in the exchange of ideas, experiences, and perspectives that continue long after an event concludes. My hope is that together we build something that expands beyond meetings and becomes a trusted community of learners, leaders, and supporters.

I don’t know exactly what this will become.

What I do know is that there is tremendous power when ambitious women gather with the intention to learn, share, and grow together.

An Invitation

If you identify as a woman and are passionate about leadership, lifelong learning, innovation, personal growth, and elevating women’s voices, I invite you to join us. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, executive, consultant, creator, founder, or professional navigating your next chapter, there is a place for you in this conversation.

Visit www.theLearningXChange.com to apply to join a community committed to learning from those shaping the future.

This is just the beginning. I hope you’ll help us build what’s next.

#LearningXChange #WomenInLeadership #Leadership #Learning #Community #ProfessionalDevelopment #Innovation #AntiBookClub