Melanie Spring spent 25 years as a brand strategist and speaker trainer, helping people show up as themselves on stage and in business. Now she's in what she calls The Reclamation. She’s consciously uncoupling, dissolving her business, going nomadic, and stepping into a new identity as a Medicine Muse and author. She finally decided to build a life around what she wants.

This conversation goes to the heart of the authenticity gap, looking at the distance between who we believe we are on the inside and how we're actually perceived by the people closest to us. Melanie's five-word exercise has stopped people in their tracks at conferences for years, and the reframe she offers on people-pleasing and that it's a form of manipulation is one of those ideas you cannot unhear.

Melanie is willing to be mid-process in public. There’s no tidy nar ...