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Stop Blaming, Start Understanding: Curiosity as a Leadership Superpower

Release Date: 01/28/2026

Stop Blaming, Start Understanding: Curiosity as a Leadership Superpower

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

In this episode, Melissa shares a morning leadership reminder inspired by Napoleon Hill: there is no problem without an appropriate solution, and often, the solution is found by getting curious about the circumstances that created the problem in the first place. This is not an invitation to blame. It’s a call to open curiosity and radical self-ownership—so you can access clearer thinking, deeper self-connection, and more creative solutions. The episode closes with a grounding breathwork drop-in to help you regulate and return to your calm, clear, most expansive self. This episode explores:...

The Real Remedy for Overwhelm: Stillness

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

Overwhelm isn’t a sign you need to work harder. It’s an extreme stress state, and when it hits, your nervous system (and your clarity) can get overridden fast. In today’s episode, Melissa breaks down the common misbelief: that tackling your to-do list is the cure to feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelm can create the feeling that you’re losing control, so the mind reaches for “do more” to feel safer. But in a heightened stress state, your capacity for clear, creative, grounded decision-making can drop. The most powerful move is often the most countercultural one: step away, get...

You Can’t Lead From Stress: Returning to Coherence

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

Learn the practice of choosing calm, even when the world Isn’t. When the collective feels chaotic, it’s easy to slip into stress, fear, and overwhelm. But you can’t lead from survival mode—and you don’t have to stay there. Today is your reminder: calm, clarity, and alignment are always available to you. In this Morning Live, I share a grounded truth for mission-driven leaders: fear and anxiety hijack clear thinking when we’re locked into the “brain brain.” When we return to the body, we regain access to steadiness, creativity, and wise action. We then do an extended grounding...

If You Feel Guilty Setting Boundaries, Listen to This

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

Boundaries aren’t selfish. They’re self-respect. And when you honor them, you’re not letting people down… you’re teaching them how to treat you. In this Morning Live, Melissa explores why so many of us struggle to set boundaries (especially the overachiever / people-pleaser patterns), and how self-resourcing is actually a leadership strategy. When you listen to your body, protect your energy, and choose spaciousness, you don’t lose momentum — you create clarity and coherence. Melissa also shares a powerful permission: everyone is figuring it out as they go — which means...

When You Wake Up Feeling Lack: How to Shift Back Into Wholeness

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

To feel lack is human. It’s also not the place where your clearest leadership and most powerful creation happens. In this Morning Live, Melissa shares what to do when you wake up feeling lack: how to meet it without shame, and how to shift back into wholeness using a simple “toolkit” of practices. As always, this episode includes a grounding drop-in breath practice (please don’t do this while driving!). Today’s message: Lack creates more lack. Wholeness creates more wholeness. If you want to lead with steadiness, clarity, and resonance, the work is not to suppress what you feel, but...

Choose Your Thoughts: The Fastest Way to Stop Fear/Doubt and Stay on Purpose

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

Fear is fast. Doubt is persuasive. And mission-driven leaders can't afford to be susceptible to drifting off purpose when fear-based thoughts take over. In this Morning Live, Melissa Agnes shares why your thoughts matter so deeply—and how to reclaim agency when doubt, imposter syndrome, or fear start to creep in. Inside this episode: Why fear takes over quickly (often unconsciously) How fear-based thoughts pull you off mission and into “drift” A practical way to respond to doubt without feeding it Why pairing belief with the feeling of success changes everything A guided...

Equanimity for Leaders: Stay Calm, Open-Hearted, and Steady in Any Situation

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

Equanimity is the liberating skill of staying calm, balanced, and open-hearted, no matter what is happening around you. In this Morning Live, Melissa Agnes breaks equanimity down in simple terms and shows you how to practice it in real time, using your breath and self-leadership. You will hear: What equanimity is, and why it changes how you lead Why breath is your fastest pathway back to steadiness A self-leadership question to use when something external triggers you The four attitudes of equanimity: gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance, hope A guided grounding drop-in to help you...

The Real Reason You Want To Achieve Your Goals (And How to Feel It Now)

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

What you crave isn't the actual achievement of your goals. What you actually crave is the feeling you believe you’ll FEEL when you achieve your goals. In today’s Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes, we explore a simple shift that changes how you lead your week: you don’t have to wait for the milestone, the outcome, or the “someday” to feel the feelings you’re chasing. You can choose them now, on purpose, and it doesn’t just feel better. It also supports you in accomplishing your goals with more ease. In this episode, Melissa guides a short exercise to help you name what...

Feeling Low? Do This One Thing and Watch Your Energy Lift

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

If you’re feeling low, heavy, sad, or stuck in a funk, today’s episode offers a simple truth that can shift your state quickly: do something kind for someone else. When we’re in a low place, it’s easy to feel disconnected. We can get pulled into our own mind, our own stress, and the sense that we’re alone in it all. The practice we explore today is choosing connection through service. A small act of kindness brings you back into wholeness, and you can often feel your energy lift immediately. In this session, I share a Napoleon Hill quote that captures it perfectly: “Find your...

Letting Go of Control Doesn’t Make You Weak. It Makes You Powerful.

Morning Lives with Melissa Agnes

Control can look like strength. But here is the hard truth we are working with this week: Control is a tool of fear. In this episode, we go one level deeper with a question that so many leaders carry, even if they do not say it out loud: "If I let go of my need to control, will I be weak? Will I be giving away my power?" The answer is no. Releasing your grasp for control is not weakness. It is how you reclaim your power, because control is fear-based, and fear pulls you into survival. When you are leading from survival, you lose access to the steadiness, creativity, and clear thinking you...

More Episodes

This is not an invitation to blame. It’s a call to open curiosity and radical self-ownership—so you can access clearer thinking, deeper self-connection, and more creative solutions. The episode closes with a grounding breathwork drop-in to help you regulate and return to your calm, clear, most expansive self.

This episode explores:

Why blame, guilt, shame, and judgment are fear-based reactions that narrow your thinking and keep you stuck.
A powerful reminder from Napoleon Hill (Outwitting the Devil): "there is no problem which does not have an appropriate solution, and that solution often can be found in the circumstance creating the problem."
How to shift from reaction to open curiosity (without judgment) so you can access deeper understanding and better solutions.
What radical self-ownership actually looks like in real time: turning “I’m triggered” into self-inquiry and self-leadership.
A short grounding breathwork reset to return to calm, clarity, and creative problem-solving.

Reminder:
Join Melissa live every weekday at 9am Eastern on IG + LinkedIn.

Follow Melissa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissaagnes/
Follow Melissa on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissaagnes/

Referenced / resources

Napoleon Hill, Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success (quote referenced).

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