Feb. 26, 2026

This is what it looks like when you choose joy as your competitive strategy. Ever since Alysa Liu won Olympic gold, I haven't been able to stop thinking about her story.

If you've followed her journey, you know that this victory didn't come from relentless pressure or a single-minded obsession with winning. In fact, it came after she walked away from skating entirely.

As a young skater, Alysa trained in an incredibly strict Olympic environment. She lived alone in a dorm. Coaches told her what to eat, what to wear, how to do her hair, and how to perform. Every detail of her life was optimized for performance. From the outside, it looked like discipline. From the inside, it eventually became way too much.

She burned out after the 2022 Olympics and quit skating altogether.

Instead of pushing through, she stepped away. She dyed her hair. She made art. She went to college. She allowed herself to just be a young woman living a normal life.

But two years later, she began to miss the sport she fell in love with, and decided to come back, but only on her own terms. She insisted on choosing her choreography, her outfits, her hair, and her creative direction. When she stepped onto the ice in Milan, you could see the difference immediately.

She was smiling, waving, and laughing. She said at the start of the Olympics that she wasn't focused on winning medals. She simply came to showcase her art.

And she won gold. 🥇

I keep thinking about that shift. Not from failure to success, but from pressure to artistry. From performance to complete and full presence and joy in doing what you love.

I see that same arc in so many seasoned leaders I work with.

Not a single one of them started their careers because they wanted to build a personal brand, become the next influencer, or win an award. They started because they cared deeply about something. They were drawn to the mission. They felt called to make change. There was curiosity and energy and conviction.

But as you become more seasoned, the rules start stacking up: expectations about how you should show up online, communication filters, brand guidelines. There are unspoken cultural norms about what is safe to say and what is not. You are told to be visible, but not too visible. To be bold, but not controversial. To speak, but to soften.

Over time, that pressure can disconnect you from the very thing that made you passionate in the first place.

In 2022, I experienced my own version of that tension. The narrative around social media felt exhausting. It felt like leaders were being told to constantly post, constantly produce, constantly chase engagement metrics that rarely translated into meaningful return on investment. It began to feel like we were all playing someone else’s game.

I was tired of social media, and I was tired of the way we were being told to do it.

The shift for me came when I narrowed the focus. Instead of helping organizations simply “post more,” I zeroed in on helping leaders clarify and express their own voice. I began working more intentionally on thought leadership and personal brand storytelling. I watched executives say things publicly that they had been thinking privately for years (sometimes with a side eye from the comms team). I saw founders step out from behind their logos and speak fully as themselves.

That work brought back my energy, and it also brought exponential results. We began to see real conversations form. Corporate partnerships started emerging through LinkedIn. Clients engaged in deeper ways. Leaders felt less like they were performing and more like they were expressing something true.

What I've learned, both from my own experience and from watching these leaders soar, is that burnout isn't always about doing too much. Sometimes it's about doing something in a way that no longer feels aligned.

When you're constantly filtering yourself, constantly adjusting to someone else’s standards, constantly measuring your worth by external validation, your nervous system notices. It tightens, resists, and numbs.

But when you return to your own voice, there is space for joy again. And ironically, that's often when the outcomes improve.

If you feel like you're in a pre–gold medal phase right now, here are a few questions to reflect on:

• What did I love about this work before it started to feel heavy?
• Which rules am I following that may not actually be required?
• Where have I been filtering myself in ways that disconnect me from my own perspective?
• If my goal was not recognition or metrics for a season, what would I want to express?

This doesn't mean being reckless or abandoning strategy. It means recalibrating and stripping away what feels forced while reconnecting with what feels true.

Alysa Liu didn't win because she pushed through discomfort and did it anyway. She won because she allowed herself to release and skate with joy again.

Are you craving that same permission right now? Not to quit, necessarily, but to return to your convictions, your voice, and what originally brought you joy in your work?

Winning is powerful, but joy is sustainable with long-term results.

And when your leadership is rooted in something that feels aligned and alive, the impact tends to follow.

If you're feeling that tension between pressure and authenticity right now, I see you. This is the work I care most about—helping leaders say what matters in a way that feels true to them and drives real, measurable impact.

Because you can't outsource trust, and you shouldn't have to outsource your identity either. So go ahead... dye your hair. Get that tattoo. It's time to shake things up!

Here's to coming back to your joy,
​Brynne

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