Send us a text

Content Warning: description of stroke and recovery

About This Episode

At 28, Bessie Sturgis’s life took an unexpected turn when she suddenly found herself navigating a stroke diagnosis. In this episode, she shares the micro steps that carried her forward like getting up, writing things down, taking five-minute resets, breathing through the hard moments, and how faith reframed her purpose. We talk about caring for two young children while healing, setting bold boundaries, protecting her energy, and reclaiming her voice, including earning a commercial driver’s license after being told she could not. If you need a reset, this story reminds you that small, consistent actions can change everything.

About Bessie Sturgis

Bessie Sturgis’s journey is defined by faith, perseverance, and purpose. After a life-threatening health crisis when her youngest son was eight months old, she fought her way back through rehabilitation, medication, and prayer, vowing never to let fear or doubt hold her back. Since then, she has embraced life boldly: returning to school for engineering, raising her sons with resilience, and giving back to her community. She is living proof that grace restores, healing is possible, and even after the hardest seasons, you can rise, rebuild, and thrive.

Additional Resources

Instagram: @Blessed_is_bess

LinkedIn: @BessieSturgis

Support the show

--------

Stay Connected

www.leighburgess.com

Watch the episodes on YouTube

Follow Leigh on Instagram: @theleighaburgess

Follow Leigh on LinkedIn: @LeighBurgess

Sign up for Leigh’s bold newsletter

Send us a text

Content Warning: mention of childhood abuse, divorce

About This Episode

Steph Wagner, National Director of Women in Wealth at Northern Trust and author of Fly!: A Woman's Guide to Financial Freedom and Building a Life You Love, shares how telling the truth about your money story can become the first step toward confidence and financial freedom. She opens up about rebuilding her life after a blindsiding divorce and offers practical tools women can use right now, from identifying your money personality to using her 45-20-35 framework to align spending with your values. We explore how to turn fear into growth, build transparency with partners, and create simple systems that support long-term wealth. If you are ready to rewrite your money story with honesty, clarity, and agency, this episode offers the mindset and next steps to begin.

About Steph Wagner

Steph Wagner is a nationally recognized thought leader in women’s wealth and financial empowerment. Her passion for this work is deeply personal. Her own journey—from private equity executive to stay-at-home mom, to single mother facing financial uncertainty, to successful businesswoman—fuels her mission to help women take control of their wealth and build lives they love. Today, she serves as National Director of Women & Wealth at Northern Trust, where she leads the firm’s advisory practice for women and its Elevating Women platform—a national program focused on building financial confidence and helping women use their wealth to create meaningful impact in their families, businesses, and communities.

Prior to joining Northern Trust, Steph spent years advising high-net-worth women navigating major life transitions such as divorce and widowhood. She also built a national consulting practice for wealth management firms seeking to better serve female clients and founded WomenWealthyWise, a platform dedicated to advancing financial literacy and empowerment for women. Earlier in her career, she was Vice President at Gemini Investors, a Boston-based private equity firm. A frequent media contributor, Steph’s insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Barron’s, Bloomberg, MarketWatch, Kiplinger, Yahoo Finance, and more. Steph lives just outside of Austin, Texas, and is the proud mom of three grown sons. When she’s not working or writing, you’ll likely find her cycling, hiking, on her yoga mat, or chasing after her beloved dogs.

Additional Resources

Instagram: @steph_l_wagner

LinkedIn: @StephLWagner

Support the show

--------

Stay Connected

www.leighburgess.com

Watch the episodes on YouTube

Follow Leigh on Instagram: @theleighaburgess

Follow Leigh on LinkedIn: @LeighBurgess

Sign up for Leigh’s bold newsletter

Send us a text

Content Warning: brain tumor, brain surgery

About This Episode

In this inspiring episode, Dr. Andreea Vanacker, an entrepreneur, international speaker, and multi-time author, shares a science-backed path to cultivating steady joy, even in high-pressure seasons. Through her Trilogy of Joy framework built on love, confidence, and gratitude, Andreea offers three simple dials you can turn when you feel anxious, low, or stuck. She opens up about her own life-changing diagnosis, the purpose that followed, and what her global research across 48 countries reveals about fulfillment and resilience. With practical tools for protecting your energy, caring for your mind and body, and connecting your strengths to meaningful purpose, this conversation offers a clear, encouraging map for transforming small daily choices into powerful life change.

About Andreea Vanacker

Dr. Andreea Vanacker is an entrepreneur, international speaker, and 4x author. She is a resilient visionary who turned a life-altering nine-hour brain surgery into a global movement for joy. Her TEDx talk introduced the world to her groundbreaking Trilogy of Joy model. As an accomplished global speaker with business experience in over 50 countries, Andreea intertwines her powerful personal narrative with over a decade of research in neuroscience and positive psychology. Andreea has a Ph.D. in Economics, and her insights have been featured in various publications from Forbes, Fast Company to Business Insider. She is the founder and CEO of One Million Years Of Joy, a media company that comprises a podcast, a global study on joy, an annual Leadership Luminary award and a future documentary of joy.

Additional Resources

Website: andreeavanacker.com

LinkedIn: @AndreeaVanacker

Support the show

--------

Stay Connected

www.leighburgess.com

Watch the episodes on YouTube

Follow Leigh on Instagram: @theleighaburgess

Follow Leigh on LinkedIn: @LeighBurgess

Sign up for Leigh’s bold newsletter