What if your inability to change isn't a failure of willpower, but your heart's way of protecting you from something you're not ready to face?

Today I’m sharing a conversation I had with Meghan Telpner for the Courageous Pivot podcast about how my journey from overworking addiction to radical life redesign began with a simple question: "Why does this make sense?"

I reveals how addressing my relationship with food became the gateway to confronting deeper questions about worth, identity, and what success actually means—and why healing often requires becoming a beginner all over again. From my journey through cancer, infertility, and postpartum menopause to finally redefining wealth as "freedom over my time," we get into how having the courage to slow down and listen to your body's wisdom can unlock transformations you never imagined possible.

Essential listening for anyone measuring busyness instead of impact, struggling to make changes they know they need, or ready to understand why their body might be wiser than their ambition.

We discuss:

Why only 1 in 7 heart attack survivors actually change their diet and lifestyle—even when they know it could save their lives
The hidden cost of measuring busyness instead of impact and how it perpetuates chronic exhaustion
The developmental reason we spend the first half of life proving we can exert our will on the world—and what the second half requires
Why food (and overwork) are “almost addictive”—soothing just enough to quiet the alarm but never enough to meet the actual need
What “immunity to change” reveals about the knowing-doing gap and why willpower will never be the answer
How cultural conditioning around productivity and “earning your worth” gets embedded in our nervous systems
The question that transforms self-judgment into constructive self-compassion

Connect with Meghan:

Visit Meghan’s website
Listen to the Courageous Pivot Podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

Culinary Nutrition: How to Cook for Health and Taste with Meghan Telpner – Insatiable Season 12, Episode 2
Enneagram: personality types
Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey — published by Harvard Business Review Press
Rest, Play, Grow by Dr. Deborah MacNamara
Nourished by Dr. Deborah MacNamara — available through her foundation website
Laura McKowen — writer on sobriety whose rule "it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility"
Dr. Stacy Sims — exercise physiologist, Ali references regarding protein recommendations

312. Why Willpower Isn’t the Problem: The Truth About the Knowing–Doing Gap [Courageous Pivot Podcast]