Freedom Begins in the Mind

Recently, I've been spending time watching the new baby black crested mangabey at the zoo where I volunteer. His name is Sullivan. He's about two months old now—still tiny, still dependent on his mother's milk, still very much a baby. 

But something fascinating is happening. He's begun picking up pieces of lettuce and bringing them to his mouth. He's not actually eating the lettuce yet. He's copying his mother.

Watching him has been a delightful reminder that humans are apes too, and we learn much the same way. Before we understand the world, before we can reason about it, we imitate. We watch others. We mimic their behaviors. We absorb the habits, beliefs, fears, and preferences of the people around us.

This ability to learn through observation is one of our species' greatest strengths. It allowed human knowledge and culture to accumulate across generations. We don't each have to rediscover fire, invent language, or figure out social rules from scratch.

But this remarkable ability comes with a cost. The same brain that allows us to learn from others also makes us susceptible to being influenced by them. And that is why freedom begins in the mind.

When we think about freedom, we often think about external things—freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom from oppression. These freedoms matter enormously. But there is another kind of freedom that is just as important and often overlooked:

The freedom to think for yourself.

Your Brain Is Designed to Be Influenced

Every day, our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors are being shaped by forces around us. Advertisers compete for our attention. Social media algorithms reward outrage and conformity. Peer groups exert pressure to fit in. Political movements, cultural narratives, and even workplace dynamics all attempt to influence what we believe and how we behave.

Most of this influence is not malicious. It is simply part of being human.

We evolved to be social because, for our ancestors, belonging to the group often meant survival. Individuals who paid attention to what others were doing and copied successful behaviors had an advantage.

The baby mangabey doesn't need anyone to explain to him that lettuce is food. He watches his mother and begins practicing the behavior long before he fully understands it.

Humans do the same thing.

Children imitate language, emotional reactions, social norms, and cultural beliefs long before they are capable of critically examining them. As adults, we continue to imitate, often without realizing it. We adopt opinions from our social groups, absorb assumptions from our cultures, and unconsciously respond to rewards and punishments in our environments.

Over time, these influences can become so deeply ingrained that we mistake conditioned responses for freely chosen decisions.

Freedom Requires Self-Awareness

The question is not whether we are influenced. We all are.

The question is whether we understand those influences well enough to choose how we respond to them.

Psychological freedom begins with self-awareness.

The moment we start asking questions, we reclaim power:

• Why do I believe this?
• Who taught me to think this way?
• Is this belief based on evidence or social pressure?
• Am I acting from my values or reacting from fear?
• Does this choice reflect who I want to be?

These questions interrupt automatic responses and create space for conscious choice.

Freedom lives in that space.

This is why critical thinking is so important. It is not merely an intellectual skill. It is a form of self-defense.

A person who understands behavioral psychology, cognitive biases, and social influence becomes significantly harder to manipulate. They become less dependent on social approval and more capable of acting according to their own values.

The Five Managerial Superpowers and Mental Freedom

Many people think leadership is about influencing others. But ethical leadership begins with learning to lead ourselves.

In Mastering the Five Managerial Superpowers, I explore five essential capacities that help individuals reclaim control over their thinking and behavior:

• Self-awareness
• Compassion
• Self-control
• Understanding behavioral science
• Managing conflict constructively

These are not merely management skills.

They are freedom skills.

Self-awareness helps us recognize when emotions and social pressures are driving our decisions.

Compassion allows us to understand others without becoming captive to their approval or disapproval.

Behavioral science teaches us how habits, rewards, and environments shape behavior—both our own and that of others.

Conflict management helps us resist manipulation through fear, intimidation, and social pressure.

Together, these skills create something powerful:

Psychological independence.

The ability to think clearly, act ethically, and choose deliberately instead of simply reacting.

Reclaiming Your Mind

Watching that little mangabey has reminded me of something profound.

Copying others is not a flaw in human nature. It is one of our greatest evolutionary strengths.

But maturity requires something more than imitation. At some point, we must move beyond merely copying the behaviors and beliefs around us and begin consciously deciding which ideas deserve our loyalty.

Freedom does not mean becoming immune to influence. That would be impossible.

Freedom means becoming aware of the forces shaping us and intentionally choosing which influences align with our values.

It means learning to pause before reacting.

It means questioning narratives, examining assumptions, and choosing principles over pressure.

Because while we cannot control everything happening around us, we can learn to better control how we respond.

That is where freedom begins.

Not in governments.
Not in institutions.
Not in other people.

But in the mind.

And perhaps one of the greatest forms of freedom available to human beings is this: the ability to understand how we are shaped, and then consciously choose who we wish to become.

If you would like practical tools for developing that kind of psychological independence, Mastering the Five Managerial Superpowers explores the behavioral science, self-awareness, and leadership skills that can help you become a more intentional, ethical, and resilient human being.

Because before we can lead others well, we must first learn how to lead ourselves.

When You Say No With Kindness, You Create Space for Better Things

One of the more surprising things people learn about me when they interview me is how often I say no.

That sounds strange coming from an entrepreneur.

Aren’t entrepreneurs supposed to say yes? Yes to opportunities. Yes to growth. Yes to networking. Yes to hustle. Yes to every customer, every invitation, every possibility.

But working for myself has taught me something different.

Balance doesn’t happen by accident.

When you work for yourself, every yes costs something. Usually time. Often energy. Sometimes peace.

So I say no to a lot of things.

Not because I’m lazy. Not because I’m ungrateful. Not because I don’t care.

I say no because every no creates space to fill with something better.

That “better” isn’t always productive. Sometimes it’s just life.

A movie with my husband.

An evening knitting.

A nice dinner.

A quiet afternoon.

Space to think.

Space to create.

Space to enjoy the business I worked so hard to build.

The point of working for myself wasn’t to become unavailable to myself.

That philosophy shows up in my work in practical ways.

There are things that need to happen to keep the business running that I simply don’t enjoy doing. So I hire people.

Delegation isn’t failure. It’s design.

Housekeeping? I hate dusting. So I pay someone else to do it.

That purchase isn’t about avoiding responsibility—it’s buying back time.

Time I can spend writing.

Time I can spend learning.

Time I can spend with people I love.

The same principle applies to opportunities.

People occasionally ask me to travel for speaking engagements.

Years ago, I might have automatically said yes.

Now?

If you want me to travel, you either need to compensate me enough that the tradeoff makes sense—or be located somewhere I’d genuinely enjoy visiting.  Ideally? Both. 

Travel isn’t just two hours of speaking. It’s preparation, airports, hotels, transit, recovery time, and days away from my family.

That’s a high price.

But technology gives us options. Want me to do a live Q&A? Great. Let’s do Zoom. One hour of meaningful interaction instead of several days lost to logistics.

That’s not saying no to people. That’s saying yes to a different way of working.

I use the same approach with my daily to-do list.

If I don’t want to do something—or don’t realistically have time to do it—I move it to another day.

People sometimes call that procrastination. I call it scheduling.

Because something interesting happens when you put things off, intentionally.

A surprising number of things never actually needed doing.

Other things turn out to matter and rise naturally to the top.

Deferring isn’t always avoidance. Sometimes it’s clarification.

You discover what’s essential by giving yourself permission not to do everything immediately.

Saying no with kindness isn’t about becoming closed off.

It’s about becoming intentional.

It’s recognizing that your calendar is a reflection of your values.

And if you fill every available space with obligations, there’s no room left for joy.

No room for relationships.

No room for curiosity.

No room for the things that make all the work worth doing.

Your life is finite.

Your time is finite.

Your energy is finite.

Spend them on purpose.

Say no kindly. Then fill that space with something better.

Evolution Doesn’t Plan—And Neither Should Learning

I was volunteering at the zoo recently and ended up having one of my favorite kinds of conversations—the kind where someone asks a question that seems simple but opens the door to something bigger.

We were talking about convergent evolution and mangabeys.

Mangabeys are a group of monkeys that scientists originally thought all belonged together because they look remarkably similar. Same general body shape. Similar lifestyles. Similar features.

Makes sense, right? Except… later genetic research showed something surprising. Not all mangabeys are actually each other’s closest relatives. 

Some mangabeys are more closely related to mandrills. Those in blue. 

Others are more closely related to baboons Those in orange and green. What is even crazier is that the one in green is more closely related to baboons than to the ones in orange.  Our species at the Chattanooga Zoo is the Black Crested Mangabey. 

Scientists originally grouped them together because, based on what they could observe, it seemed obvious. And then they learned more. Turns out different evolutionary branches arrived at similar solutions.

Why?

Because that body shape works really well for the ecological niche they occupy. Different animals evolving stumbled into that shape and form and teeth and enzyme creating saliva more than once.

That’s convergent evolution.

Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere.

One of my favorite examples is the Tasmanian tiger. Despite the name, it wasn’t a tiger. It wasn’t even a cat. It was a marsupial.

But it evolved a body plan that looked remarkably similar to placental predators because those features worked for the job.

Different starting points. Similar destination.

The Big Question About Evolution

At that point in the conversation, one of the parents asked me a question I hear a lot: “But how do animals know how to change?”

And I love that question. Because the answer is simple and profound. They don’t. What they do is survive. 

Evolution doesn’t have goals. Animals don’t decide to grow longer legs or sharper teeth. Nothing is planning ahead.  They just survive. 

Every generation's DNA contains variation. Mutations happen naturally. Some help. Some hurt. Most don’t matter much.

If a variation helps an individual survive long enough to reproduce, it has a better chance of showing up in the next generation. If it doesn’t, it tends to disappear.

No intention.

No foresight.

Just survival. 

Given enough time and changing conditions, those that survive, may change into different shapes. Sometimes those shapes converge, like mangabeys. 

Sometimes those shapes diverge.  Like camelids in North America. When the ice age happened it disrupted the climate. Some camelids migrated to Asia to survive and evolved into modern camels. Others headed south and evolved into alpacas and llamas. The ones that stayed in North America - didn't survive and went extinct because of the changing climate. This is why even though this family of animals evolved on the North American continent for 10s of millions of years (there were tall giraffe types, and smaller types and giant ones), we have no camelids in North America anymore. Most didn't survive climate change. 

The Joy of Learning

What struck me afterward wasn’t just how interested this family was in the evolutionary biology which is super cool. It was the question I got after explaining how cool mangabeys are and the craziness of their convergent evolution.  

How do animals KNOW how to evolve. What shape will work for them? 

Because that question—that willingness to say “Wait… how does that actually work?”—is something I deeply admire.

That father could have nodded politely and moved on. Instead, he got curious. And curiosity changes everything.

Humanism, to me, starts there. With the recognition that the world is under no obligation to match our assumptions.

Sometimes what looks obvious turns out not to be true. Scientists thought mangabeys were all one close family. They asked more questions and learned otherwise.  And what they learned was even more amazing than their predecessors could have imagined. 

I’ve been interpreting for our black crested mangabeys for a year. I only learned their evolution recently. I volunteer at the zoo all the time and I still discover things I didn’t know.

That’s not failure. That’s the joy of learning.

The world is full of things we think we understand. Until we ask one more question. 

So stay curious.

Ask the question.

Be willing to discover you were wrong.

Be excited when reality turns out to be more interesting than you expected.

Because learning isn’t evidence that you didn’t know enough before. Learning is evidence that you’re paying attention. And that, to me, is one of the best parts of being human.

Beyond “I Love You”: Practicing All Forms of Love in Relationships and Life

 When most people think of love, they immediately think of eros—passionate, romantic love. And yes, eros is wonderful. It makes our hearts race, our palms sweat, and our Netflix nights feel electric. But here’s the truth: eros alone is not enough. Relying solely on eros can make relationships transactional—because desire can be conditional, fleeting, or tied to “what you do for me.”

Love is far richer than just eros. Philosophers and psychologists have identified many types:

• Philia: deep friendship and companionship
• Storge: familial, nurturing love
• Agape: unconditional, selfless love
• Fraternity: loyalty and camaraderie
• Ludus: playful, flirtatious love
• Pragma: practical, long-term love
• Self-love: recognizing your own worth and boundaries

A thriving relationship isn’t just built on one kind of love—it’s the combination of them all. Think of it as a recipe: too much eros without philia, storge, or agape, and your relationship is sweet but unstable. Too much pragmatism without playfulness, and you risk feeling like roommates rather than lovers.

Someone once asked me, “What’s a way to show your spouse you love them without saying the words, ‘I love you’?”

My answer: I want to be kissed on the neck—and then have him walk away. No words, no ulterior motive. Just a playful, spontaneous gesture. It’s eros, it’s agape, it’s philia—all wrapped into one moment. It says, “I love you—not because I expect anything, but just because.”

If you want to be a good spouse, practice all forms of love with your partner. Play. Care. Support. Nurture. Be loyal. Be practical. And don’t forget to love yourself along the way. Relationships thrive when love is multi-dimensional—and when it’s shared freely, without expectation, and with a dash of playful mischief.

Practicing all forms of love isn’t just good for relationships—it’s central to humanism itself. Humanism reminds us to love everyone, including ourselves, even in difficult moments. While eros—the romantic, passionate spark—may not always fit into this framework, the other forms of love—philia, storge, agape, fraternity, ludus, pragma, and self-love—are deeply aligned with humanist practice. By nurturing friendship, compassion, loyalty, playfulness, practicality, and self-respect, we cultivate a worldview grounded in empathy, mutual care, and the belief that all humans deserve dignity. Just as a thriving relationship depends on the richness of diverse love, humanism flourishes when love in all its forms guides our actions toward ourselves and others.