The Flight Back to Yourself: What Happens When You Stop Outsourcing Your Worth
Reflections from my November 21, 2025 conversation with John Verrico on Cracking the Rich Code: The Podcast
Sometimes life hands you a mirror when you least expect it. Not the soft, flattering kind. The kind that stops you in your tracks because it shows you who you’ve been and who you could be.
That’s precisely what happened in my recent conversation with John Verrico on Cracking the Rich Code: The Podcast. We went unscripted, just two humans telling the truth about healing, identity, and the long road back to self-worth. And somewhere in the back-and-forth, the heart of the message revealed itself:
Your life changes the moment you stop looking outside yourself for what’s been inside you the whole time.
This is the core of my chapter, “The Flight” in Cracking the Rich Code, Volume 18, and honestly, it’s the core of Fly Fearless, too.
Let me pull out the pieces that matter most for every woman who feels successful on the outside but quietly exhausted, unseen, or empty on the inside. The woman who keeps giving, keeps achieving, keeps pushing, yet still hears the whisper: “Something’s missing.”
Because that whisper? It’s not a warning. It’s an invitation.
The Journey That Asked Me to Wake Up
In the episode, John asked how I even started writing The Flight. And the truth is, I didn’t want to write a “how-to” or a checklist. I wanted readers to feel something; to walk with me through the parts of my life where I felt useless, worthless, and never enough, and then watch the turn.
The turn didn’t come from a book. It didn’t come from another person’s approval. It didn’t even come from a lightning bolt moment.
It came from a face-on-the-floor breakdown. The kind that strips away every last mask and leaves you standing in your truth with no more excuses.
I had spent decades trying to fix my life from the outside in. Better jobs. Better relationships. Better achievements. Better armor.
But the healing didn’t begin until I stopped trying to be fixed and started trying to be found.
By me.
By the part of myself I had abandoned, trying to prove I was enough.
The Thermostat Lesson That Changes Everything
One of the conversations that hit hardest in the episode was about the difference between a thermometer and a thermostat.
Most of us spend our lives as thermometers, rising and falling with whatever temperature the world sets for us.
Someone talks down to us? We shrink.
Someone questions our worth? We spiral.
A situation goes sideways? Our entire day follows it.
But being a thermostat? That’s different.
Being a thermostat means:
You set the tone before the world sets it for you
You decide your attitude instead of reacting to someone else’s
You become the source, not the sponge
When you live like that, the world stops being something that happens to you and becomes something that responds through you.
That shift alone has pulled women out of toxic relationships, off the hamster wheel of proving themselves, and out of the cycle of attracting partners or bosses who reflect their wounds instead of their worth.
The Ripple Effect of a Single Voice
John told a story about how something I casually said a year ago transformed a friend’s life, and I didn’t even remember saying it.
But that’s exactly the point:
Every word we speak carries weight. Every moment we forget who we are, or remember who we are, sends out a ripple.
The world doesn’t change because we shout. The world changes because we show up differently.
And people feel that. They respond to it. They’re shifted by it.
This is why self-love isn’t selfish. It’s strategy. It’s stewardship. It’s impact.
Why We Stay in What Hurts Us
We went deep into the topic so many women are afraid to admit:
Why do we stay in jobs that drain us?
Why do we stay in relationships that repeat the same storyline?
Why do we settle for breadcrumbs when we’re starving for connection?
Because fear. Because guilt. Because shame. Because “what if it gets worse?” Because “what if I fail again?” Because “what if I’m not as strong as I pretend to be?”
But here’s the truth I wish we taught girls from the minute they learn to tie their shoes:
Your past is not a prophecy. And your fear is not a fact.
The world trains women to be thermometers. But life changes when you choose to be a thermostat instead.
Faith Over Fear, And Not the Kind You Think
I talk a lot about faith, not religious dogma, not performance-based worthiness. I mean faith as a posture. A knowing. A steadiness.
Faith in something bigger than yourself, but also faith in yourself. Faith that life is happening for you. Faith that your spirit isn’t here to survive, but to rise.
Fear will consistently build a case for why you should stay small. Faith will always whisper the truer story: You were made for more.
Why I Named My Chapter “The Flight”
People always ask about the title, and the story behind it is one of my favorites.
Years ago, my sister gave me a St. Michael’s medallion engraved with the phrase “fly fearless” on the back, right before I deployed to Afghanistan. That medallion went missing, then reappeared in a way that still feels like divine intervention.
Fly Fearless wasn’t just a phrase. It became a command. A calling. A way of life.
I was an Army Chinook helicopter Flight Engineer, yes, literally flying fearless, but I was also the only woman in every space I walked into. Maintenance. Flight company. Civilian careers in male-dominated industries.
Every step required its own kind of flight. Its own kind of courage. Its own kind of remembering.
So the title wasn’t just clever. It was honest. It was my story. And it’s the story I now help other women write for themselves.
Heal. Rise. Fly. In that order.
The Woman I Serve, And Why I Serve Her
During the episode, we talked about the kind of woman who finds her way to me:
The high-achieving one who looks put together
The one who’s mastered the art of holding it all
The one who keeps choosing partners who confirm her wounds
The one who keeps choosing jobs that look good but feel wrong
The one who keeps giving while starving for something she can’t name
She’s not weak. She’s not lost. She’s not broken.
She’s simply living from the outside in, instead of the instead out.
My calling is to help her reverse that. To help her remember who she is. To help her reclaim the worth she forgot. To help her finally attract the kind of love, life, and opportunities that honor her.
Not because she earned it. Because she already was it.
You Don’t Rise Alone, And You Don’t Rise By Accident
If you take nothing else from the conversation, take this:
You don’t need more achievements. You need more awareness. You don’t need to be fixed. You need to be found by yourself.
Your life changes the moment you choose to stop settling, stop shrinking, stop doubting, and stop assuming your past has any authority over your future.
The Flight isn’t just my story. It’s yours. It’s every woman who is brave enough to stop living in survival mode and start living in self-worth.
And if you’re feeling that whisper, the one that says something is missing, trust this. It’s not something. It’s you. You’re waking up. You’re rising. You’re remembering. And the world is waiting for your flight.