Summary:

In this bold and activating solo episode, Lori reframes a word many high-capacity women have been conditioned to fear: unreasonable. Instead of shrinking to fit expectations, she invites you to see “unreasonable” as a compliment—evidence of vision, capacity, and fire.

With 2026 carrying rare Fire Horse energy, Lori shares why this is not the year to dilute your desires or play small. This is a year for focused intensity, bold sprints, and wise integration. From her recent Nashville retreat revelation—shifting from obsessing over the “how” to prioritizing the “who”—to her challenge of radical subtraction, this episode is a call to lead, live, and desire at full volume.

If you’ve ever been told you’re “too much,” this episode will remind you: that might be your superpower.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

“Unreasonable” Is a Compliment

High-capacity women are often labeled “too much” when their ambition exceeds the room’s comfort level. Lori challenges you to stop shrinking your fire to make others comfortable.

Audience follow-up → Where are you diluting your ambition to stay palatable?

Say the Real Desire Out Loud

No qualifiers. No “if it’s meant to be.” No backup plan energy. Whether it’s wealth, romance, strength, impact, or freedom—name it clearly and expect it to be on its way.

Audience follow-up → What do you actually want? Can you say it without softening it?

Ferrari Energy Requires the Right Track

You don’t have Honda Civic energy—you have Ferrari energy. But a Ferrari on a dirt road will question itself. Sometimes growth requires walking away from rooms that can’t handle your speed.

Audience follow-up → Are you underperforming—or just in the wrong environment?

The Magic Is in the “Who,” Not the “How”

At her Nashville retreat, Lori realized the breakthrough wasn’t in figuring everything out alone. It was about proximity—the right rooms, leaders, and conversations.

Audience follow-up → Who do you need proximity to this year?

Radical Subtraction Creates Momentum

Instead of adding more strategies, remove what’s slowing you down. One meeting. One system. One habitual distraction. Clarity often comes from subtraction.

Audience follow-up → What’s one thing you can remove this week to create more power and focus?

🔎 Mentioned in the Episode:

Fire Horse Energy – A rare energetic theme representing intensity, independence, boldness, and rapid movement.

Nashville Leadership Retreat – Lori’s recent breakthrough experience centered on connection and proximity over solo strategizing.

Radical Subtraction – Lori’s challenge to eliminate what’s cluttering your momentum instead of endlessly adding more.

✨ Reflection Prompts:

Where have you been “reasonable” when your soul wanted to be bold?

What desire have you been qualifying instead of claiming?

What room, relationship, or opportunity would stretch you in the best way?

What needs to be removed—not optimized—in this season?

🧠 Who This Episode Is For:

High-capacity women who are tired of shrinking

Visionary leaders ready to sprint with intention in 2026

Entrepreneurs craving bigger rooms and stronger proximity

Anyone who has been labeled “too much” and is ready to own it

📩 Want to Go Deeper?

Follow Lori on LinkedIn to continue the conversation

Book a Leadership Strategy Call with Lori: loripine.com

🎧 Subscribe to The Joy CEO Podcast

⭐️ Leave a review to help other heart-centered leaders find the show

📲 Share this episode with someone who’s navigating pressure and wants to do it with more grace

Transcript

This podcast is for women who are leading or want to be leading in a way that feels joyful instead of exhausting. If you've been here before, it is so good to be with you again today. I'm going to take you somewhere very bold and I think you might need to hear this. So what we are going to cover today, three things.

First one, the word unreasonable might actually be the highest compliment someone can pay you, and we're gonna talk about that. Two, I'm going to challenge you to do something bold. We're gonna talk about that, what [00:01:00] would be bold for you, and then third, a shift that changed some things for me. And I wanna share that with you because I think it could be a nice shift for you as well.

So let's dive in. If you've been listening to the podcast for the last several weeks, you know that we've been talking about fire horse energy, and I just really want to say that out loud because some of you might be thinking. Okay, Lori, are we still talking about this? Yes. Yes we are. And here's why. The fire horse year happens once every 60 years, six, zero.

And so it hasn't happened in my lifetime ever before, probably in your lifetime either. So this energy is really rare and it's significant and. It's something we really need to discuss more than just a single episode or two. [00:02:00] So really trying to explore this and what it could mean for you and the year you are about to embark upon.

Today we are gonna focus on how you have shed. We know that that was 20, 25 year of the snake. We let go of what no longer fits. Then we came into this narrow focus of having two priorities for 2026 and how you protect them. Then last week we talked about the oxygen and every fire. Requires oxygen to sustain itself.

And so what were those internal resources you need to sustain your fire without burning yourself out? And today, are you ready? We are going to talk about unleashing and what does that actually mean? Here's what I've noticed. A lot of you have done the work you've shed, you've focused, you've tended your oxygen.

You've come [00:03:00] here and you're like, alright, I'm ready. I am ready for this fire horse energy. And there's this simmering underneath this energy that wants to move, wants to take up space, wants to go bigger and bolder and bigger and bolder than what might feel reasonable. I wanna talk about this word reasonable.

Here is something I have observed not only in my own life, but in the women I coach and connect with. The most extraordinary women are the ones who have been told they are too much, too intense, too energetic, too enthusiastic, too ambitious, too emotional, too loud, too positive, too. 2, 2, 2, 2. Somewhere along the way, we've internalized that.

We made it mean something about us, and we learned to dial it back and be more measured, more palatable, more [00:04:00] polite, more reasonable. And I don't know about you, but I spent most of my adult life trying to tame that too, muchness. I didn't do that in my younger years, all the way through college. You know, I played college sports and I had an outlet for all of that and in playing sports and, and that younger version of me didn't apologize for that energy and that ambition.

But when I moved into the corporate world, it was different. And there wasn't really a space for that ambition and energy and outspokenness, and I had to learn to tame it and understand that maybe I was too positive, maybe I was too rah, rah, rah, and I would find myself walking into rooms. With an energy that didn't match my energy or the culture [00:05:00] that I, I thought I was bringing.

So this quiet ambition, ambition and measured progress just didn't really match what I was feeling on the inside. And so I had to kind of reign in my own professionalism into this neat black Ann Taylor suit with a crisp white shirt. For years, I thought the problem was me. I thought if I could just fit the mold, be like the others, then I would feel better, do better, get promoted faster.

But here's the truth that I think we all need to sit with. It's okay if we don't fit in. Maybe we're not all meant to be the same, and maybe it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us. Because maybe we're not meant to just be in a container where we're all [00:06:00] doing the same things and thinking the same things.

So the most radical, unreasonable thing I ever did was walk away. And decide that I wanted to do something entirely different. Now, you all know the reason why I walked away was for my son at the time, but I did make a decision to go in a completely different direction, A direction that had more purpose that.

Felt like I was being of service that took everything I had learned over a 25 year career and repackaged it so that I could be useful in a really meaningful way. And that's how all of this was born. And so. That, you know, measurement of being unreasonable really played a part in creating this new space where I could have geographic freedom, time freedom, and financial freedom, all of that unreasonable.

So very [00:07:00] important to me. And so when I say to you, you know that we can do some things and give ourselves permission to be unreasonable, I am not saying that from any sort of leadership textbook. I am saying that from personal experience and choices, that really finally kind of brought me home to myself, brought me into this space where I feel like I'm thriving.

So let's connect this back to the fire horse energy because this is what the fire horse is all about, is this passionate, focused, intense Ferrari like engine and Ferraris don't belong in a 15 mile an hour school zone. They belong on an open highway like the Audubon, going as fast as they possibly can.

So do you. You who carries this energy with you, and I believe if you're listening to this podcast, you have a version of this [00:08:00] energy, of this desire. And you may have been called too much at some point in your lifetime and you may have been told to slow down, be more strategic, play the long game. And I mean, I can't tell you how many times I will tell I was told some of those things, so.

If this fire horse energy is meant to do anything, it is not meant to play the long game. Certainly not the way society defines it. It does sprints of obsessive intensity, and then it does this intentional integration. That's what the fire horse is gonna do. So it's gonna move fast, burn bright, and then pull back.

And not necessarily because it's tired, but because it's wise enough to know that it needs rest and fuel, so not reckless. All but the world may not understand that, and that may seem unreasonable. [00:09:00] Let's talk about where I want to go with this. That might make some of you a little uncomfortable, and that's good.

I want you to sit with that, so stay with me here. When I say be unreasonable, I'm not talking about with your schedule or your boundaries or your self-care. I really want you to be unreasonable. With your desires, the real ones, the ones you've never said out loud, because they feel like too much. We have been playing nice for so long, making ourselves palatable, shrinking our wants to feel appropriate, to feel humble, to feel grateful that we've actually.

Not even allowed ourselves to ask for what we want, and I really want to challenge that today. I want you to be the boldest version of yourself, [00:10:00] yet unapologetic, ruthless, about going after what you want, not this watered down version, not the version that makes everyone comfortable, not the nice girl version.

You know, really sounds nice in a journal prompt. I want the real you. What if you said your desire out loud? Not a whisper, not something in a notebook. But what if you said something like, I want an abundance of wealth. Not, I'd like to be comfortable. I would just wanna pay my bills without stress. Instead you really claimed, I want abundance.

I want more than enough. I want wealth. That gives me freedom and choices and the ability to be generous in ways that light me up. What if you said that? [00:11:00] Let's try another one. What if you said, I want a hot romance? Not, I'd like to meet somebody. Nice. Not I'm open to love if it finds me. No, I want hot, passionate, knock me off my feet.

Romance, imagine. Say that out loud. What if you said, I want a strong, healthy body. Not, I should probably move more. Not I'm trying to be healthier. Instead, I want to feel powerful in my body. I want strength. I want energy. I want to walk into a room and feel like I could take on anything, say it out loud.

We've been trained to soften Anything to add qualifiers to say, I'd love to, but it would [00:12:00] be nice if, I know this sounds crazy, but. No, drop the butt, drop the qualifier. Drop the apology. It all is language that lessens you. It diminishes you, and this is fire horse energy. This is not your year for playing small or hedging your bets or whispering your desire.

This is your year. To say it out loud, so the universe knows exactly what you're signaling. It's the year for you to be clear and bold without flinching. So then this is the part that really requires you to be unreasonable. Then you expect it to happen. You don't hope for it. You don't cross your fingers, you don't.

You don't think that maybe upon a wish it might. You expect it to happen as though you expect the sun to come up tomorrow and the lights to turn on. When you flick the [00:13:00] switch, you move through your life as though these things are already on their way to you because you're bold enough to claim that that is unreasonable.

That's audacious. That's the kind of energy that makes people uncomfortable and think, is she crazy? Guess what? It's so clear and it's so unapologetic. It's so uninterested in being apologetic, and I think that's exactly where our power lives. So here's what I want you to do right now. This very second, not later, not when you're ready, but right now I want you to say your one desire out loud so the universe can hear you.

So the universe can conspire in your favor. One desire out loud in your car to your windshield, whether you're walking, whether you say it to the sky in your kitchen, who cares? Say it out loud and don't you dare apologize [00:14:00] for it. Gonna give you a second and may all of the universe hear all of those desires and claim them.

Now I wanna share one more thing that happened last week because it's so connected to everything we just talked about. I was at a retreat in Nashville and I shared with you that I was going to this retreat. I was a little nervous. I had butterflies and if you saw my stories, I kinda, on Instagram, I kind of put in there what was happening in the stories.

And I went into this retreat with, you know, how am I going to fix my messaging? How am I going to fix my visibility? How am I gonna get some things right in my business? And there were a lot of how questions, but here's the thing. Actually sat in the room with women who are already doing what I wanna do.

That's why I went. And these are women who are further along than me who have been at this, you know, a, a longer duration than I have. They've got some more [00:15:00] experience than I do. They've hit some potholes. They can tell me how to avoid them. They have a different angle and different lens, and so. By the end of the retreat, I didn't have a framework or a step-by-step plan or the the magic words that are gonna make somebody want to work with me or join my community.

But I did have connections and I had had conversations that shifted my thinking, and I had the kind of clarity that only comes from being in the right room with the right people. And that is so powerful. But here's the thing, this is not new for me. When I really look at my life, honestly, every single meaningful connection I've ever had came through a connection.

I've never applied for a job. I've just worked hard built relationships and. Orange people's respect, [00:16:00] and that's how I got promoted. Every single time somebody would call and say, Hey Lori, I think there's an opportunity, and that's how it always worked out. So every time I get tangled up in the how, how am I gonna do this?

What's the right framework? You know, what are the seven steps? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All I actually need to do is put myself in a room with thought leaders, people who are doing what I aspire to do. That's where I can learn, I can grow, I can connect, and the answers will come. So here's what I want to offer you When an expansive idea hits you, because in this fire horse year, it is going to hit you.

Do not sit with, how do I build this? How do I figure this out? How do I know what to do next? Start with who has already done what I am trying to do, who has built this engine, and who can I learn from, connect with, partner with, and [00:17:00] go find that person, that group of people. This will shift you from incremental growth, baby steps to exponential, leaps and bounds, and it's wildly more joyful.

To be in a room with awesome people, especially awesome women, because you are no longer white knuckling it by yourself on your own, and you're actually building relationships with people who will inspire you and will show up, helping you become the best version of yourself. This is such a win-win. So that is unreasonable.

That is new best thinking. Contrary action. So most people want the blueprint, they want the course, they wanna figure it out. But really, the magic, it's always in the who. Okay, one more thing before I let you go, is there's some real magic in [00:18:00] radical subtraction. Limitless possibility is often blocked by clutter, mental clutter, operational clutter.

Physical clutter and it can get in the way when all of that accumulates and keeps us from doing the things that we really need to do. So here's what I want you to do this week. Identify one thing that you are doing, either out of habit or because you've always done it that way, that really is preventing you from moving the needle and stop doing it.

Maybe you actually have some physical clutter and you can stop the way you're, you keep recreating that physical clutter. Maybe you have something in the way that you're leading that's creating confusion amongst your team, and you can stop the way you're doing that. [00:19:00] Maybe it's a, a meeting that you have weekly that's not providing clarity.

Maybe it's something in one of your systems or your processes that's no longer effective because the business is changing. I would encourage you to look at that and make a quick and fast change. There is a lot of opportunity in this type of kind of fire horse energy for us to make those really fast decisions.

Clean some things up. So in a couple of weeks we're gonna talk more about this on one of the episodes, so stay tuned. I'll have a very special guest for you. Alright, listen. The fire horse energy, it's gonna be wild. We are gonna go for a ride. You've got a Ferrari engine. It's incredible on the open road, but it is going to require a driver who is not afraid.

Of some fast speed. I believe that is you. So [00:20:00] this week I want you to sit with your one question. Where in your life are you too reasonable, and what is the desire that you have now said out loud to the universe? And what are you doing to pursue that one desire? Keeping in mind, you know, like awareness around where you're taming yourself, where are you diluting yourself?

Where are you playing small and, and we are gonna be unreasonable. We are gonna start choosing ourselves and being unreasonable in more spaces than we ever thought possible because that is better than being measured and palatable and appropriate. Apologetic. So it's time to run. It's time to have the permission to be unreasonable and to be too much.

So take up some space, sprint with intensity. [00:21:00] Pour into yourself. Without apology, the world does not need another reasonable woman playing it safe. It does not. It needs you, a full volume of you. Until next week, my friend, I'm glad to be doing it with you. Have a great week. Thanks for listening to the Joy CEO.

I hope today's conversation left you feeling seen. Stretched and a little more grounded in your own joy, if something resonated, be sure to hit subscribe. Leave a five star review and share this episode with someone walking a similar path. And if you're ready to take this work deeper, connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram at Lori Pine, or head over to my website, lori pine.com to learn more about coaching retreats and how we can work together.

Because joy isn't just personal, it's powerful. When you lead with joy, you don't just rise, you bring others with you. Until next time, keep leading with heart and don't [00:22:00] forget to claim your joy.