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FROM THE EDITOR
Founder, Lead and Empower Her She Talks
Hi She Talks community,
As August arrives, many of us are feeling that familiar shift
—kids heading back to school, routines changing, and the
breath before a busy season. Whether you’re in the
Northern Hemisphere moving from summer into fall, or in
another part of the world where seasons follow a different
rhythm, this month always feels like a reset: a moment to
refocus, set intentions, and lean into what’s next.
At She Talks, we’re entering an exciting chapter. We have
powerful projects and events on the horizon designed to
uplift women’s voices and create meaningful connection.
Highlights include our upcoming anthology and book
signings, the special gatherings planned for November
14th, and our momentum-building preparations for the
5,000-woman stadium event—part of our broader 10,000
Rising initiative.
This is the perfect time to recommit to your goals,
celebrate the progress you’ve already made, and join us in
amplifying women’s stories everywhere. We’re grateful for
this community’s courage, creativity, and commitment,
and we can’t wait to share what’s next.
With gratitude and belief in every one of you,
CONTRIBUTORS
Editor-in-Chief
DR. JULIE DUCHARME
Cover Layout and
Magazine Design
DR. JOSHUA DUCHARME
Contributing Writers
JOSIE ANDERSON
DR. JULIE DUCHARME
ELLE NAGY
LISA E KIRKWOOD
STARLA FORTUNATO
KRISLEEN JONES
VERA SHURY
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SIGHTS, SOUNDS,
SCENTS, AND
FLAVORS OF
SUMMER
BY LISA E KIRKWOOD
SHE TALKS | 7
hile in some parts of the world, depending on geography, the warmest season of the year
starts rather early on or much later, in other places it is already in full swing, or just about
to end, yet certain exotic locations enjoy everlasting summer.
Sights
Under the sunny, cloudless skies, we can venture out on
hiking trails, go for long walks and bike rides, visit parks,
forests, and lakes, swim, surf the waves, and build
sandcastles on the beach.
Wanderlust, the strong desire to travel the world compels
many people to take extended time off, leave the comfort
of their homes, and go on a quest for adventure. Under the
global horizons of our planet, you can travel pretty much
anywhere, with or without a passport.
Tropical destinations are highly popular. From one's native
land to an exotic place on the bucket list, discover, explore,
and experience various countries and cultures. Summer
nomads can take in amazing vistas from the sunny shores
of the Mediterranean to the islands of the Pacific, and the
highest peaks of the Himalayas.
In many cultures, this is the main season for age-old rituals, traditions, and celebrations of the Sun,
its light, heat, and power that sustain all living creatures. The summer solstice and related events are
observed in tens of countries.
During summer months, time flows differently, much quicker than we want it to, and dissolves into a
kaleidoscope of bright days and starry nights. People try to make the most of the sunshine and good
weather, and there are plenty of choices for hobbies, relaxation, and entertainment. At this time of
year, we can do pretty much anything, from house building, remodeling, and landscaping to a wide
range of recreational activities.
Whether at home, on lawns and patios, in gardens and yards, at resorts, amusement centers, and
popular tourist destinations across the globe, summer is the peak season of large social events and
outdoor gatherings with family, friends, neighbors, and also strangers that we can connect with. Pets
are welcome, too!
SHE TALKS | 8
Sounds
As often as you can, listen to nature's ongoing music, trees swaying and
leaves rustling in the wind, insects chirping, birds' song, and the sound of
falling rain drops and summer storms, and you will feel better, healthier, and
closer to the spirit of Mother Earth.
Those who like to live the beach life can lounge in a chair for hours, savoring
cold beverages, relax, enjoy the swooshing of waves that crash against the
shore, live in the moment, and wish that this time would never end.
When it comes to beach parties, lu'au feasts are unrivaled. A luau is a
traditional Hawaiian celebration, often featuring Polynesian music, hula
dancing, and foods like kalua pig, poi, haupia, lomi-lomi salmon, poke, and
laulau - steamed taro leaves.
Modern luaus serve as cultural experiences with activities like fire knife
dancing, storytelling, and lei making, often held at resorts or oceanfront
locations. Luaus celebrate milestones such as weddings, graduations, and
birthdays, or simply honor Hawaiian culture, highly appreciated by foreigners,
tourists and visitors from everywhere.
Scents
Even in regions with colder climates, people can engage in their favorite
activities, have fun, and spend much more time outside the house and in
the midst of nature than at any other time during the year. Far away from
cities, buildings, or urban development, by the sea or lakes, in the
mountains and forests, off the grid, in camping spots and cabin retreats or
in the countryside, immerse yourself in the outdoors and be part of the
natural environment. It's the ideal atmosphere for peace and quiet, far
from the busy rumble of our daily lives.
In the light and warmth of this season, the beauties and bounties of
summer are endless. Lush crops and landscapes, gardens, meadows and
rivers, shrubs and trees, green leaves, and bright flowers in full bloom, they
all combine in a symphony of colors and scents.
Breathe the fresh forest air, or the salty smell of the sea and ocean, feel the
warm beach sand beneath your feet, collect shells, and let life flow
carelessly for a few hours at least, as the sun follows its journey through
the sky, and the daylight mingles with the early evening.
Flavors
"Cool for the summer" is not only about social trends and fashion but literally trying to stay
refreshed and hydrated under the hot summer sun. Fresh fruits and veggies mixed into tasty
salads, smoothies, ice cream, and cold drinks keep us chill and happy.
Colorful, sweet, and juicy, nothing tastes like summer quite as watermelon does. A slice of this
pure, red goodness on a flowery plate, and other frozen desserts flavored with a variety of
fruits, nuts, or chocolate provide much needed refreshments in warm weather. Ice-cream
comes in many forms, from traditional scoops and soft serve to artisanal creations like rolled
ice cream or vegan plant-based varieties sweetened with sugar alternatives. You can pick a
favorite or just sample a variety of desserts.
SHE TALKS | 10
A Feast for All Senses
With its countless, enjoyable sights, sounds, scents, and flavors, summer is a feast for all
senses. This is the season of cozy vibes, brief romance, moonlight walks, warm nights, and
secrets shared with dear ones while watching time go by.
Summertime is also the season of entertainment, fun in the sun, hit songs, big movies, music
and film festivals, and art releases. Seize the day and enjoy every pleasant moment and
experience that you create.
You can play, rest, nap, shop for fresh produce at farmers' markets, go fishing, read books,
watch movies, and seek any fulfilling pastime to fill your day.
Returning from vacation and getting back to school or work is never easy. We all carry the
nostalgia of summer's end, a time always too short to fully experience as much as we'd like, but
with lots of great memories to cherish, plan for, and look forward to in the next year.
Lisa E. Kirkwood
The True Stories Merchant
www.thetruestoriesmerchant.com
linkedin.com/in/lisaekirkwoodthetruestoriesmerchant
youtube.com/@thetruestoriesmerchant
chatgpt.com/g/g-DGK6Kzw5L-empower-with-lisa-diversity-leadership
SHE TALKS | 11
The Loop You Don't
Know You're In
Why accomplished women keep recreating the same
internal experience, and what it actually takes to
change it.
By Elle Nagy
"She is not passive. She is not unaware. She can
articulate her patterns with impressive precision.
And still, something keeps recreating itself."
here's a particular kind of frustration that lives in an accomplished woman who
has done everything right. She has followed the advice. Applied the strategies.
Set the goals and met thm. She has done the inner work: the journaling, the
therapy, the retreats, the coaches. She is not passive. She is not unaware. She
can articulate her patterns with impressive precision.
She has followed the advice. Applied the strategies. Set the goals and met them. She has
done the inner work: the journaling, the therapy, the retreats, the coaches. She is not
passive. She is not unaware. She can articulate her patterns with impressive precision.
And still, something keeps recreating itself. Not externally. Externally, the results keep
improving. But internally, the experience stays strangely familiar. The pressure that
returns after every milestone. The emptiness that follows the applause. The nagging
sense that she is perpetually arriving and never quite there.
This is not a motivation problem. It is not a strategy problem. It's a loop.
The System Running Underneath
What I call the Manifestation Effect™ is the feedback loop operating beneath every result we
produce. It works like this.
Identity generates beliefs — about what is safe, what is possible, what love requires, what success
costs. Those beliefs shape the quality of every decision. Decisions shape behaviour. Behaviour
produces results. And results loop back to reinforce the original identity.
The loop is not random. It is encoded.
Your mind protects the identity it believes to be true. It filters perception through it, selects evidence
that confirms it, nudges decisions that reinforce it. When the results arrive, they appear to validate
the original identity. The loop solidifies.
This is why you can change your strategy, your business model, your relationship, your city, and still
recreate the same internal experience. The external variables shift. The identity-state generating
them does not.
“I’ve done everything I was supposed to do. Why doesn’t it feel
different?”
This is also why high-achieving women say things
like: Once I achieve X, then I’ll finally feel Y. Or:
Why does this keep happening to me? They’re not
lacking in effort or intelligence. They are looping.
Here’s where the conversation deepens.
There are two distinct identity-states from which a woman can
generate her life.
The first is what I call fear consciousness. Not fear as panic or
anxiety — in fact, most women operating from this state do not feel
afraid. They feel driven. Capable. Responsible. But underneath the
drive is an encoded belief that value must be proven, love must be
earned, and safety comes from performance.
What the Loop Is
Actually
Running From
From fear consciousness, clarity is
driven by belonging. Identity is
performance-based. Achievement
produces brief relief, and then the
pressure returns. The next goal
becomes seductive because the last
one did not deliver the feeling it
promised.
The woman operating from this state is not broken. She is extraordinarily coherent. She has
built a life that perfectly reflects the identity from which she created it. The difficulty is that no
external result can satisfy an internal hunger rooted in not-enoughness. The loop simply
incorporates each new achievement and keeps running.
The second state is what I call the Artist State. From this place, clarity is driven by desire.
Identity is rooted in essence rather than performance. Action feels creative
rather than urgent. Achievement deepens the experience of
being alive rather than briefly interrupting the fear that
she is not enough.
Here is what I find most striking about this pattern.
The women most caught in the loop are often the most self-aware. They have read the
books. Attended the programmes. They can name their patterns with clinical accuracy. They
can even laugh about them.
And still the loop runs.
This is because insight speaks to the intellect, but identity lives in the nervous system. You
can understand a pattern completely and still default to it, because your body has been
regulated by performance for so long that calm feels suspicious, rest feels irresponsible, and
stillness surfaces everything you have been outrunning.
The loop does not break because you analysed it. It breaks when the identity-state
generating it shifts.
And that shift is not intellectual. It is embodied. It requires a woman to move from managing
her life to inhabiting it. From performing an identity to anchoring in one that is true.
Why Intelligent Women Stay in the Loop
"The loop does not break because you analysed it. It breaks when the identity-state
generating it shifts."
Same woman. Same ambition. Same capacity for extraordinary results. Entirely different internal
experience.
SHE TALKS | 15
The Woman in the Dressing Room
There’s an image I return to often.
Imagine the woman after the show. The applause was real. The standing ovation, genuine. And now the
lights are out, the audience has gone home, and she is sitting alone in the dressing room.
And it never quite settles.
Not because the performance was wrong. Not because the applause was hollow. But because
performance — by definition — requires an audience. The moment the audience leaves, the thing that
was generating her sense of worth leaves with it.
This is the hidden cost of an identity built on proving. The results are real. The recognition is real. But
the experience of them is filtered through a state of constant vigilance — how does this look, how will
this land, will I be enough this time — that prevents a woman from fully inhabiting what she has created.
“She achieves the life. She does not always get to live it.”
What Changes When the Loop Shifts
I want to be precise here, because this conversation can tip into abstraction.
Shifting identity-state does not mean slowing down. It does not mean wanting less. The women I work
with who make this shift are often among the most prolific, most successful, most genuinely alive
women I know. The shift is not in pace or ambition.
It is in the state from which the ambition moves.
From the Artist State, a woman still pursues extraordinary things. She still works with focus and
precision. She still holds high standards. But she is no longer chasing relief. She is creating from
wholeness. And that distinction changes the quality of every experience along the way.
She does not wait until the outcome arrives to feel alive. The creation itself becomes part of the
richness. She becomes, in the fullest sense, both the artist and the art.
The loop still runs. It simply runs from a different starting point.
The Question Worth Asking
Before another strategy. Before another goal. Before the next version of the plan.
One honest question.
When you achieve something significant, do you feel satisfaction — or relief that you proved
yourself again?
If the answer is relief, the loop is running from fear consciousness. And it will keep running, at
increasingly impressive levels, until the identity-state generating it shifts.
That shift is available. It is not comfortable, and it is not instant, but it is available.
And it begins not with a new strategy, but with a willingness to examine the state from which
the current one was built.
"Because the life you experience is always shaped by the identity
from which you create it."
And when that shifts, everything else begins to change.
Elle Nagy is a Rich Life Advisor, author, and
self-leadership guide for accomplished women.
Her proprietary framework, the Manifestation
Effect™, is explored in depth in her book The
Artist State. Find her at ellenagy.com
SHE TALKS | 17
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eople often ask me how I got my foot in the door photographing celebrities. Most
assume there was one lucky break or a powerful introduction. The truth is, my
opportunities came because I dared to dream big and invested in building a brand that
reflected my standard of excellence long before those opportunities arrived.
"People don't just hire your talent—they invest their
reputation in you."
From the first page to the last, my website and brand tells a consistent story of excellence. It
demonstrates my ability to create timeless luxury content, reveal the essence of my subjects, and
execute productions with confidence—from intimate portrait sessions to complex commercial
campaigns.
Working with a celebrity photographer for four years, I learned early that success at this level isn't
just about creating beautiful images—it's about giving decision-makers complete confidence that
they've chosen the right photographer. My job was to make them look good for hiring me.
Some people call it luck. I call it the beautiful intersection of divine timing and relentless preparation.
Every investment I made in my craft, my brand, and the relationships I nurtured prepared me for the
moment the opportunity arrived.
WORKING WITH A-LIST TALENT
Morgan Freeman
By Starla Fortunato
SHE TALKS | 19
The Assignment That Opened the Door
Building trust didn't happen overnight. Before Angeleno Magazine (Modern Luxury Los Angeles)
commissioned me to photograph Chef Ashley James for the launch of Culina at the Four Seasons
Hotel Beverly Hills, I had successfully completed more than 20 editorial assignments for the
magazine.
Working closely with the Four Seasons public relations team, I produced the official launch imagery
for the restaurant. Every photograph was created on the hotel property, and those published images
ultimately found their way into the hands of Morgan Freeman's public relations team.
That assignment became the bridge between photographing one of the world's most respected
luxury hospitality brands and one of Hollywood's most iconic actors.
SHE TALKS | 20