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What if the thing you have been searching for is not ahead of you, but already inside you, waiting to be seen?
I want to tell you about the trip that changed my life.
Nearly a decade ago, I got on a plane to Costa Rica. I did not have a clear reason. I could not have told you exactly what I was looking for. My husband actually had to talk me into going, because if I am honest, I did not think I deserved to take that kind of time for myself. That is what so many of us do. We downplay our own needs. We wait until we have earned the space to breathe.
I went anyway. And what happened in that closing roundtable, sitting in a circle with a group of women I had just met, is something I carry with me every single day. One by one, they reflected back what they saw in me. And what they saw was a teacher. Not someone who talked a lot. Not someone who liked to share. A teacher. Someone who was meant to stand at the front of a room and help people learn.
I had played school as a little girl. I had fantasized about it. I had learning disabilities that made school difficult and confusing and yet I could not stay away from it. And somewhere along the way, in the building and striving and proving that comes with entrepreneurship, I had set that part of myself aside entirely.
That trip, led by Jill Valentine of Ugo Impact, gave it back to me.
It led me to the university classroom. It led me back to Women in Biz Network, but on entirely new terms. And it is a big part of why Own Your Imprint exists at all.
I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Jill on the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, and I want to share what came out of that conversation with you, because I think there is something in it for wherever you are right now.
What Ugo Impact Actually Does
Jill spent a year living and volunteering in Uganda before completing a life coaching program that she describes as cracking her life wide open. Out of those two experiences, she identified the key ingredients for deep self-discovery and built Ugo Impact around them.
The premise is simple, even if the experience is anything but. Take people away from what is familiar. Put them somewhere new. Invite them into service. Create genuine space for self-reflection. Then watch what gets revealed.
What makes a Ugo experience different is the intentionality woven through every stage. Participants do coaching work before the trip to get clear on what they are bringing into the experience. They travel as a cohort, which means the relational work happens alongside the inner work. And they come home with something concrete: clarity about their values, their relationships, and what they actually want from their lives.
As Jill says, it is less about changing who you are and more about returning to who you already are.
The Triple Change Effect
Jill’s framework, the Ugo Triple Change Effect Model, is built around three overlapping ideas that I think will resonate deeply if you have been doing your own inner work.
Change Yourself is the self-reflection piece. Who are you, what do you want, and what have you been setting aside in order to keep moving? Change Your Community asks you to look honestly at the relationships around you. Which ones are truly nourishing you, and which ones are quietly draining you? And Change Your World is about contribution. Not just hands-on service abroad, but discovering what meaningful contribution looks like for you specifically, whether that is international volunteering, raising your family with intention, or simply showing up with full presence for the people in your life.
At the center of all three is the kind of change that shifts everything: how you carry yourself, how you parent, how you set boundaries, and what you are willing to accept.
The Stories That Stay With You
The stories Jill shared on the podcast are not dramatic. They are deeply, quietly recognizable.
A woman coming out of a long marriage, trying to remember who she was outside of being a mother and a spouse. Empty nesters finally asking the question they had been deferring for decades. Women who were not exactly lost, but were running on autopilot and felt a quiet ache that something was off.
One participant climbed Kilimanjaro as part of a Ugo program. She came home and left her job because the organizational culture did not align with her values. Here is the thing: she had never been able to name that misalignment before, because she had never identified her values. You cannot see a gap until you know what you are measuring against.
That is the pattern Jill sees again and again. People arrive burnt out or vaguely unsatisfied. They leave with language for what was not working, and a sense of what is possible.
How Purpose Changes as We Do
One of the most valuable parts of our conversation was about how our relationship to purpose shifts across the decades of our lives.
In our twenties and thirties, most of us are fueled by ego and achievement. The dopamine hit of a new promotion, a new milestone, a new level of recognition. Jill references David Brooks’ book The Second Mountain to describe what happens next. The first mountain is about building and proving. The second mountain is about deepening and giving back. Not everyone makes the climb. But for those who do, something fundamentally changes in how life feels.
For me, that shift came with perimenopause, and with it, a brain that was literally rewiring itself. What had felt like stress and selfishness turned out to be my body and mind preparing for the years ahead, redirecting care inward for the first time in a long time. Once I understood that, the guilt started to lift. The shame around failure began to loosen.
I was reintroduced recently to the FAIL acronym: First Attempt In Learning. Women in Biz Network 1.0 was my first attempt in learning. What I have rebuilt in 2026 is a practice designed entirely around how I want to lead and live. Leadership retreats in the forest. No cocktail receptions. No apologies.
On Ego and Building From the Right Place
Both Jill and I were honest on the podcast about how quietly ego can hijack even well-intentioned work. The desire to be seen as generous, to be the most impactful, to fill every seat in the room can become its own kind of distortion.
Jill described a season of her business where she had been measuring success against an external standard. A small, intimate group in Tanzania during a personally challenging year shifted that permanently. The experience was no less transformational. The definition of success had just been wrong.
For me, the lesson was about separating identity from outcome. Years of entrepreneurship had tangled my sense of worth with the performance of my business. Learning to make decisions from alignment rather than fear has been some of the most important inner leadership work I have ever done.
The Question I Am Now Asking Every Guest
I closed our conversation by asking Jill how she owns her imprint. It is the question I intend to ask every guest I interview going forward, because I believe the answer reveals everything.
Jill’s answer was direct: invest in knowing yourself. Not as a luxury or a reward for when things slow down, but as the foundational work that makes everything else possible. If you do not know what makes you happy, you cannot build a life of happiness. If you cannot see the mountain, you will never know you could be a mountain climber.
Her invitation to any woman who is searching or feels like she has drifted: create the space to listen. Get out of the forest long enough to see what surrounds you.
And I will add my own: your business, your career, your life should work for you. Not punish you. Any of us can design the life we deserve to have. Give yourself full permission to do exactly that.
Listen and Connect
This conversation is available now on the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast. To learn more about Jill Valentine and Ugo Impact, including the Nepal trip this November and the Give and Grow membership community, visit ugoimact.com or find Ugo Impact on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
To join the Women in Biz Network community and connect with ChangeMaker Leaders who are building with purpose, visit womeninbusinessnow.com.
Leigh Mitchell is the Founder of Women in Biz Network, host of the ChangeMaker Leader Podcast, and creator of the Own Your Imprint leadership framework. She writes Own Your Imprint, a weekly newsletter on leadership, personal brand, and the quiet revolutions that change industries.
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