2026 Leadership: Shifting From Fear To Values;

Episode Description:
As we move into a new era of human-centered leadership, fear-based models in business, education, and parenting are no longer sustainable. In this episode, we use the cultural superstition of Friday the 13th as a case study to explore how inherited beliefs shape behavior — and how values-based awareness can transform the way we lead, parent, and make decisions.

This conversation is especially relevant for:

• Business owners building values-driven companies
• Parents raising emotionally intelligent children and teens
• Leaders navigating uncertainty with integrity and clarity

Key Themes:

• The shift from fear-based to values-based systems
• Emotional intelligence as a leadership skill
• Teaching discernment instead of compliance
• Preparing the next generation for a rapidly changing world

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Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of Show

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Just Count Me In, a podcast designed to help you break free from your limitations and step into the life that you actually were meant to live. I'm Sari Stone and I'm a holistic coach with a background in education. For the past six years, I've been guiding people to transform their lives from the inside out. My journey, to be honest with you, was not always clear. For years, I actually felt like I was living someone else's life, checking all the right boxes, but never feeling quite truly fulfilled. That all changed when I experienced a few miracles, met some incredible teachers, and had a major wake-up call that forced me to shift my entire perspective. Wayne Dyer once said, When you change the way you look at things, the things that you look at change, and that is exactly what this podcast is about. Helping you see your life in a new way so that you can start living with authenticity, purpose, and passion. Each week, I'm going to bring you 30-minute episodes filled with insights, practical strategies, and inspiring interviews to help you uncover what truly lights you up and identify what's been holding you back. Eventually, this is going to ignite your motivation and create real change. Are you ready to step into the life you were meant to live? Then just count me in. Hit subscribe and join me on this journey. If this episode resonates, please share it with a friend who needs a little inspiration today. Let's do this together. So we are living in a time right now of transition. Families are raising kids for a world that no longer runs on obedience, predictability, or even fear-based motivation. It's just not the way these kids are wired. Businesses are leading teams who care just as much about values and purpose and integrity as they do about profit. Things are changing. That means the old ways of using fear in order to control behavior, even if it's in a subtle way, no longer work. I don't know that they ever actually worked. Compliance is really not what we're looking for. We want buy-in. Things have changed. This week, with Friday the 13th being today, right before Valentine's Day, I noticed how easily fear-based narratives showed up. I actually had a client who almost rescheduled her coaching session because she wasn't sure that this would be a good day for it. And I thought I was raised that Friday the 13th was actually a lucky day because my mom was born on May 13th, and it happened to have been a Friday when she was born. And I don't know whether she was joking about it or maybe she knew that actually 13 is a lucky number. There are 13 lunar cycles, and the name Friday traces back in Roman tradition with Venus, the goddess of love and creation. And it used to be called Frasia's Day in old English tradition, also linked with beauty and love and creation. So there's really not even a basis for it. I did a little bit of homework about it because the Friday the 13th thing is so big. And it's just an example of, it's a micro example actually, of a much larger conversation. It's about how we're conditioned and how fear-based systems are actually losing their relevance and why values-based leadership and parenting is so much more important now than it's ever been in business and family life. 90% of residencies in high-rises in New York City don't have a 13th floor labeled. And Otis, the elevator company, 85% of their elevator panels don't have a label for the 13th floor. They call it something else or they skip and go right to the 14th. And this is just an example of how we've let something that was a rumor or something that was a superstition become a reality for us. So I'm wondering how this ties into our lives. Children don't learn fear from dates or events. They learn fear from how adults respond to uncertainty. And when we joke about bad luck, don't walk on cracks because we don't want to break our mom's back, break a mirror and freak out that we're going to have 10 years of bad luck, avoid things automatically or speak anxiously without even realizing it, kids are going to pick up on the feeling. They're going to pick up on the feeling more than the words. And especially these sensitive, intuitive, and gifted kids, they feel the emotional undercurrent a lot more than words. Fear-based models are breaking down, and it's about time. Because for a long time, fear worked. It worked in school systems, it worked in corporate hierarchies, it worked in parenting models. Fear kept people compliant. It kept us predictable. It kept us very manageable. It kept us under control. But we're questioning that right now because we're more aware we've evolved beyond that. The generation that's being raised now is also completely different. They're intuitive, they're emotionally very perceptive. They question authority, not in an argumentative way, the way my generation did, not out of defiance. They question authority out of awareness and an awareness of what the truth really is. And that is not a problem. That's evolution. Friday the 13th is a perfect example of how meaning gets assigned to something and then inherited without us consciously even thinking about it. There is no inherent danger in a date. Yet people still adjust their decisions, tone, they adjust their expectations around it. And that's exactly how fear-based leadership also works in business and in families. Values-based leadership begins when we say, just because this belief exists doesn't mean I've got to live by it. Human-centered businesses moving forward are going to be defined less by control and more by clarity. In business, fear often disguises itself as being realistic. Don't shoot too big. Success is cyclic. There's just a lot of old paradigms that we now know aren't true, aren't necessarily true at all. Realism without reflection can really quietly limit growth. Leadership starts when we question the stories that we all inherited about taking risks. The leaders who thrive and really make it in this upcoming generation are going to lead with emotional intelligence. They're going to encourage critical thinking. They're going to value communication. They're going to model self-trust and discernment. They're going to make decisions that are aligned with values, not panic, not fear. This generation does not respond well to fear. They respond to authenticity. There's a big difference. That requires of us a different kind of courage. So to families out there that are raising the next generation, parenting is in this era isn't about preparing kids to fit in, and we know that. It's about preparing them to think and feel and choose consciously. When we pass down fear, even casually, we teach nervous systems to brace instead of trust. Nobody makes their best decisions like that. And when we model curiosity and discernment, we teach something far more valuable. We teach inner authority. And that's what we want. We want people that can work together by trusting themselves and being the best expression of themselves as they can be, sharing the gifts that they came in to share. There's different conversations that we can have with kids and with teens and with adults about systems that are built on fear and control. And if you've got a little kid that you're talking to, you can say things like some people believe that Friday the 13th is unlucky. That's a story people told for a long time. We can notice and we can still make choices in how we feel. The conversations I have are more with older people, and it's teenagers and young adults, and a lot of systems were built on fear and control. But the future is being built on awareness and values. So we talk about how they decide on what actually deserves their energy. The next generation does not need more fear-based compliance. They need discernment, emotional intelligence, and values-led decision making. And these are not just a bunch of buzzwords that I'm saying. These are truths that we've known about for a while. They've been coming up in meetings for a while now. Friday the 13th becomes just a micro example of a much larger conversation. How humans are conditioned, how fear-based systems are losing their relevance, why value-based leadership is now essential in business and in family life. The future belongs to leaders and parents who are willing to question what no longer fits. The question isn't whether fear will arise. Fear is going to arise. The question is: will we let inherited narratives lead us? Or are we going to choose values, awareness, and alignment instead? What we do with the fear and how we teach our children to navigate the fear is the discussion here. Or our teams if we're running businesses. That's a choice. How we build businesses worth working for, families worth learning from, and a future worth handing to the next generation. If this conversation resonated with you, it might be because you are standing at a threshold. You may be a parent wondering how to raise emotionally intelligent kids in a world that feels so uncertain. There's a lot going on in our world right now, and we're aware of it because of media. You might be a business owner realizing that fear-based leadership no longer fits the future that you want to build. My coaching work is centered on helping individuals and families move from inherited patterns into conscious, value-based choices in their homes, in their work, in their leadership. If you feel called to explore that kind of support, I'd invite you to please connect with me. There's no pressure, just a conversation to see what alignment might look like for you. You can find contact information for me in the show notes. And I'm also going to link a discernment guide for you in the show notes. Wherever you are in this process, trust this. The fact that you're questioning old stories means that you are already leading differently. Until the next time, just count me in. Thank you so much for joining me today. If this episode spoke to you, I'd really love to hear from you. You can find me on Instagram or on my Facebook page, just count me in. And if someone came to mind while you were listening, please share this episode with them. Sometimes one conversation can change everything. Thank you for being here, for choosing growth, and for doing the inner work. I look forward to being with you again next time. Remember, we're all in this together. Hit that subscribe button. Just count me in.