This Episode Appears in Our 'Best Of' Lists:
Season two opens with Kelly Berry and Sadie Wackett sharing why the Life Intended relaunch is bigger than a re-brand—it’s a call to self-leadership for women. From personal loss and burnout to founding a coaching community, the co-hosts reveal how intentional living, mindset development, and emotional wellness shape every program, Friday Reset, and upcoming retreat. Ready to swap autopilot for purpose? Start here.
Sadie recounts climbing the C-suite ladder, hitting a wall, and rebuilding through mindfulness, Buddhist study, and thousands of hours of coaching practice. You’ll hear her blueprint for turning breakdowns into breakthrough self-leadership.
Kelly describes losing her best friend and navigating new motherhood - then deciding life was too short to stay on autopilot. Her story shows what it really takes to live intentionally when everything feels heavy.
Forget quick fixes. Sadie and Kelly break down practical breath-work, community circles, and daily reflection that move you from exhaustion to sustainable energy.
A meme won’t change your life. Discover why the Friday Reset hour and the Awaken cohort put conversation, practice, and accountability ahead of more scrolling.
Expect step-by-step exercises: emotional check-ins, values audits, and micro-habits that build resilience - no 5 a.m. miracle routine required.
“Here, we don't believe women need to be fixed.” — Kelly Berry
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“We believe they need to stop seeking permission and start leading lives that they choose and they design.” — Sadie Wackett
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“Life Intended is more than a podcast. Life Intended is a movement.” — Kelly Berry
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“We don't want to just overload people with a ton more content to digest.” — Sadie Wackett
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“Life Intended is more than just a podcast. It's a movement back to self-trust, personal power, and living with intention.” — Kelly Berry
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00:00 The Mission Behind Life Intended and Self-Leadership for Women
01:16 Introducing Sadie Wackett: HR Executive Turned Women’s Coach
03:14 Sadie's Journey from Burnout to Self-Leadership and Mindfulness
09:41 Kelly Berry’s Story: Loss, Resilience, and Intentional Living
17:29 The Overwhelm of Information in Women’s Personal Development
18:59 How to Connect: Life Intended Coaching and Women’s Community
24:01 Tools for Emotional Wellness and Practical Self-Leadership
25:05 The Journey Ahead: Reclaiming Power with Self-Leadership
26:25 Final Thoughts: Life Intended Is a Movement for Women’s Empowerment
Kelly Berry (00:00)
Hi friends and welcome to Life Intended, the podcast for women on a journey to take ownership of their own lives.
Sadie Wackett (00:07)
We're your hosts, Kelly Berry and Sadie Wackett, leaders, coaches, friends, and women on our own journeys of self-leadership.
Kelly Berry (00:15)
Here, we don't believe women need to be fixed.
Sadie Wackett (00:19)
We believe they need to stop seeking permission and start leading lives that they choose and they design.
Kelly Berry (00:25)
Life Intended is about unlearning truths that have been handed to us and start trusting your truth and living in alignment with what matters most.
Sadie Wackett (00:34)
Each week we're bringing you bold, honest conversations that challenge the stories holding you back, help you uncover and step into your own voice, your own purpose and your own power.
Kelly Berry (00:47)
From inspirational guest interviews to unfiltered chats between the two of us, you'll leave every episode with insights, tools, and the kind of encouragement that sticks.
Sadie Wackett (00:58)
This is your space to wake up, break free and lead the life you were always meant to live. Let's get into it.
Kelly Berry (01:06)
Hey everyone, welcome to season two of Life Intended. I think you'll notice there are a lot of new changes around here and I am so excited to tell you all about them.
I'm so glad you're back. I'm glad that we're back. It's been a lot longer break than I anticipated when I ended season one, but I'm so glad that we took the time and made these changes because we have something great for you. Life Intended is more than a podcast. Life Intended is a movement. And we are excited to bring you along with us to show you what that looks like. I have Sadie Wackett here with me. Sadie is now co-founder.
and co-host of Life Intended. So welcome, Sadie. I'm so, so excited to be on this journey with you.
Sadie Wackett (01:51)
Thanks, Kelly. Me too. I can't tell you how long I've waited to kick this off. It's certainly been something that's been a goal of mine for many years, actually, to be doing this work that really is in support of and in service of women.
Kelly Berry (02:09)
So today our hope is to tell you all of the things that are changing with Life Intended and really to introduce ourselves and let you know why this work is important to us, what we're gonna be doing, what you can expect from us and get you all as excited as we are about all of the good things to come in season two and in Life Intended
So what has changed? So first of all, mentioned Life Intended is more than a podcast now. We are a community. We are a coaching platform. We are creating programs and
A container for women who want to live their lives on purpose, not on autopilot. So to get into it,
I'm gonna let Sadie introduce herself and tell you about her background and what she's done. But it just became really apparent to us that we're both so aligned and wanted to make this into much more than just a podcast. So Sadie, I would love for you to introduce yourself and tell your story, let people get to know you a little bit better.
Sadie Wackett (03:14)
Thank you, Kelly. And I think it's really important when we talk about wanting to help people, wanting to help women live their lives, kind of quote unquote on purpose, not on autopilot to really start to unpack what that means. But first of all, I think I want to give everyone a bit of an overview of I known Kelly for a few years now. We met actually at our gym. But I am I'm from the UK originally. I've been over in the US
for the last nine years. I have two sisters, a brother, a mum and a dad. I have a daughter who's seven years old and a husband and a dog called Pickles. But I moved over here nine years ago for my job. So I was a chief human resources officer in an engineering manufacturing company for many years until January this year when I left. over the last kind of
four or five years, been a coach. I've been a coach for individual leaders and executives. I've also been a coach focusing on supporting women and that's in an individual capacity and also a group capacity. I'm really excited, is an understatement, to be able to put much, much more of my time and resource and capacity toward that now.
So going back, I grew up in England as I said and I would say my journey really started about 13 years ago and that was at a point in my life where I was climbing the career ladder very ambitious way. I'd been in some really challenging business environments and got to a point in my early 30s where I really hit a wall and it hit me in a big way leading to
what I would now call a breakdown, depression or mental health crisis of sorts manifested as well in number of different ways, an eating disorder. And really at that point, I needed to try and figure out what was going on with me, who I was.
why this was happening to me and what I could do about it. so really it's been over the last 13 years that I've been learning and practicing this art of, I would call it, know, emotional awareness, resilience, mindfulness.
And so if I wind the clock back 13 years, I was actually living back in the place where I'd grown up and I didn't realize it, but I found a monastery which was about 12 miles away from where I lived. didn't know it was there for all my life growing up, but when I needed to find it, I found it was there. And I'm not a religious person, but I
during this time of my life, it was particularly challenging. I started to read a lot about Buddhism and found out that it spoke to me like Buddhist philosophies around acceptance and attachment and mindfulness really helped me during this time. And so I visited this monastery every week, sat, meditated with monks, read a lot.
I did mindfulness courses, retreats, and the guidance that this work offered me at that point in my life, as well as therapy and other support, was really foundational. And it's been since then, I've been very consciously surrounding myself with great mentors, great coaches. My environment certainly hasn't been easy. I moved from the UK to the US, which in and of itself was...
more challenging than I'd realized at the time, looking back. We didn't have any friends, any community, any family. I then, having spent years going through a journey of infertility, finally had my daughter. She was born over here in the US. And so I now have a small baby with no support infrastructure around me and a pretty stressful and challenging work environment. And this was all, as I would call it, you know,
fertile ground for building my resilience. It was very challenging and I had to continually sort of inquire around what's important to me. How do I weather these storms? How do I support myself during this time? How do I not break again? And now I had a daughter I was responsible for taking care of, it mattered even more. But I realized, you know, there is so much pressure, so much responsibility that's handed to us.
from society, from our bosses, from our family, from our peers. And this noise, it's so loud, coming from all different angles, but we don't even hear it. It's strange. It's just sort of absorbed into us. And it's hard to hear our own voice in amongst all that. And so, when I look back, I've spent...
you know, probably thousands of hours in training, learning, practicing these skills of self leadership that, you know, that's how I describe it. So, you know, skills around resilience, skills around emotional awareness. And, and that's what I have trained in. And that's what I want to bring to other women because
There is no end of pressure that we experience. told now we can have it all, we can do it all, we can have the family, we can have the career. But the reality is there is a cost to all of this. And unless we stop and think about what the cost is, what it's costing us personally along the way, then we could find ourselves very lost and very empty. And so we really want to create a space, a community, opportunity.
for women to really hear the real voice inside of them. And so, yeah, that brings me up to today. And I think both you and I, Kelly, have got a rich tapestry of life that we can draw upon to use these skills and tools with others.
Kelly Berry (08:57)
thank you that introduction kind of like brief history of your life. I think that there is so much in there that's relatable and admirable because there is a lot that you had to figure out on your own. And I think, I don't wanna speak for you, but I think one of the things that is so compelling for you to do this work is that you don't have to do it alone.
and that a lot of people are feeling the same pressures and these same voices in the same way generally, and that there is so much value in community and in the work that we wanna do together. So yeah, thank Yeah.
Sadie Wackett (09:38)
So how about you, Kelly? People want to hear about your story as well.
Kelly Berry (09:42)
Yeah,
So I guess I realized I haven't told a great deal of my story here before. I think I've told bits and pieces through interviews, but to kind of share a story in a similar format to Sadie, you know, I'm from Kentucky. I grew up, I will say, with like in a very loving, happy home, not a lot of challenges, not a lot of adversity, just kind of like going through life, looked
Pretty normal, know, graduated high school, went to college, went back home to work with my family. Then I did that for about 10 years. Then I went to work with my husband, did that for about another 11 years or so. But my kind of inflection point in my life, it happened over a several year span, but in 2017, my husband and I moved ourselves in our business.
I'm from Elizabeth town, Kentucky, where I live basically my entire life. Besides the time I spent in college, we moved to Indianapolis and set up our headquarters and kind of home base there for a few years. And then during the pandemic, we moved to Florida where we live currently, kind of set up work remotely. So during this time, there was a lot of changes going on. you know, moved for the first time, not only once, but
two kind of big interstate moves. And then I started having, I mentioned I kind of had gone through life and everything was like pretty easy, didn't have a lot of adversity. And then I started having a lot of challenges, a lot of personal challenges, a lot of work challenges, and then a lot of just, I'll say a season of loss. It started kind of several close people in my life.
started to pass away or get ill. Then it kind of escalated. I lost my grandfather. I happened to my high school soccer coach that I ended up being like an adult neighbor and friend with was murdered. My sister had the loss of a close friend because of COVID. And it kind of sent me into this season where there was a lot going on and I did not have the tools to handle it. I was not very resilient. I wasn't taught a lot of these things because
One, I didn't experience a lot of it, but then I didn't have great communication skills and just great ability to handle things. I think I fell into victim mode. And this pattern continued to escalate. Things just started to get harder and harder, and more life events happened. Some great, some really terrible, but I...
My husband and I ended up after 15 years deciding we wanted to become parents. So we got pregnant, had a baby at almost 41 years old, which is a huge life transition in itself. and then six weeks after I had my daughter, my best friend was diagnosed with brain cancer, great for choleoblastoma. And I have a whole podcast episode dedicated to that, but that was
a very, very challenging season of life for me. New mom, know, six weeks postpartum, trying to figure out what the heck I was doing. And then I had this, it was devastating to say the Lori lived for 364 days after she was diagnosed and she passed away in 2023. And then two weeks and one day after...
she passed away, my brother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer. And I had been like such a big support and it was just like so impactful, my situation with Lori, that I felt like I didn't even have a chance to catch my breath after she passed away before, you know, we got this other devastating news, my sister and her family and everything that they were going through. it was...
At that point, and you know, I kind of remember like walking down a sidewalk, just on a walk, I was crying, you know, everything just felt so heavy that I was like, what am I doing with my life? Like life is so short. I think I was like the textbook version of autopilot, to be honest. I had, I mentioned kind of like my work history, but I graduated college, didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I went home to work for my family and
You know, I went from like that being the easy choice to kind of feeling like obligated to stay. When I left that job, kind of made another easy decision to go to work with my husband. then that over the years turned into like very, like an obligation. Like I owed it to him to stay there and to the business and to our team. and you know, at this point walking down the sidewalk, I was like, I don't even know what I want.
I don't even know who I am. Life is so short. Now I have this daughter. I'm not being like the mom or the example that I want to be. so part of what is really, really important to me about this work and the way that we get into these situations is that I don't want it to take tragedy like this.
to have people stop and think about what they want and what they need and start moving towards that. Like you don't have to wait for a big pivotal moment like that to really take control and at least start moving in that direction. You know, don't have to burn your life down to make it what you want to be. You can get back in touch with yourself and start listening to yourself. I think I got into kind of a cycle in business and in life where
I was so worried about what other people wanted me to do and what they expected of me that I had no idea how to like problem-solve for myself, how to stop and think about what I wanted. And I think that to hear me say that there's probably a lot of people who know me who that's kind of surprising to them. Cause I think I've always kind of come across as like fairly independent and fairly like confident and knowing that
I had just like gotten into this cycle and this almost like pattern of just always trying to please everybody around me and make the choices that I thought they wanted me to make. And I've learned a lot about that since then, but it's just an extremely challenging and unhealthy pattern to be in. so, you know, similar to Sadie through therapy and
a lot of reading, a lot of support from other people. one of the things that I found along the way was the women's circle that Sadie was running. and that was a really, really valuable and helpful community experience for me, to help me get to where I am now, which is, I'm, I won't say like recovered because I think this is a practice and you'll probably hear Sadie and I say that a bazillion times that
all of these things, these skills that we're developing, it's all practice. And you have to show up every day and be willing to practice and be willing to try. And so that's what I've been doing and I'm still doing to make decisions that I know are true to who I am, to what I want and to how I think I can make an impact. And I can't say that I was doing that, you know, two, three, five years ago. So that's kind of...
my story. think, you know, Sadie and I have had, I'll say like very different paths, but a lot of shared experiences or shared like, what am I trying to say? Like shared.
Sadie Wackett (17:15)
similar experience, know, in a different context, shared, yeah, experiences. And I think, you know, one thing that we both also align on, and this is like something we're both really keen to,
Kelly Berry (17:18)
Mm-hmm.
Sadie Wackett (17:29)
express is that we feel that the world now is so overloaded with information and content. So that looks like podcasts, looks like books, self-help books, looks like, you know, Instagram memes and, and, you know, goes on and on and on that it becomes now so overwhelming for us as women to either, you know, know what we kind of should be reading or should be
listening to, but then also actually practicing the things that we're reading about or listening to. And that's really important as part of this. This is not about just overwhelming the world with yet more content. This is about helping you to access and experience and work through using different tools, possibility to change for yourself.
mean,
it really is to provide you with like an aperture that you can look through, which opens the world up to a lot more possibility for yourself. And I think that's one of the core aspects of this. We don't want to just overload people with a ton more content to digest. It's to reflect, it's to process, and it's to practice.
Kelly Berry (18:44)
Mm-hmm, yeah, I love that. So I think now would be a good time to let people know like what does that look like? How are we gonna do that for people? So you wanna tell them about some of the ways that people can get connected and involved with us?
Sadie Wackett (18:59)
Yes,
yeah, and I'm, you know, I have to say I'm so, like...
overwhelmed really by how things have gone so far. there are increasing ways to work with us, but also to be supported by us. there's a one hour Zoom call on a Friday called the Friday Reset, and this is open to anyone. And on that call, it's one hour to connect, one hour to generally focus on one theme, one topic, which is quite relevant, whether that's around
anxiety or around self-belief or identity something that's very resonant and and we we take one hour there's a community of women and we share we do some light breath work together we reconnect and I every time every week it Kelly and I say it's probably one of the best hours of our week because we come out of there just feeling lighter more
connected and in touch with ourselves and with that community of women that are there as well. So that's one. We also hold monthly workshops, which again, are open to anyone to attend. We'll focus in more depth on a particular theme, so there'll be a little bit more coaching that goes on in those workshops. We've currently run one on how to use emotions to lead your life rather than let them lead you, which was really powerful.
And the most recent one we did was kind of breaking down this myth of balance. So we're told, you know, that we should be striving to achieve balance in our life, work life balance, but you know, it's far more complex than that, far more nuanced than that. And this really was a space to give women permission to go hang on a minute. What does balance mean to me personally? Where am I at in my season of life? And how does that, how can I create that for myself?
And then, well, why don't I hand the other parts over to you? Do you want to talk about the awakening program?
Kelly Berry (20:49)
Sure.
Yes. So we are getting ready to launch our first cohort of what I think will be like our flagship or foundational program called Awaken. And it is a six week. This is going to be a virtual cohort. But Awaken is where we kind of introduce the foundational, our methodology on how to like
connect with who are you in a way that's like, why am I who I am? What have I been through? How did I get here? Who am I now? And then what kind of direction or shift do I wanna make to go forward? And how do I do that in an aligned and intentional way? And so it's a program.
a group program. And so we'll meet virtually. We will also have tools. You'll be in a community of women. And that's going to be a really, really powerful program. We want to in the future. I mean, we will be bringing out more programs that are going to be so if awaken is like the foundation of a lot of these concepts that we're bringing to you.
we're gonna have programs that go deeper into each of the concepts. awaken will be the starting point. We're also gonna be holding, it's gonna be a similar format to the Friday reset, but we're gonna hold a monthly reset. And that's gonna be in person in our local South Florida area. so everything that Sadie just talked about, about the Friday reset, this will be the opportunity to do that in person, in community.
and a community of women at a local yoga studio in the evenings. And we will have all this information in the show notes and we've got a brand new beautiful website, lifeintended.co, that's dot C-O, and you'll be able to see all of our upcoming events, register for everything there. And then we have a lot of ideas for the future. We're gonna be holding some also local-ish, I'll say in-person,
workshops this fall into the end of the year. We will also be holding a retreat, like an overnight retreat. We're extremely excited about that. The podcast, the change that you can expect here, I mentioned it's gonna be interviews and conversations with Sadie and I, but our plan right now is one interview a week, and that's gonna be similar format to how the podcast has been, and then a conversation between Sadie and I.
every week talking a little bit more in depth about whether it's a topic that we're just hearing a lot about or something that's like relevant in the world. We will have just conversation that you can listen in on and see how we think about it, how we use it in our own lives. I think those are gonna be incredibly insightful conversations as well. Yeah, we have big, big vision books, journals, coffee mugs.
Sadie Wackett (23:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, well, I think as well, you know,
we want to break this down. So it's really digestible for people. So there's many ways you can, you know, you can be supported. And the other thing is, you know, I realized that sometimes group work is just what's needed. And sometimes if people need to go deeper, one on one work is what's needed as well. So there's the opportunity for one on one coaching as well.
Kelly Berry (23:43)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Sadie Wackett (24:02)
⁓
but yeah, think the, think to underscore really, mean, having experienced a lot of this kind of self development in my life, it's so important that it's practical and it's usable and it's digestible and it makes sense to you in your life. And that's really the, the purpose of, a lot of this is making sure you've got tools you can access that are relevant and practical in your day to day.
Kelly Berry (24:29)
I think like that just you mentioned overwhelm at content earlier, you know, it's like if there's too much and you don't know what to do with it or how to use it in your life, then it's really just more noise. You know, it's just more of all of the same and it's truly Sadie I's goal that what we put out there is not that. That it is useful, that it does make actual change.
you we want you to live a life that feels good. And so we want to bring things to you that are gonna help that be the case for you. yeah, yeah.
Sadie Wackett (25:06)
Right. Well, as we said previously, this is just the beginning. And this is going to evolve as we go along and we would love you to be a part of it. You know, my, what I've realized in my life that
You know, I deserve a lot. deserve a lot. And Kelly knows now she deserves a lot. We deserve lives that feel good. And a lot of us don't feel we have the, the right to want things or to feel like we deserve things, but this is what we're here to do to help you uncover that you do deserve a life that feels as good as it looks. And we're here to walk it with you.
Kelly Berry (25:49)
and we can't wait. So thank you for tuning in. Thank you for being so patient as took this really big long break between seasons, but we would love to hear from you. Love to hear what you think about our new look, the new brand and all that we have to offer. So please visit us at our new website. Follow us on social media. Everything is going to be linked in the show notes and please join us at a Friday reset or one of the
workshops that Sadie mentioned. We would love to see you, love to get to know you. Yeah. Thank you.
Sadie Wackett (26:21)
Yeah, great. Well, thank you, Kelly.
See you.
Kelly Berry (26:25)
Thanks for listening to Life Intended.
Sadie Wackett (26:29)
If something from this episode landed with you, stirred something up or gave you a new perspective, share it. Tag us, leave a review. That's how this work reaches more women who really need it.
Kelly Berry (26:41)
Life Intended is more than just a podcast. It's a movement back to self-trust, personal power, and living with intention.
Sadie Wackett (26:49)
and we're just getting started.
Kelly Berry (26:52)
So keep showing up, keep tuning in. If you're ready for more support on your path, head to LifeIntended.co. We've got tools, community, and programs to meet you where you are. Until next time.
Kelly Berry is a strategic business leader and business coach. She is known for her operational excellence and her ability to drive growth and results across multiple industries.
She is also hosting her own podcast, Life Intended.
