Determine
How You Operate
The energetic frequency from which you make choices, set standards, and move through your days.
You've declared who you are, now dial up your operating mode so you can move like it.
May is a good time to pay attention and prepare for the goodness that's coming your way. I'm slowing down, taking notes, and planting seeds of joy and abundance.
Your Intention Level
How are you...being?
This month we are going deeper than identity.
In Issue 01 you declared who you are. That declaration is your foundation. Now we are looking at how you are actually operating from it...or not.
I have to be very conscious because it's easy to have a clear identity and still operate out of alignment with it. You can know who you are and still spend your days striving toward it instead of being it. You can write the declaration and go right back to the grind.
The missing piece is intention. Not intention the way the wellness world uses it — as a goal, a focus or a morning ritual. Intention as we define it: the sum total of the type and intensity of energy you bring to your life. Who you are being about what you want. The power level from which every choice, every standard, every relationship, every act of work flows.
Your intention level is not fixed. It is not your personality. It is not your destiny. It is a dial. And once you learn to read it, you can shift it. That is exactly what this issue is about.
By the end of it you will know exactly what level you have been operating from, what has been driving it, and how to make a different choice.
Not someday. This month.
Let's go.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Opening Letter
Three Questions
Lifestyle
Essay
From the Founder
Exercise
Closing
You're Not Behind. You're Striving.
opening letter
You woke up with a full list.
You have been running since before your feet hit the floor. Emails before breakfast. 50-11 decisions before coffee. A hundred small acts of competence before most people have brushed their teeth. By midday you have done more than most people do in a week. And somehow you still feel behind.
It's like you are running a race with no finish line.
Like the harder you push, the further away the destination gets.
Like you are doing everything you know to do and something is still not working.
I know this feeling well. It is called striving. And for me, it is not just a mood or a phase.
It is my default operating system.
With this issue, you get to practice seeing your true intention.
Now and in every moment you choose.
Here is what I have come to understand about striving that changed how I operate.
We have been taught and trained to treat it like a virtue. Like it is the respectable, industrious cousin of ambition. Striving is noble and something to be admired. We're all striving hard for something better...right?
But striving is not ambition.
Ambition is sourced internally from your essence and genuine desire. It moves like a current. It has direction. It generates energy instead of consuming it. You know what matters to you and you feel called or pulled toward it.
Striving is different. Striving is wishing, wanting, and trying hard to achieve. And wishing, wanting, and trying, by definition, mean you don't have it yet. The energy of striving keeps you in perpetual pursuit of something you are always almost reaching. It looks like momentum. It feels like hustle. But underneath it, there is a quiet, persistent ache that no amount of output can touch.
Striving is noble and something to be admired. We're all striving hard for something better...right?
spring
RELEASE
edition
The Sovereign Life
LIVE >
FUEL >
READ >
LISTEN >
MOVE >
The Morning Shake
FUEL
Ingredients:
- 8 oz coconut Malk
- 2 scoops vegan vanilla protein powder
- 2 scoops Smart Pressed Juice Pineapple Chia Cleanse
- 1 tsp Ceylon cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground cloves
Make it:
Shake until smooth. Drink it first. Before the emails. Before the calendar. Before anyone needs anything from you.
Why it works:
Pineapple enzyme supports digestion and reduces inflammation. Chia seeds deliver fiber and omega-3s that sustain energy without the spike. Ceylon cinnamon supports blood sugar regulation. Cloves are one of the most antioxidant-dense spices on the planet. Coconut Malk keeps it dairy-free and clean.
Your Estate Documents
read
I know. Stay with me.
This month I am reading my estate documents. My trust. My will. My life insurance policies. Nothing has happened. However, living sovereign means that the most important decisions of your life are not left in a file waiting for the right time.
This is not the "right time" you want to wait for.
Here is what I want to say about this because I think it matters for you too: reviewing your estate documents is one of the most powerful acts of identity you can do. It forces you to answer questions that are deeply personal and often avoided. Who do I trust with what matters most? What do I actually want? How do I want my life to be represented when I am no longer here to represent it?
That is not a morbid exercise. That is sovereignty in its fullest expression.
If your documents are current, review them. If they are outdated, update them. If you do not have them, start. An estate attorney, a financial advisor, or even a legal service platform can get you moving.
This is the work that does not feel like building but absolutely is.
Pull out the documents. Read them this month. Know what you have built and who you have protected.
Black Ambition Podcast
LISTEN
Now in a most "right on time" text, my girl Felecia Hatcher sent me an episode of the Black Ambition Podcast where she interviewed Bahamian American aerospace engineer, entrepreneur, and STEM advocate, Aisha Bowe. I have been wrestling with who and how to be with my energy while working towards my goals and their conversation brought me the idea of being "unrealistically light" in the most practical way. Now I have a way to move through where I am on my timeline with power and sovereignty.
"First of May" — James Taylor
My father and I have a few unexpected and favorite music artists that we share. Michael Franks, Rickie Lee Jones, the Savannah Band, and James Taylor are a few. Every year for over a decade, my father and I race to see who will be the first to text the other James Taylor's "1st of May" on the first day of May.
This year I won...and in a most sarcastic text, I sent him these lyrics from the song - "Ha ha ha haaaa, people are laughing." 😂
Plant Something
move
Every spring I go back to the garden.
There is something about putting your hands in soil that no other activity replicates. It is grounding in the most literal sense. It slows the nervous system down. The garden holds it all, like that season of pruning mint, basil, and friends. Every spring I succeed, I fail, I learn, I grow. Herbs. Vegetables. Fruit. Things that will feed my family and require me to show up for them over time vs my default of upfront enthusiasm and then gone. Gardening is a long game. You prepare the ground, you plant the seed, you water consistently, you wait. You do not pull the plant up every three days to check if the roots are growing.
There is an intention level to gardening too.
I started this season striving by planting before Mother's Day, even though my Grandmother told me to wait. Sure enough, the lingering winter chill got my tomato and cucumber plants. Now I'm surrendering and that looks like preparing the soil well, choosing what I actually want to grow, planting with care, and trusting the process I cannot see.
Clearly my focus and practice right now is patience and my garden is the perfect place to play.
Get your hands in something that grows. Start with one pot if that is where you are. Plant something. Tend it. Let it teach you patience.
Tending to the Foundation
Both of my children are running track right now and I am running right along with them. Last week I drove forty minutes north for ten seconds of running. Then I jumped in my truck and drove over ninety minutes south for twelve seconds of running.
Twenty-two seconds of competition and three hours of driving.
I would do it again tomorrow. In fact, I'm about to with three days of track meets and my nephew's middle school play in the middle.
This is my joy and it slows me down to take in the love of family and the gift of time.
I have come to understand that the most sovereign thing a woman can do is show up for herself, the most important people in her life, and make sure the life she has built is owned and honored.
Maybe it's not glamorous...although I haven't picked out my meet and play outfits yet.
Either way, this month show up where it feels joyful. Review the documents and update the policies. Make the calls you have been putting off about the things that matter most when you are not there to manage them.
So this month I am tending the garden, my documents, and attending the meets and the play. I am structuring what I have built and showing up for who I am building it for.
Sovereignty is not only how you live. It is also what you leave.
LIVE
What Intention Actually Is
You have heard it in yoga classes. In productivity podcasts. In Monday morning team meetings and vision board captions and journal prompts designed to help you start the day with focus. Set your intentions. And what people mean when they say that is: name your goal. Pick your focus. Decide what you are doing today.That is not intention. That is a target. And the difference between the two is exactly why so many high-performing women are aiming at the right things and still not hitting them.
What the world calls intention
In the mainstream definition, intention is directional. It points at something. I intend to finish this project. I intend to be more present with my family. I intend to take better care of my health. It is the arrow, aimed at the goal.
And there is nothing wrong with having clear aims. Clarity of direction matters.
But here is what the arrow metaphor misses entirely: the force behind it.
Two arrows can point at the same target. But if one is pulled from a place of fear, exhaustion, obligation, or desperation, and the other is pulled from purpose, power, genuine desire, and alignment — they do not fly the same way. They do not land the same way. They do not produce the same result or the same experience of the person releasing them.
Same target. Completely different intention.
That distinction is everything.
How to use the scale
This is not a report card. It is a read.
The scale exists so you can locate yourself honestly in the present moment — not to judge where you are, but to own it. Because you cannot shift from a level you refuse to acknowledge. And you cannot operate from a level you have never identified.
Most high-performing women, if they are honest, live between +1 and +2. Striving. Wishing and wanting. Moving constantly. Producing results. And quietly running on a deficit because the energy of always pursuing is not the same as the energy of actually being.
You were built for Sovereignty. The gap between where you are and +7 is not a character flaw.
It is an intention gap. And intention can be shifted.
That is exactly what we are about to do.
essay
What intention actually is
In the evok framework, we define intention this way:
Intention is the sum total of the type and intensity of energy you have toward a goal or aim.
Intention is not the goal itself. It is not the aim. It is not the plan or the strategy or the outcome.
Intention is who you are being about the goal.
It is the quality of energy beneath the action. The frequency from which you are operating when you make a decision, set a standard, enter a room, do the work, show up in a relationship, take care of your body.
You can be doing the exact same things at two completely different intention levels, and the experience, the output, and the cost to you will be radically different.
This is why two women can follow the same plan and get completely different results. This is why you can execute perfectly and still feel empty. This is why effort alone has never been the answer.
The answer is intention. Specifically...the level of it.
The evok Intention Scale
Intention is not a fixed state. It is a spectrum. And it is measurable.
The evok Intention Scale runs from –7 to +7. Zero is not neutral. Zero is Settling — the quiet indifference that looks like stability but is actually stagnation. Below zero, intention becomes increasingly costly — Sacrificing, Struggling, Suffering. Above zero, intention becomes increasingly powerful — Striving, Seeking, Surrendering, all the way up to Sovereignty.
Each level has a name. Each level has a corresponding energy. And each level tells you something specific about what is driving you right now.
What Do You Do When There's Nothing Left to Strive For?
FROM THE FOUNDER
I want to tell you something I am still moving through.
Not a lesson I learned and packaged neatly on the other side. Not a story with a clean resolution and a three-step framework at the end. Something I am living right now, in this season, that I think you need to hear — because I suspect you are somewhere close to it yourself.
My business is thirteen years old.
Thirteen years of building, serving, showing up, delivering, and leading. We have impacted over seven thousand lives. We have worked globally. We have served top executives, companies, and brands around the world. We have generated revenue that significantly exceeds what I ever made in my corporate career.
By every external measure, and honestly by most internal ones, this is a success story.
And for most of those thirteen years, I finished one goal and immediately set another. Crossed one finish line and moved the next one further out before I had fully caught my breath.
Celebrated briefly, if at all, then put my head back down and started pushing.
Not because I was unhappy. Not because the work wasn't meaningful.
Because striving was the water I swam in. It was so familiar it did not feel like a choice. It felt like who I was.
Striving sits at +1 and +2. Wishing and wanting. It is not a bad place. It is where possibility opens up. It is where dreams begin. It is necessary for a season.
But it does not work as a permanent address.
The scale moves upward for a reason. Seeking. Surrendering. Sovereignty. Each level is not just more intensity, it is a different quality of energy entirely. Less breathless. More grounded. Less about what you do not yet have and more about the full authority of who you already are.
I spent thirteen years building my life from +1 and +2. Imagine what becomes possible from +5, +6, +7.
I am not working harder. I am operating from a different level entirely. That is the shift I am making right now, in real time, in this season.
I'm developing a new version of ambition. It's a version that is sourced from the inside — from identity, from purpose, from genuine desire — instead of driven from the outside by the next goal, the next milestone, the next thing to prove.
Sovereign ambition does not run on lack. It runs on freedom.
And that changes everything about how I live, work, and play.
I don't strive because I'm broken or insecure or never satisfied.
I strive because it works. Because it has always worked. Because somewhere early on I learned that motion equals progress, that activity equals value, that the next goal is what keeps everything moving forward.
And...I am good at it. Which is exactly the problem.
When something works and you are good at it and it produces real results, you do not question it. You refine it. You optimize it. You build an entire operating system around it.
What I am sitting inside of right now, is that the operating system I built on striving has a ceiling. And I have hit it.
Not a ceiling on what I can accomplish. A ceiling on what it costs me to accomplish it.
Once I realized this, the question stopped being what's next and became something quieter and more unsettling.
What do I do if there's nothing to strive for?
I do not have all of this figured out. I want to be clear about that.
What I have is the scale. The awareness. The willingness to look at where I am operating from without judgment, and to make a deliberate choice about where I want to be.
That is all this issue is asking of you too.
Simply the honesty. Name the level. And make a choice.
That is where we are going next.
Deliberately, consciously, sometimes uncomfortably releasing the pressure I had normalized so thoroughly that I mistook it for ambition.
And in the space that opened up, I found a new comforting feeling.
My home. My family. The particular quality of a morning that belongs entirely to me. My children competing in track & field — and yes, I drove forty minutes north for ten seconds of running, jumped in the car and drove ninety minutes south for twelve seconds of running, and I would do it again without blinking. Because that is not striving. That is joy. That is sovereign presence. That is me, fully there, for the thing that actually matters to me.
I have been surrendering to slow. To quiet. To afternoons with no deliverables and no agenda and nothing to optimize.
And I have been sovereignly directing my energy, independent of demands or goals or the next thing on the list and toward the life I already have, which turns out to be extraordinary when I sit still enough to breathe it all in.
Here is what I want you to understand about the intention scale in this context.
I have been practicing letting go of that breathless energy.
That question scared me when it first came to me.
Because if I am not striving, what am I really doing? If I am not in pursuit, who am I? If I release the breathless energy and the pressure to move, act, and be available, what is left?
I sat with that question and let it be unanswered for a while instead of immediately doing something with it. That alone was a practice. Radiah not doing something with a question is not natural. Ask anyone who knows me.
And in being still, as always, something started to come through...
Rest. Joy. Presence. The quiet authority of a woman who has already built something real and is finally, finally letting herself know it, feel it, and love it.
stop.
You have been moving since you woke up.
You have been managing, deciding, delivering, responding, and holding things together the way you always do. And somewhere underneath all of that motion, there is a level you have been operating from that you probably have not stopped to name.
That ends here.
No judging and no fixing. Simply see it clearly, because you can only shift from a level you're willing to acknowledge, and you cannot operate from a level you have never identified.
This is the work. Put everything down. All four areas. Full honesty.
No performance. No editing. No most-impressive version of where you are.
Just the read.
Assess.
ASK WELLIE!
Redeem Code: SOVEREIGN
Select any membership option, and once the code is applied, it will automatically unlock Premium access for one full year.
This is the screen where they'll use the code.
THE MODERN DAY ORACLE AND YOUR WISE FRIEND!
We've partnered with our Brother Dom Malone on the launch of his new AI Oracle WELLie.
Enjoy WELLie for a year along with your Live Sovereign subscription.
A GIFT FOR YOU!
operate.
sovereign.
This month the work is simple and deliberate.
Operate from the level you declared. When you drift, and you will drift, we all drift, catch it without judgment and choose again. Bring your worksheet to the Sovereignty Session. Bring your honest read across all four domains. Bring the moments where you held the level and the moments where you didn't.
We are not here to celebrate perfect. We are here to build and live sovereign.
Come ready. Bring the data. Show up as who you declared.
One more thing before you close this issue.
Go back and read your declaration from Issue 01.
I am.
Now read your intention declaration from this issue.
I choose to operate from level ___.
Those two statements together are your operating brief. Identity and intention. Who you are and the power level from which you are choosing to move through the world.
That is the foundation. It's not a secret, It's a system.
Everything else, your health, your work, your relationships, your peace, your joy, your impact. flows from those two declarations operating in alignment.
You are not behind. You are not broken. You are not too much or not enough.
You are a sovereign human being who now knows your level and knows how to shift it.
Now operate like it. See you at the session.
Moving. Delivering. Producing. Showing up for everyone and everything that needed you. Running the operating system you built. The one that works, gets results, and has gotten you here.
It's likely that I haven't told you anything you don't already know. But because you stopped long enough to name it...Striving,
You can now see it and pay attention to it. It is not a problem or flaw, it is just a default operating mode. It's the water you swim in so naturally that you stopped noticing it was wet. And now you see the level and the energy underneath the action, the quality of intention driving everything you do.
That is not a small thing. Most people go their entire lives without seeing it.
Here is what I want you to carry out of this issue.
Intention is not fixed and it is not your personality or goal. It is your internal dial, and you now know where it is, how to read it, and how to move it deliberately.
That is the shift from striving to sovereignty. You can choose to operate from a different level entirely. From fullness instead of lack. From identity instead of obligation. From genuine desire instead of the breathless energy of always almost there.
I am making this shift in real time alongside you. Thirteen years of building something, and I am still catching myself at +2 when I declared +5. Still noticing when the pressure creeps back in. Still choosing again.
That is the practice.
Sovereignty is not a destination you arrive at and maintain effortlessly. It is a daily operating choice that is always within you. Three times a day, if you are using the system. Morning, midday, evening. Read the level. Name what is driving it. Choose again.
Over and over. That is how the setpoint on the scale moves.
You came into this issue doing what you have always done.