Kristen Kosinski, who inspires people to live vision-driven lives and who started and led a clean water nonprofit, joins Niiamah Ashong on the Outlier's Edge Podcast to talk about living on the growth edge. She tells how remembering a childhood dream led her to leave her network television career, travel abroad and find herself inside the vision within three days. What emerged is her approach to bringing a vision to life: declare it, take the next step even when it feels edgy, and trust the foundation being built underneath to support the leap.
Episode at a glance
- Guest: Kristen Kosinski, Coach who inspires people to live vision-driven lives; started and led a clean water nonprofit for 10 and a half years
- Host: Niiamah Ashong, coach to outlier leaders
- Show: Outlier’s Edge Podcast, released March 28, 2023
- Format: conversation, 56 minutes
- Topics: Living a vision-driven life, Doing life afraid, Remembering a childhood dream, Arrival as a commencement, The bamboo and the quantum leap, Co-creating with something greater
What Kristen brought to the conversation
Kristen Kosinski describes herself as a human being on the green growing edge of becoming, someone who came to this planet to intentionally grow and who has been a student of personal development for 25 years. After 10 years as a network television executive, she started a nonprofit providing clean drinking water as a foundation to development and ran it for 10 and a half years as executive director; the organization brought clean water to thousands and thousands of people. Her mission now is to inspire people to live vision-driven lives and follow their dreams. Niiamah Ashong describes her presence as supernova energy, with a mama bear fierceness and a warmth in how she takes care of her people.
What emerged
The central idea is what Kristen Kosinski calls doing life afraid: when an intuitive hit feels edgy but important, say yes and do it anyway, because extraordinary goodness is often on the other side. Reaching the vision was not an ending for her but a commencement, a confirmation she was on the right track and a prompt to get curious about what's next. She uses the way bamboo grows to explain sudden leaps: years of small visible growth while an intricate root system forms underneath, then a quantum leap. When she describes co-creating with something greater, Niiamah Ashong connects it to his own long-held sense that serendipity loves him, and she names the pattern: declare the vision, take a step, and know you are not acting in isolation.
Questions this episode answers
What does it mean to live a vision-driven life?
Kristen Kosinski holds visions that are not her current reality, then asks herself what she could do today, where she is, with what she has, to move toward the life she would absolutely love to have. She says the steps that come are typically not comfortable; they require some courage.
What happens after a leader realizes a vision?
For Kristen Kosinski, being in the vision was a commencement, not an ending: a confirmation that she was on the right track. From there her job is to get curious about what's next, because a mission-driven life just keeps going, with each mission leading to the next.
How can someone reconnect with a dream they set aside?
In 2005, while working through a personal development process, Kristen Kosinski remembered a childhood dream of traveling abroad to work with women. The question she would ask anyone looking to remember what's real for them is simple: what would you love?
Why do big results sometimes seem to appear all at once?
Kristen Kosinski points to the way bamboo grows: an inch in year one, a few inches a year after that, then a huge leap in year five. All the while, an intricate root system has been forming underneath that can support the bamboo when it shoots up, the same way steps toward a vision build the foundation for the leap.
What does it look like to do life afraid?
Kristen Kosinski says she does something every day that scares her. Awake at three in the morning while creating new things in her business, she told herself she could lie in bed tied up in knots or turn on the light, get her notebook out and start writing.
In their words
I live a vision driven life. I hold visions that are not my current reality.
Kristen Kosinski
Being in the vision was just a confirmation to me that I was on the right track.
Kristen Kosinski
What would you love? That's it, because love is spirit, love is the infinite.
Kristen Kosinski
Key moments
03:08 – Supernova energy and presence
05:43 – On the growing edge of becoming
09:54 – Living a vision-driven life
12:29 – Remembering a childhood dream
13:30 – Going all in on the dream
16:37 – Inside the vision by day three
18:41 – Arrival as a commencement
21:45 – The question: what would you love
24:20 – Clean water for thousands
36:51 – How bamboo grows
About Niiamah Ashong
Niiamah Ashong is a coach to outlier leaders, host of the Outlier’s Edge Podcast, and founder of the Trailblazer Collective. He coaches leaders who are creating something only they can make: a company, a body of work or a movement. Make a difference with your difference.
Work with Niiamah: 1:1 with Niiamah | World of Difference
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