In this latest installment of the 2026 “Ones to Watch” series, Grit Daily partners with Heather Burgett’s Shine Collective to spotlight ten women whose work is transforming what comes next. Through new ideas, innovative frameworks and deeply human approaches, they are helping people and communities move forward with greater purpose, resilience and possibility.
Representing fields as diverse as business, leadership, health, education, personal transformation and community resilience, these women are drawing from both professional expertise and lived experience to address the challenges of a changing world. They are advancing conscious leadership, expanding approaches to healing, strengthening disaster preparedness, transforming personal and generational stories, and creating more sustainable paths to success.
Together, they reveal how meaningful transformation takes shape: through ideas translated into action, experience developed into service, and a clear vision for what can become possible. Here are ten women transforming what’s next in 2026 and beyond.
Intuitive Business Strategist Redefining Freedom, Legacy and the Future of Work
Rene Kamstra is an international speaker, business strategist, life coach, and creator of the Freedom-Legacy Method—she believes the future belongs to people who know who they are.
For over 30 years, Rene has helped people uncover their strengths and turn them into businesses that reflect them. She has contributed to more than $400 million in client sales, coached over 11,000 clients across 32 countries, and delivered 200+ keynote presentations worldwide. Her clients have included leaders from organizations such as Apple, VISA, Wells Fargo, and the YMCA. Named one of MSN’s Top Business Coaches of 2026 and an Emmy Award winner, Rene helps people discover the business they are meant to build and guides them in creating the success and freedom they envision.
As AI and technology reshape how we work, she helps entrepreneurs, professionals, and leaders identify the business they are meant to build, align it with their gifts and vision and create their own economy. Through her signature methodology, Rene empowers people to build businesses that create choices, leaving a legacy beyond financial success. An 11-year full-time nomad, she lives the freedom she teaches.
While the future of work continues to evolve, Rene believes our greatest competitive advantage isn’t technology, but our uniquely human strengths, creativity, and ability to build meaningful connections.
Story Weaver Guiding Women to Transform Their Stories Into Purpose and Possibility
Barbara Bray is an Empowerment Coach who helps people transform lived experiences into purpose, power, and possibility. An award-winning author, podcast host, mentor and keynote speaker, she is known as a Story Weaver—a deeply empathetic listener who helps others navigate meaningful life transitions with clarity and confidence.
For more than 30 years, Barbara has been committed to making learning—and living—authentic, meaningful and relevant. She is the creator and host of the Rethinking Learning podcast and co-host of Real Talk with Barbara and Nicole, where she explores purpose, agency and authenticity in an ever-changing and polarized world.
Barbara is the author of Define Your Why and her most recent book, Grow Your Why: One Story at a Time, a collaborative book featuring 23 inspiring stories of resilience and purpose-driven change.
Through her Grow Your Why Collective and her signature Purpose Shift VALUES Framework, Barbara guides women, educators, and thought leaders at pivotal moments to move from feeling stuck to becoming unstoppable—amplifying their influence, impact, and income with intention.
Energy Medicine Practitioner Bridging Science and the Body’s Innate Capacity to Heal
Sarah Lascano is the founder of RayZen Energy, creator of The Lascano Method and author of The Hidden Force Within. A speaker, energy medicine practitioner and educator, her work helps people reclaim health and optimize performance by identifying and clearing hidden energetic interference that impacts how the body functions, adapts and heals.
Drawing on her background in engineering, medical training and over a decade of experience facilitating thousands of client sessions worldwide, Sarah bridges science with the transformative power of energy medicine. She developed her signature framework that helps clients tune into the body’s signals, release energetic resistance and restore coherence across the mind-body-energy system.
Known for her grounded, heart-centered teaching style, Sarah works with high-performers, health seekers and individuals facing chronic symptoms who feel stuck despite “doing all the right things.” Through private programs, transformational training and live events, she translates complex energetic concepts into accessible, science-informed strategies that support vitality, resilience, symptom freedom and the body’s innate capacity to heal.
Conscious Leadership Coach Turning Spiritual Intelligence Into Strategic Execution
Mia Jerritt is a conscious leadership coach, spiritual strategist, and international impact speaker recognized for transforming how modern leadership integrates inner alignment with measurable results.
Known for her quiet fearlessness and intuitive precision, she guides visionary leaders, founders, and executive teams to translate spiritual intelligence into strategic execution through her signature Energy Audit and Bridge Method frameworks, which are designed to convert awareness into coherent, high-impact leadership performance.
A seasoned entrepreneur and global thought leader, Mia has taught and spoken across multiple continents, supporting leaders navigating complexity, sustained pressure, and rapid transformation. Her work bridges emotional intelligence, energetic alignment, and leadership psychology into grounded, practical systems that elevate both human potential and organizational effectiveness.
Through her coaching, speaking, and global initiatives, Mia champions a new leadership paradigm where conscious choice, personal coherence, and purposeful action become the standard rather than the exception. Her mission is to elevate consciousness in leadership, creating a ripple effect that becomes a LEGACY by reshaping teams, workplaces, and the future of how the world leads.
Hurricane-Resilient Architect Building Disaster-Smart Communities for the Future
Stacy A. Bourne, FAIA, is an award-winning architect & disaster preparedness expert, speaker, and author with over 35 years of lived experience in surviving and rebuilding after 12 hurricanes.
Through her cultivated resilience strategies, educational tools, and speaking events, she focuses on disaster preparedness for communities, institutions, and commercial property owners to save lives, protect property, and support business continuity.
She is the founding principal of The Bourne Group, LLC (est. 2000) and a nationally recognized leader in hurricane-resilient architecture. She was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in 2012, which is an honor held by fewer than 3% of AIA members.
Hurricanes transformed her practice into a mission. She contributed to roof-replacement programs, resilience strategies and building-code advocacy, later expanding into commercial and institutional renovations with a central focus on community engagement.
Stacy addresses climate resilience, disaster response, equity and the evolving role of architects in the climate crisis. Her coloring book series, Disaster Smart: Tornadoes, launches in August 2026 with Disaster Smart – Wind Ready, which educates children ages 9 to 11.
With decades of recovery and leadership, Stacy advances innovative solutions to climate challenges, bridging architecture, advocacy, and education to equip communities for a more resilient future.
Leadership Consultant Redefining Midlife Through Calm Authority
Jacqueline D. Young is a former CEO and Director of Education, keynote speaker, and leadership consultant whose work examines what happens when the patterns that helped accomplished women succeed begin to cost them clarity, health, and self-trust. She is the creator of the MindShift Leadership Method and the signature keynote, “From Good Girl to Fierce Leader,” exploring how early conditioning and midlife change intersect in women’s leadership.
With more than three decades of experience leading complex public education systems, a master’s degree in counseling and advanced training in subconscious change, Jacqueline brings an uncommon combination of executive experience and insight into the patterns beneath behavior. She helps women recognize how hyper-responsibility, perfectionism, pleasing, proving and self-silencing can become embedded in the way they make decisions, navigate conflict and exercise authority.
Her work reframes midlife as a powerful leadership recalibration. Rather than creating the patterns that hold women back, midlife often reveals the cost of continuing to lead through adaptation, overfunctioning and self-abandonment.
Through speaking, consulting and programs, Jacqueline helps accomplished women move toward Calm Authority: leadership grounded in clarity, boundaries, self-trust and choice. Her work also gives organizations a practical way to retain experienced women, reduce the hidden costs of burnout and over-responsibility, and cultivate leaders who are clearer, steadier and more effective under pressure.
Intuitive Intelligence Pioneer Championing Exceptional Minds
Dianne A. Allen, MA is an executive advisor, author, speaker and pioneer in intuitive intelligence for neurodivergent professionals and visionary leaders. With more than 40 years of experience, she helps gifted and high-capacity thinkers transform overwhelm, burnout, and self-doubt into clarity, self-trust, and sustainable leadership through her signature Someone Gets Me experience and The 5 Dimensions of Intuitive Intelligence Architecture.
Known as The Hope Agent, Dianne has worked with Grammy Award-winning artists, entrepreneurs, C-suite executives, university researchers and creative visionaries worldwide. She is the host of the internationally recognized Someone Gets Me podcast, with more than 450 episodes exploring giftedness, neurodivergence, leadership and personal transformation.
Through Visions Applied, LLC, Dianne mentors leaders, develops transformational programs, and speaks internationally, helping exceptional minds understand their unique design and create lives of meaningful impact.
Dianne is the author of books, including Care for the Neurodivergent Soul, Someone Gets Me, Where Do You Fit In?, The Loneliness Cure. Her work has been featured by CBS, CNN’s Anderson Cooper Show, the Discovery Channel, and iHeartRadio. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Florida Department of Psychology.
Nurse-Turned-Entrepreneur Creating a New Model for Income and Flexibility
Amber Villarreal is a nurse-turned-entrepreneur, coach, and founder of EMN Success Coaching & Consulting, where she helps healthcare professionals and purpose-driven individuals build multiple income streams with structure, clarity, and intention.
After spending 21 years in nursing, working long shifts, overtime, and constantly trading time for income, Amber experienced a life-changing moment during COVID when her husband required emergency surgery while they were far from family with three young children. That experience revealed a hard truth: their entire livelihood depended on their ability to show up to work.
Determined to create a different path, Amber built what she now calls an Income Ecosystem, a strategic, connected system where skills, experience, and aligned opportunities work together to generate income, impact, and flexibility.
Today, she guides others in doing the same by helping them gain clarity on what to build (and what to stop chasing), create structured, sustainable income streams, and develop a plan that aligns with their life, rather than overwhelming it.
Amber’s approach is grounded in real-life experience, combining her background in healthcare with business strategy, mindset, and wellness. She doesn’t teach people to walk away from their careers; she shows them how to build alongside them, creating stability, flexibility, and long-term growth.
Neurologist and Life Coach Using Storytelling to Transform Conversations About Health
Shafer Stedron, MD, is a Neurologist, Jay Shetty-certified life coach, publisher, and award-winning author setting out to change the way you look at and talk about your health. Her show, “Talks with Dr Shafer,” features guests from around the world who share inspiring stories and expert advice.
Witnessing the disconnect between mind and body experienced by many, and the negative impact on both patients and physicians seeking to help them, Dr Shafer set out to help others reconnect with their mind and body to reclaim their health and build the life they truly want.
Her media group, Little House of Dreams Entertainment, LLC, uses the power of storytelling to help businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals share their stories in impactful ways via short films, social media, memorial films, and publishing endeavors via Little House of Dreams Publishing.
A trusted voice in health and wellness, Dr Shafer speaks at health conferences, children’s literature events, and on television media outlets about neurological health, wellness, and the power of storytelling for health.
Dr. Shafer is featured in the international best-selling book, Jim Britt’s Cracking the Rich Code, Volume 16, and her award-winning children’s book, The Boy and His Brightly Colored Blocks.
Life Coach Rewriting the Patterns Women Carry Across Generations
Sue Campanella is an award-winning Life Coach, best-selling author, and founder of Transformations Life Coaching and Healing. For nearly two decades, she has helped women recognize the inherited beliefs, emotional conditioning, and generational patterns influencing their experiences in love, work, and motherhood.
Through her proprietary Soul Mirror Method and signature Legacy Rewrite Journey, Sue guides women in distinguishing who they truly are from everything they were taught to believe they were. Her approach integrates practical coaching with the energetic healing modalities of the Emotion, Body, and Belief Codes, helping women move from unconscious pattern repetition into deep self-trust, alignment, and embodied leadership.
Sue’s work has reached millions through her contributions to Chicken Soup for the Soul: 101 Ways to Think Positive and the Amazon international best-selling books Heart Whispers and Living Beyond Fear. She is also a two-time Readers’ Choice winner for Essential Naples Magazine’s “10 Best Life Coaches,” a featured wellness expert for Naples Illustrated Magazine and a columnist for Expert Magazine.
As a sought-after speaker and podcast guest, Sue makes transformational work accessible and deeply empowering. Her work supports women in reclaiming the lives they were meant to live and creating a new legacy for themselves and the generations that follow.
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As this 2026 “Ones to Watch” series continues, Grit Daily and Heather Burgett’s Shine Collective will spotlight more women whose ideas, leadership, and impact are helping define the year ahead and beyond. Coming next: Future-Shaping Women of 2026.
