We were lucky to catch up with Christen Ruiz recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Christen, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
My resilience comes from learning how to own each moment as it unfolds, especially the ones I didn’t choose.
For a long time, I believed resilience meant endurance: pushing through, tolerating, surviving. That belief was tested when my life unraveled in rapid succession- losing both of my parents, the collapse of a company I had built, a divorce, financial ruin, and the sudden responsibility of rebuilding everything at once.
What those experiences taught me is that real resilience isn’t toughness, it’s agency.
When so much was outside of my control, I realized the one thing always available to me was choice. Choice in how I interpreted what was happening. Choice in how I showed up next. Choice in whether a moment defined me, or refined me.
That understanding evolved into three anchors I live by now: agency, autonomy, and audacity.
Agency gave me my footing, the reminder that even in chaos, I still get to decide who I am in the moment.
Autonomy taught me to stop outsourcing my worth, my direction, and my voice to circumstances or other people.
Audacity gave me permission to move forward before I felt “ready,” to take up space again, and to trust myself without needing external validation.
Resilience, for me, isn’t about bouncing back. It’s about owning every moment, even the uncomfortable ones, and using them as fuel to become more aligned, more honest, and more self-directed than I was before.
That’s where my resilience lives now, not in endurance alone, but in conscious choice.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I help people reclaim agency in their lives by teaching them how to own every moment, especially the ones that don’t go according to plan. My work sits at the intersection of psychology, lived experience, and leadership, translating breakdowns into breakthroughs that create clarity, momentum, and self-trust.
Through my platform and upcoming body of work, including The Phoenix Code Method, I focus on helping high-capacity individuals step out of survival patterns and into conscious authorship of their lives and decisions. At the core of everything I do are three principles: agency, autonomy, and audacity, the ability to choose your response, trust your inner authority, and move forward boldly without waiting for permission or perfect conditions.
What makes my work different is that it’s not theoretical. It’s built from real-world leadership, loss, collapse, and reinvention. I speak to people who look successful on the outside but feel disconnected, exhausted, or stuck on the inside, and I give them language, tools, and perspective to realign without burning their lives down to do it.
Right now, I’m focused on expanding my speaking, writing, and media presence while preparing for the release of my book and live offerings centered on embodied leadership, resilience through choice, and unapologetic self-ownership. Everything I create is designed to remind people that they don’t need to become someone else to move forward, they need to own who they already are, in this moment.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Looking back, three qualities made the biggest difference in my journey: agency, autonomy, and audacity.
Agency was learning to take full ownership of my choices, especially when things went wrong. Early on, I wasted energy blaming circumstances, systems, or other people. Everything changed when I accepted that while I couldn’t control every outcome, I could control my response, my standards, and my next move. My advice: stop waiting for permission. Decide where you want to go and act like it’s your responsibility to get there, because it is.
Autonomy came from building the ability to think independently. That meant questioning advice, pressure, and “best practices” that didn’t align with my values or lived reality. I learned to trust my judgment, even when it was unpopular. For people early in their journey: learn the rules, but don’t outsource your intuition. Skill-building matters, but self-trust is what allows you to apply skills in a way that actually works.
Audacity was the willingness to take bold action before I felt ready. Many of my biggest breakthroughs happened when I chose courage over comfort, speaking up, pivoting, leaving situations that no longer fit, or betting on myself when the outcome wasn’t guaranteed. My advice is simple: you don’t need more confidence, you need more reps. Action builds confidence, not the other way around.
Owning every moment, good or bad, ultimately became the foundation for everything I built. That mindset compounds faster than any single skill.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
My biggest area of growth over the past 12 months has been learning how to fully own my decisions without outsourcing responsibility or certainty to anyone else.
I’ve always been capable and driven, but this year required me to operate with a higher level of agency, making clear choices, standing behind them, and course-correcting quickly when needed instead of hesitating or over-explaining. That shift strengthened my autonomy and sharpened my judgment.
What I’ve learned is that confidence doesn’t come from having perfect information, it comes from trusting yourself enough to act, evaluate, and adjust. That mindset has fundamentally changed how I lead, build, and move forward.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.christenruiz.com
- Instagram: @ChristenRuizSpeaks
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christen-ruiz-0540a1280?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Image Credits
Mila Wilson Photography
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