People don’t leave your conversations unchanged.
A note from Michell:
You might notice something a little different about your inbox this summer…
I am giving some of our incredible WEW Chapter Leaders and members the floor. This community has always been bigger than any one voice – mine included – and this summer felt like the perfect time to let that show. You are going to hear from some of the women who make this community what it is, in their own words. Don’t worry though. You can still keep up with where my head and heart are because I will be popping in here and there all summer long.
Today’s voice belongs to Amy Rannebarger, leader of our St. Charles, Missouri chapter. She is sharp, she is real, and she has something to say that I think you needed to land in your inbox today. I will get out of the way now.
Take it away, Amy!
You ever leave a conversation and feel like your entire nervous system just got mugged in the parking lot?
Same. More times than I care to admit.
All day, every day, we exchange a type of emotional currency with each other whether we realize it or not.
A moment of genuine encouragement can interrupt weeks of self-doubt.
And yet, five minutes with someone who sucks the soul out of the room can feel like an eternity while exhaustion fills the space they leave behind.
Some interactions are light, some are heavy.
Some nourish you. And some drain the life out of you.
The best ones leave you feeling more human afterward.
You know you’ve experienced one of those exchanges when you walk away feeling lighter than you did before it happened.
Like somebody quietly handed a small piece of you back to yourself.
The emotional currency we spend with each other doesn’t just exist in major life moments. It’s in the little moments we take for granted some days.
Calls, meetings, texts where you check in and catch up. Even the interactions with strangers at the grocery store or the gym.
Every one of them leaves something behind.
Sometimes it’s encouragement, relief, connection, or warmth.
Sometimes it’s tension, pressure, self-doubt, stress, exhaustion, or resentment.
And over time, those exchanges shape the emotional environments we live and work in.
All of this begs the question:
What kind of world are we helping create through the emotional currency we exchange with others?
Because people do not leave our interactions unaffected.
Which means the way we move through the world matters. And those who understand this don’t just transact with others.
They invest in them.
That feels incredibly important right now.
Today’s emotional economy feels exhausted, scared, overstimulated, undernourished, and a little feral.
So, protecting your emotional currency and being accountable to it matters.
I learned that lesson in an interesting way.
Years ago, I worked with a CEO who shared with me in performance feedback that my optimism was “cute” and that I needed to “do something about it,” as though it was something I needed to let go of to be a leader.
I disagreed. Still do.
Optimism requires vision. It’s the ability to see possibility before proof fully exists. The ability to identify potential while other people are still fixated on limitations.
The only time optimism is a liability is when it’s disconnected from discernment, accountability, reality, or action.
Otherwise, it’s one of the most powerful forms of emotional currency a person can carry.
Those who carry it well often leave others with more hope than they had before the exchange.
That interaction has stayed with me because it clarified something important:
The currency I exchange with other people is my responsibility.
Not everybody values or invests in those exchanges the same way I do.
Some invest in criticism because cynicism feels safer than hope.
That doesn’t mean I have to spend my currency the same way they spend theirs.
Eventually, you start recognizing the difference between relationships that nourish you and relationships that quietly train you to survive them.
The exchanges we create with other people still matter.
Warmth and encouragement matter.
Patience and kindness matter.
And in today’s world especially, optimism matters.
Those exchanges are what feed or deplete the soul.
This kind of Soul Economics thrives through nourishing reciprocity and the simple understanding that people do not leave our interactions unaffected.
Imagine if we were more intentional about those exchanges and more discerning about what we accept and tolerate from others.
The exchanges we create today become the emotional environment we live in tomorrow.
