Elevate Daily

Alexia Usgaard
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Biweekly

Elevate Daily is the podcast where we explore the art of living and loving with intention, purpose, and radiant joy. Hosted by Alexia Usgaard, this show is your permission slip to unapologetically savor the beauty and richness of life. In each bi-weekly episode, we dive into modern rituals, self-leadership, and the transformative insights of the Gene Keys—designed to help you elevate your health, wealth, love, and leadership. Through a mix of solo episodes and interviews with thought leaders and visionaries, Elevate Daily offers personal insights, actionable practices, and inspiring conversations to reset your energy, ritualize your life, and recalibrate to your highest potential. Subscribe and join us on this journey of elevation, one intentional day at a time. https://www.instagram.com/alexia_usgaard https://www.alexiausgaard.com/

  1. 4h ago

    56. The Case for Play: Why Prioritizing Delight is One of Your Greatest Leadership Strategies

    What if burnout has less to do with doing too much, and more to do with doing too little of what actually brings you joy? This is one of those episodes that shifts something in you. I am making the case for play, not as something frivolous or unproductive, but as one of the most powerful strategies available to you as a leader, a creator, and a human being. When we stop experiencing the life we are building, everything starts to feel heavier than it needs to...that is where play becomes the antidote. In This Episode We Explore: Why burnout is often a joy deficit, not just an overload of work and what that reframe opens up.What play actually is, including the definition from the founder of the National Institute of Play and why it matters more than most of us realize.How to reconnect with what play means for you specifically, including a beautiful invitation to look back at your ten year old self.A simple weekly play date ritual to experiment with for just one month and why 20 to 30 minutes can genuinely change things.Why resistance always shows up when we start prioritizing play and how to move through it without abandoning the practice. Connect with Alexia: Visit Alexia's website - alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram - @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE - 90-Minute Gene Keys ExperienceListen to the full episode - The Play Ritual: Why the Most Successful Women Are The Most Deprived of Play Loved this episode? Share it with someone who has been waiting for permission to play again. I would love to know what landed most for you. Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with the one way you are committing to bringing more play into your week. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

  2. Aug 20

    55. Forget the Algorithm, Feed Your Ancestors: On Slowing Down, Ancestral Awakening, and the Magic of Living with Intention with Caro Gómez

    What if the most radical thing you could do for your business, your creativity, and your life had nothing to do with optimizing, scaling, or staying relevant online? This is one of those conversations that stayed with me long after we stopped recording. Caro Gómez has built her entire body of work around one powerful, unapologetic philosophy: f*ck the algorithm, feed your ancestors. She approaches business, creativity, and life through the lens of ancestral wisdom, sacred defiance, and the radical belief that joy is resistance. And it is some of the most alive, most meaningful work I have ever encountered. In This Episode We Explore: What "f*ck the algorithm, feed your ancestors" actually means and the radical acceptance it asks of us.How ancestral connection lives in the simplest everyday moments and why you are probably already doing it without realizing.The power of food, memory, and daily ritual as a portal to your lineage and why honoring that changes everything.Why this way of working is a calling, not a strategy and the kind of magnetism it creates that no algorithm can manufacture.A simple ritual to carry with you after you listen. Meet Caro Gómez: Caro Gómez is a shapeshifting award-winning artist, ancestral mentor, and shaman's apprentice of the Maya Q'eqchi' lineage. She weaves together textiles, cacao, storytelling, and spiritual business to help creatives reclaim their ancestry, adorn their bodies as altars, and live with sacred defiance. Her work is a reclamation of joy as resistance, roots as intelligence, and ritual as a return to legacy. Her leadership is cyclical, creative, and deeply intentional, rooted in the belief that the future belongs to those who remember. Connect with Caro: Follow Caro on Instagram - @carogomez_joywitchVisit Caro's website - https://www.themayanschoolofembodiment.com/ Connect with Alexia: Visit Alexia's website - alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram - @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE - 90-Minute Gene Keys ExperienceListen to the full episode - Episode 28: Feed Your Ancestors, Not The Algorithm with Caro Gómez Loved this episode? Share it with someone who is ready to slow down, go deeper, and build something that truly feeds their soul and their lineage. I would love to know what landed most for you. Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with the ancestor you are thinking of today or the everyday ritual you are ready to honor with more intention. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

    55. Forget the Algorithm, Feed Your Ancestors: On Slowing Down, Ancestral Awakening, and the Magic of Living with Intention with Caro Gómez

  3. Aug 13

    54. The Ritual Tracker That Changed How I Live

    What if you had a single tool that gave you a clear, honest dashboard into how you are actually living your life? This is one of those episodes I keep coming back to...practical, grounding, and one that has genuinely changed the way I structure my weeks. I am walking you through my rituals tracker, a one-page dashboard that has become one of the most powerful tools in how I show up week after week as my most intentional, most elevated self. At its heart, this tracker is a get-to-do list. A weekly ritual that gives you visibility, focus, and the freedom that only comes when you are truly honest about who you want to be and what you are committed to creating. In This Episode We Explore: Why a rituals tracker is completely different from a to-do list and why that distinction changes everything.The five core sections of the dashboard and how to use each one to design a week that truly reflects who you want to be.Why commitments are more powerful than goals and how anchoring to them creates more trust, more freedom, and more flow.The invitation to try this for just one month and notice what shifts when you finally have visibility into where your energy is actually going. Connect with Alexia: Visit Alexia's website - alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram - @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE - 90-Minute Gene Keys ExperienceDownload the free Rituals TrackerListen to the full episode - The Weekly Ritual Tracker: Your One-Page Dashboard for Living as Your Highest Self Loved this episode? Share it with someone who is ready to stop drowning in their to-do list and start designing their weeks with real intention. I would love to know how this lands for you. Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with the one commitment you are ready to honor this week. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

  4. Aug 6

    53. Wealth is a Frequency: Your Peace Number, Work Optional Living, and the Art of Dreaming Big with Kaitlyn Carlson

    What if the most powerful thing you could do for your financial future had nothing to do with a spreadsheet? This is one of the most powerful conversations in the Elevate Daily archive, and it felt like exactly the right time to bring it back. In this episode, I sit down with Kaitlyn Carlson, Founder and CEO of Theory Planning Partners, a boutique wealth creation firm for the top female entrepreneurs in the United States. She is a Certified Financial Planner, a Certified Exit Planning Advisor, and an Accredited Wealth Management Advisor. But beyond all of that, she is a spiritual seeker, a devoted mother, and someone I deeply respect for the way she leads with integrity, tenderness, and truth. She will talk about nervous system regulation and net worth in the same breath, and she does it in a way that makes the whole conversation feel like a permission slip. In This Episode We Explore: Why wealth is so much more than money and why it always starts from the inside out.How to calculate your peace number and why most of us don't have clarity on it yet.What it really means to live a work optional life and how to start building toward it from wherever you are right now.How to hold the vision without being attached to the how and why Kaitlyn's athletic background shaped her entire financial philosophy.Why numbers are neutral, clarity is free, and the sooner you stop being afraid of your finances, the more power you reclaim. Meet Kaitlyn Carlson: Before founding Theory Planning Partners, Kaitlyn’s career began in asset management with Putnam Investments. She then spent the majority of her career at UBS Financial Services, holding roles across both the southern and northeastern regions of the U.S. There she developed more than 300 financial plans for clients with assets ranging from $500,000 to $1 billion, before becoming an advisor on a private wealth management team overseeing more than $600 million for a select number of families. She holds her CFP, CEPA, and AWMA designations, and brings to all of it a deeply spiritual approach to what it truly means to create wealth. Outside of work, she teaches yoga, travels, and is ravenous to understand why we are here and how to make a meaningful life. Connect with Kaitlyn: Visit Kaitlyn's website - theoryplanning.comFollow Kaitlyn on Instagram - @kaitlyn.carlson_ Connect with Alexia: Visit Alexia's website - alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram - @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE - 90-Minute Gene Keys ExperienceListen to the full episode - How To Create Aligned Wealth (Without Shame, Hustle, or Scarcity) With Kaitlyn Carlson Loved this episode? Share it with the woman in your life who is ready to stop being afraid of her finances and start building real wealth on her own terms. I would love to know what landed most for you. Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with your biggest takeaway and the shift you are ready to make in how you relate to your wealth. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

    53. Wealth is a Frequency: Your Peace Number, Work Optional Living, and the Art of Dreaming Big with Kaitlyn Carlson

  5. Jul 30

    52. Rituals, Partnership, and the Art of Choosing Each Other Daily with My Husband Zunaid

    Something my husband and I have spoken about a lot over the years is that what truly cultivates a partnership is intention. A commitment, day in and day out, to each other, to ourselves, and to showing up as our most elevated versions…for one another and for the future we are building together. I invited my husband Zunaid onto the podcast for a raw, real conversation about what that actually looks like in our daily life. We were cozied up on the couch and pulled back the curtain on the specific rituals that keep us grounded, connected, and operating as a true team…even on the hard days. In This Episode We Explore: Why intention is the foundation of a truly elevated partnership. So much of what holds a relationship together isn't the grand gestures...it's the small, daily acts of showing up with presence and care.How to build a ritual framework around your natural strengths as a couple. Z is a morning person. I am a night owl. Rather than fighting that, we sat down and honored it, structuring our rituals accordingly.The evening ritual that creates the conditions for true rest and connection. Every part of it is done with presence and joy.Why staying committed on the hard days is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself and your relationship.The invitation to start with just one ritual. Not a full tracker. Not an overhaul. Just one conversation with your partner this week where you listen deeply, reflect on each other's strengths, and commit to one shared ritual together. Connect with Alexia: Visit Alexia's website - alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram - @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE - 90-Minute Gene Keys ExperienceListen to the full episode - Episode 7: Finding My Hell Yes Partner: Our Journey of Intentional Love & Rituals Loved this episode? Share it with someone who is ready to bring more intention into their relationship and their everyday life. I would love to know what ritual you are committing to after listening, whether it is something you are doing solo or something you are building with your partner. Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with your biggest takeaway. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

  6. Jul 23

    51. Rituals Over Habits: How to Bring Joy Back to the Things That Matter Most

    If you've ever found yourself moving through your days on autopilot, checking things off a list that genuinely matter to you, yet somehow feeling disconnected from the joy of it all, this episode is for you. It's one of those conversations I keep returning to, because the shift it invites is profound. The difference between a habit and a ritual isn't about what you do. It's about how you show up to do it. Habits automate. Rituals intentionalize. When you begin to ritualize the areas of your life that matter most, something opens up. Your days start to feel less like a series of things to get through and more like a life you are genuinely experiencing. In This Episode We Explore: Why high-performing leaders are especially susceptible to the habit trap. The culture of optimization...wearing the same thing every day, eating the same meals, systematizing everything. This can strip the aliveness out of the very things you care most about.A simple three-step process for turning any area of your life into a ritual.Real examples of what ritualization looks like in practice. From the way I prepare before recording this podcast, to how my husband and I wind down for sleep, to the practice of sending a payment with genuine gratitude.The invitation to identify the one ritual that would create a ripple effect everywhere else. Not ten rituals. One. The one area that, if you found joy in it, would lighten everything around it. That is where to begin. Connect with Alexia: Visit Alexia's website - alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram - @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE - 90-Minute Gene Keys ExperienceMore Elevate Daily - Episode 42: From Heavy To Holy: Turning What Matters Into Ritual. Loved this episode? Share it with someone who is ready to stop just getting through their days and start truly living them. I'd love to know what ritual you are committing to after listening. Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with the one area you are choosing to ritualize and why it matters to you. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

  7. Jul 9

    50. Arianna Huffington Decoded: Success, Recalibration, and the Courage to Evolve

    There are certain women whose evolution gives the rest of us permission to unapologetically elevate as we're uniquely meant to. Arianna Huffington has been one of them for me. I saw her speak live in San Francisco years ago, back when I was deep in my Silicon Valley days. The room was full of founders and investors, charged with the usual questions of scale, speed, and what's next. She walked on stage and spoke about sleep, the body and about what we were doing to ourselves in the name of building something meaningful. I remember sitting there feeling something soften in my gut, a tightness of stress that I hadn't realized was clenching. It was the first time I had heard a female leader I deeply respected name rest as leadership. I have never forgotten that. When I sat down to decode her specific Gene Keys, I smiled…I understood the power of her leadership on another level. What moves me most about her arc isn't the scale of it. It's her commitment to staying true to herself. The early rise, the pivotal moment of recalibration, the global movement she now leads around wellbeing. When you look at her life through the lens of her Gene Keys, none of it reads as a contradiction. It reads as a woman who trusted that her next chapter wasn't smaller than the last one…just a deep trust in the wisdom she learned and who she was becoming. In this episode, we explore: Her Mission Code Gene Key 62, moving from Intellect to Precision to Impeccability. How she took deep research and made it embodied...accessible enough to become a movement. Her Money Code Gene Key 37, moving from Weakness to Equality to Tenderness. Why her wealth and reach expanded the moment she widened the circle instead of narrowing it. Her Meaning Code Gene Key 32, moving from Failure to Preservation to Veneration. How she honored everything she'd built while receiving the insights about her next chapter. Her Magnetism Code Gene Key 25, moving from Constriction to Acceptance to Universal Love. Why her influence deepened the more she let herself evolve, publicly, in real time. For each of the Four M's, I explore the shadow, the gift, and the siddhi, illuminating that her four codes tells the same story in a different way...that the truest version of your leadership lives just on the other side of what you've been afraid to let go of. You may share one of her Gene Keys. Someone in your life certainly does. Let this episode be an entry point into your own chart and a reminder that your own evolution is allowed to feel as delicious as it is true. Explore The Celebrity Gene Keys further: Decoding Oprah Winfrey Decoding Beyoncé Decoding Dr. Brené Brown Decoding Taylor Swift New to the Gene Keys or curious how I work with them? → Episode 14 - The Gene Keys: Your Personal Blueprint For World-Class Success Without Over-Effort Connect with Alexia: Visit Alexia's website → alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram → @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE → 90-Minute Gene Keys Experience Loved this episode? Share it with the woman whose success is asking for refinement...the one who is ready to stop leading from her shadows and step fully into her gifts. I'd love to know what landed most for you. Which of Arianna's four codes resonated with you most deeply? Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with your biggest takeaway, the permission you're choosing to hold close, or the part of yourself that is ready to evolve. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

  8. Jun 25

    49. How to Build Magnetic Visibility Without Being Everywhere with Brielle Cotterman

    A woman who knows she’s not meant to be seen by everyone. She’s here to be known by the right ones. There is a version of visibility I wish someone had shared with me earlier. Not the kind that measures your worth in posting frequency or asks you to scatter your presence across fourteen platforms just to stay relevant. This week's conversation with Brielle Cotterman is an invitation to show up with depth, self-assurance, and the unshakable certainty that presence, not volume, is what creates the rooms worth being in. What I love most about Brielle's approach is that it honors the woman you've already become. It doesn't ask you to start over or hustle harder. It asks you to discern. To know what you stand for, to choose the rooms that genuinely move your mission forward, and to build a network of people who speak your name when you're not in the room. In This Episode We Explore: The four pillars of an Influential Leader: credibility, visibility, communication, and network, and why every thought leader you admire has all four dialed in. These aren't separate strategies but an interconnected system.Why both traditional and non-traditional credibility markers matter and why the non-traditional ones are often what make you the one people remember. Traditional credibility comes from education and career achievements. Your life experience is a credibility marker too, and it's often the one that creates the deepest human connection.The myth of being everywhere, and what twelve intentional visibility moments a year can do instead. Showing up consistently on the right indexed platforms, podcasts, and stages, even just a dozen times a year, will have people feeling like you are everywhere.The kind of network that has people speaking your name in spaces of opportunity even when you're not in the room. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. When you show up in service with genuine care for the people around you with real presence, referrals, introductions, and opportunities follow.The ritual Brielle offers for anyone who is ready to start sharing their story. First, tell your story to someone who can help you. Then, begin writing it in third person. Placing yourself one arm's length away from the emotion allows you to see yourself clearly, with compassion and pride for everything you have overcome. Light a candle. Open a journal. Write for five minutes. Start there. Meet Brielle Cotterman Brielle Cotterman is an Inc. 5000 speaker, TEDx speaker, Publicity Expert, and Founder and CEO of the Influential Leader Agency. She has spent nearly fifteen years helping clients craft and scale dream careers to multiple 7 figures and beyond by using her trademarked methods to build world renowned personal brands and leverage their stories to create speaking tours, author award-winning books, procure media placements and inspire millions. A World's Champion Equestrian and mother of three, Brielle owns and operates a horse farm where she lives with her husband, three children, 12 horses, mini cow, 3 cats and two dogs. Brielle is also a survivor of attempted murder and domestic violence, and a devoted advocate for a world where intimate partner abuse is not tolerated and survivors are met with empathy. She doesn't speak about her story as something we extract for visibility. She speaks of it as something we take ownership of when the timing, the healing, and the truth within us are finally ready. Brielle's Gene Keys Illuminated In This Episode Gene Key 20 - Superficiality → Self-Assurance → PresenceGene Key 13 - Discord → Discernment → Empathy Connect with Brielle Follow Brielle on Instagram → @briellecotterman (DM the word "podcast" for a free personal brand resource)Learn more about the Influential Leader Agency → influentialleaderagency.comThe Power of Storytelling & Publicity → Join hereTEDx Talk → The Stories We Don’t Tell Connect with Alexia Visit Alexia's website → alexiausgaard.comFollow Alexia on Instagram → @Alexia_usgaardExplore ILLUMINATE → 90-Minute Gene Keys Experience Loved this episode? Share it with the woman who is ready to expand her visibility and own her presence without having to be everywhere. I'd love to know which of the four pillars you're feeling most called to right now. Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram with your biggest takeaway; the shift in how you see your story, the room you're ready to walk into, or the way you're ready to show up as a category of one. Let's elevate together, one intentional day at a time. With love & devotion, Alexia

    49. How to Build Magnetic Visibility Without Being Everywhere with Brielle Cotterman
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About

Elevate Daily is the podcast where we explore the art of living and loving with intention, purpose, and radiant joy. Hosted by Alexia Usgaard, this show is your permission slip to unapologetically savor the beauty and richness of life. In each bi-weekly episode, we dive into modern rituals, self-leadership, and the transformative insights of the Gene Keys—designed to help you elevate your health, wealth, love, and leadership. Through a mix of solo episodes and interviews with thought leaders and visionaries, Elevate Daily offers personal insights, actionable practices, and inspiring conversations to reset your energy, ritualize your life, and recalibrate to your highest potential. Subscribe and join us on this journey of elevation, one intentional day at a time. https://www.instagram.com/alexia_usgaard https://www.alexiausgaard.com/

Information

  • Creator
    Alexia Usgaard
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    57
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Alexia Usgaard
  • Show Website
    Elevate Daily

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