Trust Your Ferocity
If you’ve ever gone silent while every cell in your body knew what needed to be said, this letter is for you.
Hello and welcome to the first edition of The Ferocity Letter, a softly fierce Sunday note for women who lead.
My mission is simple: to empower you to trust your intuition and communicate with presence, clarity and resonance.
Each week, I share field notes, practices, and words from fierce women.
This first edition asks three simple but radical questions: What do you feel fierce about? What is that ferocity protecting? What vision lives on the other side of it?
FIELD NOTES | The Moment the World Shifted
Until June 24, 2022, I never thought of myself as a promoter of ferocity. I’m an introvert—a listener, a harmonizer, a seeker of beauty. Conflict drains me.
That day, somewhere over the Midwest on a flight home to Seattle from New York, I learned the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade. Suspended in that plane, I hovered between two Americas—one I had grown up believing in, and one we had just entered. Something ancient stirred in me. A knowing. A quiet but urgent awareness that we were entering a new era, and women—courageous, conscious, wise, visionary, fierce women—would need to lead it.
Three years later, that feeling hasn’t faded. Ferocity is stirring—in me, in you, in women everywhere who are paying attention.
We tend to associate the word with aggression or rage, but ferocity can be something deeper and more purposeful: an energy in service of creation and life itself.
I often think of Kali, the Hindu goddess of time, destruction, creation, and power—a fierce, dark, transformative aspect of the divine feminine. In her spirit, I’ve redefined ferocity for our times. (Merriam Webster, if you’re listening …)
ferocity (fe·’rä·se·tē) noun
A deep, directed, transformative energy that is neither reckless nor hostile, but rooted in clarity and care.
The power to disrupt what harms, protect what matters, and shape what comes next.
The fierce love, conviction, and creative force women channel when they trust their intuitive wisdom.
How might we reclaim this energy together?
Purpose at the Top
Scrolling through the McKinsey app a few nights ago, I found an article titled The Inner Game of Women CEOs.
It confirmed what I see in my work every day: the new generation of women leaders is redefining power itself.
“In our conversations with women CEOs, we found that a strong sense of personal and organizational purpose is the main driver of their boldness—much more than ego. They define their organization’s vision clearly and understand how it meshes with their own values.”1
That’s ferocity. Purpose instead of ego. Clarity instead of posturing.
I work with women founders and executives, and I see how alignment between inner purpose and outer communication transforms everything—from team culture to public trust.
That alignment is also what we capture in a Vision Narrative. Inspired by the framework created by Justina Chen2 of Chen & Cragen, which she has generously shared and allowed me to adapt, here’s how I define it:
A Vision Narrative is the most powerful expression of your purpose, written and spoken in a way that moves people. It ties together your personal and professional journey, your beliefs, your strategy, and your vision for the future.
The Vision Narrative becomes the foundation for inspired communications and, ultimately, for organizational growth.
If you don’t have one yet, let’s fix that together.
Born for These Times
None of us asked for such polarized, exhausting times—but here we are. And if you believe, as I do, in the quiet order beneath the chaos, you also know we were born for these times.
So much of what is life-giving—democracy, art, science, education, human rights—is under assault. I’d love to write only about joy, but the truth is: these are the conditions that call forth both our ferocity and our light.
Used wisely—rooted in clarity and love—the ferocity of your voice becomes not destructive, but generative.
Can we please reclaim what it means to be fierce?
Let’s own it. Let’s wear tiger T-shirts3 under tailored blazers. Let’s make courage cool again.
Most of all, let’s get really practiced at giving voice to what matters most.
PRACTICES
This week, ask yourself:
What do you feel fierce or angry about?
What is that ferocity protecting?
What vision lives on the other side of it?
Grab a pen and a notebook. Set a timer for 10 minutes. Write it all down.
If you don’t have time to write, go for a walk and speak your anger and your vision into a voice note.
When you get back, listen to it.
Those words you wrote or spoke? That’s your power. Trust it.
WORDS FROM WOMEN
Three voices caught my attention this week—each fierce in her own way.
EMMA HINCHLIFFE, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Editor
Emma’s calm, precise presence on CNN International reminded me what courageous nuance sounds like. Discussing Japan’s first female prime minister Sanae Takaichi, she said:
“It raises interesting questions about what it means for women if the women who are rising to power are not necessarily supporting policies that those who support women’s rights believe would advance all women. … But the only way to reach parity is for women to rise to power in every political party.”4
BRENÉ BROWN, research professor and author
At the Fortune Most Powerful Women conference, Brené spoke to the strain leaders feel right now—and the particular steadiness women bring:
“If you’re leading people, you probably know people are not okay. I mean, folks are still going into Costco with, you know, an automatic weapon, because they’re out of Cheese Whiz. People are emotionally dysregulated, distrustful and disconnected. So you’re leading a workforce that is increasingly struggling. You’ve got really massive instability, geopolitically, changing markets and AI and tech. … We need productive urgency. What we’re seeing is reactive, action over impact. The ability to take a deep breath and settle the ball? The women in my life have taught me how to do that.”5
NAOMI BEINART, high-school student and author of “The Chill Girl” (op-ed, The Guardian)
Naomi’s piece stopped me cold. It describes teenage girls choosing silence over confrontation in the wake of rising misogyny:
“A group of kids is talking … one of the boys makes an off-handed joke. Maybe it’s racist or sexist or homophobic. … The girls face a choice: speak up and be labeled annoying, or let it pass and be regarded as chill. … Since November 2024, the latter reaction has become far more common.”6
Her clarity is chilling—and catalytic.
These three remind us that ferocity shows up everywhere: in nuance, steadiness, and truth-telling at any age.
It matters that we use our voices, now.
When women trust their ferocity, they remake the world.
Thank you for reading The Ferocity Letter.
I look forward to writing these words each week to encourage and empower you—and because I need them, too.
How did the first practice go? I’d love to hear.
If this letter speaks to you, forward it to another woman who leads. That’s how quiet revolution grows.
We are all in this together.
Until next Sunday, trust your ferocity.
— Laura
Laura Lowery is a strategist, writer, and founder of Light Advisors. She partners with purpose-driven leaders at threshold moments to give voice to your vision, elevate your presence, and empower you to communicate with clarity and resonance. Learn more: lightadvisors.co
The Inner Game of Women CEOs, McKinsey, May 21, 2025.
Justina Chen, Unbound
Emma Hinchliffe on CNN International’s What We Know with Max Foster, October 22, 2025.
Courage in a Fractured World: Conversation with Brene Brown at Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, Video, October 16, 2025.
Naomi Beinart, As Boys Shift to the Right, We are Seeing the Rise of the ‘New Chill Girl’, The Guardian, September 18, 2025.
Have you read Brene Brown's new book yet? I'm in the middle of it!