The RISE Experience
It's not always about becoming someone different.
Sometimes it's about realizing you've been disconnected from yourself for longer than you thought.
The RISE Experience is a podcast for the woman who can handle a lot. She shows up, gets things done, keeps life moving… and still quietly wonders, Why don't I feel like myself anymore?
Shannon Denniston is the founder of RISE, with a deep background in behavior change and the human side of transformation. Through RISE, she explores what real transformation actually looks like — the patterns underneath what we do, the beliefs and roles we've carried, the relationships that shape us, the systems that support us, and the identity shifts that happen when our old ways of functioning stop carrying us.
A lot of what gets called "starting over" isn't starting over at all. It's learning to notice what's been running in the background, reconnect with your own voice, and move forward without erasing who you've become.
No reinvention. No pretending you need to become a whole new person. Just honest conversations about finding your way back to yourself, with faith as an anchor, and learning how to live from that place.
The RISE Experience
Whatever Works: The Rudder You Didn't Know You Had
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We've all been there: the group text where everyone's picking a restaurant, and instead of saying what you actually want, you type "whatever works." In this episode, Shannon unpacks why those tiny moments of staying quiet matter more than we think — and how they might be the real place where we slowly lose ourselves.
It's easy to reserve "using your voice" for the big, dramatic moments — the confrontation, the boundary, the hard conversation. But what if the group text is the real moment? What if "I want Thai food" is the practice that actually shapes who you are?
Drawing from James 3 and the image of a rudder — small, unremarkable, yet steering an entire ship — this episode is an invitation to stop waiting for something dramatic enough to matter and start letting the tiny moments count.
You'll Learn
- Why we reserve "using your voice" for big, dramatic moments, when most real moments look more like a restaurant nobody will remember by next week
- Why we build a whole plan or a new communication style around a small preference instead of just saying it
- How to tell the difference between genuinely not caring and defaulting to invisible because it's easier than being seen having a preference
- Why years of "whatever works" can quietly train the people around you — and yourself — to stop expecting an answer
- What James 3's image of the rudder says about how small, unremarkable choices steer the whole direction of a life
Episode Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Setup 00:58 The Group Text We've All Been In 02:05 Why the Small Moment Feels Too Tiny to Count 03:12 Building a System Instead of Just Saying It 04:20 What This Is Actually Asking of You 05:15 Indifferent or Defaulting to Invisible? 06:30 When People Stop Asking What You Want 07:20 The Rudder: Small but Steering the Whole Ship 08:15 What to Leave With Today 09:00 Prayer and Closing
Memorable Quotes
"Nobody's handing you a dramatic showdown on a Tuesday. They're handing you a group text."
"Building a whole system around 'I'd like Thai food' is kind of its own way of not doing the actual small thing."
"Enough years of 'whatever works,' and people stop asking. Not because they don't care — because you trained them not to expect an answer."
"It's just a small, unremarkable piece of wood doing its unremarkable job. But it's the thing actually deciding where the whole ship ends up."
"You're still in there, still worth asking, and letting it count is how you start proving that to yourself before you wait for anyone else to."
Resources Mentioned
James 3 — the tongue as the rudder
About the Podcast
The RISE Experience is a show for women whose old way of doing life has stopped working, and who are figuring out how to build one that actually holds. Here we talk about identity, faith, and the quiet inner wisdom that gets buried under all the doing.
Follow & Connect
If this one made you think of somebody, send it to her.
Your next step: https://msha.ke/risewithshannon
Read the blog: https://www.risewithshannon.blog/
Come hang out: FB: Shannon Bell Denniston / IG: @risewithshannon