Resilience in Leadership: Hilary Momberger Powers on Healing Trauma, Finding Joy, and Leading From the Inside Out
Resilience in leadership does not start with a strategy. For Hilary Momberger Powers, it started at the bottom of everything, and the climb back up became the curriculum she now teaches.
In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natalie Davis sits down with Hilary Momberger Powers, coach, keynote speaker, trauma recovery advocate, and 40-year sobriety veteran, for one of the most honest conversations the show has ever aired. Hilary grew up as a child actress in Los Angeles, voiced cartoon characters, appeared in over 150 commercials, and performed inside a household defined by alcoholism, abuse, and a mother whose ego was never satisfied. By 21, she had hit every wall available. What happened next is the foundation of every coaching conversation she has had since.
Hilary has worked in the film industry for decades with over 300 movie credits as a continuity supervisor. She is now a full-time coach and speaker whose work sits at the intersection of trauma recovery, spiritual identity, and the specific kind of resilience that does not come from grit but from genuinely learning to lead yourself from the inside out.
This is not a conversation about tactics. It is a conversation about what happens when a human being finally stops performing wellness and starts living it.
In This Episode:
- Why the three trauma responses most people cycle through, people pleasing, isolation, and control, are not character flaws but survival strategies, and what it takes to stop needing them
- The difference between happiness and joy, why happiness is fleeting and joy is the permanent hard drive already inside every leader, and how to stop chasing the wrong one
- How Hilary's moment of forgiveness on a beach below Pacific Coast Highway cracked open a perception shift that changed every area of her life including her income
- Why leading from the outside in always ends in emptiness, and what it looks like to finally flip the direction from the inside out
- The body, mind, spirit framework Hilary uses with every coaching client and why skipping the spirit piece is the reason most personal development work does not hold
Hilary Momberger Powers does not deliver a polished redemption arc. She delivers the real one, with all the detours, the mess, and the moments that only make sense in hindsight. This episode is for any leader who has been performing fine for long enough that they have started to believe it.
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About Hilary:
Hilary Momberger Powers
Connect with Natalie Davis and Leadership That Shines:
Website: leadershipthatshines.com
Email: themagic@leadershipthatshines.com
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