Editors’ Note

Mory Fontanez is an Author, Intuitive Life & Leadership Coach, and Founder of Eight22 Group (eight22group.com) – a consultancy designed to help organizations elevate their consciousness. As a sought-after coach, Fontanez guides leaders and public personalities to reconnect with their deep inner wisdom as the most effective strategy to navigate change, challenges and growth. After a successful career as a crisis manager for Fortune 500 companies, a critical truth became clear to Fontanez – many leaders fail those who rely on them because they are disconnected from their intuition and, ultimately, their purpose. Fontanez’s unique methodology helps people quiet the noise of internal limiting beliefs so that they may fully hear their intuition and build a consistent connection to this powerful source of guidance. Her work is deeply focused on teaching people to honor their own intuition rather than conform, assimilate, and seek validation.

Will you discuss your career journey?

I started my career in digital marketing and PR in the entertainment industry but quickly found that I had a knack for problem-solving at an extreme level. When things became chaotic for clients, I’d find a sort of calm in the storm, quickly identifying the solution and the path toward it. It was from this place that I started a long and successful career in crisis and change management, working closely with Fortune 500s and public personalities to navigate PR nightmares and emerge with a renewed sense of purpose and newfound trust from stakeholders, customers, and fans. Knowing that much of my own success was thanks to my unwavering faith in my intuition, I decided to leave the corporate world and set out to teach leaders exactly how to find the knowing voice within themselves not only to avoid crisis, but to truly connect to and live their purpose. I believe that leading with purpose is the only path toward true success, if you define success like I do, which is both creating material success while feeling fulfilled in your life and being certain that you’ve made a positive impact on the world around you.

What was your vision for founding Eight22 Group and how do you define its mission?

After years of crisis management, I really felt that leaders find themselves in positions of public crisis or internal chaos in their organizations when they lose their own north star – which is access to and full trust in – their own inner wisdom. Eight22 is a transformation consultancy, built to elevate the consciousness of leaders and their organizations. At Eight22 Group, we specialize in partnering with small to midsize scale-up businesses navigating pivotal moments in their growth journey. We believe chaos is not a barrier – it’s a signal for growth. Misalignment, disengagement, and inefficiencies highlight where realignment and transformation are needed.

Will you highlight Eight22 Group’s offerings?

Eight22 creates organizational transformation by addressing the yin and yang of organizational dysfunction – behavioral and operational challenges. Diagnostic – To start, we offer a proprietary organizational diagnostic where we identify the roadblocks to growth in both behavior and operational areas. We immediately identify Three Quick Wins – helping the organization and its leaders establish momentum from day one. From there we offer: Intuitive Leadership Coaching – 1:1 coaching and advisory work with founders, CEOs, and other C-suite leaders with me directly – leaning on my decades of crisis management experience and my custom method to help leaders quiet the external noise and pressures and find the inner wisdom to know what to do next. This is then paired with team coaching or workshops to take the work being done by the leader and extend it to the organization – building teams that all speak the same language and are invested in collective growth. Team Coaching – Working with teams through facilitated workshops and sessions to collectively problem-solve real time issues and develop strategies for change, personal accountability, crisis inoculation, and co-creating a purpose-driven environment; Workshops – Develop and lead a bespoke curriculum for the full organization based on current challenges they face, aimed at teaching employees and leaders better communication skills, strategies for greater change resilience, and learning the art of disagreement and feedback as a catalyst for innovation and creativity; Integrated Operation Design and Consulting – Prepare organizations through streamlined systems and processes that allow them to meet the unexpected needs, remove barriers, and foster growth for people and the organization.

What interested you in writing your new book and what are the keys messages you wanted to convey in the book?

Years of helping leaders through crisis showed me just how easily even the most powerful people can be misguided when they don’t stop to listen in to their inner knowing. I wrote this book as a reminder to everyone, especially leaders, that no matter the pressures or external opinions, if we do not reconnect with our intuitive wisdom, we will never truly be leaders – we will be following someone else’s north star. The key messages in my book are:

• Limiting Beliefs Create White Noise – identifying the limiting belief systems that exist in you that keep you stuck in the same behavior patterns which cause suffering or a sense of stagnation and understanding that those beliefs create so much white noise that it becomes impossible to hear your intuitive wisdom.

• Fear is a Liar – when we listen to those limiting beliefs we operate in a world created by fear. Higher Self reminds us that fear is a liar and that when we reject the projections from this small and scared part of us, we are once again empowered to create any reality we choose.

• Your Higher Self Awaits – reconnecting readers to the very core of their essence – their Higher Self – a deeply wise, fully empowered and purposeful part of ourselves that holds each and every answer we seek.

• Purpose and Leadership – breaking down the purpose equation to shed light on each person’s individual purpose and provide a roadmap for how to live and lead with that purpose.

What do you feel are the keys to effective leadership and how do you approach your management style?

I have always been a leader who walks among my team and that is how I am as a teacher, coach, and guide today. I believe the most effective management is an authentic blend of honesty, vulnerability, empathy, and clarity. It can be hard to hold all four of those qualities at once, often mistaking empathy for example with not holding others accountable or reducing our expectations of our teams. I believe the opposite is necessary in good leadership – clearly communicating expectations, creating clear boundaries about what you will and won’t accept while embodying deep empathy for the humans who have chosen to give their skills to you/your organization is critical to gaining their respect and their trust. To strike this balance, a leader must not be afraid of showing up as a human being – demonstrating their own humanity through moments of honesty and vulnerability. I also believe that this requires leaders to let go of their egos and quit demanding hierarchy as a form of veneration, instead seeing hierarchy as a mechanism for productivity and nothing more.

What advice do you offer to young people beginning their careers?

Think about what you love to do and what you’re naturally good at – two parts of the purpose equation – and run unabashedly towards roles that allow you to do those things. Expect respect but also expect to show up and work hard, showing you have the passion and the proactive drive to help whatever organization you join achieve its goals. Don’t let anyone tell you who you are but also see feedback as little gifts – helping you to grow and expand even more fully into your greatest self. Speak up – when you have good ideas or don’t feel good about something you’re hearing – that is your intuition speaking and just because you don’t have tangible evidence or data backing up your hunch, it doesn’t mean it’s not extremely valuable. Never take it personally, because it really never is.