Drawing on her personal experiences—including a serious medical diagnosis and a home invasion—Rachael Schmidt shows us how breath, awareness, and intuition can restore calm in crisis. She introduces her “theory of volatility,” a framework explaining how energy management determines whether life feels chaotic or calm. She teaches readers to transform life’s jolts into growth. Schmidt argues these practices are urgently needed in a modern “connection crisis,” where people rely too heavily on external validation. Ultimately, she calls for reclaiming one’s inner compass, proposing that personal alignment can spark a broader cultural shift toward authenticity, connection and collective well-being. She is a mindfulness-based self-development coach, mentor and educator who has worked with Fortune 500 leaders and is the founder of the consultancy Common Sixth.