Three Keys to Identity, Success in Business and Life

Guest: Joanna Harabedian, Faith-Based Relationship Strategist, Amazon #1 Bestselling Author and Miss America 2019-2021 Host: Julie Riga

Overview

What if the greatest challenge you face as a leader is not a business problem but an identity problem?

In this episode of the Stay On Course Podcast, Julie Riga sits down with Joanna Harabedian, Miss America 2019-2021 and Amazon #1 bestselling author of From Solo to Soulmate. Together they unpack three transformational keys to identity that shape success in business and in life. From learning to receive gracefully to rewriting your deepest inner story, Joanna brings spiritual depth, emotional intelligence, and practical wisdom to every woman ready to break free from cycles that no longer serve her.

Three Keys to Identity, Success in Business and Life

About the Guest

Joanna Harabedian is a faith-based relationship strategist, Amazon #1 bestselling author, and Miss America 2019-2021, a title she held for three years due to the COVID pandemic. She helps high-achieving women break unhealthy relationship patterns and build emotionally healthy, God-aligned partnerships.

Her Princess Crowning Program has reached hospitals and stages. A defining moment came at a quadriplegic facility in California, where a young woman named Karina, non-responsive for five weeks and silent for five years, began to speak after being crowned. That moment became the foundation of Joanna's mission.

Fun Fact: Joanna's favorite food is homemade ravioli with pesto sauce, inspired by her grandfather from Peru.

The Three Keys to Identity

1. The Ability to Receive High-achieving women are often celebrated givers who never learned to receive. Joanna shares a vivid dream in which a bouquet given in love is slapped back in rejection, and a voice tells her: this is how you make people feel when you decline their compliment. In business, refusing a genuine compliment builds invisible walls and signals distrust. In marriage, it slowly dismantles connection. The practice is simple but powerful: say thank you and receive it fully.

2. Self-Awareness Patterns rooted in childhood do not disappear; they evolve and bleed into every area of life. Joanna references a study where women with fake scars removed before a job interview still reported being treated unfairly because their inner story shaped what they believed others saw. Self-awareness is the key that uncovers the root of those stories. Without it, cycles of unworthiness continue across relationships, career, and leadership. With it, transformation becomes possible.

3. Emotional Intelligence and Alignment Joanna calls it wisdom alignment: the convergence of self-knowledge and purposeful living. She shares her journey through a painful first marriage, asking God to show her how she arrived there, and doing the courageous growth work that led to a thriving decade-long partnership. She teaches that we break twice in life, and that the second break, when met with honesty and faith, becomes the breakthrough that reveals our true purpose.

Memorable Quotes

"The story you tell yourself about yourself is the most important story you will ever tell."

"Little keys unlock big doors, and big doors swing on small hinges."

"I help women contrast and complete, not compare and compete."

"Diamonds are forged in the fires of the earth. That is how the facets are created."

Connect with Joanna

• Website: www.loveunblocked.com
• Instagram: @thesoulmate_strategist
• Book: From Solo to Soulmate on Amazon

Connect with Julie Riga

• Podcast: Stay On Course Podcast
• Website: julieriga.com/lead

Subscribe to Stay On Course wherever you listen to podcasts. Share this episode with a woman ready to step into her identity and lead with purpose.

#StayOnCourse #IdentityAndLeadership #LoveUnblocked #PurposeDrivenLeadership #AuthenticGrowth