“Recovery is not a break from progress, it’s what makes progress possible.” This is the biggest lesson I learned from Lorena Wade, a board-certified health and wellness coach and founder of Stewarded Path. I think she framed it perfectly for today’s go-go-go culture, where taking a breather is often seen as a no-no. By positioning recovery as an integral step in the process of moving forward, she strips away the guilt associated with resting and veers away from the idea that recovery gets in the way or slows you down.
Recovery as a Productivity Tool
By recovery, she’s not simply talking about setting aside time to Netflix and chill. “It’s knowing what resting correctly looks like for you, it’s about noticing what restores you,” she describes.
To get a better handle on this, she rattled off some questions for me to ponder: “After doing an activity, do you feel more clear or foggy? Steady or depleted? Closer to yourself or more disconnected? What’s an activity that gives you something back instead of taxing and distracting you? What’s an activity that makes you calmer and more like yourself? What does your body need right now?”
Then she set me out on a recovery discovery to collect “data points,” as she calls it. “You know yourself best. You are the subject matter expert in all things you,” she often reminded me during this process of rethinking my lifestyle.
Energy-Based Planning
After hearing that developing a daily routine was never effective for me, she suggested energy-based planning instead. Rather than a rigid schedule dictated by the clock, she had me use my bandwidth as a basis. So I had to categorize my regular activities according to the level of energy they demand from me. “A lot of tasks seem simple but can be pretty draining for you. And even though they are things that you really enjoy, it doesn’t mean that they’re low energy costs to you,” she clarifies. Then we clustered them and assigned them to days. I have a creation day, a going out day, and so on.
From there, we tried to figure out what cycle is best suited for me, whether it’s two high-energy days and one recovery day, the other way around, or something else. “You must give yourself grace through this process,” she told me on instances when I would get back to her and exasperatedly report that I overestimated my energy, overexerted myself, and ended up grinding my productivity to a halt. It’s an ongoing experiment, lots of trial and error. The ultimate goal is to build a realistic and sustainable schedule. “You have to protect the type of energy each day needs, and your recovery days have to be kept free. It’s important that you look at recovery as planned, not earned,” she emphasizes.
I’m guessing this approach is the key to how she balances her gazillion responsibilities.
Lorena Wade is a faith-driven board-certified life coach, speaker, serial entrepreneur, and global advisory healthcare consultant.
Stewarded Path
Through Stewarded Path, a leadership and professional development coaching practice, she helps women navigate seasons of growth, transition, and becoming with clarity, conviction, courage, and confidence. “My work is guided by a belief in stewardship over striving, depth over noise, and clarity over urgency. I believe meaningful transformation does not come from pressure, performance, or hustle, but from honest reflection, deeper self-trust, and intentional, values-aligned action. At the core of Stewarded Path is a commitment to integrity, discernment, whole-person wellbeing, and growth that is thoughtful, grounded, and sustainable,” she explains.
Lorena’s been through quite a journey herself. From the time she was a little girl, she knew she wanted to work in healthcare. Her dream was to become a pediatrician and dedicate her life to helping others. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Sports Medicine with every intention of going to med school. But her anatomy classes and inpatient clinical experiences made her quickly realize that she didn’t have the stomach for clinical medicine. Working with cadavers left her so unsettled that, for a time, yogurt was the only thing she could eat. She grieved the loss of the future she had envisioned but stayed determined to still serve in healthcare. Plan B was a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree, but along the way, mentors noticed her strengths in understanding systems, leading teams, and improving organizations. They encouraged her to get an MBA instead, a suggestion she decided to embrace. Long story short, she went on to have a 15-year career in healthcare leadership that included a stint as the Vice President of Operations for a national behavioral health organization. She has led multi-state, multi-site outpatient divisions, overseen a workforce of more than 400, managed a $75 million P&L, and supported care delivery for close to 90,000 patients.
“Sometimes God will place people in our pathway to give us those gentle whispers and guide us on His behalf. And sometimes there are people in our path who shake us because we’re not being obedient. And sometimes we get chucked in the direction where we need to be headed,” she reflects.
From Corporate Leadership to Entrepreneurship
A few years ago, the opportunity for entrepreneurship arrived, though not under the circumstances she had envisioned: she was laid off from her corporate job. “It was a season of deep stretching, of responsibility, uncertainty, grief, and surrender. What felt like loss was also making room for calling. What felt like disruption was also revealing direction. I began to see that the very things that had stretched me were also refining me, deepening my compassion, strengthening my faith, and awakening me to the work I was truly meant to do.I believe with all my heart that I was called to this work,” she declares.
Aside from establishing Stewarded Path, she also founded a healthcare advisory firm, where she partners with healthcare organizations, federal contractors, private equity and investment firms, and global advisory networks. “My consulting work focuses on helping executives navigate complexity: solving operational challenges, strengthening leadership systems, and building structures that scale,” she outlines.
Lorena Wade speaking at the Prospanica National Para Ella Symposium at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School on “The Latina Advantage: Leveraging Education to Lead.”
Doctoral Studies
Alongside being an entrepreneur, she is also finishing her doctorate in business administration at Pepperdine University. I seriously cannot comprehend how she does it all! “I am a first-generation Mexican-American professional, a first-generation college graduate, and a first-generation doctoral student,” she reveals. And she is blazing a trail not only for her family but also for her community. “I know what it means to pursue growth without a roadmap, to walk into rooms where you are building a path as you go, and to carry both ambition and responsibility in the same season.” That is why she started La Doctora Collective, an initiative to support Latina women pursuing doctoral education and leadership.
At their California home, Lorena enjoys family life with her husband and their two toddlers. Both girls are globally developmentally delayed, and one is on the autism spectrum. Their children have shaped the direction of Lorena’s doctoral research which focuses on how leadership development and leadership practices impact clinician burnout, workforce sustainability, and access to care in outpatient behavioral healthcare settings serving neurodivergent children and their families, particularly during the early intervention window of childhood.
“I am also deeply fueled by access and equity. I have seen how systems can either support families or create even more barriers for them. At the heart of everything I do is a desire to help people and systems become healthier. And I want my life to reflect faithful stewardship of the experiences, gifts, and assignments God has placed in my hands,” she concludes.
Keep up with everything Lorena is working on by following her on LinkedIn @lorenawade-mba on LinkedIn.
