Jens Heitland is an entrepreneur, connector, innovation culture expert, business adviser and the CEO of . In 2019, he stepped out of his role as Global Head of Innovation for IKEA Centres with the goal to find ways to empower people to innovate in large organizations. Jens founded Heitland Innovation on the basis that it would not be the usual consulting company. His mission is to build approaches to engagement that inspire people to innovate while delivering business results. Having worked in large corporations for over fifteen years, Jens experienced a wide range of ways (positive–negative) that innovation is utilized in organizations. He found that the key factors contributing to his most positive experiences were how people were empowered during change initiatives and the innovation mindset within the organization. You might wonder, where did Jens get his start? Born and raised in Germany, he began his career at sixteen as an electrician. In Germany, students complete high school in 10th grade and begin to focus their education and vocational goals. Jens worked in construction and facilities management for many years. He evolved into higher levels of responsibility, expanding his skills, and was recruited to IKEA where he spent twelve years advancing from managing one store to overseeing innovation strategies and initiatives on a global level for the whole company.  Jens thrives on a good challenge that stretches his abilities and pushes him to develop new skills and gain additional knowledge. And over the years he has done this across Europe working in Sweden, Russia, Spain, and Germany. In this week’s learn more about Jens’ journey: At 21, Jens was obliged to serve his country, either in the military or take a social service assignment. He chose the latter and you will never be able to guess what he ended up doing but it became a significant turning point in his life. Jens hosts his own where he interviews inspiring people to connect the dots between innovation and entrepreneurship. I was his guest for He is the co-founder of several businesses such as Ai- Fortuna, , and the reverse mentorship platform .  Learn more and connect with Jens here:

Dr. Ruth Gotian is one of the most interesting women I have ever gotten to know. I could tell you about her extraordinary academic and professional accomplishments, and you might agree with me, but I am not even referring to that. What really strikes me is how she describes her grandmother and the profound impact their relationship has had on her life.  Even though they were two generations apart, Ruth shared that she and her grandmother were like sisters. Her grandmother was a pharmacist, having attended Columbia University's pharmacy school as one of 13 women in a class with 300 men. Ruth described her as “...this five foot tall with heels powerhouse. And she is the one who taught me how to stand up for what you believe in, while still looking like a lady.” Drawn to her values of achievement, family, and community, they talked every day. Ruth didn’t realize the extent to which her grandmother was a role model until she was in her 40s.   Today, Ruth is the Chief Learning Officer and Assistant Professor of Education in Anesthesiology and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine. In 2021, she was selected as one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, dubbed the Oscars of management thinking, and by August, was shortlisted as the top eight emerging management thinkers in the world.  In addition to publishing in academic journals, Ruth is a regular contributor to Forbes and Psychology Today where she writes about ‘optimizing success’. Her research is about the mindset and skillset of peak performers, including Nobel laureates, astronauts, and Olympic champions. Her book, just came out in January 2022. In this week’s learn more about Ruth’s journey: Ruth discovered through her research that all peak performers have four things in common, the first one being that they are intrinsically motivated; there's a fire from within why they do what they do, they're not doing it for external validation or promotion. She has been hailed by the journal Nature and Columbia University as an expert in mentorship and leadership development. Learn more and connect with Ruth here:

Ron Carucci has spent his whole career holding up mirrors to leaders and organizations to ask them to be more honest with themselves, with the story that they're telling about who they are and what they're doing. He is the author of nine books, including Rising to Power, and the recently released, To Be Honest, Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice, and Purpose.  This is Ron’s second visit to the Work from the Inside Out podcast. I am so compelled by his work with organizations and the depth of his investigation into the topic of honesty that I wanted to have him back. So while this conversation is not about our usual topic of career transitions, it makes the connection between honesty and its role in creating a healthy workplace. It is all intertwined as we know that many people make decisions to leave their jobs based on the conditions in their work environments.  Ron offers us a summary of fifteen years of data that contributed to a ten-year study beginning with his work on power leading to his focus on honesty. As a result, he defined honesty as “truth, justice, and purpose, saying the right thing, doing the right thing, and saying doing the right thing for the right reasons.” He adds, “honesty is not just not lying.”  looked at brain research, the neuroscience of how our brains are wired for behavior to find out that truth-telling of how we treat other people, fairness and justice. And our sense of well-being and purpose are all not committed in the same regions of our brain. In the data, the factors that loaded on saying the right thing, doing the right thing, and saying and doing the right thing for the right reason. In this week’s learn more about Ron’s journey: Ron is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent working with CEOs and executives pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders in industries. He is also a regular contributor to Forbes, and a two-time TEDx speaker. His works have been featured in Fortune CEO magazine, Inc, Business Insider, MSNBC, BusinessWeek, Inc, Fast Company, smart business, and thought leaders Learn more and connect with Ron here:

Yesterday I did something BIG. I launched my first book!  Ok, enough about me … let me tell you about the book.  It's titled Work from the Inside Out: Break Through Nine Common Obstacles and Design a Career That Fulfills You. The book highlights twenty-two real-life stories of career transitions, many of which are from my podcast guests. The stories profile people who made meaningful professional transitions under circumstances that others might perceive as obstacles to moving into a more satisfying career. Concerns such as age, financial responsibilities, investment of years in a career path, or dealing with a tragic loss are presented in the context of how they impact people’s engagement in their work. I address how fear is the foundation of immobilization and offer strategies to help build self-awareness, manage expectations, and change one’s mindset, in order to be ready for positive reinvention. At the end of the book, I provide a comprehensive resources section that can help the reader take the steps they need to identify a more satisfying career path. This week, I am excited to be the interviewee on my own podcast. My friend and colleague, Darcy Eikenberg, has graciously offered to interview me on the occasion of my book launch. In this week’s learn more about my journey as an author and what’s inside my book: Darcy and I discuss the meaning behind the book’s title, Work from the Inside Out She asked me who the ideal audience is for the book and we explored how the book is relevant to what is going on now regarding the Great Resignation We discuss how you can transform doubts and limiting beliefs in order to pursue ongoing fulfillment in your career.

The moment I met Judy Schoenberg and Linda Lautenberg, the co-founders of something clicked within me. It actually gave me goosebumps. I was inspired by the synchronicity of how they met, and the way they blended their strengths to create EvolveMe. The impact they are having on the careers and lives of mid-career women is tremendous.  EvolveMe is a multi-faceted program for mid-career women who are re-entering the workforce in the social impact sector. Linda and Judy developed EvolveMe’s proprietary DARE© Method of Career Reinvention to help cohorts of high achieving women attain clarity, gain confidence, and launch the best chapter of their professional lives. The organization’s values of collaboration, growth, change, optimism, and authenticity are threaded through all they do. Combining their distinct backgrounds has been part of the secret sauce behind the success of EvolveMe. Judy is a former national executive for the Girl Scouts of the USA and Linda is a Chartered Financial Analyst. Prior to her own professional reinvention, she led a highly successful career in real estate finance and securitization. Linda had stepped away from her career to raise her family and after several years wanted to focus on herself again. She knew that she needed structure to figure it out and found a program for women re-entering the workforce. There, she met Judy who had joined the program a few months earlier upon her own decision to return to the workforce. Eventually, the agency overseeing the program asked Judy and Linda if they would take over the program to reinvent it. They worked so well together and determined that the need to support women in mid-life career transitions was so great, they created EvolveMe. In February 2022, EvolveMe is offering the , a live 12-week, interactive virtual program with a group of women in midlife career transition, who are returning to work or pivoting careers. A few spots remain open. You can schedule a free to see if it's a fit for you. In this week’s learn more about Linda and Judy’s journey: The women they work with describe the EvolveMe experience as “the best professional decision they’ve ever made.” They have been featured in Forbes.com, CNN.com, Reuter’s World at Work, The Washington Post, at White House events, and in Fairygodboss.com and the Ellevate Network.    Learn more and connect with EvolveMe Linda and Judy here:

As far back as she can recall, Melody Wilding remembers feeling different. She was always very observant and tuned into her environment, feeling affected by all the stimuli around her while other kids seemed unfazed by most of it. Melody was an excellent student all the way through to college where she was valedictorian of her class, yet she still felt disconnected most of the time. As a corporate working professional, she pushed herself so hard that in her late 20s she experienced a serious period of burnout. As Melody took the time to recover, she began writing, discovering more about herself and how she could help others who had similar struggles.  Today, she is an author, speaker, and coach who helps her clients to deal with their inner critics, overthinking, and impostor syndrome so that they can enjoy life more. Personally and professionally, I am a big fan of her book, . Melody was recently named one of Business Insider’s Most Innovative Coaches for her groundbreaking work on “Sensitive Strivers”. Melody is a licensed social worker with a Masters’s from Columbia University and a professor of Human Behavior at Hunter College. In this week’s learn more about Melody’s journey: Melody has been featured in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Psychology Today, and Forbes.  Her clients include CEOs, C-level executives, and managers at top Fortune 500 companies such as Google, Amazon, and JP Morgan, among others. Learn more and connect with Melody here: My book:

Dr. Carol Parker Walsh’s early life was split between two narratives. Her parents divorced when she was twelve, then Carol and her mother moved from Menlo Park, California to the south side of Chicago. Carol described her father, with who she remained in close contact, as “a feminist before his time”. He encouraged her to seek a vocation she loved and not let anyone else make choices for her. Her mother painted a different picture for her future, urging her to find a husband to take care of her. Carol always leaned more toward her father’s sense of independence and ambition. What followed was a journey with a few bad bosses, lots of curiosity, and a deep love of learning. During her college years, Carol worked in a variety of jobs and as a matter of course, she had some “really bad bosses who were unfair, unethical, and too harsh.” She decided she wanted to do something that really helps people protect themselves from those types of situations. She was considering law school so she went to work as a legal assistant in a law firm to learn more about the profession. She was fascinated by the work and decided to go to law school. Later, she focused on labor law, becoming the chief counsel for the Oregon Nurses Association. She was so highly regarded for her work on behalf of the nurses that she was invited to provide organizational consulting and join the faculty at the affiliated hospital and university system, the Oregon Health and Science University. She decided to go for a Master's Degree in organizational consulting as it matched her nature and values more so than law. Once she was in the master’s program, she was recruited to progress to the Ph.D. program. Today, Carol works with highly driven female professionals and entrepreneurs to amplify their visibility and do the meaningful work they’re want to do in the world. She’s a certified career and personal brand strategist, life and executive coach, a TEDx presenter, author, international keynote speaker, Forbes Coaches Council member, Newsweek’s Expert Forum contributor, and a local career expert on the AM Northwest Morning Show. In this week’s learn more about Carol’s journey: Carol studied opera at the Chicago Conservatory of Music in Chicago. She was in a near-fatal car accident just before her fiftieth birthday. It opened her up to what's important and how she was making choices in her career. It took six years, multiple surgeries, and a lot of therapy before she was able to say, “I’m ok”. Learn more and connect with Carol here: 

Dr. Kim Cantergiani has been called Unstoppable Kim for her consistent ability to turn tragedy into triumph. An expert in human behavior and transformation, she “walks the walk” of overcoming obstacles, putting strategic and massive plans into action.  Born to teenaged parents, Kim ran away from her chaotic home life at 15. By 18 she was a divorced mother of two children. What followed were fearful years of struggle, always trying to make ends meet. Kim had four more children whom she parented alone.  At 40, Kim returned to school and proceeded to earn five degrees, including a Ph.D., and multiple certifications, including her credentials with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) as a Certified Professional Coach. Kim has leveraged her personal experiences and education to learn everything she could about the art and science of positive psychology, personal development, and peak performance to become a much sought-after expert in human behavior and the potential to change their circumstances. She is committed to helping people live their highest vision and accelerate their path to success in business and life. Kim has a passion for helping budding entrepreneurs create thriving businesses by following a proven and evidence-based blueprint she has used with hundreds of clients. In February 2022, Kim will be starting a 16-week women’s entrepreneurship course. The group will offer accountability, support, motivation, and the energy of the collective process to help participants advance their vision by creating goals and plans to move their businesses forward.  Kim offers the combination of synergy and accountability which helps participants to advance their business goals in a much faster period of time. For more info, check the show notes on my website for links. In this week’s learn more about Kim’s journey: Even though she dropped out of high school, Kim passed an equivalency exam at 14 years old, earning her high school diploma. Kim won the prestigious Body-for-Life Challenge after losing more than 70 lbs. and was featured in People magazine and other national publications Learn more and connect with Kim here: 

When Dr. Bob Nelson was in sixth grade, he was living in France, where on January 6 they celebrate Three Kings’ Day by eating a cake that has a special trinket hidden in one piece. That year, Dr. Bob got the piece with the trinket, making him king for the day. He remembers feeling important and that everything he did that day seemed extra special. Reflecting on that experience he says reminds him to make the most of every opportunity to have a positive impact. He was raised in a family with strong work ethics and people who have worked with Dr. Bob have commented on his solid determination and expansive resourcefulness. Dr. Bob knew from a young age that he wanted to express himself in writing and as a speaker even though he is a self-described introvert. He had a teacher in high school who encouraged him to write and he participated on his high school debate team even though it made him very anxious. Later he became active in Toastmasters to get more comfortable with speaking.  Today, Dr. Bob helps organizations, executives, and managers better recognize, engage and retain their employees. He is considered a leading advocate for employee recognition and engagement worldwide. Dr. Bob has worked with 80 percent of the Fortune 500 and presented on six continents. He has written over 30 books, including , , , , , and his latest book: Dr. Bob has been featured in the national and international media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, MSNBC, ABC, PBS, and NPR about how best to motivate today’s employees. He is passionate about employee engagement. In this week’s learn more about Dr. Bob’s journey:   Dr. Bob has sold over 5 million books. He worked as a shipping clerk in a bookstore because he wanted to learn more about writing and the publishing business even though he already had his MBA Learn more and connect with Dr. Nelson here: 

Roxana Radulescu grew up in Bucharest, Romania when it was in the communist bloc. She said that meant you couldn't be who you wanted to be because you had to conform to a way where everybody was supposed to be equal. As we know from the novel 1984, some were more equal than others ... a different definition of equal.  Roxana was a painfully shy kid. Her kindergarten teacher sent a report to her 1st-grade teacher, labeling her antisocial. She had no school friends either and hated going there. That summer she went to camp and things opened up for Roxana. She found her voice there. Back in school, during the communist period, the environment remained strict. Once communism fell in her early teen years, Roxana discovered MTV! She decided she wanted to be a DJ. As she entered high school, Roxana refocused her aspirations to become a lawyer, but her mother said, “No, no no you can’t be talking to criminals all day.” Still, Roxana found the law intriguing yet she studied foreign languages and literature at university. Ironically, her first job after graduation was an administrative role with an international law firm.   The law firm went through some changes and one day Roxana overheard the head of HR saying that they were in need of a person to do learning and development across the firm. Nervously, she approached the head of HR suggesting that she would be happy to take over that role. The HR person agreed and thus began Roxana’s career as a learning and development professional. Nine years later, she moved to Canada and started her business.  Roxana is the Founder and Chief Game-Changer of a Canadian leadership consulting company. Unlike other people leadership programs that focus on top executives, Roxana's programs focus on millennials who are at the beginning of their people leadership journey. She works with millennial corporate mid-managers & small business CEOs to help them build top-notch people leadership skills, knowledge & strategies so that they can confidently fast-track their journey to become dream bosses and build dream teams! In this week’s learn more about Roxana’s journey:   Roxana is a TEDx speaker, host of the , and live show host. She is also a Certified Learning & Development and HR Professional, Master Coach, Online and Classroom Course Designer & Facilitator. Learn more and connect with Roxana here: 

When Dr. Isabel Hunsinger was five, her mother gave her the game, Operation. We talked about the buzzer sound that occurred if the game’s tweezers touched the sides of the openings in the “patient”. And the nose would light up in red too. It was either a game you loved or found unnerving. Isabel loved it. Isabel had an uncle from Cuba who was an anesthesiologist and she absolutely adored him. She said he would walk into the room and light it up. Isabel’s love for her uncle sparked her interest in medicine from a very young age. Or was it the Operation game?  When her parents divorced, Isabel went to live with her father in Buenos Aires, Argentina until she graduated from high school. Then, she returned to the U.S. and got a job on an organic farm in Pennsylvania. She was still thinking about medicine but also had a keen interest in agriculture, and began college intending to major in it. After one year, she realized it was not for her. Isabel left school, and moved to Boulder, Colorado where she got a job waiting tables. There, she had a defining moment, as she refers to it, “I was serving a cocktail and some guy pinched my bottom. And I said, I will never put up with this again. I'm going to become a doctor.“ Isabel has been a medical doctor since 1991 and over time, she grew unhappy with the U.S.  healthcare system. She wants to get to the root of diseases, not just throw a Band-Aid on them. Her goal is to see people healed. In 2000, Isabel, her husband, and their two young daughters moved to New Zealand to experience a different culture. She hoped to find a better system of care there but that was not the case.  With her husband, Culinary Nutrition Expert, Chef Michael, Isabel has created the brand , where they prevent and reverse disease, and give hope.  In this week’s learn more about Isabel’s journey: Isabel has been offering tele-medicine for the past seven years including online courses and 1-to-1 coaching. She focuses on Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Cognitive Decline, Anxiety, Depression, Diabetes. Learn more and connect with Isabel here: 

Susanna Harkonen grew up in Finland and close to the Russian border. It was a time when there was limited exposure to the outside world unless you knew someone who was traveling. Susanna’s father traveled for work and he would come home sharing stories, wonderful gifts, and an openness to the world. At a time when people did not hop on planes so easily, she found herself eager to travel and explore new places.  Susanna was fascinated by history, loved poetry, and aspired to study Egyptology until one of her university professors told her to “get real” and think about what she could study to create a profession. She went to business school and ended up following in her father’s footsteps, making sure she chose a career that would enable her to travel and live around the world. Susanna, like her father, went into the supply chain field and she has absolutely no regrets. That work enabled her to work in a number of industries during the fifteen years she spent in the corporate world. On the less glamorous side of being an international business person, Susanna spent a great deal of time in Asia where people worked very long days, maintaining a “work hard, play hard” routine. This was not her scene and it limited her options for keeping herself in balance as she has once before experienced a serious episode of burnout. Susanna found a volunteer opportunity with a counseling helpline that offered comprehensive training and she loved it. From there she decided to get a counseling degree and pivot her career towards the mental health field. Today, Susanna is a Registered Counselor, who specializes in mental health & wellness at work in Geneva,  Switzerland. Her training programs help organizations improve mental wellness, management, and care.  In this week’s learn more about Susannah’s journey: Early in her college days, Susanna was in an accident and had a near-death experience in which she saw her entire life up to the point reviewed in front of her. As a result, she determined that everything happens for a reason and when having a less than a great day, she reminds herself that life is not perfect. Learn more and connect with Susanna here: 

Leslie Ehm told me she came into the world kicking, screaming, and was “a lot of human”. She was a challenge from day one, didn't like to follow the rules, and was precocious, doing everything early and fast. Fortunately, Leslie had an amazing mother who encouraged her to embrace her energy, passion, creativity, and wild child nature. And Mom never talked to her about the benefits of putting herself in a box. Both of Leslie’s parents were entrepreneurs. Her father was a Holocaust survivor. She was taught to do what she felt, to recognize her power, her purpose, to go after it, and not let anything stop her. At 19, Leslie packed it all up and moved to the UK from her home in Montreal. She didn't know a soul there, had nothing in place, and went to pursue her dreams of being a singer because she was in love with all things British and British music. Leslie ended up living there happily for 17 years. Over that time she continually leaned into all kinds of opportunities as one thing led her to the next. Her music partner also worked in the film industry. He got her involved in the film industry and Leslie worked as a script analyst, then eventually as a script editor and a script doctor for companies like Miramax. She ended up working as a TV host for many years, through as she puts it, a happy accident. Leslie was developing TV ideas and had made connections in the industry. Whenever she would go and pitch, Leslie would bring her full self to the party, as she explained,” I'm a very go big or go home kind of girl.” On one of these occasions, she was pitching a TV idea to a big production company in the UK and the guy who owns the company said you know, you should be on camera. They hired Leslie and gave her a talk show.  Now, it wasn't as easy as it sounds, but it’s all true. Leslie is a big proponent of recognizing your transferable skills and worrying less about your resume. She suggests that you look at what you are good at and go from there. For her, it became writing and storytelling which eventually translated into copywriting work and leadership as a creative director.  Today Leslie is a Swagger Coach and training guru who has discovered the secret to tapping into your authentic self and turning it into a superpower. She’s also the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of . In this week’s learn more about Leslie’s journey: Leslie has spent the last 14 years traveling the globe, training senior execs and teams from Fortune 100 companies like Google, Pepsico, Uber, Disney, TD Bank, Lenovo, and more.  She has turned technologists into creative forces, bankers into storytellers, and has brought a serious dose of spirit to boardrooms everywhere.  Learn more and connect with Leslie here: 

At 15, Kathy Oneto was going through those big, thick college guides trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Now, she thinks she was just trying to understand herself. Yet, how many of us started on that path thinking we had to figure out what direction we wanted to go in, what major to declare in college, or even what we were passionate about? Kathy told me,   “I don't think the best advice is to tell people to follow your passion. Most of us do not have a singular passion. Some of us do. But for many of us, it ends up resulting in this passion paralysis, or a passion paradox where you start to follow it, but then it is no longer your passion because it's your work. Right?”  Kathy realized that her exploration of the college guide helped her to start identifying areas she might find interesting. In fact, throughout her career, she has chosen growth and learning over comfort and certainty. Kathy’s focused on roles that held her attention or interest, usually because she was learning and engaged. She brings a strategic approach to life and her career.  Today, Kathy is a strategy consultant, advisor, and executive and work-life coach helping clients turn strategy into action and helping professionals build fulfilling, long-lasting careers.   She is the founder of Sustainable Ambition, a coaching and consulting firm, and the host of , which offers content and tools to support professionals building a fulfilling career from decade to decade.  In this week’s learn more about Kathy’s journey:   Over the course of her career, Kathy's worked on the client and agency sides with Fortune 500 and entrepreneurial companies and has been a partner to C-suite and senior leaders. Her writing has been featured in Fast Company, MediaPost, and Branding Magazine, and she has spoken at business schools including Berkeley | Haas and Duke University   Learn more and connect with Kathy here:

Charlotte Japp grew up in a tight-knit family, the oldest of three kids, on the upper west side of New York City. They moved to the US from France when she was two years old. She describes having had a colorful New York cultural upbringing with a lot of museum visits, watching old movies as a family, dining in New York City restaurants, as well as opportunities to travel back to France and other destinations. Her father, who was British, worked in advertising and her mother was in the auction business. Charlotte recalls engaging in a lot of visual and creative activities. Her parents always encouraged them to find things that made them happy. After studying comparative literature, art history, French, and German at Georgetown University, Charlotte started her career in creative marketing, a role that blended copywriting and art direction. Five years later, she moved to Live Nation, the concert and festival company, where she was engaged in experiential marketing and brand partnerships.  Over those years, Charlotte saw the consequences of age segregation in the workplace. She felt that older and younger professionals needed to connect and learn from each other, but had no way to meet. So, as she transitioned to Live Nation, she launched , a company that connects older and younger professionals for mutual personal and professional growth. CIRKEL makes networking across generations seamless, inspiring, and impactful, working with both individuals and corporations to bridge the gap.  You may wonder why would a twenty-something acknowledge this gap between the generations and be that concerned about it to start a new job and a company at the same time? Five years earlier, Charlotte watched each of her parents get pushed out of their corporate jobs after years of accolades and success. She recognized the wisdom they had accumulated and how easily they were discarded, yet they had so much more to offer. In this week’s learn more about Charlotte’s journey: Charlotte was named one of Next Avenue’s 2020 Influencers In Aging and a 2020 Gen2Gen Innovation Fellow. She has been featured in publications like The New York Times, Forbes and spoken internationally about the magic of connecting generations.   Learn more and connect with Charlotte here:

Growing up in Billings, Montana, Michael Leckie was one of those kids that everyone would seek out when they needed to talk about important issues. This sparked his interest in psychology and he thought he would eventually become a psychotherapist. In college, he prepared for that path, but for reasons he cannot explain he lost interest in it. Upon graduation, Michael got what he called the “worst job in the world” working for the county welfare system in Southern California which he experienced as a horribly dysfunctional department.  Interestingly, Michael wondered if he applied his psychology degree to help organizations. He decided to go to grad school for an MBA. One of his first classes was in organizational behavior. The professor was impressed with Michael’s participation and approached him inquiring why he wasn’t enrolled in the MSOD (Master of Science in Organizational Development) degree program. He was completely unfamiliar with that discipline, but once he became aware of it, he withdrew from the MBA and applied for the MSOD. The rest, as they say, is history. Over the past 20 years, Michael has brought leadership and consulting experience to several companies in driving transformation within a digital world. He believes that organizations can only make quality digital transformations by addressing both the social and technical systems of which they are made. Michael has led transformations and cultural change from startups and private equity to small and medium enterprises to fortune 50 companies across a wide variety of industries, and sectors. In the past 15 years, he has focused on the emergence of the increased need for change demanded by our digital world. Michael has loved every minute of it. In this week’s learn more about Michael’s journey: Michael shares his expertise in his book, He speaks internationally on the art and science of leadership, digital leadership, culture change, influencing and communication skills, and the changing role of the CXO leader in a socio-technical world.    Learn more and connect with Michael here: 

The moment I met Simone Knego, I was in awe of her. We were in an intensive public speaking class together earlier in 2021. One of our first assignments was to craft a ‘big idea’ for the speech we would be scripting early in the course. Simone is a walking example of her big idea: We do not need to change who we are, we need to change the way we see ourselves. I discovered that Simone is a best-selling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and mother to six multicultural children. To add to the mix, she climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to raise funds and awareness for the Livestrong Foundation. Do you need to ask? Of course, she made it to the summit. Simone began her professional career as a Certified Public Accountant. But she soon realized that her passion wasn’t numbers—it was helping people. She transitioned into teaching horseback riding lessons, as this was something she enjoyed as a kid while doing some bookkeeping on the side. This led her to return to school to get her teaching credentials in elementary and exceptional education and work with children. She loved teaching but eventually had to leave because her salary was barely enough to cover the babysitter she paid to care for her six children. A friend offered her a job in medical sales which would give her the income and flexibility she needed, so Simone did that for the next eight years. Somewhere in the mix she also got her real estate license and flipped a few houses. Needless to say, there is no grass growing under Simone Knego’s feet! Today, Simone’s desire to help people has expanded into sharing her story and experiences to inspire and motivate others to make a difference in this world. Her book, is a fascinating read in which she shares her journey of adopting three of her six children in foreign countries, her climb of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise cancer awareness, and all of the funny, scary, and inspiring stories that happened along the way.  In this week’s learn more about Simone’s personal and professional journey: Simone instills in her audiences, the powerful lesson that what you do matters, and it's the little things we do each day that make the difference.  She shared a story of a conversation she had with her daughter about body image which offered an important perspective on herself as a parent and as an adult.   Learn more and connect with Simone here: 

Ellen Snee grew up outside of New York City, the oldest of five kids in an Irish Catholic family. On Wednesday nights their parish priest, who was a family friend, would join their family for hot dogs and play cards. One night, Ellen’s devout father asked the priest to bless his children. They all closed their eyes, and he said some prayers. As they were praying, and all was calm, twelve-year-old Ellen decided what she wanted to be. When they were done, she stood up and declared, “When I grow up, I'm going to be a priest!” The room went silent. Years later, Ellen attended a Jesuit university where the curriculum and atmosphere appealed to her. While she knew becoming a priest was not possible, Ellen discovered a group of female Jesuits, the Religious of the Sacred Heart, and joined their order as a nun. She was drawn to this community, dedicated to the mission of education, service, and a life of prayer. It was also a time when work was being done to make it possible for women to become priests. So Ellen was hopeful that it could still occur within her lifetime. Within religious life, Ellen held many positions as a teacher, campus minister, and then pursued her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard University.  Ellen left the convent while still in graduate school. She turned the conceptual frameworks from her dissertation on women in roles of authority into the launch of a successful consulting firm, Fine Line Consulting. Before long, she stepped into the corporate sector running leadership and coaching programs for executive women in Fortune 500 companies such as Pfizer, Schwab, Marriott and Goodyear. For 15 years she provided one-to-one coaching to high potential and executive-level women across the country. A move to California in 2001 led her to work in Silicon Valley at the major tech companies such as Apple, Cisco, KPG, and Citrix. In 2009 Ellen was hired by global technology company VMware as VP Leadership Development and Organizational Consulting.  In this week’s learn more about Ellen’s  journey: Ellen is the author of (She Writes Press), in which she shares her wisdom and experience with all talented women seeking to accelerate their careers. She went on to lead Global Talent Development and in 2013 launched VMwomen, a business initiative designed to attract, retain, develop, and advance talented women. Learn more and connect with Ellen here:  /  

Strategic messaging consultant Elaine Bennett never thought of writing as a career even though she had a teacher in high school who ushered her toward an extracurricular class on writing stating, “You're going to be a writer”. Elaine had no intention of becoming a writer. She went off to college, majored in theater with the goal of moving to New York and becoming a director. Arriving in New York, Elaine relied on a skill she had developed in fifth grade, typing. As much as she abhorred it, it eventually opened up some work opportunities that she never would have imagined. Elaine ended up at Salomon Brothers as a temp. ​​She also found work as a sound and light runner for some Off-Broadway shows. Elaine joined a theater group where she directed staged readings of new plays and while it was enjoyable, she wasn't making the professional progress that she wanted to. At that point, she was also doing some writing for herself, pitching articles, and discovered that she loved editing, and copy editing. One day while temping at Salomon Bros., Elaine was sent up to the CEO’s office to write a speech for him on the spot. Gulp … From there, she was offered a permanent role as the CEO’s speechwriter. When scandal forced the executive to resign, Warren Buffett stepped in as interim CEO. Elaine's new boss, Mr. Buffett offered her one of his highest compliments, “You have a terrific ear, and you turn straight thinking into straight writing.” And that's what she's been doing ever since, melding the mind of a business person with the sensibility of an outsider to tell complex stories in a sophisticated but relatable way. Elaine advises clients from Fortune 50 CEOs to entrepreneurs on their messaging. In this week’s learn more about Elaine’s  journey: Elaine creates and delivers training on how to improve the writing of everything from internal communications to speeches.  Her tackles the topic of how language can change the world.  Learn more and connect with Elaine here: 

When Amii Barnard-Bahn graduated from college with an English degree, she didn’t know what she wanted. So she applied to law school. Amii said, “It was kind of a crazy, interesting thing to do.” Attending Georgetown Law School, she tapped the advocate within wanting to impact social change. She worked as an ACLU fellow and took the first LGBT sexual orientation class ever taught at a law school. Amii was the T.A. for Dr. Anthony Cook, a well-known scholar in critical race theory, and served as editor on her law journal. Amii’s piece on the black women’s anti-lynching movement in the 1890s was published in the UCLA Women’s Law Journal, resulting in her coining the term critical race feminism, now used regularly. Upon graduation, Amii worked for a small employment law firm where she had the unique chance to handle both plaintiff and defendant cases. While it was a valuable experience, billable hours, and metrics were not aligned with her values. After three-plus years with the firm, Amii resigned although she did not know what she wanted to do next. She said it was the scariest thing she ever did, but Amii wanted to find a better way to help people.  Amii spent nine months exploring her options, determining that her qualifications and interests were best suited to Human Resources where she could combine her legal background with her dedication to equity, compliance, and ethics. She also pursued her graduate certificate in coaching through the Hudson Institute.  Amii served in executive roles for McKesson, the California Dental Association, and Tetra Tech. Today, Amii's an executive coach and consultant to C suite leaders at global companies like Adobe, and The Gap. Amii guest lectures at Stanford and UC Berkeley, and is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Compliance Week, and is a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Coaching. She developed the Promotability Index Self-Assessment and published that works along with the assessment results. In this week’s learn more about Amii’’s  journey: Amii is recognized by Forbes as one of the top coaches for legal and compliance executives, and she is a member of Marshall Goldsmith 100 coaches.  She testified for the successful passage of the first laws in the US requiring corporate boards to include women.  Learn more and connect with Amii here: 

When Dr. Jeffrey Hull was a little kid he wanted to be Elton John but he realized he could not play the piano well enough. In high school, he took a class called the history of ideas and fell in love with looking at how Western thought and Buddhist Eastern thought had developed. Jeff went on to college, continuing his interest in different worldviews, what is also known as the perennial philosophy. He loved philosophy and wanted to become a university professor, but when he came home on a break and shared his idea with his mother she responded, “Are you out of your mind? That’s not a real job.”  So Jeff pursued a career in business and focused on human resources which tied in with his other interest of his in psychology. He found that his studies in Philosophy informed some of his interactions with people on the job. Jeff worked in a few different companies, the last one being Booz Allen Hamilton where he was promoted to take on global responsibilities at a fairly young age. In his late 30s, he decided to return to school to study psychotherapy and earned his doctorate in clinical psychology. While he loved the education, he realized after practicing psychotherapy for a few years that he preferred the more results-oriented business approach he had experienced in mentoring and coaching people on the job, so he became a coach, focusing on the practical and short-term, transformational activities with clients.  Today, Jeff is the CEO of Leadershift, Inc, a management and leadership development consultancy, and he is also a clinical instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and an adjunct professor of leadership at New York University.  In this week’s learn more about Jeff’s  journey: ​​Jeff is the Director of Global Development at Harvard’s Institute of Coaching, a Harvard Medical School affiliate.  He is the author of the best-selling book . Learn more and connect with Jeff here:

At age 9, Dave Fano started collecting comic books because his big brother was into them. Then, he discovered that different editions and collections had value. By 14, he got a job at a comic book store where he also bought and traded his own comic books. For Dave, it was mostly about having fun, and of course, he enjoyed making money. The son of Cuban immigrants, Dave grew up in Miami. In high school, he worked for his Dad’s construction company as an estimator. At graduation, he told his Dad that he wanted to go to art school, to be an artist. Dad said, “That's not a real job. You can't make a living doing that. That's a hard life.” So, at the last minute, Dave applied to college and majored in architecture at Columbia University, seeing it as a compromise between art and the design side of construction. But he knew that it wasn't what he wanted to do. Every step of the way, Dave  wondered, ‘how can I hack this education to be something else?’ As he finished his undergrad degree, he became aware of 3-D digital architecture which appealed to him as he loved technology. Dave applied to Columbia’s highly competitive graduate program in digital architecture and he got in.  Dave worked as an architect while being on the adjunct faculty at Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture for a few years. He then co-founded the technology consulting firm CASE in 2008, growing it to 63 employees. They worked with clients such as Google, Disney and Apple. In 2015 CASE was acquired by their client, WeWork, the coworking space company. At WeWork, Dave held the titles Chief Product Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Chief Development Officer, and eventually Chief Growth Officer.  Today, Dave is focusing his passion on empowering people with tools & resources to grow their careers as Founder & CEO of He is on a mission to empower professionals with the guidance and resources they need to make career decisions with confidence.  In this week’s learn more about Dave’s  journey: At WeWork, Dave partnered to launch product lines such as WeWork Enterprise, WeWork HQ, and We Membership.  In under 1 year, the team at Teal has grown the platform & community to over 20,000 users committed to growing their careers. Learn more and connect with Dave here:

As the founder and CEO of Outfield Leadership, Dave McKeown speaks, coaches, and trains organizations to build cultures of authentic, results-driven leadership, moving from execution to excellence. When I heard the name of Dave’s business, I immediately thought of baseball, but then I wondered what would the outfield have to do with leadership? So, of course, I asked him. The first thing you need to know is that while Dave lives in California today, he grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, towards the back end of the turmoil there. Those early years probably influenced his views of leadership and the outfield? Well, you can find out by listening to today’s podcast episode, if you are curious. When he graduated from high school, Dave spent two years doing volunteer work and traveling throughout India, Australia, and the United States. Returning to the UK, he went to Glasgow Scotland to study business and became quickly interested in the human side of business. His Dad was a consultant in the leadership development space which also sparked his interest. After graduation, he worked for the global consulting firm, Accenture in Hong Kong. Later, he moved to become the COO and then President of Predictable Success, a boutique consultancy focusing on helping complex businesses achieve scalability. Dave then moved to the US and joined his Dad’s consulting business. Four years ago he started Outfield Leadership. Today, Dave helps individuals, teams, and organizations achieve results by doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. He is also the author of , a practical guide to help you elevate your focus, develop your people, and get more done. In this week’s learn more about Dave’s  journey: ​​Dave writes a weekly column for Inc.com. He enjoys connecting individual and team performance to improved business results with a particular focus on fast-growing, complex organizations. Learn more and connect with Dave here: 

In his twenties, Jeff Gothelf wanted to be a rock star. After college, he spent a year as a sound and lighting tech for the Clyde Beatty Cole Bros. Circus. Then he started a band and he worked as a touring musician, playing the piano. For the next few years, he formed and managed several bands. Once he realized that his music career was not going to cover his bills, Jeff, then 26, migrated into the tech world. In those days, you could learn on the job. He was trained in HTML and web design. Over the next nine years, he progressed through a series of roles in different software companies increasing his income, responsibilities, skills and developing his reputation as a UX expert. Then the dot com bubble burst and while he continued to survive in the industry, Jeff knew he needed to do something else. By then he had a young family. Jeff hired a business coach to explore his options. Today, Jeff works as a coach, consultant, and keynote speaker, helping companies bridge the gaps between business agility, digital transformation, product management, and Human-Centered Design. He helps organizations and executives build the cultures that build better products. Through the use of concepts like design thinking, lean, UX, and agile software development, Jeff brings a new approach to running organizations and the departments within them, most recently focusing on human resources, and how they can be more agile as well as supporting agility in the organization. In this week’s  learn more about Jeff’s  journey: Jeff’s most recent book, , was published in June 2020. He is the co-author of the award-winning  and the Harvard Business Review Press book,  Learn more and connect with Jeff here:   

Rebecca Seal is a recovering people pleaser. In her teens and early twenties, she made choices that were based on what she thought other people expected of her. Whether those perceptions were true or not, Rebecca had no idea, but she did feel pressured to get into a prestigious university. She was an excellent student which enabled her to land a spot at the London School of Economics (LSE) to study international relations, which she found challenging for several reasons. At eighteen, Rebecca did not know what she wanted to do, had never been away from home, and was no longer the big fish in a small pond. It was unsettling and painful.  Upon graduation, Rebecca attempted to secure employment with an NGO or the UN, but she could not even get an interview. She returned home to Oxford and waited tables. She felt horribly stuck at the time, but today believes it was a good experience. The lessons learned from the hospitality industry made her a better team player and enabled her to grow as a manager and leader. Rebecca still wanted to pursue her interest in international relations so she returned to London to get her master's at Kings College. In the middle of her program, she got a job at the Observer newspaper, which became her first professional role as a journalist. As she started there thinking she would work as a foreign correspondent, Rebecca became the paper’s food writer and editor for six years. She then departed the paper during a tough economic period and decided to try her hand at being a freelance writer. Twelve years later, Rebecca has authored nine cookbooks and continues to be a freelance journalist mostly writing about food and drink. Additionally, she had the opportunity to host a weekly TV show on Sunday mornings about brunch and related topics for 4 years. Six years ago she had an idea for a book about how to survive working alone, because she was feeling alone as a freelancer: .  In this week’s learn more about Rebecca’s  journey: Rebecca gives talks and workshops, as well as writing articles, on coping with solitary working, to all sorts of people around the world.  She continues to write and publish cookbooks, and to work for UK newspapers. Learn more and connect with Rebecca here:

Early in her career, Dr. Dawn Graham experienced her first wake-up call (and it wasn’t a friendly voice calling from the front desk). Working for the large management consulting company, Arthur Andersen, equipped with her master's degree, she had just taken a new role when the Enron scandal erupted. Dawn was doing everything right but still got laid off along with tens of thousands of others. Then, she did all the wrong things. She only did online job applications and didn't network. Dawn is an introvert by nature. She believed that just doing great work was enough. But now all of her colleagues were laid off, so the people she would have leaned on were not available. Additionally, listing Arthur Andersen on her resume was not positive as people associated her with the scandal.  So, there was Dawn with strong skills from a company that no longer existed, a network that couldn't help, and a brand on her resume that was negative. Dawn didn't talk to people because she felt ashamed. It was hard not to take it personally. Oh… and Dawn was in the middle of a divorce, too. She turned to restaurant work as she knew it well from her younger days and took time to reflect. Dawn also signed up with a temporary agency, which landed her work in an outplacement firm, and there she realized that she was not alone in her fears or pain. Dawn never wanted to feel that kind of pain or fear again and she wanted to create a situation where others would not have to go through those experiences. She decided to go to graduate school for her doctorate in counseling psychology. Today, Dawn is a career switch coach, TEDx Speaker, LinkedIn Learning Instructor, and Host of the popular call-in show “Dr. Dawn on Careers” on SiriusXM Radio (channel 132). She is the Career Director for the Executive MBA Program at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this week’s learn more about Dawn’s  journey: Dawn is the author of which gives people the strategies to overcome obstacles and land the job they want. This book is at the top of my list for people in career transition. She is a regular contributor to Forbes.com under the leadership channel. Learn more and connect with Dawn here: 

Scott Sonnenschein, Ph.D. is the Henry Gardner Simmons Professor of Management at Rice University, and a New York Times best-selling author whose books are translated into over 20 languages. Last year, he co-authored with Marie Kondo. In this week’s podcast, we discuss his book, .  Scott never intended to be an academic, a professor, nor a writer. He studied economics and philosophy in college. In his senior year, Scott followed his siblings’ example by applying and getting accepted to law school. Before he made his final decision Scott met with his University of Virginia mentor who asked him, “What appeals to you about going to law school?” Recalling that decisive moment, Scott shared, “I don't think we take enough time to reflect on our choices. We get into what we believe are socially prescribed pathways for what an acceptable career looks like. I was going down that lane. If it were not for his prodding, I would have gone to law school. I may have enjoyed it, but I doubt it. I'm glad he challenged me.” Scott went to England for a year-long graduate program which fueled his interests in research, organizational psychology, and the quality of people’s day-to-day work experiences. He returned to his mentor, expressing his interest in further graduate school and he said, “No, first get a regular job and see how you like it.” Scott became a strategy consultant in Washington, DC. One year later, he received a call from a recruiter at a Silicon Valley startup. They offered him double his salary, a fancy title, a chance to manage people, and oversight of a seven-figure budget. Scott made the trip out there to check it out and three weeks later, he moved to Silicon Valley. In his book, , Scott calls actions such as this, a chaser, in which individuals or organizations see that more is always the answer to things; i.e. the more people we hire, the faster we grow, or the bigger we get, the better we're going to be. Scott learned that was not the case when the dot com bubble dried up. While he managed to survive four rounds of downsizing, Scott knew he needed a more solid plan. He was ready to go to graduate school. In this week’s learn more about Scott’s  journey:   Scott holds a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of Michigan, a master's in philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and a BA from the University of Virginia. His research, teaching, and speaking have helped fortune 500 executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals in technology, energy, healthcare, retail, education, banking, manufacturing, and nonprofits. Learn more and connect with Scott here: Facebook: Twitter: Instagram: Read reviews, post a review or add to your .

Michele Lamoureux has always had a love for people and a deep curiosity about their stories. As a kid, she loved to watch Merv Griffin, Phil Donahue, and later Oprah, thinking she wanted to be a talk show host. Michele knew she wanted to help people and once in college, thought a career in law would meet that goal. She ‘tried it on’ as a paralegal in a major law firm in Boston. She loved it, the people and culture of the firm were vibrant and she felt valued. Then Michele reached a turning point. Should she go to law school? Michele interviewed several partners in her firm to learn more and 90% of them told her not to go to law school, but rather to get her MBA. At 24, the decision against law school was big, yet she wasn’t ready to dive into the MBA.  Michele had a friend who worked as a recruiter and it looked ‘cool’. She was able to get hired placing marketing professionals in high-tech startups. Within no time, Michele hated it, particularly because her boss was a micromanager. She did, however, discover that she liked the marketing roles she was placing candidates in and decided to pursue that angle. Coincidentally, her old law firm was seeking a marketing assistant! It was serendipitous, needless to say. Six months later, her boss took a new job and invited Michele to join her there. This decision was hard but she turned her down as loyalty and integrity were core values. The next day, the partners offered Michele the Director of Marketing role on a probationary basis with a high visibility project on her plate, to produce a high tech conference in Dublin, Ireland. Michele had yet to attend a conference in her career, let alone in another country. Good thing she loved a challenge! Michele calls this her unqualified success. Michele spent over 15 years in corporate America, leading international branding campaigns for professional service firms. Today she is an author, podcast host, speaker, and coach who guides women to own their lives and love themselves. She lives in San Diego, California. In this week’s learn more about Michele’s  journey: Michele hosts podcast, interviewing New York Times best-selling authors, experts, and female entrepreneurs in the areas of business, health, relationships, money, spirituality, and more to guide women to their full potential.  She is the author of the book , Michele teaches self-love as the gateway to all you desire in life. Michele has been a certified empowerment coach for 16 years.  Learn more and connect with Michele here:

John Baldoni is a globally recognized leadership educator, a highly sought-after executive coach, and author of fifteen books that have been translated into ten languages. Impressive, right? John grew up in Perrysburg, Ohio where his mother served as Mayor and today at 92 remains very involved in the community. His maternal grandfather was a Detroit-based news photographer who fueled John’s lifelong love of photography. His father was a physician who went to medical school in Ann Arbor, Michigan where coincidentally John has raised his family for the past thirty years. When his Dad was a fourth-year med student he physically bumped into Dr. Jonas Salk as he was headed to announce his discovery of the polio vaccine. John Baldoni comes from impressive roots, don’t you agree? In addition to his parents, he credits his Jesuit education for instilling the principles of accountability, responsibility, and making a positive difference as being foundational to his life and work as a leadership expert. John’s newest book, , was inspired by his experience playing piano in a hospital lobby (pre-COVID) and unlike his other books, is written in short prose-like pieces, along with his unique approach to black and white photography.  John coaches senior leaders in virtually every industry from pharmaceutical to real estate, packaged goods to automobiles, and finance to health care. In 2021, the International Federation of Learning and Development named him a World-Class Mentor and to its Hall of Fame. Since 2007, Global Gurus has ranked him a Top 30 Global Leadership Expert. Inc.com named John a Top 100 speaker in 2018 and a Top 50 leadership expert in 2014. John is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 coaches, a group of executive coaches and thought leaders from the worlds of business, academia, and social service.  In this week’s learn more about John’s  journey:   John’s other books include , , and . He has authored 800+ online articles in Forbes, Harvard Business Review and Inc.com John produces and appears in a video coaching series for SmartBrief, a news channel with over 4 million readers. He is the host of LinkedIn Live’s Grace Under Pressure interview series. Learn more and connect with John here: 

Gen Georget grew up as an only child of a single mother learning that work was a means to an end. After earning her degree in communications, she’d taken a job at an ice cream shop on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. One day a young woman came into the shop and she recognized Gen from high school. She told her she was leaving her job with one of the members of Parliament and suggested that Gen apply for the role. Three months later, Gen was offered the job, although she claims that she landed it “by accident”. Ironically, her start date was September 10, 2001… the day before 9/11. The job was exciting, very political, and chaotic, requiring long hours. Three years in, Gen had to re-think her situation as her health was suffering. Fortunately, she found a job that was better aligned at the National Gallery. Gen was at the National Gallery for six years, during which she got married and had her first child. The maternity leave policies in Canada are generous, enabling Gen to explore her creative self while home with her first child. She left the National Gallery to be home with her children and to establish a photography business. She focused on many subjects, but in particular, began to shoot weddings. This led to her writing blog posts and stories about the couples. Gen wanted her business to be heart-centered and relational. She found that writing people’s stories created those important connections. Eventually, she added posts about herself, and her life as a mother. Then one day, everything changed… One of her posts went viral. She went to bed with 500 friends on Facebook and woke up to 750 messages. Within three days, she had 5,000 friends and 35,000 followers. It was out of control, but it opened up doors, including the opportunity to write for Oprah.com and her work as an executive editor at the Roundtable Companies, which is how I became connected to Gen. She was my amazing, devoted writing coach for a year while I wrote my book.  Gen has written two books: (2016) and , (2019) which won the 2020 Book of the Year Award for Faces magazine. In this week’s learn more about Gen’s  journey: Gen is a full-time storyteller whose work as a writer, and photographer has been seen on Oprah.com, the Good Mother Project, Love in the Rockies, and Simplify magazine. Learn more and connect with Gen here: 

When Alison Arnoff was in fifth grade her teacher called home to discuss an issue with her parents. Apparently, Alison was making the boys angry because she was always raising her hand in math class before them. Her mother responded by suggesting that she be placed in the advanced class. The teacher said Alison is already there. Her mother had nothing more to offer. Alison shared with me, “...how grateful I am to have been raised by parents that didn't discourage me from being bright and quick, exploring the things that made me happy.” In high school, her physics and calculus teachers introduced her to the field of engineering. She went to college and grad school earning degrees in computer and electrical engineering. Additionally, Alison was a Division I competitive swimmer during her undergrad years. Alison realized that many of her peers were carrying around very different messages with regard to their capabilities, future prospects, and expectations than she had been raised with. She calls these “inherited beliefs”, in that you let other people’s stories become your stories. Her experience as a woman in a highly technical field as engineering made her stand out and presented her with as many opportunities as challenges. As you can imagine, Alison focused on the positive as she always wanted to learn more and was not afraid to dip her toes into new waters. She worked in seven different startups, six of which were successful. After 25 years in industry and startups, Allison stopped having fun because the work felt out of alignment with her values. Instead of focusing on technical sales, she wanted to be of service so she got her coaching certification. She developed a framework for working with clients on their goals while offering room for creative approaches, breakthroughs and growth. Alison helps them positively impact their career by improving their leadership skills and the company’s bottom line by raising productivity, engagement, and retention of their teams.  In this week’s learn more about Alison’s work today: Alison is a thinking partner with her clients, helping them maximize their strengths while identifying their blind spots and biases. She explores all facets of their business, culture, and uniqueness to help them formulate a successful strategy for themselves and their companies. Learn more and connect with Alison here:

Prina Shah was born in Kenya and started her education at a school there that primarily focused on the Indian community as that was how people maintained their safety. At home, however, there were other issues. Prina’s father was an alcoholic and there were traumatic circumstances that caused her mother to move her and her sister to the UK. Prina reflects on that time as her younger self, noting the life lessons she learned about how to build better relationships and thus began her growing fascination with people. Once Prina entered university, she studied sociology and social psychology. While her choice of disciplines felt so right to her, Prina was less clear about what she would do for work once she graduated, so she sought assistance from a career center. She went through four days of psychometric testing and was placed in a two-year human resources development program at British Telecom. Prina experienced every facet of human resources in a rotation style structure during that period and she remained there for two more years before moving to Australia where she focused on organizational development work, as an internal practitioner inside a few organizations and government agencies.  Today, she has her own business as a coach, consultant, and trainer in which she develops emotionally intelligent leaders and optimizes company cultures. Prina suggests that her clients follow the Japanese approach to a long and happy life, Ikigai, by asking themselves the big questions. What am I good at? What does the world need? And what can I get paid for? She says that has guided her through her career. “It's good to check in with yourself so that you're not a silent passenger. You want to curate your own life and your own career.” In this week’s learn more about Prina’s  journey: Prina has over 20 years of experience in people management roles in the areas of organizational and leadership development, human resources, culture change, and change management.  She offers practical tools and methods to develop strategies that create positive change, develops people, and brings them together. Learn more and connect with Prina here:

Michael Freedman told me, “I didn't know what I wanted to do until I was 55. I was walking through life. I'm a reasonably intelligent, hardworking guy. ...nothing special. Right? I was good at communicating, collaborating. I was a project manager as an operational manager. None of that really challenged me or fed my soul. I liked the interaction and being productive. All that was good. That's a job. When I left teaching high school, and I reflected on what I wanted to do, and it occurred to me that I wanted to do something else meaningful.” For 20 years, Michael Freedman led operational service organizations providing comprehensive services to financial market data customers and technology sales executives in top-tier technology businesses. He then transitioned into education to be more available at home as a Dad to his two boys, now 18 and 20, and after 15 years teaching high school English, Michael followed his entrepreneurial instincts to develop this legacy business.  Today, Michael serves as the founder and CEO of Practical Academics whose mission is to educate, empower, and engage people in their personal, professional, and civic lives. Practical Academics uses a mentored small group model to build and deliver meaningful and engaging learning experiences. Their current project brings the benefits of career coaching and professional development. Practical Academics helps coaches, solopreneurs, and organizations develop their programs and business with design guidance and services delivery platforms, marketing and operates a professional development community, called the instructional artists collective. In this week’s learn more about Michael’s  journey: Michael has complemented his working career with public service as the Board Chair of two nonprofits, a charter school board chair, and a high school district trustee. He has an MA from the Annenberg School at USC communications management, and a BA from UC Santa Barbara in speech communications. Learn more and connect with Michael here: 

When she was 13 years old, EB Sanders worked her first job as a swim instructor. She enjoyed it so much she claimed that the teaching bug bit her. Her parents, who were not college-educated, were very supportive of her aspirations. She wanted to go to college and teach in higher education. She journeyed her way through a maze of several schools, eventually accomplishing her goal to become a teacher. She taught a variety of humanities courses at community colleges and universities over many years. EB loved teaching but she reached a point where she needed to make some tough decisions as teaching wasn’t paying the bills.  The next few years were what EB called her messy middle as she took a succession of jobs that she didn’t like nor was she particularly good at. Then someone offered her an opportunity to do recruiting and staffing work. It was a much better fit. After some time she realized that she needed to be in more control of her own activities so, with the support of her spouse, she left her job and started her career coaching practice. EB helps creative types, ditch their fears and make decisions with confidence so they can achieve the fulfillment they really want. Her mission is to convince everyone that they don't have to choose between happiness and success.  In this week’s learn more about EB’s  journey: EB loves the fact that there is a teaching component within coaching.  She offers three different options to clients: online courses, a group program for people who are already clear about their goals and individual coaching. Learn more and connect with EB here: 

Fawn Germer is the irreverent, beloved best-selling author of nine books including the Oprah book, . She has been a keynote speaker for more than 80 Fortune 500 companies and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize four times for her work as an investigative reporter. Fawn’s first book was rejected by every major publisher in the United States, but Fawn would not give up until it was the No. 1 nonfiction bestseller that Oprah loved.  Her newest book  shows how to turbocharge your career by changing the way you change. Fawn is an inspiring storyteller and life adventurer. She’s learned plenty the hard way and is as authentic as they come. She interviewed hundreds of the most accomplished leaders of our times, including famous CEOs, prime ministers, presidents, Nobel Peace Prize winners, scientists, Academy Award winners, and many other trailblazers who revealed that success is born in risk, and power comes from consciously disabling your doubt and self-esteem issues. In this week’s learn more about Fawn’s  journey: Fawn has written nine books, the most recent one, .  Her most recent endeavor is as a podcast host of the Hard Won Wisdom podcast, in which she interviews women who are trailblazers and leaders. More than anything she enjoys communicating through writing and speaking especially when she can have a positive impact on people’s lives.   Learn more and connect with Fawn here:  Freebie! "Recharge Your Career During Covid" and "Take the Next Step" - Link:

Dean Wegner attended West Point because he was recruited to play Div I Hockey. Once there, he realized there was much more to it and began to have aspirations about becoming a high-ranking officer. In order to make that happen, he had to make the right choices upon his graduation in 1993. He opted to go the aviation route, even though the typical choice was infantry. Then a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity arose. The infantry Special Forces Ranger school had opened one slot for an aviation candidate to join the next cohort. It is a leadership program that tests your ability to survive under the most extreme conditions. Dean wanted to know how the ‘other half’ lived so he competed for the spot and was the one selected. He said his experience at infantry Special Forces Ranger school was “so bad that I loved it.” Dean’s cohort started with 342 participants and 72 days later, he was one of 70 who finished it. Dean served for seven years in the US Army as a helicopter pilot and Army Ranger. After the Army, he earned his MBA in finance from California State University and launched his career with the former big five firm, KPMG Consulting as a project manager. For more than a decade, Dean was in the consumer packaged goods industry at Procter & Gamble and Mars, Inc. in business development, sales, marketing, and strategy.  In 2017, Dean created Authentically American® to help bring manufacturing jobs back to America by selling premium, competitively priced, apparel that is all made in the USA. Prior to starting Authentically American®, Dean was the CEO/owner of Omega Apparel for five years, a leading supplier of dress uniforms for the US military. His experience in the apparel industry, coupled with his passion for America, provided all the incentive he needed to create a brand that aims to set the standard for premium American-made merchandise while delivering a significant impact on US job creation.  In this week’s learn more about Dean’s  journey: Dean serves on the board of several for-profit and nonprofit organizations. He donates 10% of Authentically American® profits to veteran and first responder charities.  Learn more and connect with Dean here: Special DIscount for Work From The Inside Out listeners: SHOP Authentically American: *Discount Code: FOUNDER = 25% off total purchase*one-time only purchase Our Story: Feature Article in Appearance on

From an engineering degree at Princeton to his first job at GE under Jack Welch to a Stanford MBA to the worldwide director of finance at Apple, Rusty Gaillard had walked the traditional path of success. Along the way, he learned that traditional success is not the same as being successful in life. Rusty left his finance role at Apple when he got more interested in developing his own InnerTech™ rather than chasing external success. Those upgrades to his operating system came through the challenges and opportunities of a voluntary demotion at Apple in order to spend more time at home, a divorce, and eventually leaving his 25-year corporate career to become a coach. Using a repeatable process to upgrade your InnerTech™ Rusty now helps others.  Today, Rusty is a Speaker and Transformational Coach who works at the intersection of high tech and inner tech, helping successful business leaders achieve their next level of success by upgrading their InnerTech™. In order to achieve holistic success in life on their terms, Rusty helps A-players get off autopilot by discovering and defining their own requirements and upgrades for their beliefs, thoughts, and habits.  In this week’s learn more about Rusty’s  journey: He has been a student of self-development and transformation for over 10 years and was formally certified at the Brave Thinking Institute in 2018. Rusty created his coaching and speaking company, , to help people achieve their goals and live happy fulfilled lives. In his speech, “The Power of Vision: Three Keys to Accelerate Your Results” Rusty inspires his audiences with practical steps that help them to identify what they really want, overcome the obstacles that may hold them back from reaching their goals, and maintain momentum as they up-level their results. Learn more and connect with Rusty here:

When Laura Gassner Otting was in fourth grade, her teacher said, “you’re pretty argumentative… you should become a lawyer.” Laura says she was a serious young person. At only nine years old, she would watch the news every night and with righteous indignation, make a mark on a pad each day the hostages were still in Iran. Determined, she decided that she would have to solve all the problems. Laura reasoned that politicians were charged with problem-solving and since most politicians were lawyers, then she knew what she had to do.  Fast forward, Laura goes to law school. Immediately, she realizes it was a mistake. Laura had no interest in the classes nor in being there. A month later she heard about this “dude” running for President named Bill Clinton. Laura volunteered for the campaign and a few weeks later, she helped to organize a rally that drew 36,000 people. Soon after, Laura dropped out of law school and headed out on the campaign trail. Everyone told her she was making a terrible mistake. Laura disagreed. Clinton ended up in the White House, and so did Laura. As a presidential appointee during Bill Clinton’s first term in the White House, Laura helped to shape the AmeriCorps program. She moved on to the nonprofit search firm, Isaacson, Miller to expand the startup ExecSearches.com. Laura then founded and ran the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, which partnered with mission-driven nonprofit executives. In 2015, Laura sold NPAG to the team that helped her build it, to pursue her next chapter, and to serve on Hillary Clinton’s National Finance Committee. Today, she speaks, coaches, and inspires entrepreneurs, investors, leaders, and donors to get them past the doubt and indecision to seek new ways of leading, managing and mentoring others. In this week’s learn more about Laura’s  journey: Laura has spoken across the United States and internationally to universities, companies, conferences, accelerators, TEDx, and the US Military.  She is the author of the Washington Post Best Seller (2019) and (2015). Learn more and connect with Laura here:

Jennifer Fondrevay told me something that I have never before heard from a guest. As a young child, she wanted to become the Ambassador to France and even more remarkably she continued to have that goal throughout her college years into graduate school. Jennifer’s father is French and her grandmother lived with them until she was three years old, so she learned French first, English second. She majored in French and political science undergrad and then continued with her graduate studies at the Thunderbird School Of Global Management where she studied international business, specializing in marketing and advertising. Jennifer figured if the ambassadorship didn’t materialize, her fallback plan was in marketing or advertising. It appears to have worked out extremely well, although Jennifer’s Dad still hopes that she’ll pursue the diplomacy route one day. As a Fortune 500 C-suite “survivor”, Jennifer has been on all sides of three separate multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions. She saw countless growth strategies fail due to a workforce that couldn’t pivot and adapt as quickly as leadership anticipated. While she may not be the Ambassador to France she has sharpened her diplomacy skills over the years.  Today, Jennifer is the founder and Chief Humanity Officer of , a consultancy that advises forward-thinking business leaders, owners, and C suite executives on how to prepare for and manage the people challenges of business transitions, particularly mergers and acquisitions. Jennifer conducted extensive research for and authored the satirical survivor’s handbook, . She is a frequent keynote speaker at HR conferences and associations. In this week’s learn more about Jennifer’s journey: When her Harvard Business Review (HBR) article, “” went viral, Jennifer recognized the power and interest in a human-centric approach to business transformation, where employees are at the heart of the change.  In addition to HBR, Jennifer also shares her expertise as a contributor to Fast Company, Inc, Thrive Global, and Forbes. Learn more and connect with Jennifer here:

Darcy Roberts wants people to love their work. For more than 20 years she held administrative roles across a variety of industries, including the arts, law, finance, banking, and executive search, working with people at all levels of the corporate world. Darcy had a natural gift for the work, but she didn’t actually like doing it. She had some interesting experiences during those decades, sitting in the front row to witness a wide range of organizational and leadership dynamics. Darcy’s last admin job was in the executive search industry.  For her 50th birthday, Darcy gifted herself with a trip to Morocco, a small group tour with 18 people. She listened as various tour group participants talked about their lives and how they looked forward to returning home to their work. Darcy returned home with photos of herself sitting in the Sahara Desert with tears rolling down her face. She was absolutely miserable and knew that something had to change. Darcy resigned from her job soon after her return from Morocco. Two weeks later, she started researching life coaching training programs. That was six years ago and she has not looked back once. Today, Darcy owns her company, Spiral by Design. She provides career and leadership coaching and works with teams to develop their collaboration. Her coaching superpowers include her intuition, a practical approach to real-world challenges, and a sense of humor. Darcy coaches leaders and managers to increase their leadership skills, effectiveness, and impact with their teams and in their organizations.  In this week’s learn more about Darcy’s  journey: Darcy helps people figure out what is next for them in all aspects of career transition. She is a certified facilitator of the Lego Serious Play Method and is certified to use both the Facet 5 personality assessment tool and the Birkman Method. Darcy believes that when your heart, brain, and gut are in alignment, everything will feel right on track. Learn more and connect with Darcy here: 

Jenean Merkel Perelstein is a social-cultural anthropologist, who has studied behavior change across many cultures, from the markets and prisons of India to the boardrooms across America. She has implemented change strategies that have saved lives and made fortunes. This work is supported by her book, Jenean is no stranger to change. In her early years, she struggled to find her direction, hopping around to seven different schools over nine years. She eventually decided to take time away from school and find her spark, as she put it. Jenean traveled for a while and worked as a ski instructor in the Alps where she met her husband Scott, a previous guest on my podcast. Together, they traveled to India and the Middle East, and this led to Jenean’s interest in anthropology. Eventually, they returned to the US where Jenean finished her degree and went on to graduate school. They started a family and everything seemed beautiful.Several years later, Jenean was working as the CEO of a regional non profit organization and while it all looked good on the outside, the light inside of her was dimming. She was burned out to the point where she was physically ill. Jenean had to slow down, focus on herself, and regroup. As she regained her health she began to take on contract work, doing marketing and strategy consulting. This evolved to change management consulting where she applied her background in anthropology to support business and organizational cultures. Today, Jenean is a business anthropologist, US patent holder, and revered speaker, who is the CEO of Alchemy Academy, where she enriches workplace culture for clients ranging from solopreneurs to Fortune 100 companies.In this week’s learn more about Jenean’s  journey: Jenean practices anthropology day to day; she teaches people about behavior change through the lens of the culture that is either supporting them or holding them back. She mentors organizations to grow their workplace culture, develop their leadership skills, and achieve a higher level of positivity, productivity, and profitability.  Learn more and connect with Jenean here:

Mike Smith still keeps in touch with his boss from Deloitte, his first employer after college graduation, 25+ years ago. How many of us can claim that? We know that most people, when they resign from a job, are actually leaving a boss. Remarkably, Mike's next move was to follow his boss as he became the CFO at the local NBC Philadelphia TV station. By the time he was 28, his boss was elevated to the national network and Mike filled his boss’s shoes. As a young finance leader, Mike felt he was in over his head but the company was big on investing in talent and knew this would be a formative experience. After two years, NBC pushed Mike out of his comfort zone again. They transferred him to Los Angeles to work with NBC Corporate and GE Capital, which owned the network, to work on a theme park acquisition.   Mike credits having had a few great bosses who were instrumental in enabling him to grow. He always aimed to make their lives easier, by offering solutions, and not adding problems, so that they would look out for him. Mike cited research demonstrating that 70% of a person's daily experience at work is directly shaped by their boss. Likewise, as Mike has been promoted, he has made it a priority to mentor and coach his direct reports. Bosses have been instrumental every step of the way in Mike’s career. His last boss at NBC left the network to go to the NFL, National Football League, and within months, had recruited Mike to join her on the finance team there. Eventually, Mike became the CFO and in his last few years, he moved over to human capital because of his passion for engaging people to drive business performance. He then founded Huddle Advisory, which focuses on strategic planning, human capital effectiveness, leadership and culture.  In this week’s learn more about Mike’s  journey:  Huddle Advisory’s mission is to guide leaders and teams to peak performance because it consistently delivers better business results. His approach guides clients to maximize their potential through skilled inquiry, objective analysis, and practical counsel.  Mike is also working on his doctoral degree in Leadership & Learning in Organizations from Vanderbilt University. Learn more and connect with Mike here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/Mike-p-smith/ https://www.facebook.com/Mikesmith.huddle https://huddleadvisory.com/

Manbir Kaur’s first job after graduating from a prominent university in India was in banking, yet her degree was in computer applications. She felt wholly unqualified at first. And, she was starting out at 19. Manbir credits her father’s influence as he was an action-oriented, focused, hard-working, very positive, optimistic person who encouraged her to “grab the job and make your career”. He was also in banking. So, Manbir dove right in from day zero as she put it, ”Age was on my side, spirit was on my side. The hard-working attitude was on my side. I started from scratch learning about retail banking from my peers. I really did a good job, so I won't deny that. I enjoyed that role thoroughly. It was all fun.”Today, Manbir is an Executive and Leadership Coach. She is also a Conversational Intelligence(C-IQ) Enhanced Practitioner, Positive Intelligence Coach, and a keynote speaker. She specializes in coaching leaders from technology organizations. Manbir helps leaders and entrepreneurs to align themselves and their teams to strategic goals, unleash their own and their team's potential. She has authored two books.Prior to being a coach, Manbir worked in the corporate world for various Indian and Multinational IT companies in Development, Operations, Presales, People Management and Consulting. These experiences have enabled her to coach her clients in more immersive ways.In this week’s learn more about Manbir’s  journey: Manbir has written two outstanding books, and .  She has developed specific frameworks to help make coaching progress "measurable", creating value for her clients in every engagement. Her clients include executives from various technology companies in India, UK, the US, and the Middle East. Learn more and connect with Manbir here:  , BOOKS: 

Jacqueline Wales is a motivational speaker, professional coach, and the author of three books. She has helped countless people become more empowered, confident, and resilient. Her work focuses on leaders who dig into self-discovery, take accountability for their actions, and responsibility for their decisions. Jacqueline challenges herself daily to be better and challenges her clients to break through boundaries, and excuses to achieve results.Jacqueline has explored human behavior and asked tough questions to discover hard truths. She draws on her own traumatic, abusive childhood in Edinburgh, Scotland where she experienced a great deal of fear and uncertainty growing up in a home where alcoholism was present. Jacqueline got her first job at 15, and left home at 16, trying to reinvent her life in London. At 20, Jacqueline was pregnant and gave the baby up for adoption. The next ten years were a miasma, as she describes it. She went to college, got a degree, got married, divorced, had another child, and moved from London to San Francisco.It wasn’t until she was in her 30s that Jacqueline found her ‘real self’. Today, Jacqueline has been married to her second husband for 42 years, is the mother of five adult children and has lived in many great spots across the world, including Bali, Amsterdam, LA, New York, and Paris.In this week’s learn more about Jacqueline’s  journey: Jacqueline believes in the power of fearlessness to create the career and life you want.  She has authored , , and . Jacqueline is also a talented singer, serving as a cantorial soloist in synagogues in Amsterdam, New York and Paris. She has a black belt in Shotokan Karate. Learn more and connect with Jacqueline here: 

Gary Ireland is an employment attorney. He helps executives in the areas of finance and banking, law, media technology, healthcare, and higher education maximize income and benefits when joining a company and enhanced severance, and asserting legal rights when leaving. He supports small businesses seeking to start and build companies saving money and solving legal problems by making strategic and smarter business decisions while limiting risk. Gary also represents hourly workers who have been denied pay and overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Law. Gary helped a senior executive in financial services who was marginalized and passed over because of her gender. He helped her secure a substantial severance payment so that she was able to move on to her next job. Gary often works behind the scenes to ensure that issues are communicated clearly, the public is educated, and all people are treated fairly. In this week’s learn more about Gary’s  journey: Gary and his daughter Sydney in partnership with the National Organization for Women took on the Boy Scouts of America to get girls the same opportunities as boys when his daughter had qualified to complete the requirements for her Eagle Scout project. He has also partnered with public officials and the NAACP on policy issues. Gary frequently connects clients to coaches and recruiters to help with streamlining and expediting employment transitions.  Learn more and connect with Gary here: 

In high school, Keith McCormick drove his math teachers crazy because he never got his homework done on time yet he did very well on standardized tests. As he put it, he was the classic ‘over underachiever’. Keith’s teachers accused him of being lazy, yet unlike most teens who might have absorbed it as a strike to their confidence, he got more curious and started reading education theory books to better understand himself. He was annoyed by their mean-spiritedness. In his junior year, Keith had a religion teacher who did not judge his reading choices and even made suggestions to add to his stack. He finally felt seen.  Interestingly, Keith was considering college at 17, Keith decided to enlist in the Army Reserve so that he could get a scholarship to pay for his education and he felt that it was going to give me the discipline that I had lacked as a high school student. His parents were actually against it, but they accepted his choice. While his interests included philosophy, history, and education theory, he attended Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to study computer and data science. While at WPI, Keith did a social science project on learning styles and how to build more effective computer-based instruction. This led to his assisting a professor with a research conference during which he introduced Keith to Mary McCauley, a less famous yet key researcher who brought the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to the mainstream. Meeting Mary changed the next ten years of Keith’s life. He worked with Mary doing research and analysis on the MBTI assessment. Keith also ran his own SAT test prep service. Today, Keith is an independent consultant, thought leader, and LinkedIn learning contributor. He also serves as Cloud Factory's Chief Data Science Advisor. In this week’s learn more about Keith’s  journey: In the 90s, Keith worked as an SPSS and analytic software trainer.  He has written several books, including AI for Dummies, and SPSS for Dummies. Keith has been working with analytics management, to more efficiently run their teams, and to nurture new hires as they expand their teams.  Learn more and connect with Keith here:

As a 5 year old, Todd Cherches would tell adults he wanted to be Superman when he grew up. His backup plan? To be Batman. He loved television, describing himself as a ‘TV Guide’, memorizing everything he could. By the age of 18, he had read the complete works of Shakespeare. As he says, “that’s one of the good things about having OCD, you don't give up on something until you're done.” In college, he studied English Literature and went on to get a Master’s in Communications. Todd never lived away from his home on Long Island, New York except to go to college. After college he got a job as a media buyer at Ogilvy & Mather in New York City, commuting from his parent’s home. He didn’t love the job. After taking a vacation to LA where his college roommate was living, he was drawn to the land of his earliest obsession. Todd gave notice, packed his bags, and over the next ten years, he worked in a succession of jobs in the TV and entertainment industry. In our interview, he shared stories of those experiences and the familiar faces he bumped into, such as Tom Hanks, Lucille Ball, and Peewee Herman, to name just a few. Then, Todd decided to move home to New York, even though he was unsure what he would do next. He applied for a project management role at the American Management Association and they hired him. This launched his career in the field of management and leadership development.  Today, Todd is the CEO and Co-founder of Big Blue Gumball, a New York City based consulting firm, specializing in leadership development, public speaking, and executive coaching. In this week’s learn more about Todd’s  journey: Todd is the author of . A great book, in my humble opinion! He is an award-winning Adjunct Professor in the Human Capital Management Master's degree program at NYU, and a Lecturer on Leadership at Columbia University. Todd is a TEDx speaker and a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s MG100 coaches. Learn more and connect with Todd here:

Scott Perelstein is a change management specialist who closes the gap between strategy and implementation by guiding teams of planners and doers to move in the same direction. As a facility specialist for over 20 years, he has been in the facilities world as a contractor and owner, and a director. Scott specializes in bringing about change, focusing on inclusion from the highest level of administration to the frontline workers. Scott has managed hundreds of employees and cared for millions of square feet of higher education facilities. Scott reflects on a conversation he had with his Dad as a teen that has stayed with him. His Dad was an electrical engineer and he was being promoted to a project manager role. Scott recalls his Dad’s perspective on the situation:  “You get to a place where you did such a good job at what you know how to do that they ask you not to do it anymore. Then they ask you to manage people who do it and so I'll no longer do engineering, which I love. But somebody needs to step up and be the manager of that.”  Many years later, Scott knew exactly what his Dad talking about as he experienced a similar transition and while he has been able to build a business leveraging his strengths on the people side, that transition can really be difficult for some people who perform excellently on the technical side but may not assimilate well to people management. He understands that it is like asking someone to change who they are and fit into a new definition of success.  In this week’s learn more about Scott’s  journey:  Today, Scott is the Chief Operating Officer at Alchemy Academy.  He draws on his business management degree from Cornell University, as well as a broad book of experiences to create new and innovative businesses to shaping the culture within teams and organizations. His work is informed by his various roles as an entrepreneur, supervisor, and board member. Learn more and connect with Scott here: