Make Life Less Difficult

Send us a message! My guest today is Anna McMahon. Anna is a returning guest with our first conversation on episode 61.  If you haven’t listened, I highly recommend it. Originally from Ireland, Anna spent many years working internationally in education.  She now is a Positive Psychologist and Coach, focusing on helping individuals and organizations determine what wellbeing is and how to achieve it...

Send us a message! My guest today is David Achata. David is a returning guest and if you haven’t listened to our first conversation, I highly recommend it.  It’s episode 83.  David is a leadership and team development coach, the author of several business leadership books, and he brings over twenty years of leadership experience into his work.  He’s experienced multiple career changes, moving acro...

Send us a message! My guest today is Alan Questel. Alan S. Questel is known for his clarity, creativity and down to earth style of teaching.  He brings a depth of understanding, humor and gentle human perspective while creating lively conditions for learning.  Alan has taught thousands of people in over 20 countries. He was trained by Dr. Feldenkrais and has created numerous Feldenkrais programs o...

Send us a message! My guest today is Noel Bulger. Noel is a returning guest to the podcast after sharing pieces of his story on episode 100!   Noel is a leadership coach and veteran of the US Marine Corps.   Noel grew up in Ireland and moved to the United States at age 18.  He has had life toss him some difficult curveballs including the loss of his son, PTSD from his time in the military, and a t...

Send us a message! My guest today is Federica Vinci. Federica is the Deputy Mayor of Isernia, Italy.  She’s a recognized Obama Leader Europe 2020 as well as a co-founder of Volt Italia, shaking up politics with activist campaigns and strategic election planning. Federica’s background includes International Public Administration and Community Organizing, with stints as a Harvard’s Kennedy School te...

Send us a message! My guest today is Rob Allan. Rob is a Doctor of Psychology, a registered counselor, coach, facilitator, consultant, business operator, author and speaker. Originally studying medicine, Rob has had a career spanning training and development for adult learning programs, private equity and venture capital, serving as CEO of an acquisition and operations company, working two differe...

Send us a message! My guest today is Andrew Kauffman. Andrew is a returning guest to the podcast and I’m so happy to be continuing the conversation with him.  Our first conversation is on episode 117, and I highly recommend listening if you haven’t yet, as Andrew shared pieces of his journey including his experience coming out as gay as well as being a kidney donor to his father. Andrew is a coach...

Send us a message! My guest today is Russ Watts. Russ has been on the podcast several times and I continue to be so grateful for his willingness to jump into conversation whenever I say, hey, we should talk about that on the podcast!  This conversation today is special is so many ways.  First of all, for context, if you haven’t listened to Episode 4 where Russ shares stories of two mountaineering...

Send us a message! My guest today is Julie Perkins. Julie is the founder of Wyseminds, a company that works alongside female entrepreneurs to them be at their best, feel challenged and good enough to be there.   Julie has decades of experience building brands, growing businesses, and going through some difficult transitions along the way.  In our conversation she shares her wisdom of lessons learn...

Send us a message! My guest today is Michelle Hervy. Michelle is a Menopause Awareness Speaker and Midlife Coach.   After having her own less than perfect entry into the world of menopause, Michelle is dedicated to guiding individual and businesses through the transformative midlife stage.  Her work emphasizes self-care, lifestyle assessment, and the profound impact of mental and physical health o...

Send us a message! My guest today is John Tilstra. John is, as some of you know, my husband.  He and I have talked about doing a podcast conversation together for all of the two years that I’ve been doing the Make Life Less Difficult podcast and we finally did it!  You’ll get to hear the story behind the delay in our conversation so I won’t spoil that here. In our conversation today, we share piec...

Send us a message! My guest today is Sandene Chetwynd. Sandene is a Leadership and wellbeing coach based out of Melbourne, Australia. Sandene has a passion for supporting leaders to identify the combination of skills, behaviours and habits that will make them be better and feel better at work – to be able to have a career that is both rewarding and sustainable. Sandene partners with her clients to...

Send us a message! My guest today is Kenza Barrada. Kenza is a returning guest and if you haven’t listened to our first two conversation together, I highly recommend them (episodes 113 and 119). Today’s conversation happened in response to the earthquake that happened in Morocco just last week.  So you might guess that this conversation has some heaviness to it and we felt the heaviness of our hea...

Send us a message! In today's episode, I shares reflections and ideas on strategies for giving feedback.  This topic comes up a lot in my work as a coach and facilitator. Looking at several different models of giving feedback will hopefully provide new perspectives, ideas for skills to develop, and considerations on how to adjust the style of feedback for the situation and individual.   I bel...

Send us a message! A few minutes of reflections as I take a small break and have a few weeks without new episodes released.  As my life enters quite a few major transitions, I want to continue this podcast in a way that will be sustainable.  It looks like this means there may be some inconsistency in releases along the way, and I'm processing how that will impact me, as I really love having t...

Send us a message! My guest today is Amy Achata. Amy is a clinical mental health counselor.  She believes meaningful connection changes people – and this is what the therapeutic process is all about.  Amy is passionate about encouraging growth and restoration for those questioning their purpose or identity and searching for meaning.  Amy works with people facing grief and loss, generational trauma...

Send us a message! My guest today is… well, me.  Which sounds a little strange to say!  Today’s conversation is a little different as it is hosted by Russ Watts who has been a guest on the podcast several times, after being my very first guest on episode 4.   It was with some trepidation that I stepped into this idea of being the guest for a conversation and see where the conversation would go.  I...

Send us a message! My guest today is Severine Flores. Severine is a certified executive, teams, and organizational culture coach with more than 20 years of experience living and working across Africa, Europe, and the United States.  She facilitates conversations to help organizations and teams become more effective, develop and implement a shared vision, and work collaboratively across diverse bac...

Send us a message! My guest today is Titus Mott. Titus is a returning guest, having first been on the podcast at the very start, episode 5.  Titus was directly influential in me having the courage to start this podcast, through a couple of things we collaborated on – me being a guest on a podcast he was doing at the time plus us recording a few potential episodes of another podcast idea we had.  U...

Send us a message! My guest today is Priscila Hernandez, or more commonly known as Pichi. Pichi is from the beautiful country of El Salvador in Central America.  She works for the US Embassy in San Salvador, her country’s capital.  In addition to a busy job in the consular services section of the Embassy, Pichi is also part of the Adjunct Faculty program, conducting training for colleagues at emba...

Send us a message! My guest today is Laura Baringer. Laura is passionate about living an authentic, values-drive life and continuously figuring out what that means and how to do it.  She’s a former executive and strategy advisor in the global health, adolescence and gender fields and recently opened the first African branch of an NGO, managing a multi-million-dollar adolescent health program. Laur...

Send us a message! My guest today is Russ Watts.  Russ is a returning guest and today we're excited to talk all about Story! We recently facilitated a retreat in southern Tuscany, Italy, that had been planned originally for October 2020, and we finally were able to do it in person.   The power and impact of story has left indelible marks in my own life and it's the underlying passion of...

Send us a message! My guest today is Susan Sjolund. Susan is a marketing and public relations professional whose experience spans the globe.  With over 20 years of experience, she has a track record of success in building and managing high-performing cross-functional teams and collaborating with stakeholders across different departments and levels.  Susan is known as a strategic thinker and commun...

Send us a message! My guest today is Lt Col Tony Cerella. Tony is a returning guest to the podcast and in today’s conversation he shares insights and reflections on retiring from the US Army after 23 years of service. On episode 99, which was released in January, Tony was looking forward toward the month of May and his official retirement ceremony.  If you haven’t listened to that conversation, I...

Send us a message! My guest today is Freya Birdie. Freya has 17 years of global experience working across three continents in the US (NYC, SF, Silicon Valley, Miami); Europe (London, Rome, Brussels), and Asia (Mumbai) focused on management consulting, leadership coaching, organizational and team effectiveness, learning & professional development. Freya is a graduate of the Leadership Coaching...