Work From The Inside Out

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 fearfu...

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...

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 h...

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 s...

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 explor...

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 h...

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...

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 d...

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...

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-s...

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...

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 Yo...

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. A...

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...

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 sc...

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...

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 th...

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 stud...

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....

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 Joy at Work: Managing Your Professional Life w ith Marie Kondo. In this week’s podcast, we discuss his book, Stretch: Unlock the Power of Less and Achieve More Than You Ever Imagined...

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 p...

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 lifelo...

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...

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...

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 t...