Your Next Success

Send us Fan Mail Micheal Shaw made his career pivot after twenty-two years of running his own photography studio, when the same digital technology that started his business changed the industry around him. The skill that carried him forward was one he had been giving away for free for fifteen years, because he assumed nobody would pay for it. Micheal grew up in Rochester, New York, raised by his g...

Send us Fan Mail Starting a business after being laid off is the path Sara Skowronski took. For twenty years she was the person every company leaned on, hired for HR and soon running IT, finance, and whatever else needed an owner. She was let go by a new owner on a Monday, and the first thing she noticed underneath the shock was how much lighter she felt. Now a fractional HR partner and Certified...

Send us Fan Mail Dr. Kevin Snyder: The Story He Wished He'd Heard Every choice carries a consequence you can't always see at the time. Kevin Snyder became Dean of Students at High Point University, a role he'd worked toward for years. It came with one condition: give up his public speaking. He agreed, figuring it didn't matter much. Then he realized he'd given up too much....

Send us Fan Mail Career reinvention rarely arrives as a plan. For Graham Kuhn, it arrived as a series of jobs that looked unconnected until the day they became one calling. Graham grew up working farms and wrestling in small-town Wisconsin, trained in opera, sang professionally for years, managed gyms, and eventually landed inside a church making videos every week. He never set out to be a busines...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you reach the career milestone you were certain would settle everything, then find a bigger question waiting at the top? Stan Phelps built a career at the top of sports marketing, running tennis promotions for Adidas and managing the New York Yankees relationship from an office inside Yankee Stadium. Each time he reached the role he had aimed for, the view asked...

Send us Fan Mail You can reach every career goal you set and still catch yourself wondering what it was all for. Patrick Kamba knows that question well. He built the kind of career that looks complete from the outside, leading global programs in pharma, becoming a director, writing a book. And somewhere along the way he started paying attention to a smaller, more honest measure of success: whether...

Send us Fan Mail Nobody trains you to lead. Jen Heemstra found that out the hard way, then wrote the book on it. She became a chemist by accident. Almost went to law school. Took an industry job that quietly convinced her she was mediocre. And then came the moment most academics dread: the tenure vote where half the room votes no. Here's the twist. That's the moment she found her purpose...

Send us Fan Mail If you're a high achiever, this one's for you. Dr. Jen Heemstra figured out early that achievement was the one thing she could control. So she controlled it. Grades, awards, being the person who had it all together. She literally calls it her drug, and here's the part that gets you: it worked. It built the kind of career most people chase their whole lives. Then she...

Send us Fan Mail From Nice to Kind | Deidre Beacham on Nice Girl Syndrome, People Pleasing, and Radical Self-Ownership Nice girl syndrome is one of the most invisible programs a woman can run, and Deidre Beacham ran it for decades before a single conversation finally made her see it. By her 50s she had lived through more than most people face in a lifetime. And still, standing in front of her step...

Send us Fan Mail Find Yourself | Alex Dumas on Identity, Belonging, and Coming Back to Who You Are Finding yourself after years of performing, surviving, and building from the outside in is the real work underneath every career story, and Alex Dumas traces his own path back with rare honesty. He grew up feeling out of step, performing for the laugh to keep people at arm's length, carrying a v...

Send us Fan Mail Who Are You Without the Title? | Michele Novack Career reinvention after corporate is rarely just about finding the next job. Michele Novack invested 30 years in banking and finance building her identity from the outside in, and eventually had to rebuild it from the inside out. Her arc moves from a Yonkers childhood marked by early trauma, through single motherhood and night schoo...

Send us Fan Mail How to Build an Event Production Career From Curiosity and Calling, With Cameron Magee Building an event production career from scratch looks a lot like Cameron Magee's story: a curious kid, a mentor who pulled up a chair, and 20 years of showing up and giving more than he took. In this conversation, the founder and CEO of avad3 shares how a small-town Arkansas boy with no en...

Send us Fan Mail Money Mindset, the Enneagram, and Why Your Financial Patterns Go Deeper Than Money, With Doug Lynam Money mindset work rarely begins with a monastery in the New Mexico desert, but Doug Lynam's story does, and that is precisely what makes his insights so hard to forget. Doug is a former Benedictine monk, Marine Corps Officer Candidate, bestselling author, and financial advisor...

Send us Fan Mail How to Dream Again and Rebuild Your Life After Grief and Loss, With Chanoa Inez Rebuilding your life after grief and upheaval is possible, and Chanoa Inez has lived the full arc of what that actually takes. She followed her instincts toward beauty and meaning through fashion, copywriting, and entrepreneurship until the kind of loss that changes everything arrived suddenly. What fo...

Send us Fan Mail Mastering Your Mind With Madelaine Weiss: Career Pivots, Life Transitions, and Getting to GREAT Mindset mastery is the through-line of Madelaine Weiss's entire life, from grieving teenager to Harvard-trained psychotherapist, from lab technician to executive coach, from student who nobody believed in to author helping others believe in themselves. In this conversation, Madelai...

Send us Fan Mail How to Leave Corporate and Build a Business Before You Quit | Tabatha Jones Tabatha Jones — Executive Director turned Corporate Escape Sherpa — built her coaching business one hour a day while still inside corporate, and left with a plan already in motion. In this episode, she shares how she navigated four mergers, learned to negotiate after a decade of waiting to be recognized, a...

Send us Fan Mail When you reflect on your life, can you recognize the moments that shaped who you’ve become? In this episode, I talk with Marcy Axelrod about her life and career journey, starting with an early experience that changed how she saw herself and the world around her. We walk through her path from childhood, to Cornell, to Wall Street and global consulting, and into the work she does to...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you’ve built a career you’re good at… and something in you starts to shift? In this episode, Megan Applegate shares her journey from a 20-year career in hospitality into business ownership, recruiting, and career strategy. She opens up about the moment she realized the work no longer felt the same—and what it looked like to move forward without a clear plan. This...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever woken up at 3 a.m., wondering if the life you’re living is truly fulfilling? In this episode of Your Next Success , Dr. Caroline Sangal sits down with Jennifer Mecham to explore the mindset shifts that can redefine success and unlock human potential. Raised in the coal mining towns of Utah, Jennifer’s journey was shaped by resilience, legacy, and a powerful lesson fr...

Send us Fan Mail What if you experienced what some have called the most devastating loss imaginable, and discovered a path to healing in its aftermath? In this episode of Your Next Success, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Annah Elizabeth , author, speaker, and creator of the Five Facets® Philosophy on Healing. Annah shares her powerful journey through profound grief, heartbreak, and betrayal, revea...

Send us Fan Mail Camilla Calberg knows what it feels like to bring strong ideas, deep contribution, and genuine effort into a workplace… and still feel unseen. In this episode of Your Next Success, she joins Dr. Caroline Sangal for a thoughtful conversation about career alignment, trusted influence, and the moments that reveal whether you are forcing yourself to fit or paying attention to where yo...

Send us Fan Mail John DeDakis told other people's stories for 45 years. In this episode, he tells his own. It begins with a curious kid in La Crosse, Wisconsin who knocks on a radio station door during a bike ride and discovers something that will shape his entire life. It winds through the Vietnam era, the White House, 25 years at CNN, a 48+ year marriage, three children, profound loss, and...

Send us Fan Mail What does performance actually mean—and how does it shape the life you’re building? In this episode of Your Next Success , Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with high-performance coach Rob Tracz about the role performance plays in personal and professional growth. Rob shares how his early experiences in sports introduced him to discipline, structure, and personal development, and how thos...

Send us Fan Mail Mike Barefoot served 27+ years in staffing and recruiting, placed 1,000+ professionals (primarily in IT), generated $50M+ in revenue, and built a profitable boutique firm. In this conversation, we trace how his early life changes, competitive drive, and decades of martial arts discipline shaped the way he evaluates people, protects reputation, and plays the long game in hiring and...

Send us Fan Mail Ben Stein transitioned from executive leadership in advertising and tech to founding Purpose Up, where he now coaches professionals navigating career pivots with clarity and alignment. In this episode of Your Next Success , Dr. Caroline Sangal speaks with Ben about the internal evaluation that often precedes visible career change and how that season ultimately shaped the work he n...