Make Life Less Difficult

Send us a message! My guest today is Kenza Barrada. Kenza is the founder of the “We Are One World” or WAOW Project, which is designed to support leaders to realize that each one of us impacts all others, and that change starts with us. Kenza is a senior advisor for leadership development and team alignment, a Mindfulness and MBTI practitioner, and she collaborates with distinctive practitioners an...

Send us a message! My guest today is Miranda Holder. Miranda is returning to the podcast after being a guest in February 2022 on Episode 38.  We recently reconnected and Miranda was kind enough to turn our catch up into another podcast conversation and I’m so grateful! Miranda has an amazing story including starting her career as an endurance athlete and at 25, finding herself training for the US...

Send us a message! My guest today is Andrew Kauffmann. Andrew is a coach, a writer and a teacher of creative writing.   He believes that writing be a transformational aid for healing, in coaching, and in all contexts. Trained and accredited by The Professional Writing Academy in the use of expressive and therapeutic writing, he uses stories, metaphor and narrative tools to help his coaching client...

Send us a message! Today is a monologue where I share some thoughts that I'm still formulating.  I'll work on putting resources here over the next few days, referencing books I've read that have influenced my thinking on this topic. Thanks for listening! Support the show Make Life Less Difficult ~    Support: buymeacoffee.com/lisatilstra

Send us a message! My guest today is Amanda Walters. Mandy is a world traveler, a Florida Gator, storyteller, and Human Resources professional.  Mandy grew up in the southern United States.  Her father was a Southern Baptist minister turned hospice chaplain and her mother a special education teacher. Mandy is a graduate of the University of Florida (Go Gators!) and has worked in HR for various org...

Send us a message! My guest today is Mary Seals. Mary is a fellow spouse in the US Foreign Service and we connected because her husband found my podcast through the episode with Gavin McClurg (episode 35).  After listening, he reached out and said, “hey I’m a paraglider, and in the foreign service, and studying to become a coach!”  And that connection led to meeting Mary and ultimately, this episo...

Send us a message! My guest today is Kenza Barrada. Kenza is the founder of the “We Are One World” or WAOW  Project, which is designed to support leaders to realize that each one of us impacts all others, and that change starts with us. Kenza is a senior advisor for leadership development and team alignment, a Mindfulness and MBTI practitioner, and she collaborates with distinctive practitioners a...

Send us a message! My guest today is Sue Callaghan.   Sue is the founder of goldvineco, and a leadership coach and facilitator.   As a leadership coach and facilitator, Sue brings authenticity, warmth, and positive energy to her clients to accelerate growth and effectiveness through self-understanding. She is committed to nurturing happy, successful leaders.   For sixteen years, Sue worked within...

Send us a message! My guest today is Wendy Moomaw.     Wendy is the founder of the Conscious Collaboratory® where she enables systems differently, rethinking old problems through new lenses and inviting multiple perspectives to create new possibilities.    She is the co-creator of Reimagining Workshops - co-creating the 8-week immersive workshop Reimagining Racial Equity , which is a multi-dimensi...

Send us a message! My guest today is Nadia Rivera. Nadia lives and works in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where she works for the US Embassy.   I first met Nadia in 2019, where she was training to be an adjunct faculty for the Foreign Service Institute – an add-on to her full-time job.  I didn’t know it at the time, but it had just been a matter of days since Nadia had lost her father.  She shared with m...

Send us a message! My guest today is Eka Aleksandrova.   Eka is a talent development consultant, a coach, facilitator, and transition specialist.  She worked for over 25 years in the people development space, shaping people strategies and executing initiatives to recruit and retain exceptional people.  Eka worked for McKinsey & Company for over 20 years and is now the owner of her own company...

Send us a message! My guest today is Baktash Ahadi.   Baktash is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, speaker, facilitator, and human rights activist.   Baktash is a returning guest and if you have not yet listened to my first conversation with him, I highly recommend taking time to listen to Episode 84, where Baktash shared pieces of his and his family’s story of escaping Afghanistan as refuge...

Send us a message! My guest today is Todd Hess.   Todd is a leadership coach whose work centers around The Work of Byron Katie.  (we’ll share a lot more about what that means momentarily.)   Before his training as a coach, Todd had been an HR Executive in the tech industry with companies like eBay, NICE inContact, Vivint Smart Home, Call Tower, and Castlight Health.   After his own transformationa...

Send us a message! My guest today is Arianne Rice. Arianne is back on the Make Life Less Difficult podcast for conversation #3.  Arianne first shared pieces of her story on episode 17, then came back to explore grief, sadness, and difficult times around loss on episode 49. Arianne is an Episcopal priest, Certified Daring Way Facilitator, and Leadership Coach. Since we first met, Arianne has also b...

Send us a message! My guest today is Bechara Abi Assi. Bechara describes himself as a “humble student traveler on this journey of life.” Bechara is driven by a deep curiosity to understand how people make sense of their inner and outer worlds, and a wonder at the possibilities that opens up for them. He is committed to helping himself and others build close-knit groups and cultivate meaningful rel...

Send us a message! My guest today is Alex Tonsberg. Before I share more about Alex, let me apologize for the background noise and poor audio quality for this introduction.  I’m in Nepal at the moment and there’s not a quiet place to be found! But about Alex… There are two things that are certain in life - death and taxes. But for Alex there was a third certainty.  While still in elementary school,...

Send us a message! My guest today is Sue Harvey. Sue established Riverwise Leadership, previously New Direction Strategy, to help leaders and organizations do change better.  Working at the intersection of leadership coaching, team effectiveness, and change management, Sue guest leaders and teams to unlock their creativity and innate wisdom to deliver meaningful, lasting change.   Sue serves emerg...

Send us a message! My guest today is Thiago Hanken. Thiago supervises a high impact team at the US Consulate General in Recife Brazil.  He’s also a trainer and workshop facilitator for the US Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute Adjunct Faculty program.  He teaches leadership skills, communication strategy, cross cultural understanding, conflict management, change management and more ut...

Send us a message! My guest today is Beatrice Redi.  Beatrice is a Positive Leadership Facilitator, an Executive Coach, and a Chief Happiness Officer.   Before turning to full-time coaching and leadership development, Beatrice worked for 28 years in global corporations in the Pharmaceutical sector as a leader in Marketing and Sales functions, both industry and consulting side.   While working in g...

Send us a message! My guest today is Noel Bulger.  Before I tell you more about Noel, I want to take a moment to recognize this as the 100th episode of the Make Life Less Difficult podcast!  This is an exciting and humbling milestone to reach.  What started as an experiment has developed into an amazing journey of connection, growth, learning, and deep gratitude.   Occasionally someone will ask me...

Send us a message! My guest today is Lieutenant Colonel Tony Cerella.   Tony was born in Texas, raised in Colorado, Germany, and Virginia, and currently lives in Como, Italy.     Tony graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 2000, after which he was commissioned as an Army officer and later transitioned to the Ordnance Corps.  He swore he would serve just for 4 years and be done.  Twenty-...

Send us a message! My guest today is Charmetra Guess, better known as Meme.   Meme is a scientist turned content creator and the mother of an amazing teenage daughter (wait until you hear Meme talk about her daughter – it’s beautiful and inspirational!).  She has loved science since very early in life, as it gave her consistency as she moved around the world as the daughter in a US military family...

Send us a message! My guest today is Becky Tibbitts.    Becky is a professional certified coach with a passion for mental fitness which leads to 10x productivity, joy-filled connected relationships, and overall life satisfaction.  She helps professionals avoid energy drains that can lead to burnout.  She helps them create time and financial freedom, and also to experience more joy in life and work...

Send us a message! My guest today is Valerie Brown.   VALERIE BROWN is a Buddhist-Quaker Dharma teacher, facilitator, and executive coach. A former lawyer and lobbyist, she is a co-director of Georgetown’s Institute for Transformational Leadership as well as founder and chief mindfulness officer of Lead Smart Coaching.    She is an ordained Buddhist Dharma teacher in the Plum Village tradition, fo...

Send us a message! My guest today is Chris Thyberg.   It’s a pleasure to have Chris back on the show after our first conversation on episode 44.    Chris is the founder and principal of The Serving Way, a leadership coaching practice dedicated to partnering with experienced and emerging leaders in all sectors as they pursue great purposes for results that really matter. It is his calling and privi...