Practically on Purpose

What does it actually cost to take the road less traveled — and what do you get back? In this episode, I sit down with my Amherst classmate Blake Murphey: liberal arts kid, former finance intern, and US Navy intelligence officer of 13 years. Blake's career reads like something out of a novel — aircraft carrier Intel cells in the Persian Gulf, supporting a SEAL Team deployment in East Africa, NATO...

Jordan Nahmias didn’t grow up dreaming of being an entertainment lawyer. He wanted to be an artist. But a professor suggested he write the LSAT, he did well, and suddenly he was on a track. Once you’re on the track, it’s easy to mistake momentum for destiny. “It is a well-worn groove,” he told me. “Once you’ve made the choice… the blinders are on.” He continued, “Law is the thing that smart people...

A Harvard Law grad, negotiation expert, and author of Unlearning Silence , Elaine has spent the last decade teaching people how to have difficult conversations. But it wasn’t until she confronted her own self-silencing that the real work began. We talk about how silence gets rewarded, how it gets internalized, and what it really means to reclaim voice. Bio Elaine Lin Hering is a speaker, facilitat...

On motherhood, meditation, science, psychedelics and spirituality. My brain used to be a steel trap. I negotiated multi-million dollar deals and tracked complex legal roadmaps in my head. These days, I can’t remember if I’ve put coffee in the coffee maker. At first I thought I was just “losing it.”But the more I learn about matrescence, psychedelics and the default mode network, the more I wonder...

What if your job were less a grind and more a mirror, one that reflects your strengths, triggers, and patterns so you can grow on purpose? In this conversation with Erin Hinkle Robertson (fractional Chief People Officer; culture builder), we explore work as a practice of becoming. Erin discusses when she first she saw that work is a prism for self-knowledge. We also get honest about America’s ruth...

My next guest is someone who used to speed-walk through Manhattan like it was an Olympic sport, turn a six-month project around in twenty-eight days, and secretly love the chaos because it proved she could do the impossible. Sound familiar? Meet Catherine Boyko, a former executive producer at one of the world’s top ad agencies, whose life was all grind and no sleep… until COVID, a breakup, and a d...

Guys, it finally happened. The sleep, I mean. Knock on wood, but I’m sleeping again. I was getting to the point where my brain resembled the crumbling ruins of some once-majestic estate, like whatever moldy manor was in Great Expectations or Wuthering Heights . I don’t actually remember much about either book, just the feeling-tone of gray skies and decaying Victorian grandeur. Chunks of my sanity...

Feeling wired, tense, or caught in a loop of overthinking? This 10-minute Reiki-infused meditation is designed to help you receive exactly what you need and release what you’re ready to let go of. In this gentle practice, we’ll: Take three grounding breaths to land in the present moment Tune into the natural rhythm of your breath Work with the simple mantra: “Breathing in, receiving. Breathing out...

Now that we’re in the throes of the holiday season, I’ve been thinking about what it actually means to be festive . This contemplation started for me a few months ago when I was listening to The Emerald (a must-listen podcast on myth & meaning, btw). Josh Schrei was talking about festivals, wildness, and how earlier cultures created intentional spaces for rupture. It sent me down a little rabbit h...

Feeling mentally cluttered or stuck in rumination? This guided practice blends a soothing body scan with a simple “golden light” breath visualization to clear the fog fast. We’ll begin with a gentle body scan: softening your forehead, relaxing your shoulders, and inviting your whole body to release stored tension. From there, I’ll guide you into a visualization practice drawing on Reiki and Qigong...

Paul Millerd and his book the Pathless Path found me in a moment where I was deeply lost, professionally and personally. Through his writing, I went from believing that work had to be tedious misery on an established path to prestige (hence being a grindy lawyer) to viewing it as a series of experiments that could look whatever way I wanted. It was deeply liberating. Because of his writing, I was...

I’m able to provide my children with food, shelter, and clothing. So I consider myself lucky that the first hunger I noticed in my five-year-old son was material, not physical. He came home the other day asking if I’d buy him a Labubu . Naturally, I had no idea what that was. (If you’re living under a rock like me, it’s an extraordinarily overpriced keychain/stuffed animal/gremlin hybrid.) He told...

Fractional CPO Kate Kruizenga joins me to swap 9:9:6 math for a more human ledger, one a mentor summed up as “dollars and days.” We trace her arc from Kaiser and Dropbox to startup whiplash, a deliberate pause, and the “recklessly generous” strategy that reoriented her business (and doubled her income) without sacrificing faith, family, or integrity. We get practical about her approach to fraction...

Scott Britton did all the things our culture promises will deliver joy – Princeton athlete, hot-shot founder, splashy lists, big outcomes – and still found himself tightening, agitated, and wondering why the summit felt so empty. Scott became a consciousness explorer, first through a doorway of altered states, then through daily unglamorous dedication to inner work. In this conversation, we walk t...

In today’s episode, I sit down with a bona-fide modern Renaissance man: Errol King —ex-Google creative technologist, game designer, Tai Chi devotee, and co-founder of the world-building studio Innergalactic.xyz . W e explore: * how growing up the son of a Bronx corrections officer turned him into an “extreme hobbyist” who’s determined to get paid to do what he loves , even as that love keeps chang...

Sometimes all we need to do is take a pause and remember that we have bodies. This episode is a guided meditation practice, recorded live outside in the Hudson Valley with birdsong and natural sounds as your backdrop. We begin with three simple breaths, then move through a body scan to release tension. From there, we explore quieter anchors of awareness, skin, breath, taste, sound, until the whole...

What happens when you bring design thinking, off-sites, sticky notes and strategy maps into your marriage and parenting life? Meet Sami Packard — designer, organizational change pro, and founder of Coupledom. Sami grew up without a roadmap for partnership. When she married in 2016 and became a parent the very next year, she reached for the tools she knew best: facilitation, Post-its, and long-rang...

This gentle, grounding meditation invites you to release tension, reconnect with your body, and rest in the awareness of being breathed. We begin with three deep breaths to soften the mind and melt away surface stress, then move slowly through a body scan. We’ll pause to notice and relax each part of the body, from forehead to feet. Along the way, you’ll explore gratitude for your body’s ordinary...

What happens when you follow all the “right steps” — study hard, land your dream tech jobs at Uber and Loom, rise into leadership — and then realize the ladder you’re climbing starts to feel like a trap? That’s exactly where my guest today, Sravanti Balaji , found herself. She had done everything “right” — earned a computer science degree, software engineer at Uber, engineering management at Loom...

As a kid, Jordan Call wasn’t measuring himself against classmates, he was aiming at history. At ten, he was composing. By fourteen, he was semi-horrified he wasn’t already Mozart. He eventually pointed that restless ambition toward the law: University of Chicago Law School. Elite clerkships. Coveted roles in the conservative legal world. His worth now calculated in six-minute billing increments an...

It’s 2 a.m. and the baby monitor crackles to life. Ugh. In the stillness of the night, I’m jerked out of sleep into the chaos of early motherhood: feeding, rocking, holding, breathing. Every moment is permeated with exhaustion, yet glows with something deeper; a love so vast it reshapes me. In this episode of Practically On Purpose, I share an unfiltered reflection on those middle-of-the-night fee...

This 30-minute guided meditation is part body scan, part visualization, and part energetic grounding ritual, all inspired by the beautiful physical environment and soundscape of the Hudson Valley. We’ll cultivate a gentle flow of energy that will help you: * Release tension from head to toe * Reconnect with your own power and joy * Feel calm, centered, and uplifted If you try this, I’d love to kno...

Jessica’s life is a masterclass in breadcrumb-following: from MIT → CIA weapons of mass destruction analyst → stand-up comedy → full-time energy healer and Reiki teacher She shares how debilitating migraines ultimately pointed her toward Reiki, complex PTSD healing, mediumship, and a life guided by intuition. Along the way we talk about attunements that feel like psychedelics, babies who show up a...

After making partner in Big Law, Laurice Rutledge Lambert found herself asking, “Is this it?” Laurice joins me for a conversation about leaving behind external markers of success to build a life, and a law firm, Aligned Health Law, grounded in people-first values. They explore the dark night of the soul that followed her decision to walk away, the spiritual practices that anchored her through fear...

A few years ago, I skipped a family funeral to attend a client pitch. I was a third-year associate at a BigLaw firm. Someone said my background was “indispensable” to the meeting. No one blinked when I said I couldn’t go. I told myself it was the right thing—important, even. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t. Lately, I’ve been thinking about that version of me. And about a new friend who casually me...