The Ambition Lab

Why do promising innovations fail inside successful companies? Sometimes, the problem isn't the idea. It's the system deciding whether that idea gets the resources, support, and attention it needs to survive. On this episode of The Ambition Lab, I sit down with Noel Sobelman, author of Innovation Portfolio Management: Linking Strategy to Execution and a senior advisor to corporate leaders. For mor...

Can science bring people together when politics has failed to do so? For Dr. Zafra Lerman, the answer is yes. And she has spent decades proving that belief through action. A world-renowned chemist, educator, and peacebuilder, Dr. Lerman has dedicated her life to using science as a tool for education, human rights, and international cooperation. As founder and president of the Malta Conferences Fou...

What happens when an experience challenges everything you thought you understood about faith? For award winning author Marcia McFarland, a defining moment on a mountaintop became a turning point in her relationship with God. She describes an experience of hearing God speak to her, receiving words that challenged her understanding of faith and eventually inspired her book, Perfect Glory: 21 Spiritu...

What happens when you've tried therapy, medicine, wellness strategies, and every solution you can think of, yet something still doesn't feel right? Sometimes, the problem isn't one part of your life. It's the way the whole system is working. On this episode of The Ambition Lab, I sit down with Liz Coleman, a certified transformational life coach, psychology graduate, Mind Shifting and NLP practiti...

What if the answers you've been searching for aren't found in achieving more, but in understanding yourself more deeply? Most high-achievers spend years building successful lives, reaching goals, and meeting expectations. Yet, even when everything looks right from the outside, something can still feel missing. On this episode of The Ambition Lab, I sit down with Viki Scudiery, intuitive healer, fo...

What happens when someone trained to analyze intelligence, examine evidence, and identify patterns becomes convinced that biblical prophecy points to specific dates in our time? And what happens when that conviction becomes strong enough to change the direction of his entire life? On this episode of The Ambition Lab, I sit down with C. Luke Humphreys, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst and au...

A food recall can be announced today and still reach a family too late. Most people hear about contaminated products through headlines, social media posts, or store notices. But what happens when the warning never reaches the people who actually bought the product? On this episode of The Ambition Lab, I sit down with Jordan Robinson, founder of Anxin, a food safety intelligence platform designed t...

Behind almost every successful person is someone who believed in them before they fully believed in themselves. For some, it's a mentor who offers an opportunity. For others, it's someone who provides guidance at a critical moment or challenges them to see their potential differently. But what happens when that early investment shapes not only a career, but the way someone chooses to help others?...

Why do some people work hard, earn more, and pursue financial success, yet still feel as though they're struggling to get ahead? Sometimes, the issue isn't just how much money we make. It may also be the beliefs, habits, and expectations we carry about money and how those patterns influence the way we earn, spend, save, and build wealth. On this episode of The Ambition Lab , I sit down with Pericl...

We often think personal growth is something we have to figure out on our own. We work on ourselves, try to manage our struggles, and celebrate independence. But what if becoming a stronger, healthier version of ourselves has just as much to do with the people around us as it does with the work we do alone? On this episode of The Ambition Lab, I sit down with Dr. Maria Van Der Maaten, sociologist,...

What if the shows you love could teach you more than how to be entertained? What if learning to notice the details behind a great scene could change the way you create, tell stories, and build something of your own? On this episode of The Ambition Lab, I sit down with Brittany Lewis, filmmaker, co-founder of Just Us Studio, and television analysis creator, who has built an audience of more than 18...

What if the key to changing a difficult situation isn't correcting someone else's behavior, but changing the way you understand it? In parenting, it's easy to focus on what a child is doing wrong. But what happens when we look beyond the behavior and begin asking what might be driving it? Could our assumptions, emotional triggers, and need for control be influencing the very conflicts we're trying...

You can be productive, successful, and busy—and still feel disconnected from your own life. Marcy Axelrod has spent more than twenty years researching a question that challenges how we think about presence, performance, and personal fulfillment: what does it actually mean to show up for our lives? A bestselling author of How We Choose to Show Up, endorsed by Mel Robbins and winner of the Hayakawa...

What if the habits you're trying so hard to break aren't simply a failure of willpower, but patterns you haven't yet learned to understand? Jonathan McLernon knows what it means to struggle with change. A former Navy marine engineer and nanotechnology researcher, Jonathan survived a near-fatal assault and later faced PTSD, emotional eating, and destructive patterns that he couldn't overcome throug...

What if the biggest limitation isn't the border on a map, but the boundaries we've accepted for our own lives? Yoli Chisholm was born a refugee in Zambia to South African parents who were banned from their country for opposing Apartheid. After attending school in Kenya, she and her family arrived in Canada in 1984 to begin a new chapter. Years later, Yoli would rise from marketing coordinator to C...

What if a familiar story changes when you look more closely at the words used to tell it? Dror Ben Ami, comparative literature scholar and author of The Vineyard and The Final Jubilee, challenges conventional ways of interpreting biblical texts, exploring how language, translation, and symbolism can shape our understanding of ancient stories. In this episode of The Ambition Lab, Dror shares his al...

What happens when you realize the problem isn't just who's running the house, but how the house itself is built? Evan Jaqua has lived and worked in the United States, Japan, South America, and China. His experiences across cultures, international business, information technology, and aviation have shaped his perspective on politics and the incentives that influence how leaders behave. As founder o...

What happens when the technology transforming your industry moves faster than the business model you've built around it? Vaibhav Gupta, known as VB, has spent thirteen years working in growth across fintech, SaaS, and consumer brands in multiple markets. From working on campaigns for Google and VMware to becoming CMO of DeeMoney, a Bank of Thailand-licensed cross-border fintech, he's seen performa...

What if the best way to strengthen your ideas isn't to defend them, but to invite someone to tear them apart? Mohamed Nabil, author, freelance marketing consultant, and creator of AIDOP (AI Debates on One's Publications), has developed an unusual approach to intellectual debate. Instead of using AI simply to improve his arguments, he asks it to challenge his ideas—and publishes the exchanges so re...

What if the hardest season of your life isn't just about what you're going through, but about what you're being called to discover within yourself? Xenia Ioannidis experienced homelessness in Miami, a season that challenged her understanding of hardship, faith, and surrender. What emerged from that experience was a new sense of purpose: to give children a path she felt she hadn't been given hersel...

What if the experiences that seem to take you off course are actually preparing you for something you haven't discovered yet? Houston Pierce has worked as a tour guide, school mascot, radio personality, Uber driver, Amazon driver, restaurant server, software testing engineer, janitor, construction worker, and wedding DJ. His career path is anything but conventional, but every chapter has given him...

What happens when life takes a direction you never expected and you have to find a reason to keep going? David Ebel's story began with extraordinary medical challenges. According to his account, he died at birth and was revived, grew up with significant health challenges and chronic pain, and reached a point in his early adulthood when he struggled to see a future for himself. Then he walked into...

What happens when a doctor realizes that sometimes the best way to reach a struggling teenager is through a story? Dr. Danice Rinderknecht has spent more than thirty years as a board-certified family medicine physician, listening to patients and helping families navigate health challenges. Over the years, she saw how difficult it could be for young people struggling with anxiety, depression, and t...

What if stewardship was never really about raising money but about how we choose to live with what we've been given? Larry W. O'Nan has spent more than four decades working in fundraising, stewardship, and organizational development. During his 18 years with Cru, he helped develop fund development initiatives that raised more than $150 million. But while researching stewardship for a billion-dolla...

What happens when the stories that help you survive become the stories you use to help other people? Thomas R. Wilson grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire, navigating bullying, mental health struggles, and experiences that made him question his own worth. But through poetry, novels, music, and storytelling, he found something that gave him hope when the world around him didn't. Today, Thomas is a...