12 Steps to Success: Navigating change, uncertainty, and what comes next

This final episode of Season 1 steps back from the individual conversations and looks at what emerged across the season as a whole. What became clear is that despite very different backgrounds, guests kept arriving at the same questions. Identity, pressure, belonging, reinvention, and what happens when the version of you that got you here no longer fits your life. This is not a typical highlights...

This conversation with Moira Carmenate is slightly unusual for the podcast, because Moira isn’t just the guest. She’s also my mum. Recording this episode felt a little like opening a family archive that probably should have stayed closed. Behind the stories, though, is a mindset that shaped much of how I think about resilience and getting back up when things fall apart. Moira grew up in Scotland u...

This conversation with Dr. Chelsey Green is about legacy, but not in the polished, career-summary sense of the word. It’s about what we build day to day, what we protect, who we make space for, and what happens when responsibility gets heavy. Chelsey is a classically trained string player, educator, community builder, and Chair of the Recording Academy. What stayed with me most in this conversatio...

This conversation with Spenser Liszt is about money. But not in the “optimize your portfolio” sense. It’s about identity. Shame. Performance. And what happens when your external success doesn’t match how you feel internally. Spenser went from a 17-year career as a professional musician to becoming a Certified Financial Planner. Along the way, he had to separate money from music to heal his relatio...

This conversation with Jean Gomes is about what it means to stay human when leadership, work, and technology keep pushing us toward speed, cynicism, and performance. We start with agency, not “positive thinking,” but the practical kind: choosing how you show up, what you feed, and what you participate in. From there, we get into the stories we’re sold about success (and why so many of them collaps...

This conversation with Lauren Blitzer-Wright centres on what happens when the community you relied on suddenly disappears - and what it takes to rebuild connection without losing yourself in the process. We talk about growing up in New York and learning early that even the biggest cities can feel intimate when you find your people. Lauren reflects on building a career in music, creating culture in...

This conversation with Brian Recker centres on what happens when the belief system you built your life around no longer feels honest or humane. We talk about growing up inside fear based religion, the cost of belonging to high control systems, and what it means to start questioning ideas that once felt untouchable. Brian reflects on the quiet tension of knowing something is harmful while still bei...

This conversation with Nyeesha D. Williams explores what happens when the structures you’ve relied on begin to fall apart, and the work required to rebuild without rushing to make sense of it too quickly. We talk about setbacks and how disorienting they can feel when the path you were on suddenly stops making sense. About loss, disruption, and the pressure to keep moving forward even when you’re u...

This conversation with Christopher Brereton centres on what happens when the identity you built your life around no longer fits as cleanly as it once did. We talk about momentum and how easily it can turn into something you hide behind. About being known for a particular role, skill, or output, and the quiet unease that can surface when you realise you are still moving, still producing, but no lon...

This conversation with Mo Hiromoto sits inside a familiar but often unspoken place. Knowing that something needs to change, without yet having language for what that change looks like. We talk about what happens when momentum keeps you moving but leaves little room to listen. About staying busy, staying capable, staying productive, while slowly losing contact with what you actually want. Mo reflec...

This conversation with Marni Wandner explores what happens when burnout does not arrive as a breaking point, but as a slow erosion. We talk about creative ambition, responsibility, and the quiet ways people lose themselves while trying to be useful, capable, and reliable. Marni reflects on building a career in an industry that is supposed to generate joy, and the moment she realised that something...

What happens after the big win - or before anything makes sense? 12 Steps to Success isn’t a podcast about polished success stories or highlight reels. It’s a series of honest conversations about the messy middle - the moments where identity shifts, certainty disappears, and you keep going anyway. Hosted by Eric Mackay , this podcast explores purpose, pressure, identity, recovery, leadership, and...