AGELESS: Opening Doors With Amanda Lamb

When Debbi Mack was 48, she suffered a stroke in a bathroom stall at a bookstore. She survived, but immediately thought, what am I waiting for? Debbi realized life was too short to be standing at the copy machine in her office making copies of legal documents when she could be writing. Debbi is a retired attorney turned novelist and screenwriter. She was among the first wave of self-published auth...

Susanne Morais left a career in higher education to pursue something that she says "feeds her soul." Susanne worked at Clemson University, Penn State University, and North Carolina State University. Now, she owns a hypnotherapy business. That's right, I said hypnosis. She is a certified hypnotherapist who believes that hypnosis has the power to transform lives, and not in the voodoo way it is ofte...

Jeanie Chang has lived nine lives. She started her career as a journalist in Washington, D.C. Then she got a master's degree in marketing. But at the height of her family's parenting chaos while raising four young children with her educator husband, she decided to go back to school and become a therapist. Working in mental health opened a whole new world to Jeanie, one where she could blend her tw...

Growing up in Tennessee, thanks to her parents, Janet Cowell just knew she had a big life ahead of her. After getting an undergraduate degree and multiple graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, including an MBA from Wharton, she followed the finance path. But examples in her family continued to pull her and her heartstrings in the direction of public service. Janet served as a Ralei...

I met Cheyanne Headen at A Place at the Table which is a pay-what-you can café in downtown Raleigh that allows people to volunteer for an hour in return for a meal. Cheyanne is a Community and De-escalation specialist which in layman's terms means when things start to go south, she handles it, and boy, does she handle it. When I first met her, I discovered she is kind, strong, and compassionate, b...

Mary Angelini saw a problem and decided to do something about it. After high school graduation, Mary's daughter, Gabi, was unable to get a job. No one could see past her diagnosis of Down Syndrome and truly understand what Gabi has to offer. Mary and Gabi were determined to help shift the conversation from disabilities to neuro-diversity, and the power of inclusion. Mary, who was an administrative...

 Marcy Bullock has a theory, when the runway is short, why wouldn't you do what you love? And why would you rush to get to the end? She believes in the "sweaty, messy beauty" of life, and that being the busiest person doesn't win you a prize. She also believes that happiness is a choice. And she believes in sharing wisdom in multi-generational settings. Marcy spent 30 years as a college professor...

 Brenna Crowson has had a diverse career path. She is a paralegal specializing in litigation and an international presenter on fitness who leads talks on health and wellness around the world. She is also a passionate yoga teacher who joyfully shares her practice with others. Her education is just as diverse as her career path—she has an undergraduate degree in economics, an MBA, and a master's deg...

Yvonne Simons grew up poor. Her parents told her she needed to be smart, work hard, and get a college scholarship, which she did. In her first career as a middle school teacher, she was frustrated by so many things about the education system that she felt did not serve her students. She eventually used her role as an education reporter for multiple television stations throughout the country to tel...

Karen Woomer was a corporate executive who stepped back from her career to focus on her family, but it wasn't until she was hit with a major illness that she found her true purpose in life. Karen put off a routine colonoscopy because of the pandemic. When she finally had the test, she was diagnosed with late stage three colorectal cancer. The treatment was brutal. As a result, she ended up in the...

Deanna Jones is a business professional in the tech world; she's been at Cisco Systems for nearly 25 years, but she's also a passionate speaker and consultant in the diversity arena. She's Vice President of Harmony-the North Carolina LGBT+ Allied Chamber of Commerce.  In her fifties, she traded in attachment for authenticity and became the person she was always meant to be. Assigned a male gender...

 Megan Sumrell is a former corporate executive turned entrepreneur. As a business owner, mom, and wife, she knows exactly how hard it is to juggle everything while still maintaining your own sense of self and purpose. As the CEO and Founder of The Pink Bee, she took her 20-plus-year career and applied it to all things time management, organization, and productivity. She is the creator of the TOP P...

Leslie Matz didn't know anything about professional football when a family friend and mentor, Susan Tose Spencer, the first female in charge of an NFL team, asked her to work for the Philadelphia Eagles. She quickly rose through the ranks and became a leader in the organization. After the birth of her son, Leslie wanted to return to her home state of North Carolina to be closer to family, and secu...

It didn't look like Sharon Hill was going to have a bright future. Instead of attending her college classes, she played card games with friends. Eventually, her failing GPA was proof that something needed to change. That's when Sharon got serious about her education. Before she even graduated, IBM came knocking. She worked for the tech giant for two decades and even got her MBA. But her next chapt...

Aletia Ferreira has always told her sons that life is hard, and so when you are choosing between several options, know that they will all present challenges in different ways. She came to the United States from South Africa in her early twenties as a wide-eyed dancer and aspiring actress. Her dreams of performing in Los Angeles soon turned to teaching dance and creating dance costumes in order to...

 Lorraine Woodward is a woman on a mission to help people living with disabilities, specifically, to help them find short-term rentals so that they can travel with more ease. She is the CEO of Becoming RentABLE which finds creative ways to make short-term rentals accessible for everyone. Her mission is born out of her own personal journey. Since her diagnosis as a young child with muscular dystrop...

Sharon Lawrence always dreamed of being an actor, but it wasn't dreaming that got her there; it was hard work. From a young age performing in musical theater, to starring in major television dramas, films, and more, Sharon made her childhood dreams come true. Somehow, through all of it, she has managed to stay grounded in the work instead of being focused on the fame. Sharon is a major supporter o...

Divya Parekh moved to the United States from India when she was in her twenties. She grew up in a household where her parents never set limitations on what she could accomplish. She was already a professor in India, and resisted the move to an unfamiliar country with a different culture. But soon after she arrived in the United States, Divya discovered that you can hold two homes in your heart. Sh...

 Nancy Popkin has re-invented herself many times over. She's had multiple chapters. Some of them were inspired by her passion for a particular field. Others were inspired by her need to be financially independent. Like many women, Nancy left the workforce for a period of time while she was raising her children. Also, like many women, she was divorced in 2017 and needed a career that would pay the...

Karen Alston is a powerhouse. She tells me that if she's not uncomfortable, she's not learning or growing. She's an executive, a marketer, an entrepreneur, a strategist, a storyteller, an innovator, and most of all, she is a fierce advocate for women. Her new master class is all about teaching women how to evolve into their best selves. Karen attributes her confidence and willingness to take risks...

 Dori Staehle started having strange symptoms after she was hit and knocked to the ground by a cyclist in 2011. Doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. At one point, things became so dark that she was ready to give up on life. Suddenly, with no real answers on the horizon, Dori decided to turn her attention to her longtime hobby and passion-drumming. Suddenly, Dori's symptoms disappeared. S...

 When Florence Melin moved to the United States with her husband from Europe, she had no idea that her love for cooking would eventually morph into a career. For Florence, cooking is about more than just introducing people to wonderful food, it's about people sitting together around a table sharing an experience that goes far beyond just eating. The mother of four has somehow managed to translate...

Maureen Mountcastle's motto is that your dream job does not exist. You must create it. And sometimes you must do hard things to make it happen. Maureen is the epitome of doing hard things to continually re-define herself. Being an actor was a childhood dream, one that she finally realized later in life. You've probably seen her in a spooky television series, a funny commercial or a feature film. A...

When Jerri Williams was sworn in as an FBI agent in 1982, she was one of just 23 Black female agents out of 7000 total nationwide. To say she is a trailblazer is an understatement. For more than two decades, she uncovered corruption and investigated major crimes. She went on to be the spokesperson for the FBI in the Philadelphia area. In her fifties, Jerri blazed another trail. She became a podcas...

Joanne Rodhe has spent her career as the only woman in many boardrooms in the financial and technology sectors. She calls herself a "disruptor," a "growth accelerator," and a "creator of new business models." But Joanne is more than her resume. She is a powerhouse in the business arena; a force to be reckoned with. She is usually the smartest person in every room, but she realized long ago this ca...