Bucket List Careers

With the failure rate for New Year’s resolutions estimated to be 80%, with most people giving up by mid-February, there’s a high likelihood you may have already hit a wall of discouragement.  Whether your resolution was to hit the gym, start that new YouTube channel, or find your dream job, many of us who resolve to change and fall short are left to question "what went wrong"? In this co...

For over 25 years Ali Cocco spent her career surrounded by brilliant and charismatic sales leaders and had the opportunity to represent global media brands like MTV, Discovery, Comedy Central, Paramount, TLC, and Nickelodeon, to name a few. But at a certain point in her trajectory, Ali became restless and wanted something more, a business of her own that made more sense for who she had become at t...

Stephanie Capuano was a PR professional with over 15 years of experience in pharmaceutical, fashion and beauty sectors across offices in New York, San Francisco and London when she decided it was time to create companies of her own. Using her marketing and consumer insights, the California native founded 31st State in 2017, an award-winning clean skincare company and the only natural and vegan ski...

Bridget Johns grew up on a farm in rural western Pennsylvania, but always had an innate wanderlust which led her to unique career experiences and travel.  She spent most of her career in retail, running the Ralph Lauren Home license business in Western Europe followed by roles at Tiffany & Co., L'Oreal and Links of London. However, her love for gift-giving and curiosity about consumer psychology e...

Genevieve Piturro led a successful career as a television marketing executive in New York City for more than a decade when a little girl’s question (“What are pajamas?”) changed the course of her life forever. At that pivotal moment, Genevieve decided to jump off the corporate ladder and began delivering pajamas and books to children in shelters. In 2001, she founded Pajama Program, which has been...

Aimee Hofmann is an abstract artist who has been painting for 16 years. Her journey to finding her professional purpose and life’s work is one that is inspiring and filled with twists and turns. In '98, Hofmann earned a BS degree from the Stern School of Business at New York University. After graduating, she landed positions in marketing and public relations, but did not feel fulfilled. In search...

Is it counterproductive to fixate on finding your passion?  Or is your passion already in your day to day and you're just ignoring its ability to be transformed into a career? Some experts say the problem many face is not a scarcity of passion for something. The problem is a lack of productivity, perception and acceptance.  This "Christa's Takeaways" episode explores why many of us get s...

Founder and CEO Karri Bowen-Poole has spent the last 10 years revolutionizing the way children learn and play with her innovative and educational playroom design services.   A longtime educator and mom, Karri was teaching at a local preschool when she had an epiphany: “What if I took the systems we use in the classroom and incorporated them into people’s homes?”  Her big pivot followed soon after...

Mary Olson Menzel started out her career as a TV reporter in Chicago, but at 23, struggling to pay the bills and unsure about a move to Wisconsin, something told her to switch gears. Through a twist of fate she landed a job at a recruiting firm, which happened to be the perfect fit for her at the time. Mary  easily and masterfully transferred her skills in interviewing and writing to a new industr...

Stacy Gallo always knew she wanted to work in entertainment, but couldn't put her finger on exactly what that was at the beginning of her career. Acting? Directing? Producing? She was working as an admissions officer when one of her friends, a freelance casting director, asked her to fill in on one of her jobs. Only then did Stacy find her true professional purpose.  Stacy quickly transferred her...

Cindy Olsen built a career in entertainment finance by climbing the ladder from the start of her career, but a pivotal moment happened when she was pregnant with her second child which changed everything - prompting her to reevaluate her professional life and redefine what success meant to her.  Today Cindy Olsen is a certified Kripalu Mindful Outdoor Guide and founder of Cindy By Nature. She is p...

Stephanie Bordas, owner of @brooklynboudoir, started out her career in the world of New York City television and film production as a director's assistant. After years of feeling something was missing and struggling to balance family life with demanding hours, she dipped her toes into her second act, starting out with a side hustle in freelance boudoir photography, which eventually became her full...

Fired 39% of the time in his career as a Los Angeles-based film producer, studio executive, and tech entrepreneur, John Tarnoff had learned the secrets of turning setbacks into successes. And when his tech startup folded at the end of the dotcom bubble in 2001, his "aha moment" happened - sending him back to school at age 50 to earn a master's degree in spiritual psychology.  Pivoting to...

Brooke Molinaroli tried her hand at various creative fields early on in her career but found herself continuously compromising with the pressure to find a more business-centric role. After graduating from Bucknell University, Brooke started working in galleries and then for design firms and photographers. This led to a ten year stint in digital, brand and social media marketing at British Telecom...

David Kean became Founder/CEO of DDK Productions after merging his lifelong passions and professional experience to craft his ultimate Bucket List Career gig. Prior to striking out on his own, David worked at GroupM ESP (Entertainment & Sports Partnerships), where he served as a VP of Event Production, responsible for a wide variety of GroupM clients within the sports and entertainment landsca...

Listen in as Christa shares the wisdom she's gained from recent guests on how to use the SMART goals framework to bring your second act or career pivot dreams to life, the pros and cons of "diving in" as a solopreneur and actionable steps for feeling motivated throughout the end of the year! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collectio...

Susan Ross left 15 years in Human Resources (and eventually as an SVP) at Mastercard Inc. to pursue the "leap of her professional life". She says her transition phase began when she could no longer ignore that voice telling her to take the risk. Susan then successfully transferred coaching skills gained from her experience in HR to began a new career as the CEO and Founder of INTENTION Personal De...

Briar Dougherty is one of those guests who embodies the tenacity of many of the career pivots we've seen on Bucket List Careers. She built career confidence and her own company at a young age, despite a number of personal challenges thrown her way as a mom and 2x cancer survivor. Briar is Founder & CEO of Career Organic, a boutique career acceleration and coaching agency for professionals across m...

Before starting her interior decorating business Emily Meszkat was classically trained in opera and worked at a major international bank while raising a family in the suburbs of NY. While she was fulfilled for a time, Emily felt her creative juices needed more opportunity to flow. She had always been passionate about design, coming from a background in the arts. But it wasn’t until she teamed up w...

What do the last few Bucket List Careers guests have in common and what is most compelling about their transformations? Kicking off a series of new solo episodes, Christa shares her most valued takeaways from her last several guests.  This episode focuses on the power of resilience and pushing through uncertainty whether starting from scratch in a new industry, pivoting in midlife or becoming an e...

Rhonda Petit was a successful sales manager in the medical field for over three decades until she decided to break free from a job and life that weren't serving her any longer. Sound familiar? Drawing on her extensive experience in the industry, Rhonda aimed to change the narrative of how the world views sales as a career and how salespeople approach their jobs. Unlike other sales manuals, Rhonda...

Hillary Weintraub had a successful career in finance on Wall Street and as the COO of a startup company when, at 41, she found herself as a production assistant (PA) on the set of a commercial. PAs are entry-level workers of the film and tv industry and it was a humbling career pivot, but now? Now, Hillary is thriving with her second successful career as a producer of TV commercials based out of N...

With a professional journey in tech startups, teaching, writing & speaking, Mark Herschberg's Bucket List Career narrative differs from most this podcast features in that it doesn't have one big pivot.  Instead, Mark's success and professional fulfillment stems from his ability to add careers in parallel. Mark then drew from this varied knowledge base and nearly twenty years of teaching at MIT’s “...

Stacey Creem was a successful New York attorney of 20 plus years when, approaching 50 and the reality of becoming an "empty nester," she was compelled to follow her lifelong passion for painting. At first, she reduced her hours in law, allowing herself Fridays to paint, but she soon realized she wanted to do this full-time. In 2020, Stacey earned her Certificate of Fine Arts from the New York Acad...

What if your best friend was also a doctor? And why would a high-risk OBGYN who's delivered thousands of babies pivot her career even though she loves what she does? While Dr. Tracy Shevell took time to pause in recovery from an unexpected surgery, she was still talking with patients every day, explaining, comforting, educating, and witnessing. That's when she had the classic, "aha!" mom...