Building Thinkers: Accessible Blueprints for Learning & Life

What if you’ve hit every goal you set and something still feels like it’s missing? That’s the question I took to Steven French, founder of LX Partners and host of the annual Flourishing at Work Summit at Harvard, where he brings leaders together with Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program to put the research into practice. He spends his days helping leaders work on the personal side of leadership, be...

What if the next step in your career isn’t more money, more responsibility, or more projects, but more meaning? That’s a question I explore with Kathy Lawless, whose own transition from a 20-year corporate career to entrepreneurship forced her to rethink what a successful life and business could look like. Kathy is a life story curator who creates heirloom-quality photo books for families and busi...

Summary: What if the thing you've been chasing your whole career is actually working against the very happiness you're trying to achieve?  My guest Ashish Kothari is the founder of Happiness Squad and bestselling author of Hardwired for Happiness , and he left a high-powered corporate career behind because he realized something most high achievers never stop long enough to see. Ashish brid...

What if the food on your plate is either slowly breaking you down or building you up?  In an effort to continue the ongoing theme of living a flourishing life here at Building Thinkers, I sat down with Brad Fuster. He’s a university provost, former world-touring percussionist, and someone who went from 245 pounds, smoking a pack-a-day, and a chronic arthritis diagnosis to being 53, medication-free...

Building Thinkers has had a front-row seat to the work happening at SFBU, and this episode is a rare behind-the-scenes look at what it actually takes to reimagine how people learn. My guest, Brad Fuster, is the Provost of San Francisco Bay University and host of the EdUp Innovation Podcast, and he's spent more than two decades in higher education. We go deep on what it really takes to challeng...

What if the glass of wine you pour every night isn't a reward, it's a signal?  I sat down with Keelie Louise, a Sober Curious Mentor and Psychology-Based Coach who rebuilt her life after decades of using alcohol to quiet a mind that never felt like enough. This conversation isn't about sobriety in the all-or-nothing sense — it's about getting curious about why you reach for that dr...

You've gone to the conference, read the book, felt inspired for exactly four days, and then life swallowed you whole again. My friend of over 20 years, Katie Conley, luxury travel advisor and founder of the Adventurous Women's Travel Club, joins me to talk about why we built something different — a women's retreat rooted in genuine intentional living and life design, not just another agenda-packed...

You know that conversation you keep rehearsing in the shower and rescheduling in real life? The one with someone you love that's started to feel more like a standoff than a way back to each other?  That's exactly what I dig into in this episode with Sara Blanchard. She’s the co-host of the What Do You Mean By That? podcast, author of Dear White Women, and a life coach rooted in positive ps...

If a doctor has ever told you "everything looks normal" while you felt anything but, this one's for you. I sat down with Elise Clark, a functional medicine nurse practitioner with over 15 years of experience in family practice, endocrinology, and hormone health, who has made it her mission to help women understand what's actually happening in their bodies. We talked about why hor...

If you've been avoiding AI because it feels too technical, too risky, or just not for someone like you, this episode is your permission slip to start.  My guest, Gigi Karmous-Edwards, is a water technology consultant and researcher who has spent the last three years focused on how generative AI is reshaping an entire global industry. What struck me most about Gigi is where her thinking has lan...

If you've ever felt paralyzed by uncertainty or like the world is shifting too fast to keep up, this episode is going to reframe how you think about that feeling entirely.  I sat down with Mathias Behn Bjørnhof, a futurist and founder of Anticipate, a strategic foresight consultancy based in Copenhagen, who has done this work with organizations like the United Nations, and he completely change...

***Content Warning*** Before we begin, this episode contains discussion of mental health and suicide. If you're struggling, please reach out to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988. Some losses split your life into a before and an after, and this conversation is about what it actually looks like to keep living anyway. This week, I sit down with Cristie North, a longtim...

If you've been using AI tools and quietly wondering whether they're actually saving you time, or whether you're just doing the same work in a different order, this conversation is for you.  I sat down with Max Kirchoff, a principal technologist and product-focused engineer who writes about the intersection of humans and machines on his Substack, Human of the Loop . What I love about Ma...

The world doesn't need more information. It needs more conscious humans, and this conversation with Mentor Dida might be the most important one I've had on this show.  Mentor is a Kosovo war survivor turned global changemaker who co-founded three nonprofits, led movements at Arizona State University, and now works with Ashoka, the world's pioneer network of social entrepreneurs, to hel...

If you've ever felt like slowing down is somehow dangerous, this episode is for you.  I sat down with Tati Garcia, therapist, anxiety specialist, and the voice behind the Coping Calmly with Tati podcast, to talk about something I think a lot of high-achieving women are quietly dealing with but rarely name out loud: high-functioning anxiety. We get into why perfectionism and that constant sense...

What does it mean for humans to flourish? Not just to be happy, not just to check the boxes of a good life, but to genuinely thrive across every dimension of what it means to be a person? That's the question Harvard researchers and their collaborators have been rigorously pursuing, and the early findings are challenging some of our deepest assumptions. When the Global Flourishing Study, a land...

What if the hardest season of your life is actually your launchpad? I’m so excited to share today’s episode with you because we’re unpacking what it really means to handle hard better. My guest, Eileen Suarez, is a transformation and mindset coach who works with high-achieving women navigating big life and career transitions. She helps women go from stuck to unstoppable using brain-based strategie...

If money feels heavier than it should, this conversation will change how you carry it. I’m sitting down with Priya Malani, founder of Stash Wealth, a financial advisor who works with high-earning millennials and helps them build real systems (not just budgets) that actually support the life they want. She’s seen behind the curtain of how smart, ambitious people handle money… and where they quietly...

What if feeling stuck isn’t a personal failure… but a signal that the system you’re operating in no longer fits who you’re becoming? I’m joined by Laura Peterson, a leader who lives at the intersection of strategy, culture, and human behavior. Her work centers on designing systems that actually function in the real world. Not theory. Not buzzwords. Real frameworks that grow leaders, strengthen cul...

Middle school doesn’t have to be a war zone, and your kid’s big feelings don’t have to derail your life. Megan Saxelby of Wild Feelings has seen it all. From navigating her own adolescence with learning differences to helping middle schoolers (and their parents) thrive instead of just survive. She shares real stories from her classroom and coaching work that show how small shifts in mindset and la...

Learning the “right way” isn’t about trying harder, it’s about learning smarter. Lauren Waldman, a learning scientist and self-proclaimed “learning pirate,” spent over a decade in teaching and corporate learning, but it wasn’t until she dove into the neuroscience of the brain that everything clicked. We unpack how to learn in alignment with how your brain actually works, and in a way you can put i...

Ever feel that quiet tug that it’s time for a change, but you’re not sure where to start?  I sit down with Anzar Khaliq, a physicist turned educator and Chief Learning Officer at San Francisco Bay University, to unpack what it really means to reinvent yourself. Anzar shares the three signals that it’s time for growth and how curiosity, humility, and self-awareness can help you move toward somethin...

Already set goals at the end of last year or still figuring things out now? Either way, this is your reminder that it’s not too late to do this well.  I’m sharing the three biggest things I’ve learned about goals over the years, pulled straight from the process I use myself and the goal guide I created, because the how matters just as much as the what . We start with reflection (yes, even if the y...

Ever feel like your days could be more intentional and full of meaning?  As we wrap up the end of 2025, I’m reflecting on the top three episodes of season three that resonated with you most and why they matter. From Bruce Stanley’s The Art of Daycrafting , we explore designing your day with autonomy and experimenting with routines to boost energy and well-being. Megan Stevenson’s How to Land a Boo...

If you think HR is just about hiring and firing, think again, this episode flips that whole idea on its head.  I sit down with Bobby Conley, a seasoned HR leader, to talk about the shift from traditional “old HR” to a strategic, proactive “new HR.” Bobby explains that HR transformation can take many forms, like updating processes, technology, and talent, depending on an organization’s size and mat...