Discover Your Talent–Do What You Love

Kathleen Brady, a certified career/life management coach, offers specific tips to new hires to help them ease their way into a new job. Her advice applies to recent graduates and to veterans of the workforce who are stepping into new responsibilities. An educator with 25-plus years of experience helping students and professionals identify and integrate their personal and professional goals, she is...

Mohamed Omar felt the pressure from his parents to go to college, but his passion was his music, and his rock band. He played in front of audiences numbering in the thousands. Then, through no fault of his own, his music career ended abruptly. Now living in Tucson, Arizona, running a CPA firm of his own, he is pursuing his second passion, spirituality. He created a podcast called Intentional Being...

Gabrielle Baumeyer was good at math since childhood and was practical and analytical. Civil engineering looked like a logical pathway to certain employment. Then she realized a career in engineering was not for her. She had to find a way to make the numbers work, both for herself and for others. As president and co-founder of Reason2Race, she supports companies, organizations and individuals to re...

Daniel Houtman discovered as a young child that he could sense people's feelings, especially their pain and sadness. An adult might say to him, 'I'm feeling good,' but Daniel somehow knew they were not. When a family member had a headache, he could touch or rub the pain and it would go away. What does a child do with that kind of gift?

Swati Lodha was born to loving—and enlightened—parents in a traditional culture in Rajasthan, India. She realized how fortunate she was to be encouraged to think for herself. As a college student, she heard a speaker talk about paradigm shifts, and in a split-second she knew what her career would be. She is the founder of Life Lemonade, a training organization for life transformation, women empowe...

Frank Bria helps entrepreneurs "fire themselves" from the daily operations of their businesses and, by productizing their expertise, avoid getting trapped in just another job. His experience includes helping some of the largest corporations on four continents grow their businesses by making a real impact on their customers. He now turns that experience to the small business sector. He is author of...

Chris Quigley had earned a degree in chemistry, with a minor in business, and was waiting tables at a local restaurant. One day he asked a regular customer, "So, Dr. Bill, tell me about being a chiropractor." The passion in his answer got Chris exploring new career directions. Today, Dr. Quigley has been a chiropractor for 26 years, helping patients heal and advocating for them when insurance comp...

Joan Sotkin's life wasn't making much sense to her 40 years ago. She decided to give away everything she owned and just start listening to her inner voice. With no visible means of support, she began a deep, lifelong spiritual journey. Today, as the founder of ProsperityPlace.com and host of The Prosperity Show Podcast, she's the author of the award-winning book "Build Your Money Muscles." She is...

Joshua Rivedal dealt with personal and family turmoil in the wake of his father's suicide. He found some release in writing and performing a one-man play exploring the family dynamics of depression. It raised the question, if heredity really was a factor, was he destined to follow in his father's footsteps? Today he is the founder of The i'Mpossible Project. He is an author, actor, playwright, and...

Michelle Evans reached the top four percent of executives in Microsoft in just a few years. As one of its high potential staffers, the company assigned her a coach to help chart her path. So, what made her quit one day and start her very own business that night? Now she shows experts and entrepreneurs how to stand out. Her clients' biggest challenge is that they're really good at what they do but...

Josh Doody didn't negotiate his salary at his first few jobs, but quickly realized he had left a lot of money on the table. He began negotiating and doubled his salary in three years. He took everything he learned, began helping others. An author and consultant, he wrote Fearless Salary Negotiation , a number one bestseller on Amazon. Since then, he's helped many more people negotiate tens of thou...

Dr. Chad Edwards returned to the Army as an active duty physician, equipped with a solid medical education. A commander came in complaining of elbow pain and requesting prolotherapy—a procedure he'd never heard of—he began digging into the literature. What he found totally changed his medical practice from that day forward. Today, as an osteopathic physician in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he practices functi...

Beth Dodson saw the corporate layoffs and turmoil all around her in the early '90s. Rather than wring her hands, she decided to act as if her own layoff was a fait accompli. Looking back, she concludes, "Sometimes when one door closes, three doors open—not necessarily a bad thing." Earning an MBA and trusting her instincts, she took a risk on a start-up. Her career reflects adapting to change, fro...

Aaron Walker had already amassed a fortune at age 27, selling his pawn shops for an asking price he was sure the buyer would consider outrageous. Headed to the office one day, an elderly man stepped onto the four-lane highway right in front of Aaron's car, killing the pedestrian and forever changing Aaron's life. The tragedy turned Aaron's attention to his legacy and life purpose. Today he is a ve...

Debby Stone loved working alongside brilliant consultants from top-notch schools, but poring over numbers was just not her thing. Crafting legal documents—dotting I's and crossing T's—wasn't doing it for her either. But when a friend said, "Get off your you-know-what and DO it!" she started training for her new career within one week. Now, an executive coach and keynote speaker, she's the author o...

Joanie Connell explains how "helicopter parenting"—hovering over and doing too many things for your kids, protecting them, and not letting them learn those skills themselves—is leading to problems when they get older and enter the workplace. In her executive coaching work, Dr. Connell often hears complaints about younger people coming into the workplace lacking some of the basic life skills that a...

Michael Roderick was a freshman in college, a nobody, studying drama and education. But when he became assistant director of a play his friend was directing at her high school, he recalls, "I was that kid who was in college already." He quickly went from nobody to awesome. Today, his company, Small Pond Enterprises, specializes in helping individuals extend and leverage their networks, sharing wha...

Margaret Gearing was fresh out of Florida State University with a degree in Mass Communications. Driving to Miami with her boyfriend, who was heading there to go to medical school. Margaret recalls saying, "I've got to think about what I'm going to do!" And he said, "Well, why don't you go into advertising?" "Hmm, that's interesting. Maybe I'll do that." she remarked. In the advertising and market...

John Bodrozic's two top college picks, both in his native California, had turned him down…twice. Notre Dame was a fine school, but it still felt like a consolation prize. He could not have imagined the doors that would open in the wake of those two rejections. Today he is a co-founder of Homezada, his second startup, a digital home management internet platform that empowers consumers to manage the...

Laura Coe helped her father, a gifted professor who had developed a method for preventing the recurrence of kidney stones, to build a successful healthcare company, learning the field from the ground up. "I did love the entrepreneurship piece," she recalls, "I just didn't like the subject matter." She knew she needed to find something she truly loved to do. Today she is an entrepreneur, author, an...

Bob Lancer has been on the path of his talents for all of his adult life. He made the decision in his 20s that he was going to rely on his gifts, talents and inspiration to make his living and live life to the fullest. He has kept to that commitment for four decades. Through thick and thin, Bob has persevered in connecting with and sharing the inspiration that lights up his life with businesses, s...

Bob Whipple retired from a 30-year corporate career, where he honed his understanding of leadership. When he shares insights with top executives, he tells them they might well be the cause of a culture where trust is low. Some point him straight to the exit. But lots of executives get it. His company, Leadergrow, Inc., is ded icated to improving leadership in organizations. He has earned the title...

Dr. Lana Marconi had enjoyed being a therapist for more than 10 years, counseling individual clients and couples. Then, she hit her own ceiling. She knew she needed to grow. Then, two talents from her childhood surfaced and collided—storytelling and creativity—and today she's a documentary filmmaker. Her three consciousness raising feature films are: The Wellness Story, The Resonance, and New Huma...

Bob Vanourek was a Young Turk, an MBA from the top of his class at Harvard Business School, flying all over the U.S., firing people for a living. "Frankly, it was turning my stomach," he recalls. He was dashing to meet his wife and two young children for Christmas in Chicago when he couldn't ignore his inner voice any longer. He quit his job at the hot IPO and set out on a life-long quest to creat...

Jodi Flynn, as an assistant vice president, was loving her job, building quality by inspiring the company's staff to do their best, making them feel like they were working with friends and family. Then, after a second acquisition, the culture totally changed. A one-on-one consultation morphed into being an employee number on a faceless hotline call. Jodi embark on a new adventure: a coaching busin...