Life Between Titles: Career Transitions and Reinvention

Leslie Barber calls herself a multipotentialite: a babysitter, snake handler, organic farmer, race director, HOA president, and triathlon coach, all in one lifetime. Her new book, Unemployable!, took twenty-eight years to write, not because she worked on it slowly, but because it took that long to stop treating every job search like a referendum on her worth. This is a Life Between Titles conversa...

Happy New Year and welcome to 2026.If you are starting this year between roles, questioning your job search, or wondering why doing everything right still is not working, this video is for you. In this episode of Life Between Titles, I break down the real cost of being unemployed, not just emotionally but financially, and why the job market feels frozen even when headlines say things are fine. We...

I tried recording a polished version of this update four or five times. It was terrible. So here’s the real one. Since launching in October, Life Between Titles has grown into something bigger than I expected. We’ve published over 25 conversations with people navigating career pivots, identity shifts, burnout, reinvention, and the quiet struggle of being between chapters. The mission has always be...

Dr. Aaron Dossey spent 14 years running a company that was ahead of its time. He was the first in the Western Hemisphere doing insect protein research for human consumption. He had DARPA funding. He had patents. He had products. What he didn't have was investors who believed the market was ready — and in 2024, the money ran out. This one's for anyone who's ever been right about somethi...

Brett Cohen started an internet radio show at 15 from his childhood bedroom in Long Island, calling in on his mom's landline because that's how Blog Talk Radio hosts did it in 2005. Nobody at school knew. By the time he was booking Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Jimmy Fallon, he was still doing homework between segments. Years later, as a college intern at Lorne Michaels' production...

Here's the Spotify description: He joined the Air Force for a paycheck. No direction, a chip on his shoulder, and no real plan beyond getting out of a small mountain town in western North Carolina. What happened over the next 20 years — 14 deployments, a gunship over Afghanistan, a torn pec mid-hoist in East Africa, a waffle man who turned out to be the enemy, and eventually a bottle that almo...

Here's the full Spotify package. SPOTIFY EPISODE TITLE Hon. John Sherman on Leading with Kindness, 9/11, and a Life of Consequence SPOTIFY DESCRIPTION I've known John Sherman for years. He gave me ten minutes when he didn't have to. That turned into one of the most consequential relationships of my career. What I didn't know until we sat down for this episode was that the man who l...

ICE raids. Deportations. A system moving faster than families can react. Immigration attorney Gladdys Uribe sees it all in real time — and she decided at 16 she'd be the one standing between her community and the worst of it. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, trained under one of LA's top lawyers, she built her practice on her own terms — as a working mom, in the middle of the most chaot...

Here's the Spotify title and description: TITLE: Ann Dunkin on Reinvention, Grit, and Breaking Into Rooms That Weren't Built for You DESCRIPTION: Ann Dunkin has been in rooms most people never get into. Former CIO of the Department of Energy spanning three presidential administrations, HP veteran of 20 years, and now back at Georgia Tech as a professor and external fellow. She didn't g...

Career transition, reinvention, and second chances don't always look the way you expect. Danielle Frank calls herself a veteran of pivots: New York to LA in her late twenties, a toxic PR firm she quit in three months without another job lined up, twenty-two years in the wine and spirits industry she thought would be temporary, an engagement she broke off in her late thirties because she wanted...

Jerry Glavy flew Marine One. He carried multiple presidents into Buckingham Palace, military bases, and cities across the world. Then he pivoted into cyber and space operations and retired as a Lieutenant General. Now he's in the in-between. This is a Work Unscripted conversation about what a career like that actually looks like from the inside, and what happens when it ends. In this episode:•...

Dr. Jordan Swanson holds the Linton A. Whitaker Endowed Chair in Pediatric Plastic and Craniofacial Surgery at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia — one of the top-ranked children's hospitals in the country. He reconstructs the faces of children born without ears, children whose skulls do not grow with their brains, children with cleft lips and palates. He builds what is missing. He restores what...

Nate Sexton is a professional disc golf legend, Innova athlete, and one of the top three ambassadors in the history of the sport. In this disc golf career deep dive, Nate breaks down exactly how a career in professional disc golf actually works, what it costs, and what it takes to stay relevant across multiple decades. About the Guest Nate Sexton is a professional disc golfer based in the Pacific...

Unemployed for a year after leaving the Pentagon. This is my raw story. I spent nearly a decade inside the Department of Defense across three administrations, holding a title nobody had ever held before, doing work I genuinely believed in. When I left, I thought I'd be fine. Everybody told me I'd be fine. I was not fine. ---- ⁠Buy Me a Coffee to Support LBT ---- This is the story I've...

What happens when the guy hyping up 70,000 fans at Husky Stadium is the same guy quietly mentoring high school boys in downtown Seattle? That's Dave Mazzeo and his story is one you won't forget. Dave is the Alumni Director at O'Dea High School and one of Seattle's most sought-after independent MCs. In this episode, we get into what it really takes to balance two careers that couldn't look more dif...

Andy breaks down how he walked away from a dream job at Booking.com, moved his family to a town of 1,200 people in Oregon, and built a six-figure content creation business with nothing but a phone and a refusal to be perfect. ———————————————————— ABOUT ANDY Andy is a stay-at-home dad, UGC content creator, and one-man agency operating out of rural Oregon. A former Booking.com market manager who tra...

Career transition, reinvention, and second chances don’t always look the way you expect. Aaron Brooks spent 30 years in government service — 6 on Navy submarines, 20 in federal corrections — teaching people how to cook, lead, and rebuild. In this first episode of Work Unscripted, Aaron breaks down what it actually takes to feed a crew underwater, manage a kitchen inside a federal prison, and earn...

Job loss, layoff, career transition, unemployment — after 20 raw conversations with real people, host Savan Kong discovered that bouncing back has nothing to do with your resume and everything to do with your identity. What he heard completely changed how he thinks about job loss, reinvention, and what it really means to rebuild after something major happens in your life. No networking hacks. No r...

Career reinvention, burnout, identity, and the courage to pivot — this episode has all of it. Danielle Luhmann's story is one of the most quietly fearless in Season 1 of Life Between Titles. She went from corporate attorney to licensed therapist, Ironman finisher, ultra-marathon runner, and founder of Brave and Afraid, a therapy and life coaching practice in Fishers, Indiana built for people navig...

Matt Kelly hit a point where he had to admit something out loud, he was in his own way. After a decade in high pressure enterprise sales, constant flights, thousand dollar dinners, whiskey until 3 a.m., and living the persona the job demanded, the bill showed up in his body and his mind. He was run down, not sleeping, not healthy, and stuck in survival mode. Matt owns it with zero excuses, the pro...

What happens when immigrant parents want stability, but you want to create? Tim Salazar, a first generation Filipino American, joins Life Between Titles to talk about growing up between Northern California, Eastern Washington, and Seattle, chasing film and writing dreams in Los Angeles, and doing whatever it took to stay afloat. We get into his pivot into UX through library school at Pratt, what e...

In this episode of Life Between Titles, I sit down with my friend Vance, a Philadelphia based healthcare leader with 15 years of experience, plus a PhD in corporate leadership. We talk about why Philly shapes leaders differently, how environment influences who you become, and what it looks like to be intentional about the people you surround yourself with. Vance also breaks down the difference bet...

What happens when the path you were taught to follow no longer fits the life you are living? In this episode, Savan sits down with Andrew Merchant for a deeply honest conversation about identity, depression, fatherhood, and choosing family over prestige. Andrew shares what it was like growing up in rural Alabama, building a marriage that started young, navigating undiagnosed depression, and steppi...

Starting 2026 unemployed and wondering what you are doing wrong? Hundreds of applications. Resume rewrites. LinkedIn Premium. Interview coaching. And still nothing moves? This is not about working harder. It is about understanding why the job market changed and how to change your strategy with it. If this sounds like you, you are not broken. The system changed. Hashtags #JobSearch #LifeBetweenTitl...

"She looked left, looked right, and realized most people in that room would not make the switch. Out of about 20 classmates, only three successfully transitioned." Jen Tran bet on herself in her mid-thirties with doubt, limited support, and the pressure of who you think you are supposed to be at that age. This is the last guest episode of the season, and it closes out with the truth about career t...