Sharpen 2.0: The Podcast for Professionals

The School of Hard Knocks can teach us many valuable lessons. However, it has a tendency to lean into cynicism. It's important to remember the joy in what we do despite the set backs.

When faced with an important decision, do you ask yourself if you are really, really excited about it? Sometimes that double-down on "really" can open up our minds to the correct path to choose. Do you run your decisions through the Really, Really filter?

In my early career I was quick to adopt all the new fads. It wasn't until I had some years under my belt until I realized I needed to pass those things through my own life filter. How does it fit in my current schedule or in the way I handle business? I challenge you to recognize your own life filters and use them often!

Welcome back young professionals! Sharpen 2.0 is here to help you with the next 10 years of your professional career. This episode focuses on positivity and how it can help in the workplace

Introducing yourself is your first chance at a good impression. This episode will help you polish your elevator pitch and get a leg up on introductions.

Sometimes it's better to create habits than to set goals. What are your habits every day? Week? Month? Quarter? Year? Do you have a topic you want us to cover on Sharpen? Share it HERE If you’d like to receive Kirby’s occasional blog posts for young professionals, check that out HERE We also have an Instagram account . Follow if you want to be sure you know about the latest episode coming out.

When you are a young professional in the workplace or about to graduate college, you hear “just get in there and take initiative” or “we are looking for employees who know how to take initiative”. However, this is rarely a discussion we’ve had in college or beyond. What does that mean? What are some examples? What if this isn’t my personality? We’ll talk about these questions on this episode. Do y...

Sharing your work is a proactive step in communication that you can develop early on in your career. This is a great way to share progress and learnings with your team, manager or boss, and the people you serve. The application looks vastly different by industry and individual so take liberty in deciding what this looks like for you. Do you have a practical way to share with your audience in which...

Kirby shares what she loves about the book “How Will You Measure Your Life” and the mention of two different strategies for life. These are especially helpful for young professionals in the first ten years of a career. HERE is the book HERE is further reading about this topic Do you want to share a book recommendation for this audience and 1-2 sentences of why they should check it out? Do so HERE...

In this final episode of the Back to Basics Series, we talk about the importance of recognizing milestones in the workplace as a young professional. We often go through the first years of our careers without recognizing the progress made. This is a great episode for people leaders who work with young professionals to be reminded of the milestones that do take place. If you’d like to receive Kirby’...

“There’s no such thing as a bad question!” Well, maybe there can be some bad questions. But how in the world do we even know what good questions exist, especially as young professionals? Today’s episode is super practice with questions you can begin asking right away. Change them up a bit to make them work for you and your workplace, but having a core set of questions to ask can leave you feeling...

A spirit and discipline of gratitude is one of the most basic and simple practices that will create profound impact in your career. Today’s episode highlights this spirit along with sharing ideas to help inspire how you might build this into your days. Gratitude is often thought as something that simply happens but as we discuss in this episode, it is often a practice that we build that eventually...

Today’s episode will feature two simple categories of thinking about your work and how both are essential for success at work and beyond. Continuing in our Back to Basics series, on stage/back stage reminds us of the simplicity and impact of structuring our days along with knowing that we probably have a bias to one of the two. There is also a reminder that both of these will likely take more time...

As we continue in the Back to Basics Series, today’s topic is all about mentors and pursuing a diversity of mentors in your life. Kirby will share about the idea of a Personal Board of Directors that allow young professionals to learn from a variety of people in a variety of areas of life. You will not find ONE mentor to advise and guide you in all areas of life, so a mindset of a personal board o...

We can lose sight of the “who” in our spheres of influence as young professionals from time to time. Being a great team mate to your peers in your role is one of the most crucial components of being a great leader. Today’s Back to Basics episode is all about why and how to be a great teammate at work. These are some of the most important relationships you can focus on building as a young professio...

Sharpen is back! The podcast will continue to focus on young professionals in the first ten years of a career with both interviews and short episodes with practical applications. Consider these episodes as your 5-10 minute professional and personal development boost for the week. Kirby kicks off the Back to Basic Series with knowing your core at work. Back to Basics will focus on the “main things”...

Productivity, purpose, and peace.  Do you find that you are lacking in all or any of these things? In this episode, I sit down with Mitadru Dey as we discuss how these three “P’s” are the mantra he lives by and why they are so important. He also shares with us how he came to understand these traits and how it has helped him to grow in his own career. Mitadru shares with us his struggle with feelin...

I have heard it said in workplaces that they can teach hard skills, but they have to find people with soft skills.  Well, I am here to challenge that mode of thinking. While some of us have been fortunate enough to have had mentors and people to guide us in our personal and professional development, many of us have not had the opportunity to learn soft skills.  But they can be learned.  I am super...

Curiosity can lead us to learn about things that we may not have even thought we needed before, but can lead us to new opportunities.  In this episode I sit down with Aaron Seabron and we discuss how much he learned by staying curious in jobs that were not his dream jobs.  He shares with us how by recognizing the areas he was weak in he was able to hone his skills so that he could better step into...

With the right resources and given the opportunity, anyone can succeed.  That is the message that we are discussing today.  In this episode, I talk with Dr. OJ Oleka as we discuss his own personal journey and how education transformed his father’s life, and as a result, also changed his own. Because of the drastic change in his own life, this led OJ to begin to look into the systems in place and l...

Sometimes in life, we can get so caught up in chasing the corporate ladder that we forget the importance of the work itself.  In this episode, I sit down with Anthony Casablanca as we dive into the importance of not just chasing titles, but working and living with intention and finding a deeper purpose in our work. In addition, we dive into the vast subject of grief.  Anthony believes that any emo...

Strategy among companies is constantly shifting.  Jobs that we didn’t even know about now exist, and on the other hand jobs that used to be prevalent are no longer a thing.  So how do we stay current in this ever-shifting work environment?  In today’s episode I sit down with Travis Martin and he talks about his own personal journey from working with large companies to shifting into a more entrepre...

Work diligently, live simply, risk wisely, and give generously, and love unconditionally. In this episode, I sit down with Pete Ochs as he discusses how he has slowly learned over the years how his life is not ownership, but stewardship. So if that is the case how do we properly steward our lives, and what does that look like on a practical day-to-day basis? Pete shares wisdom that he has learned...

What does it mean to promote diversity both at home and in the workplace? In this episode, we sit down with Bryana Clover and discuss what that looks like. She tells us her story of moving to Texas from Detroit and entering the AG world as a young black woman. What challenges she was met with as a result of that, and how she got to the place of helping companies and individuals better understand d...

As a young professional in the workplace, it can be challenging to really make a stance on things you believe in, and also admit your shortcomings. In this episode, I sit down with Blake and we talk about how crucial it is to play into your strengths, and admit your weaknesses so that those around you can help not only feed your strengths but also help you in the areas you are still learning in. W...