She Became CEO

This is a short and personal episode, recorded on a meaningful date. It is about love, trust, patience, and the unexpected teachers life sends our way. If something in it stays with you, you will know what to do with it. In this episode: What unconditional trust actually looks like The lessons that come without words Why your footprint in the world matters more than you think A quiet reflection on...

This episode didn't come easy, because it was difficult to find the right words. It is a continuation of my previous episode in which I shared that my friend Don McNeill lost his son, Tim.  In this episode, I am sharing what shifted in me due to Tim's passing. It is a short episode, but it didn't come easily.  I knew what I wanted to say, but since I wanted it to come from my heart, I didn't want...

This week's episode is personal. My friend Don McNeill lost his son Tim — a man he chose to love, raised as his own, and loved completely. Tim fought cancer for two years. There were signs of recovery. And then he was gone. This episode is for Don. And it is for everyone who has ever lost someone they loved deeply — and is still carrying that loss, quietly, alongside everything else life asks of t...

In this episode, I talk about memory loss and cognitive decline — what actually causes them, how early the damage begins, and what any of us can do right now, without a doctor's appointment or an expensive protocol. I also share my own experience recovering from memory and sleep problems, and why I believe that cognitive decline is largely preventable — not inevitable. If you are worried about you...

Everyone talks about following up after networking events. Fewer people talk about why most of that follow-up goes nowhere — and almost nobody talks about the real opportunity that most business owners walk past every single time. In this episode, I react to networking expert Cass Thompson's five most common networking mistakes. I agree with most of what she says — but I also have some reservation...

She Became CEO She Became CEO is a podcast for women over 50 who are building a business, stepping into leadership, or reinventing their professional lives after a major life transition. Many women reach midlife — after raising children, navigating hormonal changes, and carrying years of professional and personal responsibility — and discover that their next chapter is their most purposeful one. T...

What if the most valuable thing you have is the thing you've stopped seeing? This episode started with a breakfast conversation. I had been listening to The Huberman Lab — Scott Galloway was the guest — and I couldn't stop thinking about what he said about the mentorship crisis facing young men today. The statistics are sobering: young men are four times as likely to kill themselves, three times a...

Most of us try to build a business with words. A mission statement. A vision document. A goal-setting template. But what if the most important things you want to build toward do not actually live in language at all? In this episode, I open with something unexpected — a summary of myself generated by an AI after a week of working together. What came back was not just a professional profile. It was...

This episode brings together two themes that run through this podcast: health and money—and how closely they are connected, especially in the second half of life. I sit down with Dr. Heather Skeens, a physician with a rare combination of expertise in ophthalmology and functional medicine, and the founder behind multiple ventures that aim to rethink how we approach health. In this conversation, we...

Three Stories for Easter: A Boat, a Rope, and a Seed Stories have a way of reaching us differently than direct advice. In this episode, I share three simple stories—not to explain them, but to invite you to think. Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of communication. It works through images, metaphors, and meaning that often speak directly to the subconscious. That is why the same story can fe...

A simple birthday call turned into a conversation about politics—and a reminder of how quickly people form strong opinions about complex decisions. In this episode, I reflect on that moment and take it further by working through a detailed and highly opinionated article by a Latvian journalist. I walk through her arguments, her historical references, and her perspective on Iran, global conflict, a...

If you’ve ever worked with people from different cultures, traveled abroad, or simply wondered why people behave so differently depending on where they are, this episode will likely stay with you. In this conversation, I invited someone who knows me well—my partner, Scott—to share what he noticed when stepping into my world: Latvia, my background, and the way I see people, business, and culture. W...

If you are starting a business and thinking about hiring help, this episode may save you time, money, and frustration. Many early-stage entrepreneurs quickly discover that coming up with an idea is the easy part. The real challenge begins when you start building a team, outsourcing work, and figuring out how to turn your experience into a functioning business. In this episode, Ilze shares three re...

In this episode, I explore how storytelling can happen through stage art. Using the performance of Latvian singer Atvara, whose song “Ēna” won Latvia’s national Eurovision selection contest Supernova, I look at how music, staging, and visual effects can communicate a powerful story—even when the audience does not understand the lyrics. To test how effective that storytelling is, I also share react...

In this episode, I sit down with Leah Ellis, mother of four and founder of The Society of Child Entrepreneurs (SoCE) — a nonprofit teaching children ages 6–17 real entrepreneurship through hands-on business experience. Leah’s mission is rooted in something deeply personal. As a child, she was told to shrink. Today, she teaches kids to stand up — sometimes literally on chairs — and use their voices...

In this episode, I respond to requests to speak about weight loss in midlife — especially the relationship between hormones and the nervous system. I share my personal experience and the information I’ve collected over the years from listening to hundreds of hours of podcasts and reading extensively on metabolic health, thyroid function, insulin, menopause, and nervous system regulation. Topics in...

This episode is different from the others—because this time, I’m the guest. I’m sharing a few fragments from Leave Nothing to Chance, where host John Solleder interviewed me. It was my first time ever being interviewed on someone else’s podcast, and John made it easy. We talk about communication, why listening is the foundation of clear messaging, how trauma can shape how we speak and relate, and...

    In Episode 50 of She Became CEO, I welcome back my very first podcast guest, Paige Royal, for a conversation about community—how we build it, how we belong, and how we sometimes outgrow it. We talk about authenticity versus “filtering” ourselves in different spaces, loneliness (including the kind that comes from language and cultural barriers), and why shame—especially around money—keeps peopl...

This episode was recorded just before Ilze travels to Latvia to visit her parents—during their birthday month—and shortly after Jermaine lost his mother. Jermaine asked to be on the podcast not to promote a product, but to honor his mom by sharing her story and the lessons she left behind. What unfolds is a quiet, deeply human conversation about parents, time, migration, money, and the conversatio...

This episode is for people who want to create income without being on camera, without “selling themselves,” and without a large upfront investment. My guest, Paul Apollonia, has been buying and selling on eBay since 2001. Over the past two decades, he has built a sustainable eBay business, weathered economic downturns, and helped individuals and businesses turn overlooked items into real income. I...

In this episode, I speak with Kaye Squire, a member of the Amen University community who chose to share her story publicly after years of hesitation. Kaye explains that her reason for speaking out was simple: if her experience could help even one person feel less alone—and see that there is a better path forward—then it was worth doing. What Kaye shares in this conversation Her very high ACE score...

In this episode, I talk with Aldis Ozols, whose English is functional, direct, and unconcerned with convention. What stands out is how effectively he uses it to achieve his goals. Aldis is the author of Lose Millions, Win Life, a book shaped by his childhood in a Soviet Latvian village—by cold barns, physical labor, scarcity, and early responsibility—and by the long years that led him far beyond L...

In this episode, Ilze reconnects with Mara Lee Gilbert for a grounded, wide-ranging conversation about trauma, the nervous system, embodiment, and inner wisdom shaped through lived experience. Together, they explore how early conditioning influences behavior in subtle ways, why insight alone doesn’t always lead to change, and how the body holds information long after events have passed. The conver...

In this year-end episode of She Became CEO, Ilze reflects on how the podcast has evolved over the past year—and shares parts of her story she hasn’t spoken about publicly before. This episode begins with a short spoken-word poem inspired by the idea of irony: promises that sound like certainty, the illusions we build our lives on, and the unexpected way strength and wisdom often reveal themselves...

This episode is not a typical interview. It’s a curated compilation of conversations I had with Mara Lee Gilbert five years ago — conversations that shaped why this podcast exists. We talk about sex, power, vulnerability, creativity, and topics people are curious about but rarely discuss openly. — I started this podcast knowing it would be a learning curve, so I thought the fewer people who heard...