Sustainable Ambition

Can engaging in creative practices help us on our journey of Sustainable Ambition? Can we apply creative practices to live and work in more fulfilling and satisfying ways? To begin answering those questions, I am joined today by Doug Neill, founder of Verbal to Visual. Doug and I discussed the impact of visual thinking and how it can unlock creativity and improve comprehension. Doug believes that...

Do you have a hard time allowing your ambitions to shift and change? Do you feel uncomfortable when at times you don’t feel as committed to your ambitions?  I want to challenge these dominant narratives about success and ambition. So today, I’m digging into why evolving ambitions are inevitable, and even desirable, and offer three alternative ways to reframe ambition so it is sustainable over the...

Are you afraid to ask yourself what you really, really want? Today’s guest presents a compelling example of what it looks like to live boldly, with intention and imagination, from the inside out. Bonnie Wan joins me to discuss the journey of developing The Life Brief and expanding it from her own personal practice to something she now teaches others and brought to life in her new book, why you hav...

Having support structures in place is vital to sustaining our life and work ambitions particularly as we transition through different life stages. Entrepreneurs and people who are self-employed have an acute need for strong support structures because they tend to wear all the hats and stretch themselves too thin. Add in pregnancy and childbirth, and the need for strong support systems is even more...

We all have ambitions for both our personal and professional lives. The question is how do we pursue them sustainably and with resilience so we can get fulfillment and joy from both.  In this new post-pandemic environment, we need new ideas, narratives, and models to consider and to test for ourselves. As part of a new periodic series, I’m speaking with people from a variety of disciplines about h...

If you’re feeling exhausted, overwhelmed or burned out, you’re not alone. But rather than push or grind through it as so many of us try to do, today’s guest offers a different approach: a resilience plan. In this conversation, Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier and I talk about consciously building a resilience plan so that we can operate at our best and achieve our goals and ambitions without burning out...

As we leave January behind, many of us are still in the process of figuring out what we want out of this year. And it’s not uncommon to long for a clear path forward as we do. That desire for clarity can put us on a path of aiming for what we should be doing or pursuing. But if our ambitions are going to be sustainable, we have to make them our own. Living with the ambiguity as we define our own a...

The world of work is changing. And it’s not just about what industries are growing or shrinking. Attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and motivations around work are all shifting. Connie Steele joins me today to discuss the fluid future of work and what it will take to succeed at leading ourselves and others in 2024 and beyond. Learn more about Connie Steele Website Strategic Momentum Podcast Connect wi...

Welcome to 2024! As we look to a new year, I’m offering some ideas and reflections to set the tone as you craft the year ahead. I  talk about what the James Webb Space Telescope can teach us about shifting our own paradigms and give you several prompts to help you dial in your Sustainable Ambitions for 2024. Thanks for Listening! If you liked this episode, please rate, review, and share the episod...

As we end 2023, I’d like to offer a few prompts and reflections to help you stay grounded as you navigate this challenging time and head into 2024. I truly believe that self-reflection is an important and powerful tool to help us learn about ourselves and craft a more positive and empowering narrative, with learning we can take forward into the future. My hope is that these ideas and prompts will...

In today’s special episode, my dear friend Sonya Thomas turns the tables and interviews me. We explore how the concept of Sustainable Ambition has evolved for me through the conversations I’ve had with my guests on the show and my research.  We discuss the  importance of defining success on personal terms, aligning ambitions with personal motivations, and the necessity of taking breaks. Sonya shar...

What does it mean to find home? How do we develop a sense of belonging, whether to a place, a community, or even to our work? Today, I’ll dive into these questions and more with returning guest, Amy Bonsall. We discuss making hard decisions feel lighter, why “squishy ground” is where the magic happens, and how building belonging helps us to flourish and create the life we want. Learn more about Am...

How do we sustain a successful career over time? When we define ambition and success on our own terms, based on what’s important to us internally vs. an external yardstick, we can end up with a life and career that are fulfilling and sustainable.  My guest today has embodied this approach in his long and successful corporate career and now in a new endeavor after retiring from his corporate role....

Crafting a fulfilling life and career is the work of a lifetime. My guest today is Karyn Flynn. Karyn has built a varied resume, stepped back from her career to focus on her family, and pivoted in and out of multiple fields and roles. Her trajectory hasn’t been straight, but considering her purpose and values and continually leveraging her skills has allowed her to create a more fulfilling, sustai...

In this episode, I’m joined by author and journalist Rainesford Stauffer. We discuss her new book, All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive, what happens when ambition defines us, the conversations we should be having about ambition, and getting curious about ambition with a more expansive, holistic view. Learn more about Guest Website Instagram: @rainesford_stauffer All the...

Overwhelm can happen to anyone, even me. We can set goals and priorities, and they can be the right ambitions, but managing a packed schedule takes intention and thought if we want to avoid burnout. Today, I’m sharing some strategies that helped me make conscious decisions about how I was spending my time in pursuit of my goals during an active few months. Thanks for Listening! If you liked this e...

How can we craft our goals in ways that actually support our well-being? How can we reduce frustration and, in turn, increase fulfillment as we pursue our goals? Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by Valerie Tiberius. Valerie’s work explores the ways in which philosophy and psychology contribute to the study of well-being and virtue. Her most recent book, What Do You Want Out of Life? A Philosophica...

Today, I’m in conversation with Ayelet Fishbach, an award-winning psychologist and prolific researcher on the science of motivation. We discuss how motivation connects to both ambition and how to manage our goals. You’ll hear how we can make choices about where we want to pull ourselves and how to create the circumstances that best support our efforts. We also delve into the idea that it’s okay to...

What lies at the intersection of ambition and expectation?  On today’s episode, I’m welcoming back Wade Brill to discuss just that. We start first by getting clear—what are definitions of ambitions, ambitious, and expectations? And how do we manage when expectations are present?  Expectations are tricky to manage and can cause a lot of suffering. Wade shares practical advice for noticing when expe...

How do we help the next generation define success on their own terms? My guest, Irena Smith, offers wisdom and advice from her years of experience working with college applicants and her own life experience in her memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays. Her book explores the college application process from the perspective of a parent, college counselor, and admissions offi...

What can we learn about Sustainable Ambition from amazing women who are changing the world? Today I’m talking with Lauren Schiller and Hadley Dynak about their new book, It's a Good Day to Change the World: Inspiration and Advice for a Feminist Future.  The women in the book are taking on the seemingly intractable problems of our world and creating change one step at a time and there is so much we...

It’s easy to get caught in the loop of looking to external markers of success and constantly striving toward ever-moving goalposts of what it means to be successful. Today, I’m in conversation with the CEO of Hello! Lucky, Sabrina Moyle. Sabrina shares her journey through founding the company with her sister, redefining success on her own terms, and the inner work she’s done to support creating a...

What is performance and what does it mean to perform? For many, performance implies being inauthentic. But what if we defined performance as being wholly present, uninhibited by our fears, and unrestrained in expressing our instincts? In today’s episode, I’m reflecting on my conversations with D’Arcy Webb and Charles Gilbert and on what it really means to perform, how it intersects with our goals...

How do we sustain our ambition and creativity over time? Over a lifetime, even? I had the pleasure of sitting down with Charles (Charlie) Gilbert, a lifelong creative, a writer, a composer, a director, and a teacher. In this episode, Charlie talks about sustainable creative habits, how retirement has opened up new possibilities for his work, and his big ambitions for this chapter of his life. He a...

Today, I’m in conversation with D’Arcy Webb. D’Arcy is an award-winning speech and vocal coach with decades of experience and decades of sustained ambition.  In this episode, D’Arcy talked about what it’s like to be ambitious at this stage of her life and how she’s able to sustain her drive. She also talked about the power of using your voice, no matter your age, and how stepping into that kind of...