The Sage Sayers

Fear of public speaking has certainly intensified. I first knew this point because my clients kept telling me so. I confirmed the phenomena for sure when I allowed myself recently to feel that intense fear once more, presenting on active listening to a live audience, with a story and a live coaching session within. My essay and musings on being knock-kneed and terrified in front of a live, high-st...

My guest today is marketer, builder, and innovator Simone Morellato, an Italian born technologist and marketer based in the Bay Area, California. Having long worked as a marketer for some of the world’s largest IT firms, Simone’s become expert at many things: communicating and demystifying tech for high-stakes audiences, launching beautiful products, and building high-performing global teams from...

With some bias perhaps, I think Muskego Highschool’s varsity footballer here in Wisconsin, Nicholas McCullough’s, an impressive teen. He’s the youngest captain in the Muskego Warrior’s team  history. He coaches and mentors younger kids on leadership, and is ranked best in his state for his age and position. The bias comes from him being my son and I’ve brought him to the Sage Sayers this week beca...

My guest this week is Kenza Fourati, a Tunisian fashion model in New York, U.S. who’s co-launched a shoe business that’s done very well, teaching she and her co-founders many lessons along the way. The business employs local Tunisian shoemakers, helping keep a craft alive, repurposes leather that would otherwise go to waste, and brings comfortable, stylish Mediterranean shoes to customers as far a...

Hyacinth Tucker always loved people, enterprise, and community when growing up in Jamaica. Here in the states, she’s found a way to channel that love through her new venture, the Laundry Basket, an on-demand mobile laundry and dry cleaning delivery company in Maryland, U.S. In a short time, she’s scaled, gained a considerable client base, and gained a nod from Martha Stewart’s team for novel eco-f...

I'm still swooning over the delightful Chicagoans I met on a recent April visit. (They're the nicest and most open people ever!) In another ad-hoc interview, we learn from Gina Magro, a fashion model adorned in an $8.5k leather Carolina Herrera gown, on how to focus when on stage. She's also expert on seeming open, calming our mind, and showing neutral but warm facial expressions--a...

My guest this week is product, strategy, and operations leader Nupur Thakur who has spent a greater part of her career ensuring that leaders and customers understand her technology well. In a lovely conversation from her Bay Area, SF base, she unpacks what’s helped her  understand her audience and how she breaks down and demystifies technical topics in ways where even the most impatient audiences...

John Chang moved to the U.S. from a balmy part of China with one core goal: To perform violin for orchestras. His practicing’s intense and rigorous as are his auditions. We spoke a few days after auditioning for Chicago’s opera where he and other players must perform their excerpts to faceless judges separated from the musician by a black curtain. Chang tells us of his early years in the U.S., set...

North Carolina-based executive architect Abhijeet Patil has long led complex hybrid cloud initiatives for Fortune 500s and loved the challenge. A recent self-generated challenge to write in the public space—his “writing spree”— has helped him discover the joy, clarity, and courage that comes from expressing ourselves in the written word. He’s also learned that writing about India, his motherland,...

Jill Staudacher has spent the best part of her career in pharmaceutical sales; but since COVID she’s felt drawn additionally to alternative ways to heal—both herself, her family, and friends as well. In this timely interview, from my Muskego, Wisconsin base, Jill shares her journey into a powerful career selling excellent medicines to finding a growing interest in healing naturally, both remedies...

If you’ve reworked your resume recently via Resume IO, Canva, or (my favorite platform: My Perfect Resume.com) you’ll see the creative challenge in describing our work efforts, skills, and triumphs within a few words. The summary section on Resume IO rations a cruel 200 characters. The work experience for each role? Three bullets, each worth 200 characters each. (That’s about 4 well-margined lines...

My guest this week has reinvented herself multiple times through multiple life stages—even focuses of her study, career, and the way she chooses to live her life.  Her name’s Rebecca, and after several decades in the corporate world—most recently in a high-powered supply chain role—she’s decided to step down, change her focus, and move away from the U.S. to Casablanca, to top things off. Like othe...

As we rise closer to the top-tier audiences of the companies where we serve, hooking and compelling our audience in our opening sentences feels vital. I know, because I’ve needed to cut to the chase when interviewing experts and executives for articles I’ve written — or anyone with power and visibility. I find this audience more rushed than rude and often switching from one meeting to the next, wh...

Job seekers and those on the rise within their org need data. Numbers and trends within those numbers quantify how we excel at our craft and trade, become proof, and help paint a story — a vision — of success we can bring our future employer or team. But at least 50% of the coachees I coach struggle here because not enough time has passed to show the results, the project or product got torpedoed (...

I often get asked how to boost our confidence—a tough question, because so many ways exist! My guest in this week’s Sage Sayer’s podcast shares a passion with me for travel. Her name’s Azra Bandali and she’s ventured to 32 countries, an almost annual practice she started as a girl. Azra feels convinced travel has molded her into the woman she is today. In our interview, Azra shares her favorite vi...

Many of us dread cold calling and following up with folks, especially when we want or need something from them. Why? Because we can feel (in these delicate moments) that we’re a bother or demanding or even desperate, when none of the above’s normally true. I’m convinced that our Inner Judge plays a role. Our critical inner voice wants to protect us overall from humiliation, rejection, or loss of r...

Diwali, an annual Hindu festival of lights, celebrates Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, and marks the beginning of the fiscal year in India. For the 17.9 million Indians living overseas, many still celebrate Diwali this month in the countries where they’re based.  Madhu Chawla, an Arizona-based Senior Manager at American Express, says Diwali becomes a piece of something you own and hold dear to...

My guest today wants to share her story (anonymously for her privacy) of two fertility treatments she has undertaken (the second still in progress) and the gifts, the learning, and the opportunities she has found along the way. Her motivation: Wanting to plan ahead to ensure she can have a family, when she’s ready. And she’s part of a larger and growing trend.   World over more women are having fe...

If you're job interviewing, you may feel a bit nervous about the inevitable blips which come up in our work story, especially during turbulent times. I've beaucoup ideas and tactics in this week's podcast episode and in my article on Medium on how to iron out those kinks in confident, non-apologetic ways and in ways which help our personal brand. A lot of lovely requests for help on...

New Zealander Isaac Te Reina, a documentary and film producer and actor who has featured in Avatar returns to the Sage Sayers this week. Together we share tools and techniques for managing the vocal quirks coming up for many of us when under pressure: Verbal filler, speeding, and going on a bit because we struggle to bottom line. It all starts with finding calm and building confidence. You can hea...

Business presenters often inherit slides from another. While some slides feel fantastic and a gift, others can induce dread, worry, and concerns with how to stay engaging vs. boring our audience and diluting or confusing our personal brand. The biggest stressor often comes when the slides belong to a boss, manager, or someone else with power over us.  In which case, how do we go ahead with the pre...

My guest this week is Kamari Green, a Healthcare Leader + Maternal Mental Health Advocate + Artist, based in North Carolina, USA. Kamari's an interesting story to tell on overcoming and navigating her own health challenges (postpartum depression and depression) in ways which established her career as a healthcare leader. Art, medicine, love, and faith all played a role. Today, Kamari's g...

Despite time pressures — juggling motherhood with a career in journalism and academia, and now coaching and writing — I’ve maintained art most days. Why? Because art and creativity fuel me, bring peace, calm, and powerful guiding ideas. This week’s essay muses on how I’ve countered judgments and prioritized art — no matter what — and the gifts and opportunities art brings me, which help me at work...

My guest this week is Sathya Sethuraman, a financial Services and insurance industry strategist and thought leader who's served as a trusted advisor to Fortune 100 global insurance and financial service firms. He finds that insurance provides a safety net for the health and wellbeing of every individual, hence making this industry his home for 20+ years.    In our interview, Sathya shares the...

James Woodruff, District Field Manager at the Federal Aviation Administration, has learned leadership skills so many places: The FAA where he’s served many years. The Navy. And as a high school teacher. And yet his best leadership lessons (he believes) came from a job he landed as a teenager managing the bussers and servers at a thriving country club in his Kansas rural community.  Hollywood stars...