Work From The Inside Out

As the Founder of The Confidence Project , Tracy Hooper helps people elevate their personal and professional presence, communicate with clarity, and work together better. She leads dynamic presentations for high-achieving teams and advises executives and professionals in a wide variety of industries. Tracy has been a TV news reporter, anchor, producer, and voice-over professional. She draws on the...

Laura Spero told me that she was an intense kid who gave her all to everything she did. She played soccer, competed in Tae Kwon Do, swam competitively, and rowed crew in college. As a kid still living at home, she would spend hours, hyperfocused in her basement doing art projects in a space she set up for herself. Most of the art she created was items she made for other people. Laura is a mission-...

I recently sat down with Antuan Magic Raimone to learn about his journey to become the first male universal swing for the five US companies of the popular musical, Hamilton. It’s a remarkable career story for someone in his field as he has been able to make a solid living as a performer from the start, without compromising his values. That is not to say that he did not experience some bumps in the...

This week’s Work from the Inside Out podcast is a little different than usual. Two of my previous guests, Corey Blake and Gen Georget, returned to share the work they have been doing to help people clarify their purpose through the transformative powers of storytelling. Corey and Gen lead The Roundtable Storytelling Academy, which offers a series of transformational online courses that helps parti...

When Fran Hauser was just 6 years old, she would prepare the invoices for her father’s landscaping business. Her mother was a seamstress and had a tailoring shop where she spent a lot of time. The oldest of four children, she would provide translation for her parents, both small business owners, as neither of them spoke English. Fran observed the way her parents warmly engaged their customers usin...

Sonja Price did not know what she wanted to be when she grew up, yet she was always a curious person who enjoyed learning new things. When the time came to attend college she studied psychology because she was interested in people. Then Sonja transferred to a school in Tennessee and studied music management. A variety of interests and seven transfers followed in which she studied architecture, pho...

I begin each of my weekly podcast conversations by asking my guest about their early years. They often share a story about their childhood aspirations or talk about an influential person who made a special impact on their life. This week’s guest, Michael Wenderoth, offered a different twist on the theme. His recollection was of something that he didn't want to be. Michael is half Chinese. He g...

Megan Leatherman is the founder and director of A Wild New Work, an ecological career development agency-based in the Pacific Northwest. As a career coach, mother, writer, podcast host, and amateur ecologist, Megan has helped thousands of professionals reconnect to their strengths and to what deeply matters to them. She has aMaster’s degree in conflict resolution, and a background in Human Resourc...

As far back as he can remember Travis Scott has always called himself a plant nerd. Growing up in a small town in Indiana, he loved spending time outside in nature and in the public library where he would pour through books about plants and science. Travis thought he would pursue a career in landscape architecture but in college, he decided to major in environmental science.  Travis’ career has be...

As Deepa Purushothaman grew up, she always felt different. Being one of a few students of color amongst the 500 in her school in White House Station, New Jersey, she felt challenged to belong. Each summer, Deepa would go to India to visit family, and she didn’t fit in there either, because she was ‘very American’. At home, race was not discussed. She had an inner drive and a competitive spirit, th...

Shari Leid’s life started out “a little messy” as she refers to it. Born in Seoul, South Korea, she was abandoned as a baby and has never known her actual birth date, birthplace, or birth name. After being moved to approximately four different locations, Shari was adopted by a Japanese American couple from Seattle. They were older parents, both had been interned in camps during World War Two. Shar...

The oldest of four sisters, AnwinMbahalways thought she should set the example as the responsible one. Growing up in a sheltered diplomatic household, her father worked for the Cameroonian embassy and her mother was a homemaker, who received a stipend to run the household wherever they lived across the globe. Anwin shared that her parents slotted her and each of her sisters into four careers. She...

Janine MacLachlan is on a mission to get ideas heard. She’s a communications strategist with deep experience in brand positioning and business storytelling. Janine works with executives and aspiring leaders in the areas of executive visibility, thought leadership and essentially helps them get out of their own way. How many of us would like a little help with that? Growing up in Saginaw, Michigan...

Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas are the founders of Co-Creation Partners, a firm that advises, consults, and coaches senior leaders and their teams on how they can design improvement programs and harness the talent and creativity of their people to achieve better business results. They focus on how people show up, communicate, problem-solve, and lead to determine how large the gap is between str...

Eric Vernsten was a kid when the OJ Simpson trial was on TV. He and his older brother would watch it daily and on Friday nights, along with his family, he consumed a lineup of crime programs, such as Dateline. Eric was a talker. He liked to tell jokes and argue with people too. It occurred to him that law school might be in his future, but as he moved through high school, and then college, he turn...

Devon Harris is a founding member of the first Jamaican bobsled team, which competed in the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary, Canada. Their exploits inspired the Disney movie Cool Runnings . Devon competed again in 1992 and 1998 as captain of the Olympic teams.  His very early years were spent in rural Jamaica with his grandmother, an amazing storyteller. Her stories had a great impact on him, especi...

designer, creating and facilitating engaging and interactive career development learning experiences to help workplaces build cultures of connection and inclusion, and students and professionals build careers of meaning.  As a former senior manager at Salesforce, she brought more than one hundred employees together from two internal teams by blending their unique strengths to create a training app...

Do you remember your first job? Darcy Eikenberg wins the prize for having one of the most unusual first work experiences. During the holidays in her central Illinois hometown, she was a talking mailbox at her local shopping mall. Imagine how a job like that would have made her resume stand out in her early career pursuits! Darcy has roots that run deep when it comes to her relationship with work....

Jens Heitland is an entrepreneur, connector, innovation culture expert, business adviser and the CEO of Heitland Innovation . In 2019, he stepped out of his role as Global Head of Innovation for IKEA Centres with the goal to find ways to empower people to innovate in large organizations. Jens founded Heitland Innovation on the basis that it would not be the usual consulting company. His mission is...

Dr. Ruth Gotian is one of the most interesting women I have ever gotten to know. I could tell you about her extraordinary academic and professional accomplishments, and you might agree with me, but I am not even referring to that. What really strikes me is how she describes her grandmother and the profound impact their relationship has had on her life.  Even though they were two generations apart,...

Ron Carucci has spent his whole career holding up mirrors to leaders and organizations to ask them to be more honest with themselves, with the story that they're telling about who they are and what they're doing. He is the author of nine books, including Rising to Power, and the recently released, To Be Honest, Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice, and Purpose .  This is Ron’s second visi...

Yesterday I did something BIG. I launched my first book!  Ok, enough about me … let me tell you about the book.  It's titled Work from the Inside Out: Break Through Nine Common Obstacles and Design a Career That Fulfills You. The book highlights twenty-two real-life stories of career transitions, many of which are from my podcast guests. The stories profile people who made meaningful professio...

The moment I met Judy Schoenberg and Linda Lautenberg, the co-founders of EvolveMe something clicked within me. It actually gave me goosebumps. I was inspired by the synchronicity of how they met, and the way they blended their strengths to create EvolveMe. The impact they are having on the careers and lives of mid-career women is tremendous.  EvolveMe is a multi-faceted program for mid-career wom...

As far back as she can recall, Melody Wilding remembers feeling different. She was always very observant and tuned into her environment, feeling affected by all the stimuli around her while other kids seemed unfazed by most of it. Melody was an excellent student all the way through to college where she was valedictorian of her class, yet she still felt disconnected most of the time. As a corporate...

Dr. Carol Parker Walsh’s early life was split between two narratives. Her parents divorced when she was twelve, then Carol and her mother moved from Menlo Park, California to the south side of Chicago. Carol described her father, with whom she remained in close contact, as “a feminist before his time”. He encouraged her to seek a vocation she loved and not let anyone else make choices for her. Her...