Your Next Success

Send us Fan Mail How to Build an Event Production Career From Curiosity and Calling, With Cameron Magee Building an event production career from scratch looks a lot like Cameron Magee's story: a curious kid, a mentor who pulled up a chair, and 20 years of showing up and giving more than he took. In this conversation, the founder and CEO of avad3 shares how a small-town Arkansas boy with no en...

Send us Fan Mail Money Mindset, the Enneagram, and Why Your Financial Patterns Go Deeper Than Money, With Doug Lynam Money mindset work rarely begins with a monastery in the New Mexico desert, but Doug Lynam's story does, and that is precisely what makes his insights so hard to forget. Doug is a former Benedictine monk, Marine Corps Officer Candidate, bestselling author, and financial advisor...

Send us Fan Mail How to Dream Again and Rebuild Your Life After Grief and Loss, With Chanoa Inez Rebuilding your life after grief and upheaval is possible, and Chanoa Inez has lived the full arc of what that actually takes. She followed her instincts toward beauty and meaning through fashion, copywriting, and entrepreneurship until the kind of loss that changes everything arrived suddenly. What fo...

Send us Fan Mail Mastering Your Mind With Madelaine Weiss: Career Pivots, Life Transitions, and Getting to GREAT Mindset mastery is the through-line of Madelaine Weiss's entire life, from grieving teenager to Harvard-trained psychotherapist, from lab technician to executive coach, from student who nobody believed in to author helping others believe in themselves. In this conversation, Madelai...

Send us Fan Mail How to Leave Corporate and Build a Business Before You Quit | Tabatha Jones Tabatha Jones — Executive Director turned Corporate Escape Sherpa — built her coaching business one hour a day while still inside corporate, and left with a plan already in motion. In this episode, she shares how she navigated four mergers, learned to negotiate after a decade of waiting to be recognized, a...

Send us Fan Mail When you reflect on your life, can you recognize the moments that shaped who you’ve become? In this episode, I talk with Marcy Axelrod about her life and career journey, starting with an early experience that changed how she saw herself and the world around her. We walk through her path from childhood, to Cornell, to Wall Street and global consulting, and into the work she does to...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when you’ve built a career you’re good at… and something in you starts to shift? In this episode, Megan Applegate shares her journey from a 20-year career in hospitality into business ownership, recruiting, and career strategy. She opens up about the moment she realized the work no longer felt the same—and what it looked like to move forward without a clear plan. This...

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever woken up at 3 a.m., wondering if the life you’re living is truly fulfilling? In this episode of Your Next Success , Dr. Caroline Sangal sits down with Jennifer Mecham to explore the mindset shifts that can redefine success and unlock human potential. Raised in the coal mining towns of Utah, Jennifer’s journey was shaped by resilience, legacy, and a powerful lesson fr...

Send us Fan Mail What if you experienced what some have called the most devastating loss imaginable, and discovered a path to healing in its aftermath? In this episode of Your Next Success, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Annah Elizabeth , author, speaker, and creator of the Five Facets® Philosophy on Healing. Annah shares her powerful journey through profound grief, heartbreak, and betrayal, revea...

Send us Fan Mail Camilla Calberg knows what it feels like to bring strong ideas, deep contribution, and genuine effort into a workplace… and still feel unseen. In this episode of Your Next Success, she joins Dr. Caroline Sangal for a thoughtful conversation about career alignment, trusted influence, and the moments that reveal whether you are forcing yourself to fit or paying attention to where yo...

Send us Fan Mail John DeDakis told other people's stories for 45 years. In this episode, he tells his own. It begins with a curious kid in La Crosse, Wisconsin who knocks on a radio station door during a bike ride and discovers something that will shape his entire life. It winds through the Vietnam era, the White House, 25 years at CNN, a 48+ year marriage, three children, profound loss, and...

Send us Fan Mail What does performance actually mean—and how does it shape the life you’re building? In this episode of Your Next Success , Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with high-performance coach Rob Tracz about the role performance plays in personal and professional growth. Rob shares how his early experiences in sports introduced him to discipline, structure, and personal development, and how thos...

Send us Fan Mail Mike Barefoot served 27+ years in staffing and recruiting, placed 1,000+ professionals (primarily in IT), generated $50M+ in revenue, and built a profitable boutique firm. In this conversation, we trace how his early life changes, competitive drive, and decades of martial arts discipline shaped the way he evaluates people, protects reputation, and plays the long game in hiring and...

Send us Fan Mail Ben Stein transitioned from executive leadership in advertising and tech to founding Purpose Up, where he now coaches professionals navigating career pivots with clarity and alignment. In this episode of Your Next Success , Dr. Caroline Sangal speaks with Ben about the internal evaluation that often precedes visible career change and how that season ultimately shaped the work he n...

Send us Fan Mail Some chapters of life arrive without permission. In this episode of Your Next Success, Judy Pearson shares her story of resilience, reinvention, and what it means to keep moving forward when life does not go as planned. Judy opens up about the chapters she never would have chosen, including divorce, cancer, and starting over, and how those experiences shaped her perspective, her w...

Send us Fan Mail What if burnout is feedback? Meggi Rombach has spent over 20 years leading teams and driving change across the private and humanitarian sectors, from Procter and Gamble to UNICEF and the ICRC. Constant high performance eventually led to burnout and health challenges that forced her to pause. That pause reshaped her definition of success. In this episode, Meggi shares how external...

Send us Fan Mail You can have a retirement plan that works on paper and still feel uneasy about what comes next. In this episode of Your Next Success , Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Chris Pollard , West Point graduate, U.S. Army veteran, and principal of Great Path Planning, about retirement planning beyond the spreadsheet. Chris shares his personal story, including the early loss that shaped his...

Send us Fan Mail Growth changes direction. In this episode of Your Next Success, Cecilia Zapata-Harms shares how nearly 30 years of leadership in life science and healthcare prepared her to build something new, something aligned with who she had become. Cecilia is the Founder and Executive Director of Women, Life and Science, the community behind the annual Women, Life and Science Conference. She...

Send us Fan Mail Lin Wu fled China as a child during the Communist revolution, came to the U.S. at sixteen, and had to start over completely on his own—right down to working in a broom shop to afford school. He went on to study engineering, enter the computer industry, and help build some of the fastest computers of the era in the early days of Silicon Valley. In this conversation, Lin shares the...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when your life looks full — yet something inside you knows you’re meant for more? In this episode, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with author and global speaker Cortney McDermott, whose journey moves from a chaotic childhood in Chicago to London, France, Italy, corporate boardrooms, global stages, and ultimately, a profound internal awakening. Cortney shares how achievemen...

Send us Fan Mail A full calendar can look like success. Sometimes it’s just a belief you absorbed early. In this episode, Dr. Caroline Sangal is joined by Wes Towers, founder of Uplift 360, to talk about the definition of success he picked up as a kid: busy equals important, and how his perspective evolved into building real value, protecting time for family, and designing work around life. We als...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when your career looks amazing on paper and your body keeps signaling strain? In this episode, Caroline talks with Nataly Huff, executive coach and founder of Inspire Forward Coaching, about the hidden cost of high performance, the “professional face” many of us learn to wear, and the moment values make everything come into focus. Nataly shares her journey from growin...

Send us Fan Mail What changes when you choose your career with real-world exposure and honest insight before you invest years into a guess? Mike Wysocki spent 30 plus years in tech sales, built stability, and recognized that meaning and alignment shape long-term career satisfaction. He turned that experience into action by creating Careers By the People, an award-winning career readiness resource...

Send us Fan Mail Management is a major career decision and a lot of people step into it without real clarity. In this episode, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Joanne Merrick, founder of The Leadership Recipe and author of Game On! Is Management Your Best Career Play? Joanne shares her story from Australia to Hong Kong to the United States, why neuroscience changed how she sees leadership, and why s...

Send us Fan Mail What would you do if you spent years delivering at a high level supporting leaders, carrying responsibility, being the steady presence behind the scenes, and then the promotion opportunity comes up and you’re passed over. Not only that. You’re asked to train the person they chose. In this episode of Your Next Success, Sybil Stewart shares what happened when she lived that moment a...