Ask For An Answer

📝 Get Field Notes: One story and one practice every Tuesday. https://jimfieldingfieldnotes.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=s3e08 How do you turn physical strength and bodily awareness into a tool for emotional healing after severe trauma? Jess Mather, CPT, LPTA, SFG, FRCms, FMS joins Ask for an Answer for a conversation on resilience, listening to...

What happens when life flips the script and forces you to step up as the parent to your own parents? Vivian Olodun joins Ask for an Answer for a conversation about high emotional intelligence, financial literacy, and the messy reality of navigating the sandwich generation. A best-selling author, CEO of Flourish Media, marketing strategist, and creator of Proximity to Money , Vivian built a life ar...

What happens when you trade external validation and financial success for internal alignment and emotional freedom? Hans joins Ask for an Answer for a conversation about personal transformation, overcoming addiction, and the courage to start over. Hans spent two decades in North Carolina after moving from Germany at 25 to work in his family's veneer manufacturing business. From the outside, he see...

How Do You Raise Capital and Build Success When the System Wasn't Built for You? Allison Byers joins Ask for an Answer with Jim Fielding to discuss self-trust, overcoming trauma, and reclaiming power in venture capital. After walking away from corporate management consulting following a maternity leave ultimatum, Allison co-founded a medical device company out of MIT, raised nearly $10 million, an...

What happens when you stop running from your past and finally claim your full story? Dr. Joel Davis Brown joins Ask for an Answer for a deep, soul-stirring conversation about the messy reality of personal transformation, emotional growth, and what it truly means to lead an authentic life. As an awareness agent, organizational development consultant, university professor, and Chief Visionary Office...

How do you find the courage to lead with total vulnerability when the whole world expects you to stay invincible? Dr. Julie Basler walked away from a high-profile career as a college president to help leaders reclaim their mental health, their boundaries, and their lives without losing their seat at the table. Armed with a PhD in English and decades of leadership experience, Dr. Basler is an autho...

What happens when a life-threatening crisis becomes your greatest catalyst for self-love, healing, and purpose? Jenn Greenhut joins Ask for an Answer for a deeply moving conversation on mindset shifts, emotional intelligence, and finding gratitude in life’s hardest moments. A former elite USA National Team gymnast and UCLA athlete who was used to demanding perfection from her body, Jenn found hers...

How do the world’s most successful leaders learn to navigate massive pressure, personal trauma, and total uncertainty? Adam Bryant spent over a decade interviewing more than 500 CEOs for The New York Times Corner Office series. Now Senior Managing Director and Partner at The ExCo Group, Adam joins Jim Fielding on Ask for an Answer to break down what actually makes or breaks a leader when the stake...

What Happens After 31 Conversations With Extraordinary Leaders? After an unforgettable second season of Ask for an Answer , Jim Fielding steps behind the microphone alone to reflect on the biggest lessons that emerged from 31 conversations with CEOs, creatives, public servants, founders, athletes, journalists, and changemakers. This isn't a highlight reel. It's a deeply personal look at what chang...

What does authentic leadership look like in a world that's more divided than ever? How do you have meaningful conversations with people who see the world completely differently? And what happens when democracy itself is being tested? In the final guest episode of Season 2 of Ask for an Answer , Jim Fielding sits down with foreign policy expert, political analyst, and University of Pennsylvania exe...

Leslie Grandy worked for James Cameron and Brian De Palma, then walked away from Hollywood at 35 to start over as the most junior person on a tech team. That decision led to Apple, Amazon, T-Mobile, and a career built on one belief: you can figure it out. What Happens When You Stop Waiting for Permission to Pivot? Leslie Grandy joins Ask for an Answer for a freewheeling conversation about self-tru...

Can you build a successful career if no one understands the value you bring? In this episode of Ask For An Answer , Jim Fielding sits down with marketing strategist, educator, and author Vanessa Errecarte for a conversation about visibility, leadership, and why personal branding has become one of the most important professional skills in today's AI-driven world. Vanessa never planned to become an...

Bruno Gavino built a 30-person global digital agency from Lisbon. Then he started asking whether AI was quietly making everything his agency did irrelevant. His answer wasn't to panic. It was to build. What Happens When an Introvert Becomes the Face of an AI Company? Bruno Gavino is the CEO and founder of CoDesign, a digital agency based in Lisbon, Portugal, with offices in Boston, Singapore, and...

Most people know they want more connection in their lives. What they don't have is a simple, honest practice for building it, one that starts with themselves and radiates outward. Timothy Hunter Mathews has been building that practice for years, and in this episode, he shares exactly how it works. What Does Relational Kindness Actually Look Like in Practice? Timothy Hunter Mathews wears a lot of h...

When every other brand raised prices and chased scale, Ingrid Nilsen and Erica Anderson did the opposite. They listened to their community and lowered theirs. That's not a marketing strategy. That's a values decision, and it changed everything. What Does It Actually Take to Build a Brand on Your Own Terms? Ingrid Nilsen and Erica Anderson are back. Co-founders of New Savant, a Brooklyn-born fragra...

What if the future of leadership is being built by people courageous enough to be fully themselves? In this Pride Month conversation, Jim Fielding sits down with educator, scholar, and queer leadership pioneer John Weinstein, Provost of Bard Academy and Simons Rock at Bard College and founder of the Bard Queer Leadership Project. Together they explore how far the LGBTQ+ community has come, why Pri...

What does it take to build a global live entertainment company from scratch at age 21, with no investors, no loans and two roommates answering your phones for $3 off the utility bill? In this episode, Jim Fielding sits down with Ryan Stana , founder and CEO of RWS Global , the world's premier one-stop shop for live entertainment, to tell the full founder story from a living room in New York City t...

What does it take to build a $100 million beauty brand from a single bar of goat milk soap on a farm in upstate New York? In this special Pride Month episode, Jim Fielding sits down with both halves of the duo behind Beekman 1802, Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell , for one of the most honest, joyful and wide-ranging conversations the show has ever had. From the 51% rule that saved their busines...

Only 4% of LGBT people live in the United States. So what is happening to the other 96%? In this special Pride Month episode, Jim Fielding sits down with Fabrice Houdart , former World Bank and United Nations human rights officer and one of the most respected global voices on LGBTQ economic empowerment, to take an honest, unflinching look at where the community stands right now and where it needs...

What if the key to success at work and in life has nothing to do with how smart you are? In this episode, Jim Fielding sits down with Harvey Deutschendorf , emotional intelligence expert, speaker, and author of Emotional Intelligence Game Changers: 101 Simple Ways to Win at Work and Life , for a deeply personal and powerfully practical conversation about EQ, resilience, and what it means to lead w...

What does it actually take to pursue excellence without burning out? In this episode, Jim Fielding sits down with Brad Stulberg, 3x bestselling author and performance coach, to unpack the ideas behind his most successful book yet, The Way of Excellence. Brad shares the exact content system he uses to go from a single idea to a social media post, a newsletter, and eventually a bestselling book. Plu...

What if the life you built to survive is no longer the life you want to live? In this episode of Ask For An Answer , Jim Fielding sits down with leadership coach, speaker, and author Erin Coupe for a deeply honest conversation about burnout, emotional resilience, childhood trauma, parenting, corporate leadership, and the long process of learning how to stop abandoning yourself. Erin shares the pow...

Three years after All Pride, No Ego first hit shelves, Jim Fielding sits down alone behind the microphone to reflect on everything that happened next and none of it went the way he expected. In this deeply personal solo episode of Ask For An Answer, Jim shares the real story behind the paperback release of his bestselling book, the emotional impact of being truly seen by readers, and how one vulne...

​​What does it actually take to build a lasting career in retail and leadership? In this episode of Ask For An Answer, Jim Fielding sits down with longtime retail executive Ken Pilot for a candid conversation about the realities behind leadership, brand building, and staying relevant in a constantly evolving industry. From their early days in the denim business to navigating decades of change acro...

At what point do you stop pushing through and start listening to yourself? In this episode of Ask For An Answer, Jim Fielding sits down with Kristen Shelt for a grounded and deeply personal conversation about burnout, identity, and what it actually takes to make a real change in your life. Kristen shares the experience of reaching a point where doing more, achieving more, and holding it all togeth...