Catch Fire Show with Simon Yost

Having served in leadership capacities for several profit and non-profit organizations, Leslie Gill has been deeply involved in a wide range of social welfare issues. Before joining Rung as the organization's president, Leslie Gill served as the Chief Executive Officer of Annie Malone Children's & Family Service Center.Prior to her role at Annie Malone, Leslie served as Executive Director of College Summit, where she had multi-state responsibility for programs, fundraising, and business operations. Prior to that, she spent six years in executive leadership roles with the Girl Scouts in St. Louis and Atlanta. In those roles, she oversaw advocacy and governmental affairs, strategic planning, program development, membership recruitment, and cookie sales.Leslie is a native of St. Louis and now resides in the Central West End neighborhood with her daughter, Marley. She is a distinguished alumnus of Hampton University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Hampton University, as well as a Master of International Business from St. Louis University. Coupled with years of experience in executive leadership positions, Leslie is well-equipped to lead Rung and help further its mission to empower women.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

David is a Software Developer in Residence, focusing on the alignment of innovation and human flourishing. He supports general initiatives and Hypothesis projects with an eye towards technology ethics, team formation, and expansion of product benefits across stakeholders.Joining Preston-Werner Ventures in 2020, David has experience across industries as a multi-disciplinary entrepreneur. He has received medical device patents, acted as an Investment Bank CTO, and authored predictive models guiding $100s of millions in investment and R&D initiatives for the Fortune 50. He studied mechanical and biomedical engineering at the University of Colorado before his graduate study in philosophy at Oxford.The ebullient, happy center of his life includes his beautiful wife, twin daughters, and son. They are often adventuring together amongst the playgrounds, trails, and gardens of Golden Gate Park. Otherwise, he can be found on a bicycle wandering the hills of the Marin Headlands.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Candy Washington is an actress, blogger, on-camera host, social media influencer, and the founder, of Actress with Style, a popular lifestyle brand focused on fashion, beauty, entertainment, and travel that's geared toward the active millennial. She is also the founder of The Billionaire Blogger Society, a global community of creative professionals who seek to build profitable, purposeful, and successful blogs, brands, and businesses - all on their own terms.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

From his Casio 76 keyboard to acceptance to Berklee College of Music in Boston to contributing to the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” reboot's musical score, Royce Martin has caught fire over the past several years.Royce Martin is a pianist and composer currently attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Royce taught himself the piano at the age of 14 on a small keyboard. He has a rich musical background and an affinity for various genres, from classical to jazz to popular contemporary. Royce has a working knowledge of many musical traditions and their historical context and can compose and perform accordingly. Over the past three summers, Royce worked as a pianist and lecturer, speaking to the long and storied history of ragtime and American music at the Scott Joplin State Historic Site in St. Louis, where he received stellar reviews and attracted the attention of local news on multiple occasions. Fall 2020 brought Royce national attention when he was tapped to score “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Reunion” show for HBO-MAX. While Royce has been the recipient of many nominations and awards, he remains humble to understand that he is but a novice to the masters who inspire him. Now he continues on his path of musicianship—always in pursuit of the sonic sweet spot where his artistic skills meet the kaleidoscope of his vision.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Casey Nolen is an experienced reporter and anchor whose work has earned the Edward R. Murrow Award and six Mid-America Emmy Awards for visual journalism - ranging from in-depth reporting to craft editing. He is known for fairness and context. The nerve to hold the powerful accountable and the empathy to tell the stories of the voiceless. And, if there's a ‘big story' Casey is there - from scoops in statewide politics to overseas Olympic coverage.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Theresa Link, RD, LMNT is an experienced registered dietitian and diabetes educator with a demonstrated history of working in hospital, clinic, and startup health tech industries. Data and science-driven, not driven by dogma. Passionate about the therapeutic use of ketogenic nutrition for metabolic disease, mental health, and inflammatory disorders. Clinical experience in metabolic disease reversal, disease prevention, mindful eating, diabetes education, gastrointestinal nutrition, health coaching, and behavior change. Strong healthcare services leader skilled in public speaking, training, recruiting, and people management as part of rapid-growth startup culture.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Becky Gandillon is a Data & Analytics Consultant with an engineering background and extensive experience in the healthcare industry. Her aim to make essential impacts quickly. Becky excels at making technical, “boring,” or hard-to-grasp data exciting, engaging, relatable, and actionable.Becky leads the Data & Analytics Practice at Centric Consulting. She and her family call St. Louis, Missouri home.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Jeff Bartsch built his career in Hollywood as a television editor, producer, and voiceover artist. His editing background includes work for ABC, NBC, Universal, Disney, Apple, and many others. Jeff's commentary on editing and the entertainment industry has been featured in Time Magazine, USA Today, the Associated Press, and multiple textbooks.He is the author of “Edit Better: Hollywood-Tested Strategies for Powerful Video Editing” and is the founder StoryGreenlight, which teaches creative video editing and storytelling skills to online content creators.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Kanika Sharma is the Tech Lead for the Modern Software Practice at 1904labs. Kanika puts her heart and soul into her work, as it has been her passion since high school.Her proudest career achievement is designing, implementing, and maintaining the “Limits Management Platform” for Market Risk traders. She was a founding member of the team that migrated an ancient system & created a handcrafted workflow engine for the 200+ traders across the globe, a very high-impact project used by C Suite level executives to manage billions of pounds of market limits determining the bank's risk appetite.Kanika and her family live in St. Louis, Missouri.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

GeNella McCrary is a content creator, technologist, and cosmetologist. She has also made a recent career transition from radio to tech.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Léonce B. Crump Jr. is no stranger to expectations. He grew up competing as an athlete and played college football at The University of Oklahoma, while majoring in Political Science, before joining the NFL. After a short NFL career, he became a community leader and pastor of Renovation Church in Atlanta.This week Léonce joins us to explore the messy tensions of leading a diverse group through culture, political, and socioeconomic tensions toward a vision of unity.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Beth Laing joins us to talk about her success in the Software Engineering space after a successful career pivot from journalism.Catch Fire Show helps people who are looking for success outside the traditional paths!Career tips, profiles, job board, & success inspiration.We create exclusive content for you to find your fire and live for it.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

"We know what the lower limit of human beings are and the depravity people can sink to. We don't have any grasp on what the upper limit on a human being is, and that's exciting."— Jeremy BedenbaugDr. Jeremy Bedenbaug, Founder & CEO of Recreate Solutions helping leaders and organizations get started, get healthy and get unstuck. Recreate offers coaching and fractional executive services that support organizations large and small.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

What really matters in life? When you are 85 and sitting in your rocking chair, what will you be thinking about? Our guests share his inkling about this question:"What did I do with the time, money, and resources I was given to make a difference in people's lives? That's all, that's really gonna matter."This week we are joined by Zach Thomas, an entrepreneur, author, and veteran of the Army Rangers. Zach graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and served his country as an Airborne Ranger Infantry Officer. He has started multiple companies and been featured in Newsweek Magazine and on Good Morning America. He is the Owner/Operator of a Chick-fil-A franchise in Rockmart, Georgia where he is very involved in his community. Join us in this episode to hear about Zach's legacy to date and how he is shaping his lift to be a strong leader and better human. ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

John is a serial entrepreneur who dropped out of Seminary and was fired from his internship as a minister. What makes John remarkable is the wake of grace he leaves in both his successes and failures. Join us to learn about starting an underwear company or starting a company in your underwear. Either sounds fun.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Laura joins us to share about her heritage, career journey, and current adventures.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Jonathan F. Block joins us to share about his why as a leader and advice he got from former President George W. Bush."...go be on the front lines of compassion, go and seek and do."Learn more about your ad choices. ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

What is the barrier to starting a new venture? How do you pivot from education to entrepreneurship? We are so excited for Keina to join the show. She is a learner, teacher, girl boss, and all-around fantastic person. Keina works with passionate and hardworking single women who need help creating clear financial goals so that they can save more, pay off debt, and stress less about money. ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

What is the difference between complaining and holding people accountable? It is not the most light-hearted question, and our conversation with Tyler is not short of other lighter-hearted moments. Tyler Huckabee is RELEVANT's, executive editor. He lives in Nashville with his wife, dog, and Twitter account. Tyler shares about his service of people who feel crazy, creating meaningful space in a digital world, and three filters that guide is creating. Tyler is no stranger to podcasting, contributing to both RELEVANT's podcast as well as Cape Town. What are we reading? This week we discuss When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. It's a memoir the publisher summarizes well: "At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next, he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated."ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

What if you got hit by a bus? Would your work and organization be able to continue? Today Jeff Pawlow joins us and shares the importance of building your organization to succeed outside of yourself. As the Founder and Managing Shareholder of The Growth Partnership, Jeff leads a dynamic team of professionals dedicated to helping their clients succeed as business owners. He has repeatedly been named one of the profession's "Top 100 Most Influential People" by Accounting Today. Currently, the client "footprint" of The Growth Partnership consists of 452 accounting firms in the United States – including 56 of the Accounting Today "Top 100" firms"; 39 associations/state societies, and 13 international firms. Jeff currently resides in suburban St. Louis with his wife Cindy and their four children. In his free time, Jeff enjoys escaping to his family retreat in remote McCloud, CA, and serving as the "voice" of the St. Louis University High School and Affton Americans hockey teams. What are we reading? Today's book is How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen. Clayton is the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Simon shares how this book has impacted his life as well as shaping Catch Fire Show.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Darren Jxn joins the show this week with a genuinely unique path. He is a co-founder of Create a Loop, an organization that teaches kids to code. Darren is also the co-founder and CEO of All Black Creatives, a community, and agency celebrating black artists and helping brands celebrate. On the show, he shares with us about empowering people through leadership, protesting, celebration, and tension between creativity and computer science. We also discuss his vision for the future of designers and organization's belief that black is the future. What stood out most is the community around his organization and their superpower: empathy. ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

When we consider leaders, it is easy to folks on their power, responsibility, and capability. In this episode, our guest, Sheila Burkett, frames leadership in terms of giving back. Sheila suggests that leadership is giving of your time, talent, and treasure. Sheila Burkett is the Founder and CEO of a successful St. Louis interactive agency, an advocate for women in technology, and a dynamic networker. Combining her business and technology experience, Sheila Burkett helped start Spry Digital in April 2010, along with her three partners. As CEO of Spry Digital, Sheila believes that every organization, regardless of size, can afford and maintain a robust presence and technology platform that contributes towards its business objectives. Spry Digital bases its work on providing the highest quality, customized, and scalable solution for every client. Before Spry Digital, Sheila was a partner at Edward Jones with over twenty years of experience in their Information Systems division. At Edward Jones, she was the Sr. Director and Partner responsible for leading the strategic technology planning process, Project Management Office, IS Internal Controls, and executed a worldwide communication effort on the vision for technology at Edward Jones. ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Are you in search of the perfect job? The perfect tasks to fit your passion? This week Todd Henry, a five-time author and founder of The Accidental Creative, challenges us with our idea of the perfect job. He believes a myth that our society holds is that we will find tasks that we will enjoy all day. Instead, Todd thinks the ideal job is the job one that enables you to achieve the outcome you desire, even if you don't love all the tasks that you have to do all day. His challenge: "What if you brought your motivation to your tasks instead of relying on your tasks to bring you motivation?" Todd's new book, The Motivation Code, aims to help each of us discover the hidden forces that drive our best work. The research in The Motivation Code began in the late 1960s and includes the largest repository of achievement stories in human history.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

How do you follow up from a Grammy? That's the question we pose to our first guest of Catch Fire Show: Season Two, Courtney Orlando. The answer may not be what you expect. In this episode, Courtney Orlando tells his story of winning a Grammy award and his struggles. His story weaves through heartbreak—illness, depression, death of loved ones—and coming back to a place he never thought he would create new music to share with the world. You can find his new single, “Me,” as well as the song played on today's show, “Anti-Hero,” on Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you get your music.ABOUT THE SHOWAligning the Who/How/What for six figures. Gain skills to succeed without the university price tag. Simon provides tips for designing your career path, exclusive interviews with expert guests about success designing their own paths. LEARN MORE

Tamarah Usher is a passionate digital strategist, business architect, service designer, sustainability consultant, and certified a futurist. She serves as the Strategy Practice Lead at Slalom St. Louis. Tamarah's super strength is helping organizations make the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

David Dolak is a partner and creative director at Phoenix Creative Co. in St. Louis, Missouri. David and I started our careers together and had the privileged of seeing each other group up professionally, starting families, and enduring some ups and downs. In this episode, we talk about our first job together, memorable projects we worked on, and how craftsmanship guides so much of the work we do.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Kelly is going to help us understand how educators are facing this COVID-19 crisis and relationships can help teams of educators be more than the sum of their parts.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Vince shares his story of success, failure, and showing up to be the best human he can be.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Sean joins us to discuss his half-million dollar education in human centered design and what a more prosperous St. Louis looks like in years to come.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Kelvin Walker joins the show to contribute wisdom and perspective on racial justice in America. Kelvin is an artist, educator, and leader of leaders. Kelvin has helped so many in becoming who they are that I couldn't think of anyone better to guide us through these important matters.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Our guest this week is Jon Robinson. He is a user experience consultant, creative director, design educator, and author. Jon lectures at Washington University in St. Louis and Lindenwood University. He was also the keynote speaker for 2019 World Usability Day.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Liz Hunt is the owner and founder of Daycloud Studios in Omaha, Nebraska. She joins us to share her journey from solo practitioner to girl boss.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

A portion of our conversation with Josh that encourages recent graduates. Many graduates from 2020 in the midst of this COVID-19 shutdown are launching into a large amount of uncertainty. That might be a perfect climate for prototyping, but it's scary as all get out. Josh shares his advice about prototyping in uncertainty and chaos.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

We welcome Josh Dix who shares hard-won wisdom from his kitchen conversations, career twists-and-turns, and backroad motorcycle rides through Missouri wine country and the California coast. We discuss his journey in prototyping and leadership thoughts to weather the COVID storm.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Darla Ahlert is active in the tattoo, bowling, computer science, and kazoo communities. In this episode Darla tells us about her journey to choosing software development, how she has setup her prototype currently around consulting, and how she is growing and learning with her teams to pursue culture, brilliance, and equity.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Today we welcome Daniel Fitzpatrick to the show. Daniel is a founding member of We Are Root Mod. One of the reasons I asked Daniel to join us today is because musicians are a great example of zooming past an archetype to a prototype. Miles Davis for example, is from what we call The East Side and I say that affectionately to give credit where credit's due. Miles Davis is one of my favorite musicians and with all of his baggage, warts, and glory he probably changed jazz forever. Kind of Blue and other songs standout as epics that I listen to often. And if you know anything about Miles' or his music, you understand that, no matter how great of a musician that you are, you can't tell someone that you will be Miles Davis. That's not possible. Similarly, as we're trying to define how we fit into the world, we can't just pick an archetype any longer and say, I want to be this and have that be the way that we communicate what we want to do. We have to get specific about who we want to be-- more specific then choosing an archetype or a hero. We have to zoom in further.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)

Our podcast tells stories of those activating their skills with intention by zooming past archetypes, typical career options, and finding their own prototype.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/catchfireshow)