Purpose Rockstar: Daily Career Stories including Grammar Girl and Gretchen Rubin

Purpose Rockstar is coming back! In this quick update, I share with you some of our upcoming plans and how we got here. What's your plan to infuse purpose into your career this year? Tell me via email at derrick@purposerockstar.com  

David Brown is a "rebel without a clue" and a private investor. Top knotch colleges and jobs make David Brown stand out.   Continue Reading 

Alexandra Marquez started off with a love for fashion, then blossomed into a succesful business women on Poshmark. Going from a simple love of fashion to making thousands a day wasn't easy but Alexandra shows that anything is possible.   Continue Reading

Maggie Mabery is nothing short of amazing as she as been elected teacher of the year in California. She shares her love of science with her students, ultimately setting them up for a fun and successful year.    Continue Reading →  

Kelly Peletz is the president of Chariot For Women, a ride-share service geared toward serving women through women drivers and passengers. Kelly's extensive nursing background was ultimately the perfect fit for this new organization.   Continue Reading

Sarah Worley is a nationally known Mediator in Boston area working for her company Sarah E. Worley Conflict Resolution P.C.. She was not only the first female mediator in Boston, she has also beeb recognized by Super Laws for extensive law background as well as her role as a mediator and netural.   Continue Reading 

Harry Campbell is the man, the myth, the legend, behind the rideshareguy.com. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Harry went from being an aerospace engineer to an Uber and Lyft driver while incorporating his passion for blogging.  Continue Reading→

Margaret Butler is the Executive Director for Komera an organization that works to empower women through education and running. Margaret is nothing short of fast and furious, as she uses her olympic background to empower women in Africa. Continue Reading

Baylee Greenberg is the COO For Crisis Textline, an orgnaization geared toward helping people stray from self-harm through text messaging.   Continue Reading

Sam Aquillano is founder of museum without walls for and by designers, Design Museum. We chat about how a teen who sold pirated CDs and built a lawn mowing mini empire became a founder of one of the most unique experiential organizations in the world. Read more→

Lindsay Lucas is neo-soul singer who has performed with Talib Kweli, Ernie Isley, John Scofield, Herby Hancock. This Berklee College of Music graduate has residency at one of the biggest jazz clubs in Boston and now is releasing her first full record. In this interview, you'll discover how she transitioned from starving artist to working musician in an incredibly depressing time in her life. Read More →

In this interview, we chat about how Meera Vijayan is putting herself in harm's warm way with her reporting, the event that pushed her to start her journey, and the next steps in bringing more awareness to sexual violence.  Read more→

Lianne Wade (@liannewade) is the Director of Customer Insights at Wilde Agency, a marketing firm focused on using the science of human behavior to help their clients perform. **Bonus** Click read more to get slides from Lianne's presentation on her work on the Ice Bucket Challenge Read More and Get Ice Bucket Challenge Bonus →  

Lynn Aaronson is more than the woman who helped ALS work through the Ice Bucket Challenge. She is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts chapter and a successful nonprofit executive for 30 years. When the US economy tanked in in 2009 she became unemployed for 17 months. An experience that taught her a lot about what really matters in her life. In this interview, how her experience being unemployed changed the ALS hiring, we discuss how she tackled the Ice Bucket Challenge before and after the campaign, how she turned around the ALS Massachusetts chapter financial stability. Get the Ice Bucket Challenge breakdown and tons of other resources

In 2008, Katherine Keller went from corporate marketing job married with children to divorce and too broke to pay the light bills as a single parent.  Katherine now runs Katherine Keller International, an online marketing, branding, copywriting and graphic design agency. She is also featured writer for Entrepreneur.com In this interview, we discuss what Katherine did to get up from rock bottom, share business advice on entrepreneur overwhelm, copywriting, graphic design, branding and how to successfully manage your time. →Read More

Conor Williams has ideas on how to change the US education system. His ideas have been published in Washington Post, The New Republic, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, U.S. News and World Report, Talking Points Memo in addition to several other publications. In this interview, we discuss changing the US education system, Teach for America, charter schools, and how he has made a career picking fights. →Episode notes and Resources

In this episode, we say thank you and provide a road map on how to become a Purpose Rockstar in your life. We talk about the path to living a meaningful life where your skills and impact are at maximum levels. Derrick reveals his struggles to become best self and what he will do this year to get there.   If you would like to hold yourself accountable via a private community where you'll get help to become your hidden best self -- Join at the top of this page.  

Professor, psychologist, and actor Isaiah Pickens is changing the way we understand teenagers. In this interview, we discuss how teens brains develop, why teens have difficulty making good decisions, and his new teen talk show ‘We Complicated’. Read more→  

Andrea Funk turns t-shirts into long lasting memories via her one-of-a-kind quilts. We chat about how she pushed through 10 years to create a successful business and the difference between quilts and blankets. Continue reading→

Maria Kussmaul is the Founding Partner and Investment Banking Head at America's Growth Capital (AGC Partners), a boutique Investment Bank that advises emerging growth companies or tech companies in merging, acquisition and information security. Continue Reading →

Renee Fry is the founder and chief marketing officer of Making Care Easier , a care platform that helps you take action and care of your elderly loved ones. Despite fighting off a brain tumor, Renee is dedicated to providing care for the elderly.  Continue Reading →

Paula Berg is a PR and marketing expert and is the current Digital Media Manager at Hewlett Packard (HP). At Southwest Airlines, she was able to work her way up in their communications department and eventually get her job at HP.  Continue Reading →

Mario Jannatpour is a successful realtor and author of the Honest Real Estate Agent , a training guide on how to become a successful real estate agent. Mario has a simple philosophy he follows in his career: help your customers find what they want and in return you'll get what you want. Read more →

Blaz Jemc is the COO of Travel Starter, a global crowdfunding platform for tourism businesses by helping them connect with the local community to raise funding for their projects.  Continue Reading →

It's not easy running a women's sports clothing company and a nonprofit organization simultaneously. Jen Gurecki, however, is doing just that. She is the CEO of Coalition Snow and is also the Chief Innovation Officer of Zawadisha fund. Continue Reading →

Hope Nicholson is a Canadian comic book publisher, editor of Nelvana of the Northern Lights, and a Kickstarter maven with 3 successful campaigns under her belt. Her current project, Secret Loves of Geek Girls has made an impressive $122,286 CAD.  Continue Reading →

Ashley Rankin is the founder of SHREDLY, a women's mountain bike apparel line that was one of the most funded clothing Kickstarter campaigns. Though hesistant to join Kickstarter, she learned along the way and launched a successful campaign.  Continue Reading →

Smith Kapoor is the guidance coach to Sensitive Souls and author of forthcoming book "LIFE: Series of Learning Lessons and Vacation Time". We're here today to learn about how she got to where she is today after being diagnosed with cancer.  Continue Reading →

The multi-talented entrepreneur, artist, author of The Startup Equation, and speaker Ja-Nae Duane started out with humble beginnings. Although faced with challenges, she was able to turn her life around and become a successful entrepreneur. Continue Reading →

Liz Maxwell is currently the Events Manager of Impact Hub NYC and has a strong background in the arts working as the Artistic Director of the Art Monastery Project. On this show, Liz talks to us about her optimistic point of view in life and how that has helped her along her career path.   Continue Reading →

Say goodbye to overcooked eggs. Lisa Fetterman is the founder of Nomiku, the first ever home sous vide appliance that brings the secret of 3-Michelin star chefs into your own kitchen. Through her hard work in creating this product and and launching the#1 funded food Kickstarter campaign, she is now running a thriving business.  Continue Reading →

Emily Kund is an expert in the field of data visualization, a process that turns data into information that can be processed visually or narratively so that it is easier to understand and can be utilized. Continue Reading →

Sarah Parsons is the Managing Director of Japan in Perspective that offers a services and training packages to facilitate communication between British and Japanese companies. Continue Reading →

Marjorie Agosin is an accomplished writer from Chile and professor at Wellesley College. She is best known for her book, I Lived on A Butterfly Hill, and her recent poetry collection, Secrets in the the Sand: The Young Women of Juárez. Continue Reading →

Abby Speicher is the founder CEO and Co-founder of DARTdrones, a FAA certified UAV drone pilot school. Growing up in an entrepreneurial family, Abby Speicher always had a natural talent for starting companies.  Continue Reading →

Fred Engh is the founder of the National Alliance for Youth Sports (NAYS), an organization that provides programs, services, and resources to promote fun physical activity for kids and the opportunity to learn valuable life skills. Continue Reading →

Tony Stubblebine is the CEO and founder of Coach.me (formerly known as Lift), a popular app that gives ambitious people their own team of coaches to help them achieve their goals. Dissatisfied with his well-paid, yet unfulfilling job after college, he decided to pack his bags and join the startup scene in California. He faced many points of uncertainty when he first started, but through perseverance and a great business partner, he was able to build a successful startup. Continue Reading →

Diane Hessan is the CEO of Startup Institute, an 8-week program that transforms people into skilled individuals that are ready to take on the workforce. Growing up with family members that never went to college, Diane was able to earn her Bachelor's at Tufts University and Master's in Harvard Business School. From there on, she built her first successful startup C-Space (formerly known as Communispace) and eventually found her way to Startup Institute, where she is changing student's lives everyday by teaching htem invaluable skills and life lessons.  Continue Reading →

Carol Stewart is the UK's Top 50 Business Advisors and founder of Abounding Solutions, a coaching and mentoring service to help women gain confidence in their abilities and to succeed in the workplace. Growing up lacking confidence and shy, Carol has transformed into a strong individual that is sharing her expertise to women around the world.   Continue Reading →

Amy Quigley is the President of the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX), an organization with 7,500 professionals that provides content, networking opportunities, and education in order to bring visibility to digital marketing in New England. Her career path may have not been a clear one, but Amy was able to find her place in marketing and work in a job that she is passionate about. Continue Reading →

Ashley Milne-Tyte is a journalist and host for The Broad Experience, a podcast that focuses on women and the issues they face in the workplace. Ashley found her passion in helping women thrive in their careers and created her show, The Broad Experience.Continue Reading →

Deborah Gordon is the Medical Director of Pathology at Heywood and Athol Hospital in Massachusetts. She graduated from college not planning on attending medical school, but as opportunities opened up, she eventually earned her MD and became the head of two hospitals. As a mother of two children, Deborah had to learn how to balance her professional and personal life.  Continue Reading →

Before Facebook was even a thing, Jen Golbeck has already been analyzing social networks and using artificial intelligence to figure out people's secrets based on what they do online. Jen Goldbeck is a computer scientist and Ted Talk speaker of "The curly fry conundrum: Why social media 'likes' say more than you think." She is doing some fascinating research on human computer interaction, and how that can reveal many surprising things about ourselves. Continue Reading →

Brian Miller is the head coach of the women's basketball team at Leeds City Schools. He has faced challenges but is here today to share his top tips on coaching a successful basketball team. Continue Reading →

Brian Morgan is the president of Texas Youth Football Association (TYFA) and grew up playing football as an outlet for him to make friends, learn how to be a team player, and deal with adversity.Continue Reading →

Manish Chandra is the CEO and founder of Poshmark, an online fashion marketplace that lets you sell clothes from your closet or buy clothes from people all over the world. Graduating from high school at 15 and finishing his undergrad at just 19, Manish left college thinking he wanted to be in the tech industry. Soon after, he found his place in women's fashion industry after creating Poshmark. His journey to finding a $25 million funded business was not always easy, but Manish is here to share with us the lesson he has learned along the way. Continue Reading →

Mike Valenzuela and Casey Starr are both in Playing With Chaos, a rock band from Phoenix, Arizona that is passionate about music and composing their own music every single day. Both grew up with a musical background, and immediately hit it off when they first met, and have been collaborating ever since. Continue Reading →

Brendan Hufford is the jack of all trades - an entrepreneur, a business coach, a successful podcast host, and a blogger. He had an entrepreneurial mindset ever since he was in the 4th grade, where he managed to gather a group of kids to start a video game renting business. As he grew up, he learned by working hard that any aspirations he has in life are achievable.   Continue Reading →

Oded Dumah, founder and president of Humane Human Settlements, a Johannesburg non profit that builds homes for people living in shacks, was born and raised in the slums of Zimbabwe. Growin up, he understood the struggles of living in the slum and knew many people in his community that were living in poor conditions. For this reason, Oded is putting forth his efforts to help build more than 9000 homes for people in South Africa. 

Jane Kohuth, a successful children's books author,  grew up facing a constant battle with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the connective tissues in the body. This chronic illness would cause irregularities in her health, making it difficult to work a regular full-time job and limited to what Jane could do in life. Despite this hardship, she continued to follow her passion for storytelling and eventually found her place writing popular children's book like Ducks Go Vroom. Continue Reading →

Tamara Curl-Green, Senior Marketing Manager for the Houston Dynamo and Houston Dash, grew up loving sports but only saw it as just a hobby. Little did she know that, she would one day be managing the social media and digital marketing efforts for huge professional teams like the Colorado Rapids and currently the Houston Dynamo and Houston Dash.  Continue Reading →