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Anika sat down with Andrew Colsky to explore a powerful counterintuitive truth: by the time a client reaches out to a professional, they have already decided who they are hiring. Drawing from a 30-year career as a trial attorney, litigator, and mediator, alongside his subsequent transition into a licensed mental health clinician specializing in sleep medicine and anxiety, Andrew revealed how human behavior is fundamentally driven by the pursuit of comfort. His insights offer a fresh framework for professional service providers looking to build credibility and master the "Left of Trust" space using modern AI search engines. In This Episode The transition from trial law and employment mediation to becoming a licensed mental health clinician Why people don't hire the most qualified professional, but rather the person who makes their fear stop Harry Harlow's surrogate mother experiments and how the innate human drive for comfort dictates decision-making The concept of "Left of Trust" and the massive open space where clients search for answers late at night The new digital land grab: why optimizing for AI search engines today dictates long-term business survival Building the Credibility Generator: automating content creation, YouTube videos, and blog drafts for professionals Vocabulary seating: how using your own natural language online trains AI search engines to recommend you exclusively The free assessment tool on be-picked.com to help service providers analyze their strengths and weaknesses Timestamps 00:00 Introduction: Understanding the emotional root of why people start legal and professional processes 00:48 Welcome to Your Brand Amplified with Anika Jackson and guest Andrew Colsky 01:31 Andrew's journey from trial attorney and mediator to mental health clinician and entrepreneur 02:54 Leaving the exhausting world of litigation and finding a deeper understanding of human behavior 06:51 The new digital land grab: comparing the early days of the internet to modern AI search optimization 10:28 Expanding into behavioral sleep medicine and building a massive weekly radio audience 13:46 The overt versus covert reality of mediation rooms and the universal need for comfort 15:16 Harry Harlow's wire versus cloth monkey experiments proving comfort is a primary human need 18:40 Discovering treatments for OCD and sleep medicine that create rapid, major shifts for patients 21:00 The genesis of the Credibility Generator: automating administrative marketing hurdles for professionals 24:43 Defining "Left of Trust": the space before a client trusts you where they search for pain relief at 3:00 AM 30:31 Cognitive trust versus affective trust: factual credentials versus the feeling of alleviated distress 34:15 Leveraging digital twins and YouTube videos to answer client pain points without spending hours on camera 38:46 Why waiting to adopt AI search strategies means constantly playing catch-up 40:11 What to expect in Andrew's upcoming book Left of Trust 44:17 A free assessment tool and gold button report on be-picked.com to evaluate your marketing readiness 45:42 Maya Angelou's guiding quote on how people remember how you made them feel Key Insights & Takeaways Insight 1: Clients Hire the Person Who Makes the Fear Stop Professional service providers often lead with cognitive trust credentials—degrees, licenses, and years in practice. However, clients in pain are driven by affective trust. They choose the professional whose material makes their anxiety dissipate and moves them from a state of fear to comfort. Insight 2: Comfort is an Innate Human Necessity Above All Else Drawing from Harry Harlow's classic 1950s university experiments with baby monkeys and surrogate mothers, human beings inherently seek comfort above all else. Understanding that clients initiate legal or professional processes because they are uncomfortable and seeking a return to comfort is the foundational basis of effective communication and marketing. Insight 3: The AI Search Era is the New Internet Land Grab Just as early domain grabbers shaped the original internet, modern AI search engines represent a brand-new frontier. When clients lie awake at night searching for solutions to specific pain points, AI search engines recommend trusted authorities. Professionals who fail to publish content addressing these concerns will forever play catch-up. Insight 4: Vocabulary Seating Compounds Your Online Credibility Every professional uses unique words and phrasing to describe concepts. By consistently putting out content—such as blogs, LinkedIn posts, and videos—using your natural vocabulary, you train search engines to connect those specific terms directly to you, making you the inevitable expert clients find when they search. Insight 5: By the Time They Call, They Have Already Decided If a professional invests time into building online credibility in the "Left of Trust" space by answering specific client questions across multiple touchpoints, the client's decision is already made before the first phone call. They do not call to evaluate you; they call because they know you are the solution. Resources & Links Mentioned Be-Picked.com (Andrew's company website featuring a free 15-question strength and weakness report) Left of Trust: Clients Choose You Before They Know You (Andrew's upcoming book) The Credibility Generator (automated content tool for professional service providers) Society of Behavioral Sleep Medicine About Andrew Colsky Andrew Colsky spent over 30 years as a trial attorney, litigator, and mediator, helping build what became the largest employment mediation program in the world. Driven by a lifelong fascination with human thinking and persuasion, he returned to school to earn a mental health degree, becoming a licensed mental health clinician specializing in obsessive-compulsive disorder and behavioral sleep medicine. As a radio host reaching roughly 70,000 listeners per week and an entrepreneur, he combined his legal, clinical, and technological expertise to found Be Picked and create the Credibility Generator. He helps professional service providers understand the science of fear, master the "Left of Trust" space, and build automated digital credibility. Connect with Andrew Website: https://www.be-picked.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewecolsky/ Like the show? Leave us a rating or review: https://lovethepodcast.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Follow the Show: https://followthepodcast.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Send a Message: https://podcastfeedback.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Check out our Website: https://www.yourbrandamplified.comSpeak to my Delphi Clone: https://www.delphi.ai/amplifywithanika Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Anika Jackson sat down with Mark Williams, founder of NUUX Design Studios, to explore why so many businesses keep UX design and marketing completely isolated—and how bridging that gap can make or break a brand. Streaming live from Madrid, Spain, Mark shared his unexpected journey from a pre-med neuroscience and psychology major to leading a remote design agency working with enterprise clients. The conversation offered a look into how founders can use modern AI workflows to bring ideas to life without massive budgets. In This Episode The Pre-Med Pivot: Why Mark walked away from the MCAT, research labs, and a medical track during lockdown to jump into advertising and UX design. The UX-Marketing Disconnect: Why sending traffic to a broken website (or designing a great website with no traffic strategy) kills conversions. Moving Beyond Blind Redesigns: Why looking at data, heat maps, and user sessions matters more than guessing solutions with AI. The Remote Agency Model: Managing a global team across time zones with a startup hustle mindset. AI-Native Workflows: Using tools like Claude Cowork, Motion, and voice dictation to automate tasks and build foundational design systems faster. The Imposter Syndrome Reality: Relying on the grounded support of friends and family when making massive life leaps. Timestamps 00:00 Introduction: Building in parallel with modern AI tools 01:09 Meet Mark Williams from Madrid, Spain: Celebrating the World Cup energy 03:13 From Pre-Med Psychology and Neuroscience to UX Design 07:05 Why UX and Marketing need to talk to each other 08:35 Where enterprise teams and marketers get design wrong 10:48 Case study: Restructuring and improving conversion rates for auto insurance brands Amax and Alpha 13:16 Balancing the need for speed with foundational quality in an AI era 16:58 Taking the leap from agency employee to starting NUUX Design Studios in LA 18:44 Building a global, remote team based on capability over location 21:54 What small businesses and SMBs can learn from enterprise workflows 23:11 Mark's favorite AI tools: Claude Cowork, Motion, and voice dictation workflows 26:52 Design trends: Are we making a mistake skipping mid-fidelity wireframes? 29:11 Dealing with imposter syndrome and the support of family 32:37 Expanding NUUX Design Studios to compete with the industry giants 34:48 Maya Angelou, belonging, and finding your footing anywhere in the world Key Insights & Takeaways Insight 1: UX and Marketing Cannot Live in Isolation Mark points out a critical flaw in many companies: marketing teams send traffic to web experiences without checking if they work, while design teams focus purely on aesthetics without looking at the business goals. True conversion happens when both sectors communicate constantly. If your landing page experience is broken, all the ad spend in the world won't save it. Insight 2: Data Tells You What Is Happening, Not Why Many teams see a drop in a metric and immediately prescribe a complex redesign or blindly prompt an AI tool for a new layout. Mark emphasizes that real optimization requires looking deeper at heat maps, user session recordings, and heuristics to understand user behavior before making targeted changes. Insight 3: Leverage AI to Move Faster, But Keep the Foundation Founders today don't need massive budgets to bring ideas to life. By utilizing AI agents and workflows (like Claude Cowork or automated task planners), lean teams can move at lightning speed. However, for enterprise stability, building a strong, consistent brand design system once prevents fragmented, chaotic user experiences down the line. Insight 4: Hiring for the Startup Hustle Mindset When running a remote, global agency, location doesn't matter nearly as much as execution. Mark looks for team members who share an entrepreneurial drive—people who take ownership, get the work done under any circumstance, and keep the client experience human, approachable, and deeply collaborative. Insight 5: You Are More Capable Than You Think The barrier to entry for building a business or bringing a creative vision to life has never been lower. Armed with modern digital tools and the courage to take risks—whether moving across the country to LA or relocating abroad to Madrid—founders can parallel-track multiple projects and accomplish far more than previous generations could. Resources & Links Mentioned NUUX Design Studios: Mark's UX and marketing agency (nuuxdesignstudios.com) Upwork: The platform where Mark initially sourced early global clients Claude & Claude Cowork: AI assistants used for workflow automation and content structuring Motion: AI-powered time-blocking tool for daily scheduling ClickUp: Project management tool used in Mark's daily automation stack ContentSquare & Hotjar: Tools for analyzing user sessions and heat maps Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown (featuring the Maya Angelou quote on belonging) About Mark Williams Mark Williams is the founder of NUUX Design Studios, a remote design agency based out of Madrid, Spain. With a background in psychology and neuroscience from his pre-med days, Mark brings a deeply human-centric, analytical approach to user experience design, bridging the crucial gap between digital marketing and high-converting web interfaces. He manages a global team helping businesses optimize their digital ecosystems while living the digital nomad dream abroad. Connect with Mark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/msijuadewilliams/ Company Website: nuuxstudios.com Like the show? Leave us a rating or review: https://lovethepodcast.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Follow the Show: https://followthepodcast.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Send a Message: https://podcastfeedback.com/67940257010b317cdaa9d857Check out our Website: https://www.yourbrandamplified.comSpeak to my Delphi Clone: https://www.delphi.ai/amplifywithanika Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou Check out John Lee Dumas' award winning Podcast Entrepreneurs on Fire on your favorite podcast directory. For world class free courses and resources to help you on your Entrepreneurial journey visit EOFire.com
durée : 01:00:08 - Les émissions culturelles de France Culture - par : Marie Richeux - La réalisatrice Yolande Zauberman, dont le film "Moi Ivan, toi Abraham" ressort en version restaurée, a accepté de nous faire découvrir sa bibliothèque. Sur ses étagères se côtoient les écrivains Maya Angelou, Roberto Bolaño, Sergueï Dovlatov, ou encore André Schwarz-Bart et Sélim Nassib. - équipe : Jeanne Aléos, Mathilde Wagman, Marianne Chassort, Alexandre Alajbegovic, Cyril Marchan, Vivien Demeyère, Julie Gastal Vous aimez ce podcast ? Pour écouter tous les épisodes sans limite, rendez-vous sur Radio France
This class was originally taught by Julie Jancius in 2020 as part of the Angel Membership Program. Hello, beautiful souls! Welcome back to the Angels & Awakening Podcast. I'm your host and author, Julie Jancius. Friends, Archangel Chamuel is one of my favorites — and this teaching on relationships stopped me right in my tracks when I first channeled it. Every relationship in your life is a mirror. And Chamuel is the angel helping you understand what you're seeing in it.
Practicing the art of reinvention is a simple way to improve your brand's image. In this episode, celebrity guest Rolonda Watts discusses the importance of redefining interviews and developing a personality that is appropriate for you and your audience. WHAT TO LISTEN FOR Struggles you need to avoid as a podcaster Ways to handle affiliations Protecting your brand (Having integrity to your brand) Best way to engage with guests Importance of timing Art of reinvention RESOURCES/LINKS MENTIONED The Art Of The Interview by Larry King (Can't find) Destiny Lingers Book by Rolonda Watts 04:51 Clubhouse ABOUT ROLONDA WATTS (No Bio provided) Rolonda Watts is a Voice Actor, Actor, Coach, Podcaster, Talk Show Host, Stand Up Comedian, Novelist, Producer, Speaker, and CEO. For almost four decades now, her name, face, and distinctive voice have been known by audiences everywhere, thanks to her many award-winning works in television, radio, film, digital media, voice acting, stand up comedy, and her award-winning romance suspense novel, DESTINY LINGERS, endorsed by Dr. Maya Angelou. Most know her by one name, Rolonda, under which she launched her own internationally syndicated talk show (1994-1998), produced by King World Productions and her company, Watts Works. CONNECT WITH ROLONDA Website: Rolonda.com Podcast: Rolonda On Demand Podcast in Apple CONNECT WITH US Thinking about creating and growing your own podcast but not sure where to start? Visit GrowYourShow.com and Schedule a call with Adam A. Adams!
This episode is all about nonviolent homeschool communication — specifically, the patterns that make it harder than it needs to be. Nonviolent homeschool communication starts here — with understanding these old patterns. And there is one book that has shaped how I think about this more than any other. I’ve read a lot of books on relationships, parenting, connection, and attachment over the years — more than I can count. But Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication is the one I keep coming back to. For me, it is the bible of relationships and communication. And it has changed how I show up in my homeschool in ways I didn’t expect. Here’s what it taught me. https://youtu.be/J7kN_HHX52c?si=jZyaiXFDGyilrnsw But first, how does Marshall Rosenberg define nonviolent communication? NVC (aka Nonviolent Communication) is a language of life that helps us transform old patterns of defensiveness and aggressiveness into compassion and empathy and to improve the quality of all of our relationships. (Definition provided by the Center for Non-Violent Communication). We all have old patterns that need to be transformed. And we definitely notice we have reactive, defensive, and aggressive patterns when we attempt to create relationships. Certainly, we notice this when we saturate ourselves in the homeschool parenting role. The 4 NVC Components That Transform Nonviolent Homeschool Communication Observation: Observation without evaluation consists of noticing concrete things and actions around us. We learn to distinguish between judgment and what we sense in the present moment and to simply observe what is there. Feeling: When we notice things around us, we inevitably experience varying emotions and physical sensations in each particular moment. Here, distinguishing feelings from thoughts is an essential step in the NVC process. Needs: All individuals have needs and values that sustain and enrich their lives. When those needs are met, we experience comfortable feelings, like happiness or peacefulness, and when they are not, we experience uncomfortable feelings, like frustration. Understanding that we, as well as those around us, have these needs is perhaps the most important step in learning to practice NVC and live empathically. Request: To make clear and present requests is crucial to NVC's transformative mission. When we learn to request concrete actions that can be carried out in the present moment, we begin to find ways to cooperatively and creatively ensure that everyone's needs are met. (Definitions provided by the Center for Non-Violent Communication). Here’s how each component transforms homeschool communication in real life. Lesson One — The Homeschool Communication Shift That Changes Everything “What I want in my life is compassion, a flow between myself and others based on a mutual giving from the heart.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life This is what we all want: we want a flow within ourselves and between us. But we’re not all trained to enable that flow. We have walls built up to defend ourselves; sometimes we even have spikes and landmines built up to defend ourselves. Either way, those defenses don’t build relationships. Vulnerability and authenticity allow relationships to expand and grow. Nonviolent homeschool communication requires this foundation first — self-compassion. And that is an easy thing to say and a less easy thing to do. Big Emotions Journal for the Homeschool Mom Are you a homeschool mom navigating the ups and downs of daily life with your kids? Introducing the Homeschool Mama's Toolbox—a powerful resource to help you manage big emotions like anger, guilt, or overwhelm with clarity and intention. $9.99 Original price was: $9.99.$6.99Current price is: $6.99. Shop now Lesson Two — Homeschool Communication and Grace “All violence is the result of people tricking themselves into believing that their pain derives from other people and that consequently, those people deserve to be punished.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life We do what we do because that is what we know to do in the scenario at the time. And in the words of Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.“ If we have a growth mindset about life and relationships, how we show up will shift over time. Growth changes everything. Over time, we show up differently in the same scenarios — five, ten, or twenty years later — if we choose that path. Looking back in regret and shame is one option. Forgiving ourselves and growing is another. And when we grow humble and self-aware enough, we realize that others aren’t trying to intentionally cause us pain or friction either. Punishment didn’t teach us when we simply didn’t know better. It won’t serve the people engaging us wrongly now either. So we choose grace — the same grace we’d want extended to our own growing selves. This shift in perspective is at the heart of nonviolent homeschool communication. Lesson Three — What Anger Is Really Telling You “At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life Anger is that mighty sharp tip of an iceberg that protects our fragile hearts. It’s a useful tool to self-protect. But it also protects or keeps us from connecting with others if we self-protect too hard. Under the mighty iceberg of anger’s sharp tip is a whole lotta other big emotions. You name the emotion, it’s there. And those emotions are always fueled by our unmet needs. Nonviolent homeschool communication asks us to address those needs directly rather than react to the emotion on the surface. So we need to address our own needs and respectfully request that others meet our needs, so that we don’t spend our lives reactively, angrily demanding others meet our needs, and/or never connecting with ourselves or others. Lesson Four — The Danger of Not Knowing Yourself “We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life You know when you’re not a parent and you have heaped judgments on your own parents parenting approaches BUT THEN you have kids??? And all you can think to yourself is DANG, this parenting thing is only easy when I’m not doing it. (& also, I can see now that my parents were doing the best they could do with what they knew to do in their parenting years, no matter how unhealthy things were). Because parenting is SO CHALLENGING at times. Every parenting book I’ve read had something to say. And I’ve appreciated most of them for something. But this core point, that we need to grow in self-awareness and self-compassion has had the most impact on my parenting approach. I’ve made the gamut of parenting mistakes. I really have. Which means I have regret. (& lest you try to console me for my perfectly imperfect parenting, I will go to my grave regretting them, but I also don’t fuel them with self-contempt). Self-shaming won’t change how I engage my kids now. Mistakes were made — I’m human. Healthy examples weren’t always available to me, and no matter how many parenting books or hours in a therapist’s office, I was bound to struggle with this one relationship: the relationship with myself. My defenses and my reactiveness towards things that hurt me or offended me or confused me were my instinctive armour and battle gear that I brought into my family life, as a wife, and as a mother. I wish this weren’t true. But it is. I had (& still have) armour and battle gear. Do I like that? Hell no. Will it serve me to pretend that these patterns weren’t mine at the beginning of my family journey? Again, hell no. I’ve learned that including practices in self-awareness has helped me see me a little more clearly (a little more, because there will always be room for more self-awareness, I’ll never see myself clearly). Or in the words of Carl Rogers, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” Self-awareness is the foundation of nonviolent homeschool communication — and this is where it starts. Lesson Five — You Are Not Vanilla “My theory is that we get depressed because we're not getting what we want, and we're not getting what we want because we have never been taught to get what we want. Instead, we've been taught to be good little boys and girls and good mothers and fathers. If we're going to be one of those good things, better get used to being depressed. Depression is the reward we get for being “good.” But, if you want to feel better, I'd like you to clarify what you would like people to do to make life more wonderful for you.” ― Marshall B. Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life If we don’t acknowledge who we are, that we are separate people, and that we have separate needs, we force ourselves to go underground. Our identity becomes like vanilla ice cream. Vanilla is a flavour of ice cream, sure (aka it’s a personality of ice cream types, though it is a basic personality). But it doesn’t have a specific personality, a particular flavour, or a particular texture. It has an entry-level nothingness. (Clearly vanilla is not my favourite. Bring on the peppermint chocolate chip). But we each aren’t vanilla personalities: we have our own flair, our own flavour, and our own textures. We are unique and are meant to be here for a special purpose. When we put our efforts toward being good or right, enabling ourselves to go undercover, we aren’t really us. And so does our nonviolent homeschool communication. And when we put our efforts toward fully accepting all of our parts, and each of our needs, and acknowledging our real selves, we flourish. The Homeschool Communication Tool I Use Every Day The very most important thing I gain from Marshall Rosenberg’s book, Nonviolent Communication, is this fill-in-the-blank statement. It is a useful tool: a fill-in-the-blank conversation “instruction manual” to address my needs and request someone to engage my needs (which, not coincidentally when you practice doing this for you, makes it awfully easy to engage for others too). When I see that______________ I feel ______________ because my need for ________________ is/is not met. Would you be willing to __________________? This single sentence changed my nonviolent homeschool communication more than any other tool I’ve found. So my goal in my relationships with my kids and my relationship with my partner is to make observations, clarify and express my feelings, declare my underlying needs, and ask for my needs to be met. That simple. And not easy at all. If you want to go deeper in nonviolent homeschool communication Here are three ways I can support you: Reading That Restores You — Book Club Newsletter Every Wednesday morning, a warm, thoughtful reflection lands in your inbox drawn from the books we’re exploring together — including Nonviolent Communication. Journaling prompts. Practical takeaways for your homeschool communication and your life. You don’t have to read the book. You just have to show up for yourself on a Wednesday morning. Sign up free here. Get My Weekly Book Reflection The Confident Homeschool Mom Collective If you want to work through homeschool communication challenges live — with a community of women who genuinely get this life — come join us in the Collective. This month, we’re exploring Nonviolent Communication together. Roundtable conversations, book club discussion, writer’s room, and actionable strategy sessions. Every Friday. Your first Friday is completely free. Join the Collective here. Book a Free Aligned Homeschool Reset Session If homeschool communication with a specific child or your partner feels particularly stuck right now — I’d love to think through it with you. Book a free no-obligation Aligned Homeschool Reset Session and let’s look at what’s really happening and what might need to shift. Book your free session here. Book your free Aligned Homeschool Reset Session Keep Reading How to Use Non-Violent Communication in our Homeschools The Homeschool Communication Mistake Parents Make & How to Change It Counseling 101: a Homeschool Parent's Most Important Skill Conflict Resolution Toolbox How Listening to our Trauma Stories can Enable our Homeschool Families Homeschool Kids are the Audience to the Homeschool Marriage How to Address Your Big Emotions with Christine Dixon A Homeschool Mom Podcast to Transform Your Life Perspective-Shifting Homeschool Coaching Discussions Foster Strong Relationships in Your Homeschool Family Hold Onto Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld in Homeschool Mama Book Club How Marie Forleo Informs my Homeschool How Brene Brown's Inspiring Thoughts have Informed my Homeschool 8 Ways to Build Healthy Relationships in Your Homeschool Family The Ultimate Guide to Building Boundaries and Healthy Relationships for Homeschool Moms 13 Things Mentally Strong Don't Do: Amy Morin influences my homeschool Enneagram: A Self-Awareness Tool That Makes You a Better Educator, Mom & Partner 5 Reasons Your Homeschool Child Won't Do Work & How to Motivate Your Child How Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart Influences our Homeschools Latest episodes 13 Things Mentally Strong Homeschool Moms Don’t Do August 11, 2026 7 Questions Homeschool Moms Are Afraid to Ask Out Loud August 4, 2026 How to Improve Homeschool Communication with the Best NVC August 4, 2026 How to Stop Taking Your Child’s Behaviour Personally July 21, 2026 You’re Invited to the Homeschool Mom Book Club 2026 July 14, 2026 Post-Partum Overwhelm in Your Homeschool: 12 Ways to Cope July 12, 2026 A 2023 High School Graduate’s Thoughts on her Homeschool Life July 11, 2026 What It’s Like? The Homeschool to High School Transition July 11, 2026 Navigate Homeschool High School (What You Need to Know) July 7, 2026 How to Set Realistic High School Expectations? Learn Human Development July 3, 2026 Declutter Your Homeschool Mama Mind: Overwhelm to On Purpose July 2, 2026 How to Handle Homeschool Criticism With Confidence June 29, 2026 How to Create a Personalized Homeschool High School That Fits Your Teen June 23, 2026 The Real Cost Of Being The “Good Girl” Who Became The Good Mom June 16, 2026 What Is an Education Anyway? Your Answer Changes Your Homeschool June 8, 2026 5 Reasons Your Homeschool Child Won’t Do Work & How to Motivate Your Child June 2, 2026 Crush 1st-Year Homeschool Frustrations and Plan a Smooth Year 2 May 30, 2026 Encouragement for Homeschool Moms in the 1st Year May 30, 2026 Transitioning into Homeschool High School: What We're Really Talking About May 26, 2026 Registered Homeschooling vs Online Learning BC: What Really Matters May 19, 2026 Homeschool Year End Review: Celebrating your Success & Growth May 12, 2026 When You Buy New Homeschool Curriculum: 5 Clever Suggestions May 6, 2026 The Truth About Homeschooling the “Right Way” — But What Works May 5, 2026 9 Steps to Thrive: Confident Homeschool Mom in Year 1 April 28, 2026 What If Your Unrealistic Expectations Are Actually Your Greatest Asset? April 21, 2026 Overcome Imposter Syndrome: How to Build Confidence as a Homeschool Mom April 14, 2026 How to Get Started Homeschooling in 2026 April 11, 2026 9 Mistakes That Make Your 1st Homeschool Year Stressful (& How to Avoid Them) April 9, 2026 How to Make Confident Homeschool Decisions (Without Seeking Permission) April 7, 2026 How to Homeschool When Everyone Has ADHD (And You’re Exhausted) March 31, 2026 Exhausted Homeschool Mom? 8 Things That Will Give You Hope March 24, 2026 Stop Second-Guessing as a Homeschool Mom (& Use Your Magic) March 17, 2026 “You’re Not Falling Apart. You’re in the Winter Homeschool Slump.” March 10, 2026 The Lies Homeschool Moms Believe That Makes Everything Harder March 2, 2026 You’re Not Failing. You’re Caught In An Inner Critic Loop. Here’s How to Get Out February 24, 2026 How to Stop People-Pleasing as a Homeschool Mom (One Mom’s Story) February 17, 2026 How to Stop the Inner Critic as a Homeschool Mom: The Charmed Life I Was Chasing (& the Pattern I Didn’t Know I Was Living) February 10, 2026 The Most Important Way to Take Care of Yourself as an Overwhelmed Homeschool Mom February 2, 2026 How to Do Kindergarten in Your Homeschool: A Fun & Effective Guide January 29, 2026 The Real Reason You’re Overwhelmed (It’s Not the Curriculum) January 26, 2026 Unexpected Feelings When Your Homeschooler Gets Accepted to University January 22, 2026 How to Stop Being a Hostage to Homeschool Pressure (& What to Do Instead) January 19, 2026 The Truth About Finding Your Homeschool Rhythm January 13, 2026 The Confident Homeschool Mom Podcast: Introducing the 1% Pivot January 6, 2026 Purpose-Driven Homeschool Planning for 2026: How to Recalibrate the Year with Clarity December 23, 2025 1% Shift to a Calm Homeschool Life December 23, 2025 12 Things I've Learned About Homeschool Moms: Self-Care Tips for Overwhelmed Homeschool Moms December 10, 2025 12-Day Homeschool Mom Self-Care Challenge to Come Back to Yourself December 2, 2025 What is the Reimagine Your Homeschool Group Coaching? November 18, 2025 Not Just a Homeschool Mom — Why You’re Disappearing (And How to Come Back) November 11, 2025 Subscribe to the Confident Homeschool Mom podcast YouTube Apple Audible Spotify Originally published July 6, 2022. Updated August 4, 2026. (function(m,a,i,l,e,r){ m['MailerLiteObject']=e;function f(){ var c={ a:arguments,q:[]};var r=this.push(c);return "number"!=typeof r?r:f.bind(c.q);} f.q=f.q||[];m[e]=m[e]||f.bind(f.q);m[e].q=m[e].q||f.q;r=a.createElement(i); var _=a.getElementsByTagName(i)[0];r.async=1;r.src=l+'?v'+(~~(new Date().getTime()/1000000)); _.parentNode.insertBefore(r,_);})(window, document, 'script', 'https://static.mailerlite.com/js/universal.js', 'ml'); var ml_account = ml('accounts', '1815912', 'p9n9c0c7s5', 'load');
Tout au long de l'été, je commente des citations de créatives et créatifs avec toi ! Et cette semaine, c'est au tour de Maya Angelou. "If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be." Je n'ai jamais lu Maya Angelou, je la connais seulement de nom et je suis tombée sur cette phrase par hasard. Pourtant, elle a résonné si fort que j'ai décidé de t'en parler. Parce qu'à vouloir rentrer dans la norme, tu risques de perdre ce qui nourrit ta créativité : ta personnalité. POUR SOUTENIR LE PODCAST
What drives your day? Your calendar or your to-do list? Or perhaps your boss? The answer to that question will determine whether you are or will be productive each day. Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin Learn more about the Time Sector System here Get Your Copy Of Your Time, Your Way: Time Well Managed, Life Well Lived Plan Your Week With Me: The Weekly Planning Matrix. The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl's YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |426 Hello, and welcome to episode 426 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show. If you were to look at the paper planners of the 1980s and 1990s, you would instantly see they were all built around your calendar. Some of the more sophisticated planners had a to-do list and a place to keep notes. Most were just a vertical list of times and the day's date with a small area at the bottom for notes. And there was a reason for that. People working in the 20th century understood that no matter what you wanted to do each day, it would require time. Dropping your kids off at school likely involved a twenty-minute detour on your regular commute. Restocking your paper-clip box would require you to walk to the stationery cupboard to fill it, another ten minutes, and then there was all the travelling around to meet people. (No Teams or Zoom in those days). Needs drove how we managed our time, and your diary was the only tool that could prevent you from overloading yourself. You could see in an instant whether you could sit down and type out the report or proposal. Because, given that there were no smartphones or tablets, and laptops were prohibitively expensive, you also had to be in the right place in order to do much of your work. I fondly remember the days when I left work at the end of the day, and there was no way a client, colleague or boss could contact me until I arrived for work the next day. My work Email was only on my work desktop, and that was in the office. Now, somewhere along the timeline, those barriers have been broken down. Your work can, and does, follow you home. I recently saw a before-and-after picture of people sitting around a resort swimming pool in the 1990s and one in the 2020s. In the 1990s, people were sitting around the pool talking or reading a book. In the 2020s, people were staring at their phones. No talking, no books. Just eyes glued to a screen. It's quite sad really to see. It's also why your clients, colleagues and bosses are on holiday with you. If you're carrying your work life on your phone, then there's no escape at all. It would require a superhuman effort to avoid occasionally looking at your emails and messages. I know some people can do it; most cannot. Today's episode is about how to put your calendar back to where it belongs: being your primary productivity and time management tool. So, to get us started, let me hand you over to the recently returned Mystery Podcast Voice for this week's question. This week's question comes from Judy. Judy asks, Hi Carl, I've heard you say many times that your calendar should be your primary productivity tool. I really struggle with that because I have so many tasks to do, and so I find myself beginning and ending my day in my task manager. Do you have any suggestions on how to make my calendar my primary focus? Hi Judy, thank you for your question. There is a problem with task managers today, and that is their sophistication. Before we went digital, if you used a to-do list, you needed to handwrite it each day. While this may not have been very convenient, it forced you to only write out the tasks that needed to be done. Remembering to watch a TV show or read a newspaper article would rarely, if ever, be written on a to-do list unless it was something you genuinely wanted to do. Even then, when I think back, I knew that The A Team would be on a Saturday at 6:00 pm, and that Ally McBeal was on a Sunday night at 9:00 pm. And I was always at home at those times, and if I wasn't, because there were no streaming services, I wasn't going to see the show then unless I set the video recorder, and to do that you needed a doctorate in Theoretical Physics. Today's digital To-do lists are fantastic. You can add tags and labels, set start and due dates, make tasks recurring, and create multiple lists. All great features. And if your to-do list can do all that, what's the point of using a calendar? You can put events and date reminders into your task manager and have one single place to see everything you have to do. Doing things this way immediately poses a problem, though. You remove the time constraints a calendar gives you. With a calendar, you can see your day as a whole. You get your 24 hours, and if you tried to over-schedule yourself, you would instantly see it with multiple appointments at the same time. You can then act and reschedule things or cancel a meeting or two. With a task manager, you cannot see that. All you get is a list of things to do. And if you're not curating that list each day, the list just gets longer and longer. Then you find important must-do tasks get lost among low-value, would-like-to-do-someday tasks. This then requires a lot of time to sort and organise. But rather more damaging is what this does to your sense of control. Maintaining all this in your task manager creates a sense of overwhelm, and the increase in decision-making required leaves you feeling exhausted at the end of the day. When you use your calendar as your primary productivity tool, you only need to decide what type of work you will do at any given time in the day. For example, imagine it's the tax reporting season, and you need to get all your finances in order. Not a small task, and something you likely need four or five hours to complete. If you were to have a task in your task manager that says “do taxes”, that'll be a task you will keep rescheduling. It's not a pleasant task to do, and you know it will take you four or five hours to do. However, if you managed this on your calendar, you could schedule a couple of hours on Saturday morning one weekend and a further two hours the following weekend. Now you know you have the time protected. All you have to do is turn up and do the work. Not turning up and doing it is an entirely different problem. That's not respecting your calendar, which is never a good habit to have. One other thing you will notice about scheduling this kind of work on your calendar is you see it there well before the time, and that helps you to mentally prepare for the task. Perhaps you decide to get all the paperwork ready on the Friday evening so you are ready to go first thing Saturday. On a task list, a task like this will likely be buried away somewhere, and you only see it when you do your daily planning that day. I've always found historical figures' to-do lists fascinating. People like President Eisenhower, Leonardo Da Vinci, Johnny Cash, John Lennon, Maya Angelou and Margaret Thatcher's to-do lists never contained any dates. Now, people like President Eisenhower and Margaret Thatcher had diary secretaries. These were people who managed their calendars and informed them at the start and end of each day what their schedule was for that day. This is something I've found Siri and Alexa superb at. I can walk into my office in the morning and ask what my appointments for the day are. I can also ask them to block out time tomorrow or Friday for doing a specific piece of work. With AI coming on board, that feature can only get better. If I say to Siri, “schedule a deep work session on Friday morning at 9:30”, Siri will inform me that the cleaner will be coming at 9:30 am, and I can decide to keep the focus session or change it to a time I will not be interrupted. Each week I write a script for this podcast. I usually do this on a Thursday morning after my meetings. Today, my last meeting was cancelled, so I was able to get to writing earlier. I haven't needed to look at my to-do list once yet, and it's already 11:00 am. My day began at 8:00 am with a one-hour meeting. It finished at 9:30 am. Originally, my plan was to finish my meetings at 10:15 and begin writing at 10:30 am. As it happened, because of the cancellation, I was able to begin writing at 9:45. I don't need to change my calendar; I knew that once my meetings were finished, my next task was to write. So I did. So where should a task list fit into your overall system? Task managers are great at collecting stuff you have to do. Far better than calendars, as a calendar will demand a date at the very least. Task managers don't need a date. You just add a task to the inbox, and there it will sit until you decide to do something with it. If you follow the Time Sector System, you process your task manager every 24 to 48 hours, and when you do so, you decide when you will do the task. It will either be this week, next week, later this month or next month. On your calendar, you protect time for the different categories of work you do. For instance, if you write proposals, then you would have time protected on your calendar for writing proposals. You will likely also have time set aside for dealing with your communications (emails and messages, etc.), and admin. Then at the appointed time, you use the tags or labels in your task manager to pull up the tasks that match that category of work. That's an oversimplification of the system. If you want to learn more about the Time Sector System, I recommend checking out the course I have for it. I will put the details in the show notes. This ensures you are not over-scheduling yourself or attempting to do more than you can do. It also teaches you to say no. You can see whether or not you have the time and space to do the work being asked of you. If you consistently follow this method, backlogs no longer grow, and you stay reasonably on top of your work, although being on top of your work at all times is rarely achievable. The biggest, more positive change you could make to your productivity system is to put your calendar back in its proper place. Namely, make your calendar your primary productivity tool and use your task manager as a support tool that tells you what to do when you sit down to work. I should add that for some of you this change will be uncomfortable. If you've allowed your calendar to fill up with meetings, leaving you no time to do the work you are meant to do, sticking your head in the sand and ignoring it won't make the problem go away. This is when you may have to have a conversation with your boss. More than five hours of meetings a day, and you're not going to be able to do much work beyond responding to messages. When you take into account toilet breaks, making coffee, and your lunchtime, there's not going to be much time left for anything else. I hope that has helped, Judy. Thank you for your question. And thank you to you too for listening. It just remains for me now to wish you all a very, very productive week.
Forgiveness isn't condoning the behavior. No. It's more about understanding that everyone does the best we can based on how we think. And, as Maya Angelou observed: “If they knew better they would have done better.” How they behaved made sense to them at the time (read that twice), even if their actions were foolish and hurtful. So practice the master skill of letting go.My latest book “The Wealth Money Can't Buy” is full of fresh ideas and original tools that I'm absolutely certain will cause quantum leaps in your positivity, productivity, wellness, and happiness. You can order it now by clicking here.FOLLOW ROBIN SHARMA:InstagramFacebookYouTube
We're back with another assassin v. templar episode. This week, we're digiging into famous poet, memoirist, and Civil Rights leader, Maya Angelou. Listen now and let us know what you think about this one! Now introducing Assassin's Creed Lorecast merch for everyone! Check it out at our shop! Want to chime in on the conversation? You can become a patron at the Master Assassin tier or higher and join us ON THE SHOW! https://www.patreon.com/aclorecast We've launched merch! Become a patron at the Assassin tier or higher to get these exclusive rewards! Check out our website! cupspodcasting.com If you enjoyed our podcast, give us a rating and review on Apple and/or Spotify! We'll even read your review out on the show! Join our The Cups Podcasts discord server where we dive deeep into all video game discussions. https://discord.gg/fxR2WVDNhP Come hang out on the Robots Radio discord server to join the fun! https://discord.gg/AW5Wc4kgZb If you love our merch, check out the artist behind the designs! https://libanezink.wixsite.com/libanezart If you love our music, check out the musician behind our theme! Pipeman Studios You can also find us on Twitter at @aclorecast, and you can dm us or email us at assassinscreedlorecast@gmail.com. Music by Pipeman Studios Website designed by H-I-T Media Solutions Merch designed by Lauren Ibañez Ink Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome to Country Proud Living "Where Nurturing Spaces Empower Your Life and Everyday Feels a Little More Like Home." What if creativity isn't reserved for artists—but is simply a way of living?Because the creative life is calling... and perhaps today is the day you answer. You don't need a perfect plan—you simply need enough curiosity to take the next step.In this inspiring episode of Country Proud Living, LoriLynn explores how creative living can help us rediscover joy, curiosity, and purpose in midlife. Whether you're refreshing a room in your home, planting flowers, trying a new hobby, or simply noticing beauty in everyday moments, creativity invites us to become active participants in our own lives again.Drawing on the wisdom of Elizabeth Gilbert, Julia Cameron, and Maya Angelou, this episode offers gentle encouragement to let go of perfection, follow your curiosity, and create a home—and a life—that reflects who you truly are.
How Shakespeare Helps You Age Better: The Missing Half of IntelligenceIn this Health Courage Collective Podcast episode 264, host Christina Hackett argues that aging “abnormally well” requires more than logic, data, and risk stratification: it requires story-based “primal intelligence,” a set of human abilities AI cannot replicate. Drawing on Angus Fletcher's book Primal Intelligence and examples of influential figures inspired by Shakespeare (including Steve Jobs, Maya Angelou, Abraham Lincoln, Darwin, and Tesla), she explains that modern education trains people to think like computers, which fails when life demands decisions with little or no data. Fletcher's four elements of primal intelligence are outlined: intuition (spotting exceptions and anomalies), imagination (leaping into uncertain futures), smart emotion (using feelings as feedback on your life narrative), and common sense (knowing when you do not know and detecting unknown unknowns). Hackett connects these skills to adapting plans amid chaos and creating healthier outcomes as we age.00:00 Big Questions00:33 Podcast Welcome01:21 Logic Versus Wisdom02:55 Shakespeare Changed Minds07:19 Clausewitz And Surprise09:28 Primal Intelligence Explained10:36 Why Story Beats AI14:50 Four Primal Powers15:31 Intuition Spotting Anomalies16:27 Imagination For Uncertainty17:25 Smart Emotion Dashboard18:23 Common Sense Unknown Unknowns19:59 Aging Better With Story21:23 Planning For Chaos24:12 Practical Takeaways And Close26:49 Outro And DisclaimerAre you ready to give your cells their best chance to not have to stop living before they die by allowing them access to physiologic levels of hormones, but aren't sure how to even get started? Join the waitlist for my new beta program here and help me figure out how best to help wonderful women like you get the hormone care they deserve!Join the Waitlist HereCome visit me: www.healthcouragecollective.comemail me: healthcouragecollective@gmail.com
Oprah Winfrey sits down with Keke for a personal, uplifting, and honest conversation about the life she built, the freedom she earned, and the meaningful moments she's sharing on The Oprah Podcast. Oprah opens up about what the man troubles in her 20s taught her about love, the Maya Angelou advice that helped her handle criticism, and why she and Gayle King are total opposites after 50 years of friendship. Plus, she shares powerful advice and gems on self-worth, success, and Black womanhood that move Keke to tears.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What if the greatest privilege you could give a child isn't opportunity — it's being allowed to stay creative?This week I sit down with actress, filmmaker, and creator Andrea Lewis — Degrassi's Hazel, the mind behind Netflix's The Black Beauty Effect, and now the creator of Glam Culture, her regional beauty docuseries. Andrea moves through the world with a rare kind of peace about her own timeline, and this conversation is a masterclass in what that actually looks like in practice.We get into how Essence Fest became her manifestation machine, the two women who shaped her sense of style (her Kingstonian grandmother and her cowgirl-Jamaican mother), the Maya Angelou advice she got at 15 that changed how she ages, the honest reality of crowdfunding your own art — what she calls "Game of Thrones shame" — the PCOS diagnosis that reshaped how she moves through the world, why you need champions (not connections) to actually move a career forward, and why the most valuable thing she inherited was being allowed to stay creative without anyone trying to pull it back.
Please fill out this short survey. Go to: unpacked.bio/podsurvey. We want to hear from you! How many times a day do you check your phone? For the average American, it's about 200. In the third episode of our miniseries on home, Rabbi Josh Feigelson draws on Maya Angelou and the Ba'al Shem Tov to explore what it means to be at home in your mind. Plus a simple Jewish mindfulness practice for coming home to yourself, even on a Tuesday afternoon. Be in touch at josh@unpacked.media. This episode is sponsored by Jonathan and Kori Kalafer and the Somerset Patriots: The Bridgewater, NJ-based AA Affiliate of the New York Yankees. --------------- This podcast is brought to you by Unpacked, an OpenDor Media Brand.For other podcasts from Unpacked, check out: Jewish History Nerds Stars of David with Elon Gold Unpacking Israeli History Wondering Jews
How did Algiers become a centre for revolutionaries from around the world in the 1960s? What happened to the “pied noirs” white settlers after Algeria gained independence? Who was Frantz Fanon, and why did he end up in Algeria where he was inspired to write Wretched of The Earth? Why did the Black Panthers, the Viet Cong, Nina Simone and Maya Angelou all arrive in Algeria in 1969? In Episode 5 of the series, William and Anita explore the aftermath of independence in Algeria. Summer sale is here: get an annual Empire Club membership for an extra 20% off with code SUMMER26. That's ad-free listening, early-access, every bonus episode, and full access to our exclusive members' series. Sale ends August 31st, so grab it before summer's over. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com. Email: empire@goalhanger.com Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Editor: Charlie Rodwell Social Producer: Charlie Johnson Producer: Anouska Lewis Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Two instructive tales of the Brooklyn Dodgers, who, as Casey Stengel said, were at that time in Brooklyn. The 26-inning man places a clever comeback among his last words, but not before pilfering some stocks that didn't belong to him, marrying the bosses daughter, and going broke, not necessarily in that order. Then a Deadball Era shortstop is spectacularly overrated compared to his betters, which included one of the best of all time, Honus Wagner. We also wing past one of the great forgotten offensive seasons in Cincinnati Reds history, revisit an oft-repeated Maya Angelou line, quote a key paragraph or two from Bleak House as it pertains to Charles Ebbets' estate, and so much more!The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can't get anybody out?
Welcome back to This Person I Met! My name is Kayla, and I'm the host of this podcast. I could feel Linda's eyes on me as I packed up my podcast equipment, hurrying to leave the dim-lit room for my next endeavor. At 83-years-old, Linda had been sober for over 40 years after near decades as an active addict, a journey she had shared in her thirty-minute interview in which we discussed God, happiness, and alcohol. Through her smile, she offered one last piece of her wisdom.“I feel like, in some way, you understand it all a little more than the average person,” she said to me. “You're a minority. It's similar to being the child of an addict—we were born with a price to pay.”As I left, her words still imprinted in my mind, I was firmly reminded that there are no differences that can separate us from wanting to understand each other in any means possible; that being said, there is always a way to empathize with anybody no matter how different you believe you may be. Beyond the topic of addiction was an incessant reminder of humanity and how empathy and a desire to understand somebody who shares little in common with you can help those who might be struggling. In the wise words of Maya Angelou, we are more alike than we are unalike. Without further ado, here's Linda.
In Part Two, Gary Younge reflects on growing up black in Britain, covering Nelson Mandela's election in South Africa, interviewing some of the world's biggest figures, and why identity politics is so often misunderstood. Mark and Gary discuss racism, history, statues, representation, Maya Angelou, teaching children about race, and why asking better questions matters far more than finding easy answers. For Ad-free episodes, Extended cuts, Early access & bonus content go to: www.patreon.com/wtfisgoingonpod For media, press & guest enquiries please email mikey@carouselstudios.co.uk Follow What The F*** Is Going On? @wtfisgoingonpod Follow Mark Steel @mrmarksteel Follow Gary @garyounge Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Main ideas: - Likability is the residue of an interaction: did someone make you feel good, and would you look forward to seeing them again? - It is subjective but not completely arbitrary. Smiling, warmth, tone, body language, humour, listening and word choice are recurring ingredients. - Likability is learnable and effectively free. The speakers reject the idea that people are simply born likable or unlikable. - Messaging can matter as much as the message. A strong idea presented by a disliked person may fail; a weak idea presented by a likable person may spread. - It is a multiplier for competence. Workplaces may reject brilliant performers whom colleagues actively avoid. - Conversation is “social tennis.” Likable people return the conversational ball rather than trying to ace the other person. - Life is a multiplayer game. A useful shift is from “What do I want to do?” to “How can I make this game or interaction better for everyone?” - Being good energy matters. The speakers suggest intentionally creating periods—perhaps once a week—when friends or partners set their problems aside and have fun. - Context changes the recipe. Humour may dominate in public or parasocial settings, while empathy and feeling understood matter more one-to-one. - There is a golden mean. Too little likability becomes abrasive; too much becomes approval-seeking. If it is merely a tool for getting what you want, it becomes manipulation. - Authenticity and mission can compensate for abrasiveness. Musk, Jobs and Trump are presented as examples of people liked by some precisely because they appear uncompromising. - Political likability can be dangerous. Charisma can acquire power, override policy evaluation and attach people to ideas or leaders. - Disagreement need not be disagreeable. Likability includes hearing opposing views, separating people from their ideas, and allowing disagreement without personal rejection. - Ideas themselves can be likable. An emotionally appealing idea can propagate even if its practical outcomes are poor—the speakers use socialism and Marxism as their contentious example. - Growth encourages positive-sum thinking. One speaker argues that low economic growth intensifies tribal and zero-sum conflict, while renewed growth—potentially driven by AI—could encourage openness and cooperation. - Dale Carnegie's practical recipe receives the clearest endorsement: show genuine interest, smile and be warm, remember names, listen more than you speak, discuss the other person's interests, and make people feel sincerely valued.
It's been said that you can spot an American from a mile away. Travelers to Europe are advised to adjust their attire to blend in with locals and avoid looking so … casual. The French think Americans are loud and rude, and Europe has a long tradition of sneering at how classless we all are, even before Trump.I spent a month in Italy, and it's a beautiful place. The slow living, the long naps when all the stores shut down for hours during the day, the tiny cars, the laundry drying on the balconies, the fresh food at the Farmer's Market. I feel lucky that when I came back from Italy, I was pregnant and having my baby is the single greatest thing that has ever happened to me. But I'm also glad she grew up in America.I used to travel to France to cover the Cannes Film Festival, and again, I admired their way of life, the food especially. But every time I stayed too long, I began to miss my home in America. There is something thrilling about living in a free country that I've never felt anywhere else.It seems to me that if you are born here, you make up your life as it goes along. It is not planned out for you, necessarily, although in some cases, I guess it probably is. In my case, it wasn't. I knew I could invent myself any way I wanted. And if I didn't like that version, I could reinvent myself. We're like our country, a work in progress. It's always there for the taking, that promise of opportunity.Donald Trump is all of America's freedoms wrapped up in one imperfect man. He broke through the thick layer of oppressive thought and speech and showed the world that here, you really can say anything you want - as long as some crazed totalitarian doesn't try to shoot you. That's the country I want to live in. It isn't that the greatest writing or art has come from a place like America. Plenty of great works have come from places that don't center freedom as their main objective. But once you've tasted it, you can't give it up.In his speech last night, Trump said:The American founding represents the best ideas and traditions in history by the best people, like you. You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both. As for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they're doing something much worse than slandering our past. They are slandering and attacking our future. Not going to let that happen.They're trying to tear down the great American character to destroy the people who declared independence, who crossed the Delaware, who settled the West and conquered the skies. You know who those people are. But we will never let that happen.In America now, two stories are competing to claim the right to rule the future. Trump is telling the better story, the one America was founded on and the one we've all believed, at least up until recently, when a new wave of progressives decided that the better story paints America as a corrupt, rotten, white supremacist empire that has to be torn down to the studs and rebuilt.They must be terrified about the 2030 Census because they've decided to die on the hill of illegal immigration, which is fast becoming their most important issue. That, alongside Democratic Socialism, is a recipe for disaster.This was Bill Clinton's bummer message on the Fourth:I always thought Bill Clinton was a good president, but reading that just now makes me think he wasn't. All he's ever been able to do is point the finger at the other side and never offer any real solutions. He's not the man in the arena. He's the man on the sidelines.What I love about Trump and his supporters is how much they love America. They love it so much that they plant flags all over their homes. They admire the Founding Fathers. They call themselves Patriots. We didn't have that kind of pride on the Left when I was growing up.And even now, so many see the American flag and the love of country as dangerous, racist, bigoted, fascist. Whoever told those people that is what MAGA is about lied. They're protective of America's laws and its border. That is out of love for the country. The Left has taken almost everything from them. They've locked them out of culture, forbidden them from participating in any of their major events, dehumanized, demonized, and disenfranchised them. But the one thing they couldn't take was their citizenship. They hit the jackpot just by being born in America. To think it would be so easy for people all over the world to come here illegally and claim that prize or to come here and attempt to remake America into something it was never meant to be devalues the one thing they treasure most of all. I've always been a proud American. I've always preferred this country over any other, but only in the last few years have I understood what it means to be a Patriot, to be ready to fight for the country I love. And that is because of the people I've gotten to know on the Right.This country is worth fighting for. I might not agree with all of the policies on the Right, or even Trump himself, all of the time, but I'd rather have the future of this country in the hands of people who love it the way Trump does than people who hate it, the way so many on the Left do, just because their candidates are weak and their policies are toxic. I wanted to write 250 things I love about America, but it got too long, so this will have to do. Here are just some of the things I love:I love the interstates as part of the great legacy of Dwight D. Eisenhower.I love the Pacific Ocean because it stretches along the state. I love Catalina Island off the California Coast, where I spent many a summer with my best friend.I love seeing our history in the many cultures that came here, like Chinatown, Little Italy, Mexican food in LA, soul food in the South, Irish bars and pubs in the middle of nowhere. And yes, you can appreciate a nation of immigrants while still policing our borders now. I love how nice people are in some places, like California, Ohio, and Iowa, where they smile at you on the street.I love the weather extremes, from the dusty plains to the snowy mountains to hurricanes by the sea.I love the historic monuments from the Civil War and the Revolutionary War.I love the town squares that you can still see if you drive through the middle of America. Even though many are abandoned, they still look like hope to me.I love how each town square has a church, a post office, and a school.I love the many farmlands that blanket the Midwest.I love the small mom-and-pop coffee drive-throughs, and even the convenience of a Starbucks in nearly every town.I love Route 66 and how people still drive it and visit the forgotten places.I love the absurdity of Las Vegas, how it sprouts up impossibly in the middle of the desert.I love the American writers who helped shape our country's sense of itself - Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O'Connor, Richard Ford, Maya Angelou. I love the musical traditions that started here: Jazz and the Blues. And became Rock n' Roll. I love the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the town that still remembers it.I love diners and dive bars.I love Gone with the Wind and how it's still the highest-grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation. I love The Twilight Zone and find it timeless, as relevant today as it was in the 1950s.I love the footprints at the (Grauman's) Chinese Theater in Hollywood.I love the US military and its devotion to the country. I love the wildflowers that bloom in California every year.I love soft-serve ice cream at the DQ.I love Levi's.I love New York pizza.I love Solvang in California.I love driving up the Oregon coast. I love the songs of Bob Dylan.I love the tap dancing of Fred Astaire.I love how anyone can be a star on YouTube, no matter where they come from, but YouTube couldn't have been invented anywhere but America.I love how I could build a business as a single mom in a one-room guesthouse in Van Nuys, and that business would, five years later, become profitable because I worked hard and had a good idea. And then, when my career went up in flames in 2024 because I voted for Trump, I could build another career on Substack because that is what America is all about - inventing and reinventing yourself.I love the innovative spirit that built America in real life and online.I love reading about the early settlers, the Puritans, and the homesteaders, how much they sacrificed to help make America a home. And I love the history of the Native Americans, too, even if so much of it remains a tragedy now. I love high-speed internet and Wi-Fi that are available almost everywhere, and if they're not, I have a hotspot.I love the old American cars that were not just exceptional but beautiful.I love the tradition of baseball.I love that people faithfully watch football, even if I don't.I love the tradition of sourdough bread all over social media.I love that the best basketball players in the world are from here.I love that every state is different from one to the next.I love Harper's Ferry, how it's frozen in time.I love that we found a way to move on from the trauma of our past with slavery and how we fought a bloody Civil War to end it. I love that we were the good guys in World War II. We did the right thing in entering the war and helping the Allies win. I love that you can be anything here. The door is always open. It's up to you to walk through it.I love that America is a Christian nation, and you can see that if you drive across it. But it's also a country that stands for freedom of religion, too.I love the American comedians: Groucho Marx, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, and Johnny Carson.I love that the best films from the 1970s were American movies, like The Godfather, The French Connection, Taxi Driver, and Network. But I also love more modern masterpieces by American filmmakers, like No Country for Old Men and Sideways.I love that people play the lottery, thinking one day they will hit the jackpot. They never will, but they can still dream.I love Thanksgiving and the way we celebrate it in America, which is to say, all together as one big dysfunctional family.I love the tradition of Halloween and how every October, the pumpkins and costumes come out. I love the way the weather changes. I love the Declaration of Independence and those who dared to build this wild, untamed, optimistic work in progress. I love that America is always looking to the future to find a better version of itself and its people. I love that so many Americans still believe in the American Dream.I love watching the movie Jaws on the 4th of July.I love that people watch fireworks, even if I never do, because they traumatize my dogs.I love that we have a holiday just to celebrate the day we became a country, a ragtag group of deplorable revolutionaries who set out to build a brand new country. Oh, the audacity of it. I love living here and would not want to live anywhere else. Happy 250th Birthday, my beloved country.Happy 4th to you, dear readers. Thanks for everything. I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sashastone.com/subscribe
As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Carl takes listeners on a bold, unforgettable journey through the people, ideas, and moments that shaped the United States. For the sake of brevity, this special episode traces only a sample of America's heroes, innovators, and cultural icons. From the Enlightenment ideals that inspired the Founding Fathers—Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin—to the defining leadership of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the episode explores how liberty, courage, and conviction forged a nation. Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War, and the enduring power of the Gettysburg Address, reveal how America's moral compass was tested—and strengthened. The story expands beyond politics to honor cultural and humanitarian trailblazers, including Elvis Presley, Julia Ward Howe, and Clara Barton, whose influence reshaped music, social reform, and humanitarian care. Modern leadership comes into focus through Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan, and Donald Trump, examining moments that redefined America's role at home and on the world stage. The episode also celebrates American creativity and innovation—from Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson, and Taylor Swift, to inventors like Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Steve Jobs, whose ideas transformed everyday life. Sports legends such as Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Serena and Venus Williams, and Shohei Ohtani embody the spirit of perseverance and excellence that continues to inspire generations. Woven throughout is the power of storytelling, honoring literary voices like Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, and Ernest Hemingway, whose words helped shape the American identity. As the nation approaches 250 years of independence, this episode stands as both a tribute and a challenge: honor the past, protect the principles that unite us, and take part in shaping what comes next. America's story isn't finished. What will you contribute? Connect with Carl: Instagram Facebook LinkedIn YouTube Website NOTE: This program contains copyrighted material used under the Fair Use doctrine for purposes of commentary, criticism, education, and historical analysis. Produced by: Social Chameleon
Most creative geniuses didn't wait for inspiration, they manufactured it. This Daily Rituals summary reveals how Maya Angelou did it.
Laurie opens this episode mid-story -- crossing a street, spotting someone she admires, and doing what she's done her whole life: looking away.What follows is one of the most personal episodes she's recorded. It's the story of her relationship with Ellen Yin — media company founder, host of the Cubicle to CEO podcast, keynote speaker, and one of the most gracious humans Laurie has encountered in six years of building this business. Across four years and four distinct moments, Laurie traces the evolution from moving chicken around a plate at a lunch table to waking up to a DM that said: Laurie, I adore you.But this episode isn't really about Ellen. It's about the conditioning that makes high-achieving women invisible to themselves -- and what it actually looks like to start unlearning it. At 54. After years of doing this work. Still.The theme woven through this year's Craft + Commerce conference: shoot your shot. Be delusionally confident. Stop being the first person to tell yourself no.This episode is Laurie's honest reckoning with all of it.What we coverThe cold open: crossing the street, recognizing Ellen Yin, and the instinct to look away — and what that one moment reveals about a lifetime of habitsWhat happened at the lunch table four years ago — the salad, the chicken, the over-explaining, and the classic nervous deflection of proving how much you know when what you're actually feeling is: do I even deserve to be here?The DM that changed everything: how Laurie shot her shot, flew to Oregon, drove 90 minutes in commuter traffic, and spent an extraordinary day learning from someone she admiredThe crosswalk moment — last year's Craft + Commerce — and why she looked away when she could have made the connection herselfThis year's conference: walking into the breakout room, the hug, the lit-up face, and what it felt like to be seen by someone she'd assumed was too important, too busy, too far above her to see herWhy the tech not working in the room didn't matter — and the Maya Angelou quote that's been living in Laurie's head ever sinceGetting in the photo line — the internal negotiation of "why not me?" — and waking up to Laurie, I adore youLittle Laurie: the conditioning, the beliefs, the habits that were formed so long ago she didn't know she was still running them"I just stopped being the first person to tell myself no" — the keynote line that reframes everythingThe three micro-shots from this year's conference: asking for the free signed book, getting the photo with Ellen, joining a lunch group that felt out of her leagueWhy it's not the ask that's the problem — it's the belief we've attached to the askFour takeaways for shooting your shot, being seen, and doing this work for as long as it takesThe four takeaways1. The look-away is a habit, not a truth. When you feel the impulse to make yourself smaller, to assume someone is too important to see you, to talk yourself out of making the ask — that is old conditioning running a very old program. You can notice it. You don't have to keep obeying it.2. Shooting your shot is a skill — and it gets easier. Not because the fear goes away, but because you build evidence. The ask doesn't kill you. The worst thing people can say is no — and no is not a rejection of you. It means not right now. You keep asking. At some point, they say yes.3. The gift of being seen starts with letting yourself be visible. Ellen couldn't have touched Laurie's arm at the crosswalk if Laurie had walked the other way. Every time we make ourselves invisible, we rob someone else of the chance to surprise us.4. We are never done with this work. At 54. After years of coaching herself and others. Laurie still looked away at the crosswalk last year. Still moved the chicken around the plate four years ago. The difference isn't that the impulse is gone. It's that she notices it faster — and sometimes, not always but more often, does the thing anyway. That's the work. That's all this is.Quotable moments"She made the connection when I wasn't going to do it myself.""I just stopped being the first person to tell myself no.""Being delusionally confident doesn't mean you don't feel the fear. It means you make the ask anyway -- and you let other people decide whether to say yes.""It's not the ask that's the problem. It's the belief we attach to the ask.""Every time we make ourselves invisible, we rob someone else of the chance to surprise us.""The difference between now and four years ago isn't that I've eliminated the impulse. It's that I notice it faster. And sometimes I do the thing anyway.""You shouldn't have to shoot your shot alone.""People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel." — Maya Angelou"Go make someone feel something this week. Might as well start with yourself."People + resources mentionedEllen Yin — founder of Ellen Yin Media, host of the Cubicle to CEO podcast Craft + Commerce Conference — annual creator conference hosted by Kit in Boise, IdahoKit — Laurie's new email service provider (formerly ConvertKit) James Clear — author of Atomic Habits (30 million copies sold)Maya Angelou — "People will forget what you said. They will forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel."BEST LIFE MastermindEverything in this episode -- the looking away, the over-explaining, the belief that someone else's question matters more than yours, the feeling that you're not worth remembering -- is exactly the work we do inside the BEST LIFE Mastermind. Not in theory. In practice. With ten women who will see you when you want to make yourself invisible. Who will nudge your arm at the crosswalk when you're about to look away.→ Apply now → Book a 15-minute call with Laurie Retreat 1 — Sun Valley, Idaho · September 1–4, 2026 Retreat 2 — Civana Wellness Resort + Spa · Carefree, Arizona · February 23–26, 2027If this episode made you think of someone who needs to hear it , please send it to them. That's your shot to take this week.
Did you know that at one point in our lives, 70% of people experience Imposter Syndrome or now called Imposter Complex/Phenomenon. And P.S., 75% of executive women have experienced it. I've had many highly successful and motivated Type A female clients come to me wanting to be “fixed.” I always give them the same answer. This is not an on and off switch. There is no fixing. This is a process of unlearning and relearning, of noticing and reframing, and reconnecting to your body. It's using your tools when the inner critic strikes, because it will. Inner critic is simply a sign that you are leveling up and facing fear. I know easier said than done, but you can manage it. As Maya Angelou says, “When we know better, we do better.”During my conversation with guest, Jessica Wright, we talk about knowledge that we can arm ourselves with when managing on our inner critics. During the show, Jessica and I chatted about:What Positive Intelligence and the Saboteurs are.The benefits of knowing our Saboteurs and how we find out ours. If the Saboteurs remain consistent or if they can change over time.We chatted about what Jessica and my top Saboteurs are and how they show up. How does all of this relate to the inner critic and why knowledge is power. Here is more about Jessica:Jessica Wright, an ACC-credentialed Life & Career Development Coach, helps new and emerging leaders build confidence, lead with purpose, and create a lasting legacy...without sacrificing their personal lives. Because leadership isn't actually about proving yourself in the hard times. It's about support. It's about clarity. It's about helping people feel seen, heard, and connected to the mission.With a Master's degree in Transformational Leadership, Jessica helps leaders navigate the pressures of their roles, overcome burnout, and empowers them to redefine success on their own terms. Jessica is also the host of Illustrating Leadership Podcast and the creator of the Illustrating Leadership Summit.When she's not coaching or podcasting, you can find Jessica chasing down her naughty dachshund, seeking out her next cup of coffee, or starting a crafting project that she may or may not eventually finish.You can reach her at jessicawright.online.If the Brave Women at Work Podcast has helped you personally or professionally, please share it with a friend, colleague, or family member. And your ratings and reviews help the show continue to gain traction and grow. Thank you again!If you haven't downloaded one of my freebies on my site, check them out on bravewomenatwork.com. I have 5 Ways to Managing Your Imposter Syndrome, 34 Leadership and Career Affirmations, and 10 tips to Win Your Next Negotiation. Download one or them or all three!If you also have a story to share and a deep desire to become an author, please contact me at hello@bravewomenatwork.com. I am happy to share the details on the project.
It Has Been Decided: How Steffani LeFevour Rewrote Her Story and Manifested a Dream Book Deal Steffani LeFevour has built a life and a career around happiness, but she is the first to tell you she did not start there. She grew up without her father, an alcoholic who left the family, and she was only eleven when her eighteen-year-old sister died in a car accident. For years she assumed everyone carried that kind of weight, and for a long stretch she handled it the only way she had ever seen modelled: drinking, partying, and quietly sabotaging her own life. What makes her story land is her honesty about how slow the turn really was. There was no single lightning bolt. There was Oprah on the television every day, a Wayne Dyer book, and Marianne Williamson's A Return to Love, which introduced her to a word nobody had ever taught her: forgiveness. As a young woman she carried a rock from a wild party down to a river, poured all her fear and trauma into it, read a Maya Angelou poem, and threw it into the water. She is quick to puncture the fantasy that this fixed everything. It did not. She sabotaged her life for another decade, because the old path, as she puts it, is so worn and so comfortable that we keep returning to it. The shift came from a question she kept asking. The beliefs she had carried since childhood sounded like this: I'm broken, I'm unlovable, nothing good can happen for me. Then a door opened. What if all of it was happening for her? What if there were gifts in it, and she could consciously create from there? Human eyes versus soul eyes Steffani, now the founder of the Soul Happy Movement, teaches her clients to ask two questions of any situation: what do my human eyes see, and what does my soul see. Her human eyes might see a struggling child or a difficult marriage. Her soul sees something whole, chosen, and exactly where it is meant to be. She is careful, though, not to let this slide into spiritual bypassing. Radical acceptance has to sit alongside real boundaries, and she reframes boundaries beautifully. They are not about controlling someone else. They are about governing your own behaviour. The episode's most memorable test case is wonderfully ordinary. At her daughter's fifteenth birthday party, older boys turned up and threw eggs into the back garden. Steffani chose to love every second of it. Her line lands like a thesis for the whole conversation: it is not the world's job not to trigger her, it is her job not to be triggered. Nothing, she says, has meaning until we give it meaning. The practical architecture From there she lays out the tools. There is the STAR formula, where State, Thoughts and Actions create your Reality, with the crucial twist that most of us try to change our actions while ignoring the state we prime ourselves into each morning. There is her debt to Byron Katie's questioning of limiting beliefs, which she still practises thirty years in and describes as weeding the garden and watering the seeds of worthiness. And there is the achievement list she gives the teen athletes she coaches, a file of evidence to return to after a bad game. It all builds towards the story that gives the episode its emotional peak. After a decision statement in late 2025, an early call with Hay House, and an eight-week wait that ended in a no, Steffani felt relief rather than disappointment, trusting something more aligned was coming. She kept identifying as the author she wanted to be, declined contracts that felt close but not quite right, and through a chance lunch was reconnected to a new Hay House editor. By then her platform had exploded, and within a week the contract was hers. She calls it identity-first manifesting, framed around focusing on the end result, asking for guidance rather than the thing itself, taking inspired action, and being genuinely okay no matter what. She closes with three golden nuggets: you get to decide how your life will be and then make it that way; your state, thoughts and actions are one hundred per cent in your control; and we shape our stories, and our stories shape our lives. Watch the full conversation on YouTube. Find Out More About Steffani LeFevour Website: https://coachwithsteff.com Instagram: @coachwithsteff YouTube: @coachwithsteff
Hoffmann, Jule www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
Hoffmann, Jule www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Lesart
Send us Fan MailShawn Rivera is an American singer, songwriter, producer, and percussionist, widely recognized as a founding member and lead vocalist of the R&B group Az Yet. The group's 1996 self-titled debut album achieved multi-platinum status and featured two platinum singles.Musical Success: Az Yet's notable hits include "Last Night" and their Grammy-nominated cover of "Hard to Say I'm Sorry," which was a collaboration with producers David Foster and Babyface.Production and Arrangement: Rivera is an accomplished producer and arranger who served as the lead producer, musician, and guest vocalist on the late Dr. Maya Angelou's final musical album, Caged Bird Songs.In this episode not only will we discuss these incredible moments in his musical history; but touch on the times before and after these noteworthy events that led to him releasing his new self titled album "Shawn Rivera". To give the listener an idea of how incredible this album is, Troy plays snippets of this 9 song offering with Shawn giving a delightful backdrop about each. Both gentlemen were having such and amazing time that 3 hours had passed before they knew it. Yes, this is a lengthy episode, but definitely worth the listen. The music and conversation were informative and entertaining.#shawnrivera #azyet #babyface #Laface #KeithAnders #MayaAngelou #Philarico #baasentertainment #baasentertainmentpodcast #Musicpodcast #troytsaunders #supportindiemusic #supportindieartists #podcast #videopodcast, #R&BMusic, #soulmusic, #acappellaPERMISSION OF MUSIC CONTENT GRANTED BY COMPOSER/WRITER FOR PROMOTIONAL USEMusical Content Copyright Disclaimer (Fair Use) under section 107 Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. This video demonstrates mixing skills, all audio was purchased legally. Copyright Statement: This track is not intended to infringe any copyright laws in any way. This is for sole purpose of entertainment; no profit is gained from this. It is the copyrighted property of its respective owner(s).Listen and subscribe to the BAAS Entertainment Podcast via the BAAS Entertainment website, www.baasentertainment.com, and all podcast platforms.
My guest is Aminata Njeri, an author, having just recently released a book entitled "Whispers of Wisdom", a Pastor, a leaderologist, she is the Executive Vice President of Bryan Educational Leadership Group. She has imparted her pearls of leadership wisdom to over 100,000 people. This is a magnificent episode the magnifies the theme of this Podcast, "Progress Despite Obstacles." It is a story of a teenaged mother on welfare, whose mother and her domestically abused by father, abused by her her husband who threaten to kill her. She was raped by her best friend's husband... she did exactly as Maya Angelou wrote..."and still I rise." She became the first in her family to attend and graduate from college. Her story is an inspiration to all.You should not miss this episode. It is so wonderful! She has imparted her pearls of leadership wisdom to over 100,000 people. This is a magnificent episode the magnifies the theme of this Podcast, "Progress Despite Obstacles." It is a story of a teenaged mother on welfare, whose mother and her domestically abused by father, abused by her her husband who threaten to kill her. She was raped by her best friend's husband... she did exactly as Maya Angelou wrote..."and still I rise." She became the first in her family to attend and graduate from college. Her story is an inspiration to all.You should not miss this episode. It is so wonderful! Produced, directed, edited and host by Stephen E Davis. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Send us Fan MailKate McKinnon is the former Head of Human Resources at Playfly Sports, a leading sports media and marketing company. There, she led the People function through a fast-paced, high-growth phase - helping the company earn recognition as both a Most Loved Workplace and one of the Best Employers in Sports. Today, she leads her own consulting practice focused on empowering organizations by prioritizing their most valuable asset: people. Her work centers on:Leadership DevelopmentHR Strategy & Culture BuildingPersonalized Career Coaching-Quick Episode Summary:Kate McKinnon shares Human Resource insights, Philly sports, and kindness stories.-
Today's meditation is inspired by the quote by Maya Angelou "Today is a wonderful day. I've not seen this one before." These simple few words hold so much power and in this meditation we will start the day right, ready to find the wonder, the joy and the potential of the day, even if it is just another ordinary day. Being intentional in finding beauty and newness in our daily lives can elevate our experiences, our moods, our interactions and, of course, our outcomes. Listen in the morning for maximum optimism and joy for your day!Much loveRosanne xxPlease support this podcast by clicking here Reach me and find out more about my work at my website
“To love disharmony back into harmony creates a greater harmony than existed before!” Jupiter and the craft of Liberating Story… We live in a Story-Telling Creation- Everything telling us its story by its color, song, rhythm, and if we simply approached the world with informed reverent curiosity – our species would rejoin the Guiding Narrative…”Tell me your story & I will spiral it forth…” Jupiter and the lineage of story-telling- just returned from worthy arduous journey to Morocco, suffused with so many stories….re-combobulating, as be we all…. Honoring Jupiter, Idries Shayh, and his son Tahir Shah…. Whose books we be proffering as thankyou gifts for pledging to KPFA/KPFK /Pacifica. “Caravan of Dreams” by Idries Shah And “In Arabian Night- A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams” by Tahir Shah And always – Alf Lyla wa Layla – “A Thousand ands One Nights.” In which Scheherazade, quintessential liberating folk hero -liberates women, men, the land, even the crazed tyrant….the entire atmospheric circumstance….whoise bastion be handed to us all… To cultivate the craft of complexity, irony…. To be deeply informed of the world's corrupt creepitude – and love it anyway….Art of Blessing.. Many narratives proffered …cause we gotta know…What's at stake…syncretizing Chris Smalls, Maryann Ishani, Mathew Remsky on Pope Paul in Algeria, Voting Rights, Maya Angelou and more! The post Jupiter Liberating Storycraft appeared first on KPFA.
La poesia di Maya Angelou: ascolta le sue parole, e sei d'accordo con lei?
“Send Coach John a message”I found something that got my attention right away. It's a post from Bob Starkey (@CoachBobStarkey) where he shares this gem from Maya Angelou: “If you're going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can't be erased.” The size or fame of your legacy I think, doesn't really matter. The fact that you choose to live a life where you are conscious of your actions, what you do in life towards others and what kind of life you let be the example for the world to see …. That's what matters. This is something that I have always had in the back of my mind of how my life will be remembered. Now… as I get older, it's something I know I need to keep doing and keep getting better too. I want to just keep getting better as a human being, a husband, dad, son, brother, friend, uncle, neighbor, etc. Living a life to be proud of - that's a great thing to go after. Thanks for listening. Please take a few moments to subscribe & share this with someone, also leave a 5 Star rating on Apple Podcasts and ITunes or other services where you find this show. Find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/coachtoexpectsuccess/ on Twitter / “X”: @coachtosuccess and on Instagram at: @coachjohndaly - My YouTube Channel is at: Coach John Daly. Email me at: CoachJohnDalyPodcast@gmail.com You can also head on over to https://www.coachtoexpectsuccess.com/ and get in touch with me there on my homepage along with checking out my Top Book list too. Other things there on my site are being worked on too. Please let me know that you are reaching out to me from my podcast. ** I would appreciate anyone to try clicking on the top of the show notes where it says "Send us a text" to leave a few thoughts / comments / questions. It's a new feature that I'd like to see how it works. **
Over Zoom, Lawrence Zarian interviews Ellen Burstyn ahead of their in-person meeting on The Kelly Clarkson Show, reflecting on divine timing and how his pandemic-born podcast explores how entertainers see the world differently. Burstyn discusses promoting her poetry book and her discomfort with “commercializing” something sacred, emphasizing her goal of introducing poetry to people who don't know it; Zarian shares how the book gave him language for grief, citing Maya Angelou and Rumi, and Burstyn recites Edna St. Vincent Millay's “Love is not all.” Burstyn recalls a childhood split between being popular at school and hiding at home due to an abusive stepfather, and how poetry helped her envision a future. They discuss forgiveness, therapy, sobriety, and generational trauma, then touch on colleagues and projects including Cloris Leachman, Jack Nicholson, Alan Alda, Linda Blair, and roles like Lois in The Last Picture Show, ending with Burstyn completing “I, Ellen Burstyn, am beautiful because…” with a memory of her mother.Timestamp Menu:01:51 Universe and Timing03:04 Mirror Question03:54 Poetry Book Doubts09:01 Poetry Awakening09:53 Two Lives Growing Up15:42 Forgiving Mom17:40 Trauma and Sobriety24:47 Poems for Grief29:33 Favorite Poem Recital32:07 Poetry as Healing33:21 Central Park Cherry Blossoms35:32 Fashion and Self Love37:39 Rapid Fire Film Memories42:43 Internet Myths and Truth44:24 Alan Alda and Friendship48:07 Women and Equal Partnership52:13 Revisiting Past Characters54:03 Longing Poem and Farewell55:55 I Am Beautiful Because
Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 651 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast. Today I'm talking about something that's been on my heart so much lately — how to feel at home anywhere by feeling truly comfortable and safe in your own skin.I share the sweetest story about my little sister's new pet turtle who carries his home on his back and how that tiny guy taught me we can do the same. I also open up about the conversations Eric and I have been having about where we'll live when he retires in five years… and what I realized when I asked myself, “But what if he's not right there?”You'll hear how Nelson Mandela, Wayne Dyer, and Maya Angelou built an unbreakable inner sanctuary even in the hardest times, plus five simple daily habits you can start right now so you always know “I've got me.”If you want to feel more peace no matter where life drops you, this one's for you. Grab your favorite cozy spot, hit play, and let's do this beautiful inner work together.I love you guys — can't wait to hear what shifted for you this week!
If you've ever sat in a meeting, been asked for your opinion, and immediately thought… "Who am I to speak up?" "They're going to find out I don't belong here." You're not alone. In this episode, we're talking about imposter syndrome — not just what it is, but what to actually do about it. Because I'm done with advice that sounds good but doesn't help you in real life… like on a Tuesday morning when you're about to walk into a client call and your confidence is nowhere to be found. This episode is packed with real, actionable steps you can start using today. Here's something to hold onto: 70% of people across every industry experience imposter syndrome. Maya Angelou felt it. Tom Hanks talked about it. Michelle Obama wrote about it. So if you've ever felt like you're one mistake away from being exposed — you're in very good company. And more importantly, there is a way through it. In This Episode, We Cover: • How to recognize imposter syndrome when it shows up • How to reframe the stories you're telling yourself • How to take action even when you don't feel ready • How to build confidence through consistent action • 12 practical steps to help you own your voice Resources: Are you a health coach in need of done-for-you content? Visit yourhealthcoachbiz.com and save 40% using code GO40. Launch your podcast or get full podcast management services here: https://rachelafeldman.com/the-healthy-hustle-podcast-agency/ Tip #1: Name It Out Loud The next time that voice shows up, don't ignore it — name it. Say: "I'm experiencing imposter syndrome right now." When you label the emotion, you activate the rational part of your brain and shift from reaction to response. This isn't truth — it's a feeling. And feelings can be worked with. Tip #2: Remember You're Not Alone 70% of people experience this. That means the people sitting in your next Zoom call are likely feeling it too. You're not broken. You're growing. Tip #3: Keep a Win Journal Imposter syndrome has selective memory. It remembers your mistakes — and forgets your wins. Start tracking your wins weekly: • Solved a problem • Got a thank you message • Finished something hard This becomes your proof when your brain tries to tell you otherwise. Tip #4: Separate Feelings from Facts Ask yourself: Is this true… or does it just feel true? Your thoughts are convincing — but they're not always accurate. Challenge them. Tip #5: Embrace the Learning Curve Replace: "I don't belong here" With: "I haven't learned this yet." That one word changes everything. Discomfort doesn't mean you're in the wrong place — it means you're growing. Tip #6: Act First, Feel Confident Later Confidence doesn't come before action. It comes from action. Do it scared. Do it messy. Do it anyway. Tip #7: Share Before It's Perfect Perfectionism and imposter syndrome go hand in hand. Stop waiting for perfect. Share at 80%. Progress builds confidence — perfection delays it. Tip #8: Say Yes to One Stretch Opportunity Pick one thing this month that scares you. • Apply for something • Pitch yourself • Start the thing Growth happens when you stretch. Tip #9: Find a Mentor or Accountability Partner You don't have to do this alone. Mentors don't just give advice — they give permission. Accountability keeps you moving forward when doubt creeps in. Tip #10: Talk About It Imposter syndrome thrives in silence. Say it out loud. Most of the time, you'll hear: "Me too." Tip #11: Celebrate Others Without Comparing Someone else's success is not your failure. It's proof that it's possible. Practice celebrating others — it builds an abundance mindset. Tip #12: Create Your Evidence List Write down your top 5 real accomplishments. Keep them visible. When doubt shows up, read them out loud. Because the antidote to a lie is the truth. Final Thoughts You are not behind. You are not unqualified. You are not a fraud. You are growing. And everything you're feeling right now is part of becoming the person you're meant to be. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it. And remember — you don't need to feel ready to take the next step. You just need to take it.
Discovering Grayslake: Unveiling the Stories and People That Make Our Town Unique
Mother of the late Gavin Short, a Grayslake native, Eagle Scout, and passionate meteorology student who tragically passed away in a storm-chasing accident in April 2022. Beth shares Gavin's inspiring journey, including overcoming autism-related challenges and finding his passion for atmospheric science. She invites the community to honor Gavin's memory through the annual Day of Cheerful Service on April 25th, featuring volunteering at Feed My Starving Children and local park restoration. Honoring Legacy Through Service: Lessons from the "Discovering Grayslake" Podcast with Beth Short In the heart of Grayslake, stories of resilience, community, and service come alive through the voices of its residents. The latest episode of the "Discovering Grayslake" podcast is a testament to this spirit, featuring Beth Short—a mother, neighbor, and community leader—who shares the moving story of her late son, Gavin Short. Gavin's legacy, shaped by his passion for meteorology, his journey with autism, and his commitment to cheerful service, continues to inspire through an annual Day of Cheerful Service. This blog post dives deep into the main themes of the episode, breaking down actionable insights and expert advice on how to honor loved ones, foster community, and create meaningful impact through service. Whether you're a Grayslake local or someone seeking inspiration, these lessons offer a roadmap for turning loss into legacy and connection. Table of Contents Transforming Grief into Community Action The Power of Service: Organizing a Day of Cheerful Service Building Inclusive Communities: Lessons from Gavin's Journey Actionable Tips for Organizing Community Service Events Sustaining Legacy: Keeping Memories Alive Through Action How to Get Involved Final Thoughts: Finding Light in Darkness Transforming Grief into Community Action Beth Short's story is one of heartbreak and hope. After losing her son Gavin in a tragic accident, Beth and her family chose to honor his memory not through sorrow, but through service. This transformation is a powerful reminder that: Grief can be a catalyst for positive change.** Instead of retreating inward, Beth's family reached out to the community, inviting others to join them in acts of kindness. Legacy is built through action.** By organizing the Day of Cheerful Service, the Shorts ensure Gavin's spirit continues to touch lives. Expert Insight: Turning personal loss into community action can help families process grief, find purpose, and create lasting impact. It also offers others a way to support and connect, fostering a sense of shared humanity. The Power of Service: Organizing a Day of Cheerful Service The Day of Cheerful Service is more than an event—it's a movement rooted in the values Gavin embodied as an Eagle Scout. Here's how the Shorts structure this impactful day: Morning: Feed My Starving Children Large-Scale Volunteerism:** The event reserves 180 spots, often filling them with community members eager to help. Tangible Impact:** Volunteers pack meals for children worldwide, making a direct difference in global hunger. Community Bonding:** Working side-by-side fosters connections among participants. Midday: Local Fundraiser Supporting Local Organizations:** A fundraiser at Wendy's in Libertyville benefits the local Scout troop, reinforcing the cycle of giving. Afternoon: Wildwood Park District Cleanup Local Impact:** Volunteers rejuvenate parks by trimming overgrowth, cleaning trails, and preparing spaces for summer. Partnerships:** Collaboration with the Wildwood Park District, the Scout troop's sponsor, strengthens community ties. Actionable Advice: Diversify Activities:** Offer both global and local service opportunities to engage a wider audience. Make It Accessible:** Allow people to participate for as little or as long as they can—every bit helps. Focus on Service, Not Fundraising:** The Shorts emphasize volunteerism over monetary donations, making the event inclusive and mission-driven. Building Inclusive Communities: Lessons from Gavin's Journey Gavin's life story is a blueprint for building inclusive, supportive communities: Embrace Neurodiversity:** Diagnosed with autism at age three, Gavin faced social challenges but excelled academically. His family and community focused on his strengths, not his limitations. Foster Belonging:** Gavin found his "people" in the meteorology program at the University of Oklahoma, where shared passions bridged social gaps. Support Transitions:** The pandemic's shift to online learning unexpectedly helped Gavin ease into college life, highlighting the importance of flexible, supportive environments. Expert Advice: Celebrate Individual Strengths:** Recognize and nurture unique talents within your community. Create Safe Spaces:** Encourage clubs, teams, and organizations to be welcoming to all, especially those with social or developmental differences. Leverage Technology:** Online platforms can help individuals connect and build confidence before meeting in person. Actionable Tips for Organizing Community Service Events Drawing from Beth's experience, here's how you can create a successful, meaningful service event in your hometown: 1. Identify a Clear Purpose Honor a Legacy:** Tie your event to a meaningful story or cause. Set Achievable Goals:** Whether it's packing meals or cleaning parks, define what success looks like. 2. Build Partnerships Engage Local Organizations:** Partner with schools, park districts, and businesses to expand your reach. Leverage Existing Networks:** Use Scout troops, church groups, or civic clubs to recruit volunteers. 3. Make Participation Easy Online Sign-Ups:** Use simple registration forms and provide clear instructions. Flexible Scheduling:** Offer multiple time slots or activities to accommodate different schedules. 4. Communicate Clearly Promote Widely:** Use social media, local newsletters, and word-of-mouth to spread the word. Provide Details:** Share what to bring (e.g., gloves, tools), what to expect, and how to prepare. 5. Foster a Welcoming Atmosphere Encourage All Ages:** Make the event family-friendly and accessible to people of all abilities. Celebrate Contributions:** Recognize volunteers' efforts, no matter how small. 6. Reflect and Share Impact Document the Day:** Take photos, share stories, and highlight successes. Express Gratitude:** Thank participants and partners publicly. Sustaining Legacy: Keeping Memories Alive Through Action Beth's approach to honoring Gavin's memory offers a model for others: Speak in the Present:** Beth refers to Gavin as if he's still with her, keeping his spirit alive in daily life. Create Lasting Memorials:** Gavin's Eagle Scout project—a rejuvenated walking trail and little library—now bears his name, "Gavin's Corner." Annual Traditions:** The Day of Cheerful Service gives the community a recurring opportunity to remember and celebrate Gavin. Expert Insight: Memorializing loved ones through ongoing service projects not only honors their legacy but also provides comfort and purpose for grieving families. How to Get Involved If you're inspired by Gavin's story and want to participate: Sign Up:** Visit www.theshortpeople.com/gavin to register for the Day of Cheerful Service. Morning: Feed My Starving Children (9–10:45 a.m.) Afternoon: Wildwood Park District Cleanup (1–4 p.m.) Bring Supplies:** Gloves and basic tools are helpful; water and snacks are provided. Contact for Help:** If you have trouble signing up, email the Shorts through the website for assistance. Spread the Word:** Invite friends, family, and neighbors to join. Final Thoughts: Finding Light in Darkness Beth Short's message is clear: even in the darkest times, there is light to be found in service, gratitude, and community. By saying "yes" to opportunities and focusing on giving back, we can transform pain into purpose and keep the memories of our loved ones alive. As Maya Angelou reminds us, "People may not remember what you did or said, but they will remember how you made them feel." Let's strive to make others feel seen, valued, and connected—just as Gavin did. Ready to make a difference? Join the Day of Cheerful Service, honor a legacy, and help build a stronger, kinder Grayslake. Visit shortpeople.com/gavin to learn more. Discovering Grayslake is brought to you by the Grayslake Chamber of Commerce, Servpro of Northwest Lake County, and Right at Home care services—neighbors serving neighbors, every day.
KW is a Licensed Professional Counselor who was identified as AuDHD in his 30s. He lives with his neurodivergent spouse and five fur-kids in Midwest-USA. He is an artist, writer, photographer, and musician. At present, he is excited to be creating his first podcast: a music deep dive show that will air on the Autistic Culture Podcast Network this summer. He shares his diagnosis journey, his passions, and the process of "unbecoming" as he unmasks.00:13 Introductions01:28 KW's diagnosis journey including suicidality and trauma from being misunderstood * Trigger Warning *04:45 KW's process of becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor05:12 KW's confusion about diagnosis despite being an LPC05:28 The therapist that suggested KW should be assessed for ADHD06:43 Why KW became a counselor08:32 The necessity of unpacking your own "stuff" as a counselor09:00 How becoming a counselor was rewarding for KW10:08 KW's reflections on providing a safe space for his clients and being your authentic self11:37 KW's first session conversation with his clients12:12 KW's case load of Autistic middle and high school boys before he understood Autism and instinctually following the client's lead15:28 KW's lived experience presentation to his co-workers *Trigger Warning*17:42 Turrell's response to KW's list of personal characteristics he had accumulated19:10 KW's response to the value of having supportive people in your life21:13 KW's most powerful realization and best advice23:03 Daria's response to KW's lived experience of having personal support23:58 The importance of seeking out support25:01 The importance of letting go of fear when it's necessary to move on from what doesn't feel right 25:55 KW reconceptualizing himself as a musician, writer, photographer, and an artist starting with his love of music and his favourite band26:25 Daria's response to KW27:25 Reconnecting with his creativity as he unmasks30:30 Maya Angelou's inspiring quote and KW's focus on "unbecoming"31:11 KW's passion for music33:36 KW's upcoming podcast mini-series on the Autistic Culture Podcast Network35:27 Turrell's upcoming podcast mini-series on the Autistic Culture Podcast Network36:09 The Autistic appreciation of sharing passionate interests36:47 Wrap-UpKW on Substack: https://substack.com/@mraskmore?r=3cfq85&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=stories&shareImageVariant=lightDIRFloortime https://affectautism.com/what-is-dirfloortime/The Late Diagnosis Club https://www.autisticculturepodcast.com/Maya Angelou's most famous quote on creativity is: "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have."KW's favourite band The Color Moralehttps://fearlessrecords.com/artists/the-color-morale/Turrell's and my past episode on our love of the band Nirvana https://affectautism.com/autistic-viewpoints/Another band KW is a fan of "Good Charlotte" https://www.goodcharlotte.com/* Thank you to Hungarian recording artist Post Analog Disorder for the intro/outro music permission: https://postanalogdisorder.bandcamp.com/album/still-i-rise
We're in our new "month of renewal" format. We're essentially exploring this question throughout the month... what if growth required less effort? This is an encore episode that helps us answer this question. Reminder that we'll be back with new episodes May 1, 2026. Solitude and fun in the same sentence? Stick with us. In this episode, we'll explore how intentional alone time — free from devices, distractions, and the pressure to perform happiness — can actually be one of the most powerful tools for mental wellness and, yes, even joy. From the neuroscience of arousal states to Trappist monks in rural Iowa, this one is equal parts science and soul. About: The Joy Lab Podcast is an Ambie-nominated podcast that blends science and soul to help you cope better with stress, ease anxiety, and uplift mood. Join Dr. Henry Emmons and Dr. Aimee Prasek for practical, mindfulness-based tools and positive psychology strategies to build resilience and create lasting joy. Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with the Joy Lab Program. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts! And... if you want to spread some joy and keep this podcast ad-free, then please join our mission by donating (Joy Lab is powered by the nonprofit Pathways North and your donations are tax-deductible). Like and follow Joy Lab on Socials: Instagram Linkedin Watch on YouTube Full transcript here Sources and Notes: Joy Lab Program: Take the next leap in your wellbeing journey with step-by-step practices to help you build and maintain the elements of joy in your life. Podcast episodes referenced: #73 Lonely in crowded places (this isn't a country music song) (this is the episode that originally played before this one) #28 Common Humanity vs Isolation Related podcast episodes: #72 Blame-It, Overanalyze-It, Should-It, & Separate (BOSS Dominoes) #71 Uncovering Your Playful Nature (guided meditation) #70 Update and Special [Super fun!] Replay #19 The Power of Play: Clocks vs Clouds and Taming Your Wild Things National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Opportunities for the Health Care System. https://doi.org/10.17226/25663 Loneliness and Social Isolation Linked to Serious Health Conditions Brain systems underlying the affective and social monitoring of actions: An integrative review How BIS/BAS and psycho-behavioral variables distinguish between social withdrawal subtypes during emerging adulthood Solitude as an Approach to Affective Self-Regulation What Time Alone Offers: Narratives of Solitude From Adolescence to Older Adulthood The Handbook of Solitude: Psychological Perspectives on Social Isolation, Social Withdrawal, and Being Alone, Second Edition Descartes' Meditations Maya Angelou's website Key moments: [00:01:00] — Defining Solitude Aimee offers a working definition: solitude is the voluntary experience of being alone, without devices or stimuli pulling attention away from oneself. Key distinction: solitude feels full, while loneliness feels like lack. [00:02:30] — Solitude vs. Loneliness: A Useful Parallel Henry draws a parallel between solitude/loneliness and grief/depression — experiences that may look similar on the surface but lead to very different outcomes. Healthy solitude, like healthy grief, can free and open us up. [00:05:00] — Obstacles to Solitude: Social Pressure Aimee calls out the cultural pressure to be perpetually social. In US culture, extroversion is rewarded, "table for one" is framed as sad, and choosing alone time can feel like going against the grain of good mental health — even though meaningful solitude actually supports it. [00:06:30] — The Paradox of American Individualism Henry reflects on how a culture that prizes individualism can simultaneously use constant social activity as a defense against the loneliness that individualism breeds — a potential downward spiral. [00:07:00] — Solitude as the Outbreath: Rhythm and Nature Drawing from his resilience retreat work, Henry introduces the breath as a metaphor for healthy life rhythm: activity needs rest, stress needs recovery, depletion needs renewal. Solitude, he suggests, is the outbreath after the inbreath of companionship and extroversion. [00:09:00] — Descartes on Peaceful Solitude Aimee shares a passage from Descartes' Meditations on the freedom solitude offers — a chance to release rigid opinions and find spaciousness. [00:10:00] — The Neuroscience: Arousal States Explained Aimee breaks down the arousal state spectrum — from deep sleep (lowest) to stress and agitation (highest) — and explains why US culture's incentivizing of high arousal states keeps our nervous systems chronically buzzing. [00:11:00] — High Arousal Positive Affect & Toxic Positivity A nuanced look at the cultural pressure to display high-energy happiness — "high energy on top of high energy" — and why that contributes to nervous system overload and, in Aimee's view, is where toxic positivity lives. [00:12:00] — Low Arousal States and the Healing Power of Solitude Research on how solitude can bring us into lower arousal states — awake, at ease, peaceful — and why that matters for overall balance. Aimee notes that individual differences matter: some people may actually need more activation, not less. [00:14:00] — Henry's Story: Trappist Monks and Medical Training Henry shares how the chronic high-arousal state of his medical and psychiatric training led him to a Trappist monastery in rural Iowa — with no prior knowledge of Catholicism or contemplative practice. He found daily rhythms of work and contemplation, centering prayer (similar to mindfulness meditation), and came out renewed. [00:17:30] — You Don't Need a Monastery Solitude doesn't require a silent retreat or foraging your own food in a cave (though that's an option). It can be 15 minutes in the garden — including relocating a very fat caterpillar eating your parsley. [00:19:30] — What Solitude Can Look Like for You Henry shares his current practice: time in nature when possible, journaling, quiet reflection on what feeds him and what steals his joy. Not productivity — sometimes a crossword or simply zoning out. A.A. Milne gets a well-earned cameo. [00:21:30] — What You'll Find in the Quiet Henry's invitation to those new to solitude: it may feel daunting, but what you'll encounter beneath the surface is worth it. "It's all love." [00:22:30] — Closing Wisdom: Maya Angelou on Solitude Aimee closes with a passage from Maya Angelou on solitude as a desirable condition — a space to listen to yourself, describe yourself to yourself, and hear something deeper. Please remember that this content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice and is not a replacement for advice and treatment from a medical professional. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health professional before beginning any diet change, supplement, or lifestyle program. Please see our terms for more information. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call the NAMI HelpLine: 1-800-950-6264 available Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 10 p.m., ET. OR text "HelpLine" to 62640 or email NAMI at helpline@nami.org. Visit NAMI for more. You can also call or text SAMHSA at 988 or chat 988lifeline.org.
Carlecia Bell, Executive Director of Phenomenal She shares the inspiring story of how Phenomenal She was born from a simple birthday club among friends and has grown into a transformative mentorship program serving young women of color ages 12–24 in the Federal Way and Des Moines areas of Washington state. Learn how Phenomenal She is, interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline through mentorship, life skills training, academic support, and mental health counseling. Key Topics Covered: **The Origin Story** - How Phenomenal She started as an informal "birthday club" among women celebrating each other - The inspiration from Maya Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" - Building the organization with multiple co-founders who remain engaged on the board **Program Structure & Offerings** - Age range: 12–24, with programming focused on middle and high school girls - Multiple entry points: clubs (art, dance, STEM, cosmetology, entrepreneurship) that don't require prior commitment - Core mentee programming includes: - "Being a Better Me" group sessions with a licensed therapist (addressing self-esteem, confidence, and generational trauma) - STEM engagement and academic assistance with tutoring - Life skills and development curriculum (vision boards, financial literacy, banking basics, sisterhood, health and wellness) - Summer STEAM program: 6-week intensive with coding, aviation, dance, art, culinary arts, and farm-to-table experiences; $1,000 stipend upon completion - Outdoor adventure club (monthly) in partnership with Game of Life Mentoring and YETI **Recruitment & Access** - Referrals from probation counselors (diversion programs), school resource officers, parents, and community events - Visible community presence through tabling at school lunches and dance team performances - Free programming with food and transportation provided for Federal Way mentees - No barriers to entry—girls can join clubs before committing to full mentorship **Mentor Matching & Mentee Journey** - Intentional matching process using surveys from youth and parents/guardians - Initial meeting with mentor, parent/guardian, and youth to establish boundaries - Long-term relationships: mentors stay engaged with girls through high school and often into adulthood - Alumni return as instructors, dance coaches, and leadership volunteers **Cultural Competence & Safe Space** - Deliberate curation of instructors who are culturally relevant and can relate to girls' lived experiences - Parents are not permitted in programming—creating a dedicated youth-only space - Response to the lack of representation in schools and the misunderstanding of young women of color - Emphasis on trust-building with both youth and families **Leadership Pipeline** - Alumni brought back as instructors and art coaches - Internship opportunities (paid when funding allows) - Volunteer opportunities at six community outreach events annually **Board & Organizational Strength** - Diverse board makeup: licensed therapist, attorney, accountant/bookkeeper, entrepreneurs - Every board member also runs their own business, modeling entrepreneurship for girls - Entrepreneurship club reflects this value **Expansion & Vision** - Dream project: a dedicated clubhouse similar to the Boys and Girls Club or YMCA - Desire to expand to other locations (co-founders from Louisiana, Philadelphia, and other states report demand from their home communities) - Digital campaign: "Fuel Her Fire, Fund Her Future" focused on investing in young women with passion and potential **Current Initiatives** - Partnership with King County's Best Starts for Kids grant - Expanding into Highline School District (Des Moines, Washington) - Three times per week engagement with young women in programming - Focus on interrupting the school-to-prison pipeline --- Notable Quotes: *"They're brilliant. And sometimes just the lack of resources holds them back. And so we're able to be that connecting piece."* —Carlecia Bell *"The ability to be ourselves unapologetically and then also letting our girls know to do the same in spaces that they occupy. So not being afraid to have a voice regardless of what people think."* —Carlecia Bell *"In order to be a mentor and an effective one, one must care. You must care."* —Maya Angelou (quoted by Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff) Resources & Links: **Phenomenal She** - Website: www.phenomenalshe.org - Instagram: @phenomenal_she_ - Facebook: @PHENOMENALSHEISALWAYS - Digital Campaign: "Fuel Her Fire, Fund Her Future" **Small & Gutsy Podcast** - Website: SmallandGutsy.org - Rankings: #8 on FeedSpot's Top 30 Social Impact Podcasts; #3 and #9 by Million Podcasts for Top 30 Volunteer Podcasts and Youth Empowerment episodes - Contact: laura@smallandgutsy.org About the Host & Guest: **Dr. Laura Scherck Wittcoff** is the founder and host of Small & Gutsy, a podcast spotlighting nonprofits and social enterprises with budgets under $10 million. She is passionate about elevating the visibility of small but mighty changemakers. **Carlecia Bell** is a native of Monroe, Louisiana, and a financial and relationship management expert with 13+ years of leadership experience at a Fortune 500 financial services company. She is inspired by her husband, Winston Bell, who has dedicated 25 years to community service. Carlecia co-founded Phenomenal She to address the lack of mentoring programs available to young women of color in the Federal Way area.
Anne Ghesquière reçoit Charlotte Casiraghi, philosophe et fondatrice des Rencontres philosophiques de Monaco. Dans un monde obsédé par le lisse, la maîtrise et les récits sans accroc, que révèle ce qui craque en nous, silencieusement ? Comment habiter ces failles intimes sans chercher à les réparer, mais en leur donnant une place juste ? Que nous disent les voix de Fitzgerald, Deleuze, Duras ou encore Maya Angelou sur ces fractures qui traversent toute existence ? Et si, au cœur même de l'effondrement, se cachait une forme de lucidité, de création et de liberté ? Au cours d'une enquête littéraire et philosophique fine et sensible, Charlotte Casiraghi nous invite à regarder autrement nos brisures, à ne pas céder aux certitudes rassurantes, et interroge cette ligne de fuite qui en nous menace et qui nous offre, peut-être, la chance de saisir un peu de ce qui nous traverse lorsque nous vivons. Son livre, La fêlure, est publié chez Julliard. Épisode #680Quelques citations du podcast avec Charlotte Casiraghi :"Nous sommes tous fêlés et tant mieux : c'est par la fêlure que nous sommes portés vers la transformation.""Le déséquilibre, ce qui fait trembler notre sécurité, notre sentiment de complétude, est le point d'entrée vers le fait de chercher autre chose.""On est tous susceptibles de chuter ou d'entrer trop brutalement en contact avec ces lignes de faille qui sont en nous."Recevez chaque semaine l'inspirante newsletter Métamorphose par Anne GhesquièreDécouvrez Objectif Métamorphose, notre programme en 12 étapes pour partir à la rencontre de soi-même.Suivez nos RS : Insta, Facebook et TikTokAbonnez-vous sur Apple Podcasts / Spotify / Deezer / Castbox / YouTubeSoutenez Métamorphose en rejoignant la Tribu MétamorphoseThèmes abordés lors du podcast avec Charlotte Casiraghi :00:00Introduction01:00Présentation de l'invitée, Charlotte Casiraghi02:50Sommes-nous tous fêlés ?06:00Fêlure, fragilité et vulnérabilité12:15Addiction et autodestruction18:18Écriture et dignité20:22Le masque22:58La désillusion26:33Souffrance et créativité29:42Naissance et rupture34:39La ligne de fuite de Gilles Deleuze42:40Freud et la psychanalyse49:51Le vide et la grâce53:22La recherche d'intensité57:55Dépression et traverséeAvant-propos et précautions à l'écoute du podcast Photo © Astrid di Crollalanza Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.
Episode Overview In this episode, Dr. Amy Vertrees breaks down the most common—and costly—mistakes surgeons make when transitioning from residency to independent practice. Medical training prepares physicians to be excellent employees inside hierarchical systems. But the moment residency ends, surgeons must suddenly step into leadership roles — becoming the CEO of their own careers, practices, and professional futures. This episode serves as both a roadmap and mindset reset for new attendings navigating autonomy, responsibility, leadership, and long-term career sustainability. The Core Problem: From Employee → Leader Throughout training, physicians are conditioned to: Follow systems created by others Meet externally defined metrics Wait for approval before acting New attendings quickly discover that success now requires: ✅ Independent decision-making ✅ Leadership skills ✅ Delegation and team management ✅ Ownership of career direction Being “the boss” does not mean being domineering—it means intentionally leading your career. Key Lessons From This Episode 1. Become the Boss of Your Career You are no longer being managed—you are managing: Your operating room Your clinic flow Your professional growth Your long-term career trajectory Leadership is a learned skill, not an innate personality trait. 2. Delegation Is a Clinical Skill Dr. Vertrees explains the five levels of delegation and why misaligned expectations create friction. High-functioning teams require: Clear instructions Defined autonomy levels Anticipation of next steps Psychological safety for staff Receiving help is as important as giving direction. 3. Reduce Mental Load to Improve Performance Small decisions accumulate into massive cognitive burden. Practical strategies: Create detailed preference cards Write procedure steps beforehand Build predictable workflows Organize systems so your team can anticipate needs Less mental clutter → smoother cases → better leadership presence. 4. Understand Your Stress Response New roles trigger fear—even in highly competent surgeons. Common responses include: Fight – irritability or hostility Flight – avoidance or procrastination Freeze – showing up but underperforming Fawn – over-agreeing to avoid conflict Both overworking and underworking can be fear responses. 5. Planning Is a Leadership Skill Successful attendings plan for results, not activities. Examples: Pre-complete clinic notes Block time for outcomes, not tasks Include preparation and documentation time in schedules Planning reduces overwhelm and protects cognitive energy. 6. Emotional Capacity Determines Career Longevity Dr. Vertrees introduces emotional capacity as the professional equivalent of physiologic reserve. Building emotional capacity allows surgeons to balance: stress uncertainty complications administrative pressure Skills like courage, pride, and purpose expand resilience. 7. Escape the Perfectionist Trap Physicians often operate in maladaptive perfectionism. Instead, use Gain vs. Gap Assessment: Identify three things that went well Then evaluate improvement opportunities Assessment builds confidence while sustaining growth. 8. Professional Reality: Someone Is Always Watching Peer review, administration, and legal oversight are constants. The goal: Maintain authenticity Practice professional integrity Document as if notes will be immediately reviewed Awareness—not fear—creates strong professional presence. 9. Relationships Are Emotional, Not Logical Drawing on insights echoed by Maya Angelou, people remember how you make them feel more than what you say. Key principles: Don't trust blindly Avoid paranoia Lead interactions with emotional intelligence 10. Negotiation Is About Emotion Inspired by negotiation expert Chris Voss, Dr. Vertrees recommends entering difficult conversations assuming:
Birds have always been a source of inspiration for writers. Edgar Allen Poe, Maya Angelou, and William Shakespeare, to name a few, have all written about birds. But what is it about them that so captures our literary imagination? Words in Flight is an hour-long celebration of contemporary poetry about birds, and what they teach us about ourselves and our world.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Maya Angelou was a poet who used her words to inspire hope and courage. But before that, she was a young girl who dreamed of being a streetcar conductor. This podcast is a production of Rebel Girls. It's based on the book series Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. This story was produced by Katie Sprenger with sound design and mixing by Mumble Media. It was written by Ashli St. Armant. Fact-checking by Joe Rhatigan. Narration by Ashli St. Armant. Our executive producer was Katie Sprenger. Original theme music was composed and performed by Elettra Bargiacchi. Thank you to the whole Rebel Girls team who make this podcast possible. Stay rebel!
Troublemaker: Jessica Mitford's Life of Principle, Protest, and Wit The Not Old Better Show, Art Of Living Interview Series I'm Paul Vogelzang and welcome to the show, brought to you generously by Caraway: Good Looking. Clean Cooking. And just for our listeners, you can get an extra 10% off by visiting Carawayhome.com/NOB or using code NOB at checkout. Today's guest brings us a story about someone who was impossible to ignore in life—and refuses to be forgotten in history. What does it look like to live a life built on principles—but never lose your sense of humor? Jessica Mitford—known as "Decca" to her friends—was born into British aristocracy. But she traded ballrooms for protest marches, royal privilege for civil rights work, and eventually became one of the fiercest investigative writers of her generation. She stood up to Congress, challenged corporate greed, and believed deeply that laughter could fuel resistance. In this new episode of The Not Old – Better Show, I speak with acclaimed author and scholar Carla Kaplan about her biography Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford. The book is based on hundreds of interviews and archival discoveries, and paints a remarkable portrait of a woman who challenged systems—without ever becoming grim. We talk about Decca's legacy, her journalism, her friendships with figures like Maya Angelou, and what it means to be a successful ally. Her story is inspiring, funny, and—as Carla Kaplan says—urgently relevant. Whether you're interested in social justice, biography, or just a good story well told, this episode is for you.