Voice Is - SoundSage

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Julie and Casey sit down with journalist, long-time Supreme Court correspondent, podcast host, and author Dahlia Lithwick to talk about the state of justice (and the state of The Justices) in the US. Along the way, we dig into gendered perception of emotion and what it costs to maintain a “poker face”, the difference between who does the work and who gets the credit, and how we fight for hope in the midst of . . . all of this.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Hear how Dahlia navigates the responsibility of journalists to thread the needle between not normalizing the unthinkable and not dialing everything up to 12 so nothing gets heard.
There is enormous frustration and possible marginalization for anyone in the law outside of the “white male norm” . . . AND Dahlia sees that ability to constantly codeswitch as a gift. “It’s actually the power to be in two places at once.”
“Who becomes famous and who does the work never perfectly correlates” — in the real world, when solving for huge intractable issues, the “hero narrative” rarely serves us — both because individuals are flawed and institutions are complex, but also because real change comes through the efforts of many, often unsung people.

Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate, and in that capacity, has been writing their "Supreme Court Dispatches" and "Jurisprudence" columns since 1999. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Commentary, among other places. She is host of Amicus, Slate’s award-winning biweekly podcast about the law and the Supreme Court. Her 2022 book, Lady Justice, was a New York Times bestseller. In 2018, Lithwick the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis. She was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October, 2018.

Purchase LADY JUSTICE: WOMEN, THE LAW, AND THE BATTLE TO SAVE AMERICA here.

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Julie and Casey wrap up season 4 by defining and digging into their ingredients of a Vital Voice — creative, embodied, and bold — and giving the audience some mindset shifts and best practices to get your voice out into the world.

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Julie and Casey chat with Hinterland founder Jenn Salvemini about a whole new way of approaching art, community, pleasure, and life. Along the way, they dig into the definition of charm, fantasy as a tool, and treating life like a present to be unwrapped.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

This year, Jenn’s artist coop has been exploring the theme of “contact surface” . . . what happens when things touch. Especially in an AI-consumed world, color us OBSESSED with this concept!
What does it mean in practice to create a community that rejects the notion of competition? There’s a lot of “abundance mindset” preaching out there, but in practice, capitalism requires us to put price tags on everything.
In a tough, tough world, prioritizing fantasy, imagination, art, pleasure, charm, and delight is just plain revolutionary.
LESSON: Better options than “fake it ’til you make it.”

Jennifer Salvemini is at heart a producer, bringing elements from her personal passions into cohesive creations, ranging from living spaces to curated events. As a student of anthropology and philosophy, her academic interests evolved into an obsession for aesthetic expression in all areas of culture. She developed an intense appreciation for deep sensory experiences and finds great satisfaction in creating sensational experiences for others. Jennifer is an interior designer living and practicing in the Catskills and is the founder of Hinterland. Hinterland is an unfurling dream. It's a playground, a sanctuary, and a home – an evolving concept to bridge disciplines, build community and generate joy. You're invited! Jennifer is also a member of the Kingston Design Connection strategy team, the organization which produces the annual Kingston Design Show House, as well as a participant designer.

https://www.jenniferlsalvemini.com/

https://www.thisishinterlandny.com/

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In this solo episode, Julie talks in detail about she prepares for the "big day", mentally, physically, and energetically, including why and how she uses bio data tech, what to focus on, and what you can LET GO of.

Thank you to our Season 4 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

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Julie and Casey chat with romance novelist, columnist, and podcast host Sarah Maclean about the feminist bonafides of the romance genre, using your platform for good, and more diverse characters “stepping out from the margins.” Along the way, they dive into all kinds of ways to take up space and dare to thrive, and Casey tries and fails not to fan-girl too hard.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

There is enormous subversive power in characters who for too long have played the “suffer beautifully and die pitifully” roles stepping center stage, gaining love, sexual pleasure, and personal triumph.
The ability to take space — with our voices, bodies, and ideas — often comes down to our own feeling of worthiness. As someone who spent her life being “a little bit too much”, the heroines of romance novels being loved for exactly who they were gave Sarah a path to imagine a world where no one said “couldn’t you just be a bit less.”
Writing romance is all about creativity within structure — the contract Sarah has with her readers is “happily ever after”, and she has a treasure trove of tropes to pull from. Finding her own voice and perspective within that structure while accomplishing “reader care and feeding”, is an incredibly applicable lesson for all of us who create. What does your audience want, need, and expect, and how can you deliver that for them with your unique spin?
LESSON: Our bodies and our emotions are what separates us from the robots, and your “too much” is the most interesting thing about you. Dare to embrace them.

A life-long romance reader, Sarah MacLean wrote her first romance novel on a dare, and never looked back. She is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of romances translated into more than twenty-five languages, a romance columnist and the co-host of the weekly romance novel podcast, Fated Mates. A graduate of Smith College & Harvard University, she lives in New York City. Her new book, Knockout, will be released in August.

Website: https://www.sarahmaclean.net/

Instagram: @sarahmaclean

Twitter: @sarahmaclean

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Julie and Casey sit down for an encore conversation with Cyndie Spiegel, where they get to talk all things “Microjoys”, what it’s like to balance public and private as a shiny person, and touch upon lots of micro-topics from cats to dealing with pandemic weight gain.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Microjoys are not about the size of the joy, but rather its accessibility. Instead of toxic positivity, microjoys allow us to accept that things are as okay as they can be at any moment, but you can find joy anywhere.
There is no past place to get back to. Whether it's our pre-pandemic size, a past version of ourselves, or deeply missing an important person, the only way out is through, and you are not the same on the other side.
Proving yourself to others can be a fatberg of a time suck . . . notice if you are wasting any time trying to convince someone else of who you are. Try shifting proving yourself to others to proving yourself to yourself.
And a bonus tip but one that never gets old: If your pants are too small, buy a bigger size.
LESSON: Navigating vulnerability in speeches.

About Cyndie:

Cyndie Spiegel is a born storyteller–turned–writer; she’s an aspirational voice and an igniter of powerful conversation around self-acceptance, integrity, and joy. She is a former fashion executive, adjunct professor at Parsons School of Design and Fashion Institute of Technology, and holds a masters of professional studies. She is also a TEDx speaker and a certified yoga and meditation teacher. Her honest storytelling, vulnerable self-inquiry, and penchant for swear words have made her a sought-after speaker for conferences, brands, and organizations, and she has been featured in publications such as Forbes, Glamour, Teen Vogue, and HuffPost. She currently lives in New Jersey with her (very handsome) photographer husband, two cats, way too many patterns, and an excessive number of houseplants. She is the founder of Dear Grown Ass Women, an inclusive and highly relatable social community for women 35+, and she is also the author of A Year of Positive Thinking. (Photo credit: Ira James)

Author Site: www.cyndiespiegel.com

Social: Instagram @cyndiespiegel

BUY MICROJOYS!

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Julie and Casey chat about the main lessons they’ve learned from 100 episodes of VOICE(is) and tips for podcast guests and interviewees — and (surprise!) they’re not terribly worried about your “ums and uhs”, or all that interested in your perfectly scripted bullet point answers.

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Julie and Casey have an encore chat with Season 1 guest Piera Gelardi (founder of Refinery 29, creative genius, and now the founder of Wild Things World) about how play became the focus for her “next chapter”. Along the way, they discuss best practices for better brainstorming, what Piera has learned from her four-year-old daughter, and entering our collective hope punk era by choosing hope, joy, and delight in a dark world.

From now until April 15th, we're accepting applications for our signature small group course for women, POWER/PLAY. Find out more and apply here!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Play is a powerful tool for presence, connection, creativity, divergent thinking, and more . . . and we have to protect the vibes. Trying to commodify it, make play “efficient”, or give it a necessary goal to hit kinda kills it.
The Ghost of Should distracts us from our true journeys — and “being taken seriously” wasn’t the right goal for Piera.
What we look for, we notice, and what we notice, grows. Creating a practice of looking for wonder, delight, joy, and love doesn’t mean we have to ignore the bad stuff or spiritually bypass ourselves and others.
LESSON: A few ways to get out of your head and find the FUN of communication

Piera Gelardi is a creative director, entrepreneur, and speaker passionate about bringing out the creativity in everyone. She co-founded the iconic women’s media brand Refinery29, the experiential property 29Rooms, and recently launched the new play company Wild Things World. She is on a mission to bring more play to every space she enters — starting with yours!

Her work has won accolades like Ad Age's "50 Most Creative People of the Year" Entrepreneur magazine’s "50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs and spots keynoting events like SxSW, Create & Cultivate, and Inbound.

Outside of her work, she loves performing in storytelling shows, teaching cathartic dance, and making up songs with her 4 year old.

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In this weeks minisode, Julie talks about something we've been seeing a LOT with our friends and clients: BURNOUT. Julie tells her story of burnout — how she made her way back, and what she has lost, but also gained along the way. If you're approaching burn out, are in the middle of it, or are starting to make your way back, this is for you.

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Julie and Casey sit down with author, corporate social responsibility expert, and founder of McPherson Strategies Susan McPherson to talk all things connecting. Along the way we touch on the very universal human need to be seen and heard, how relationships can be a vehicle for social impact, and what it means to build community as single women looking to take care of our long term futures.

TOP TAKEAWAYS: * Relationship building is a lifetime process, and builds on itself. Changing environments doesn’t mean we leave old relationships behind. Keep nurturing those long standing friendships as much as you grow and nurture new connections.

Susan mentions the concept of hosting in her book “The Lost Art of Connecting”. What this means is, you don’t need to be the person in charge of a space in order to host other people in it. Hosting can be a secret super power that allows you to get your grounding in a new situation, as well as a vehicle for making connections from a place of generosity. To quote Susan: “Bringing people together, you're making that magic happen and you are helping people feel seen, heard, and listened to. And I fervently believe that the greatest gift we can give one another is exactly that.”
If we can understand the peoples greatest wish is to be seen and heard, and incorporate that into how we interact with them, we build much more fruitful and satisfying connections. It’s extremely disarming without being manipulative.
We often think people like us because of what we say, but it turns out talking less and asking questions makes us more likeable. Use that curiosity: understanding other people's perspective grows our empathy and helps us understand both the world and ourselves a little better.
LESSON: You can’t “hack” body language.

Connect with Susan: Twitter and Instagram: @Susanmcp1

Company: www.mcsptrategies.com

Book: TheLostArtofConnecting.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanmcpherson/

Susan McPherson is a serial connector, angel investor, and corporate responsibility expert. She is the founder and CEO of McPherson Strategies, a B-corp certified communications consultancy focused on social impact. She is the author of The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Relationships (McGraw-Hill). Susan has 30+ years of experience in marketing, public relations, and sustainability communications, speaking regularly at industry events including Massachusetts Conference for Women, Worth Women and Techonomy, and contributing to the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Forbes. She has appeared on NPR, CNN, USA Today, The New Yorker, New York Magazine and the Los Angeles Times.

Susan is the recipient of Forbes magazine’s 50 over 50—Impact 2021 award and Worth Media’s Worthy100 award. She has also won numerous accolades for her voice on social media platforms from Fortune Magazine, Fast Company and Elle Magazine. Currently, Susan invests in and advises women-led start-ups, including: iFundWomen,Inc., Messy.fm, Our Place, The Riveter, Park Place Payments, Hint Water, Apolitical and The Muse. She serves on the boards of USA for UNHCR, The 19th News, and serves on the advisory boards of The List, Apolitical Foundation, Just Capital and Alltruists. Additionally, she is a member of the MIT Solve Women and Technology Leadership Group and serves as an adviser to several nonprofits including She’s The First and The OpEd Project. Susan is a Vital Voices global corporate ambassador and a member of the New York Women’s Forum and Extraordinary Women on Boards. She resides in Brooklyn.

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In this solo episode, Casey nerds out on (and sings!) one of her favorite musical theater traditions: the “I Want” song, and explores what we as (mostly) non-singing communicators can learn from it.

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Julie and Casey dive into their new obsession: creativity, and why it’s the key ingredient for powerful communication. Along the way, they dig into why creativity feels so hard, getting out of the communication “grooves” of long-term relationships, and how to build a creative practice, even if all you’re doing is your dishes.

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In this solo episode, Julie digs into how we perceive ourselves, how others perceive us, and how to balance that with our core values and integrity.

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Julie and Casey dig into audience archetypes (like the dreaded “Devil’s Advocate”), the 5 types of questions we all deal with as presenters, and why audience interaction is a gift.

Check out the blog post about how to handle the 5 types of audience questions here, and download your "Meeting Prep" workbook here.

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Julie and Casey take you on a voice memo diary of their experience presenting for two days at the Kayo Conferences’ Annual Leadership Retreat. Get an inside look at how they prep, dealing with nerves, and self-care in the form of frozen dairy.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Anjali Bhargava, founder of Anjali's Cup, to talk about her journey as an entrepreneur. Along the way they discuss the power of names, the joys and perils of being your own boss, and what it takes to bring your work to the world without losing yourself and what matters.

Use the code "voiceis" for 15% off of Anjali's beautiful spice and tea products here.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Entrepreneurship means you get to be your own boss. It also means you have to be your own boss.
One of the biggest challenges of entrepreneurship is figuring out how you work best: where your time is best spent, whether you work better alone or in a team. Learning to work with instead of against that is crucial. (And get a coach.)
The secret to sustainable entrepreneurship? Sleep. Sleep and down time. You NEED that space and regeneration to keep going. Self - Care is sometimes massage and splurges, but the cornerstone is sleep, nutrition, and movement.
Entrepreneurship is about choosing how you make money, but it’s also the ability to choose how you want to make impact. Those two things may not be the same thing.
When people keep saying your name wrong or avoiding saying your name — use it to name your product. :)
LESSON: How (and why) to suck.

Made with reverence from the roots up, Anjali’s Cup blends nourish from the inside out. Uniting modern science with Eastern wisdom and a passion for well-balanced, sustainably sourced, organic ingredients; enjoy blends that look as good as they taste and taste as good as they will make you feel. Like a hug in a cup, they are soothing, refreshing, and harmonized to support you. Resilience® Turmeric Elixir, our signature blend, was born from a genuine desire to create something that would nourish the body, nurture the soul, and taste divine. Anjali Bhargava is the founder of Anjali’s Cup, a company grounded in the belief that there is a ton of benefit in nourishing our roots with a bit of daily turmeric. Her blends, including her 2 chai masalas are an easy, safe, and delicious way to do this. Anjali is deeply influenced by her Indian heritage; her relationship to food, wellness, and the art of well-balanced ingredients is infused with the traditions, philosophy, and practice of her family’s culture. Anjali’s reverence for turmeric began as a child watching her mother use the magical golden powder in almost everything. As an adult, she returned to the sacred turmeric root for support during her own health challenges and developed a recipe that was easy to use, versatile, and more potent and delicious than anything she could find in the market. Anjali lives in Harlem, NYC with her rescue cat Elaichi.

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Julie and Casey sit down with happiness expert Stephanie Harrison to talk the science, the soft, and the squishy of how we think about happiness . . . including where we get it wrong, and what to do about that.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

We’ve been sold a bill of goods that if you're good enough and successful enough, you’ll be happy; however, trying to achieve ourselves out of being human actually hinders our happiness.
Discomfort and challenges are NOT proof that you’re not worthy of happiness — they are part of the human experience. YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOUR OWN HAPPINESS.
The old model of "achievement leads to happiness" actually leads to burnout. Burnout is not your fault. It is a collective problem that ultimately needs a collective solution

www.thenewhappy.com www.instagram.com/newhappyco An expert in well-being, Stephanie Harrison founded The New Happy based on her Masters thesis in Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She has spent the last ten years studying happiness from an interdisciplinary perspective, incorporating perspectives from art, science, philosophy, religious/contemplative studies, and the humanities. Her book, THE NEW HAPPY, is forthcoming from Penguin Random House. Stephanie’s expertise has been featured in Architectural Digest, Brit+Co, Bustle, Design Milk, FastCompany, Forbes, Greatist, The Huffington Post, Paper, Shondaland, Tatler, Well+Good, and Verywell. A regular keynote speaker, her past engagements have included Microsoft, LinkedIn, Degreed, Zendesk, Capital One, Juniper, Eventbrite, Create & Cultivate, and ServiceNow. Prior to starting The New Happy, Stephanie led the well-being program and learning platform for Thrive Global, built a product marketing team that led launches for LinkedIn’s $4B human resources business, and consulted to Fortune 100 companies on their people and HR challenges at Deloitte. She also returned to teach as an instructor at Penn following her graduation.

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In this solo mini-episode, Casey gets out of a post New Year mini-spiral with a little help from Magic Mike, and explores the tool of curiosity for getting out of our own way in communication and in life.

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In this solo minisode, Julie dives in to explore the question “Does accomplishing hard work mean SHOWING how hard you work?”, and how backing off of ourselves leads to better solutions for our biggest challenges.

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Julie and Casey interview each other about the best and worst of the year that was, a different way into goals for 2023, and what they’re excited about for the future. Along the way they get into assembling your personal team, learning how to be a better friend, and lots of ways of looking at the concept of “care”.

Watch this interview on video here!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

What could change if you asked yourself this question: “What would make this (mood/task/day/moment/action) feel 5% better?” Small goals for the win!
One of the most fundamental things we’ve leaned into and accepted this year is the need for a team — for community care, instead of just self-care.
Emotions are necessary for communication — they are the crucial information that takes our experience of the world from a line drawing to full Technicolor. And we won’t be debating that emotions are crucial and not something to be “eliminated” at work anymore.

Casey Erin Clark is a voice, public speaking, and communication coach, performer, author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and leader in both the entertainment and business worlds. She is a fierce advocate for gender justice and spends her days speaking, teaching, and writing about the power of women’s voices, while seizing fulfilling opportunities to perform on screen and stage. In 2014, Casey and Julie Fogh co-founded Vital Voice Training, a voice and speech coaching company on a mission to change the conversation about what leaders are “supposed” to sound like and empower everyone to own the power of their full vocal instrument and presence. Casey hails from the cornfields of southern Illinois (where she grew up singing with her family Von Trapp-style) and has a BFA in musical theater from Illinois Wesleyan University. She also coaches musical theater pros of all ages, is a member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, performed at the 2013 Oscars with the Les Miserables movie cast, and sings with the Grammy-nominated and Tony-honored Broadway Inspirational Voices choir. Recommending books and breakfast restaurants is her love language. Will perform the Lafayette speed rap from Hamilton on demand.

Julie Fogh is a voice coach and interpersonal communications specialist who works with actors and business leaders helping them navigate their individual tensions and blocks, revealing the personal power and unique and captivating humanity that exists in all of us. Through Vital Voice Training, Julie and her co-founder Casey Erin Clark blend the toolbox of the professional actor with their powerful frameworks for embracing one's authentic speaking voice to businesses, schools, and organizations all over the country. Julie was raised in Seattle and earned her BA in Theatre and Women Studies from University of Washington. She earned an MFA in acting from Northern Illinois University, a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum that engaged with the physical body, the emotional life, imagination, use of language, character construction, non-verbal communication and the truth of the moment. She has studied with the Moscow Art Theatre and University of Copenhagen and has studied Meisner Technique with Kathryn Gately, Michael Chekhov Technique with Deborah Robertson, and Movement and Period Style with Lloyd Williamson. She loves YA novels and her cranky rescue cat, Ashland.

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Julie and Casey chat with spiritual business coach, author, and founder of SoulTour Tara-Nicholle Kirke about upgrading to “lick your plate-level” dreams, finding our voices, and how to get to know what we really need to succeed. Along the way, we hear what our shadow selves have to teach us, and the “droplet of god” in all of us.

TOP TAKEAWAYS: * Tara-Nicholle describes the big good thing in the universe (god, source, etc., however you define it) as having three ingredients: infinite intelligence, limitless love, and creative power . . . and that droplet of the “god blob” in you is your soul. And no matter what, your soul is coming with you everywhere, even when we TRY to leave it out of the conversation.

When Tara-Nicholle unpacked and unlearned all the “palatable polish” that she had been taught all her life and chose to speak her truth consistently, that’s when she found the deepest authority and respect for her work. In fact, it became her trademark in Silicon Valley — as the woman who will tell even the most powerful people the whole truth, and give them the strategy to achieve their goals.
Everyone wants to start the process of self-actualization by setting goals and vision, but as long as we’re still caught in a fear or scarcity mindset, we’re only able to set goals driven by that fear. Fear is the root of all self-sabotage — and it’s inevitable when we begin to think bigger. So we gotta learn to ride the wave.
LESSON: Superpower and “evil twins” - what’s driving your communication strengths when they go “dark side” — and how to deal.

Tara-Nicholle Kirke is a globally-recognized author, transformation expert, and spiritual strategist. She helps smart, successful people reach their potential and start living their Big Dreams, by undoing their self-sabotage patterns.

As the founder of SoulTour, Tara has taught over 50,000 people how to stop hiding their light with her Self-Mastery Method toolkit which draws from neurobiology, depth psychology and spiritual law.

Tara also wrote the authoritative book on transformational business and has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and The New York Times. Business Insider called her the #1 woman Silicon Valley tech companies should add to their boards.

soultour.com/upgrade

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Julie and Casey sit down with personal brand expert, activist, and president of Synastry Capital Janna Meyrowitz Turner to talk about making the impact you want to make and how to align your life and resources. Along the way, they discuss strategic language within movements, creating the world you want for your kid, and how the journey sometimes only reveals itself when you look back.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

For Janna, personal brand is about more than your public-facing persona — it’s about aligning your time, money, and relationships to create the life and the impact you want. And particularly with that “time” piece, you gotta get brave about figuring out how you want to spend your time, and how to ask for what you need.
Big complex movements for justice could really use a PR person — because sometimes we need to reexamine the language we need to use to be understood by the folks we need to call into the movement. We need language that helps people hear us.
It can be really uncomfortable to a lot of people to promote yourself, your ideas, your skills, etc. . . . but just as uncomfortable is the feeling of being under-actualized and unfulfilled. “Branding yourself isn't about self-promotion. Branding yourself is about maximizing your impact and maximizing your opportunities — because if you don't, if you're not out there being yourself and doing all the things that make you, you, then you're not creating space for others to do that.”

Janna Meyrowitz Turner is an advisor, angel investor, and strategist focused on systems change, leadership development, and communication in all its forms, in every direction. She has been building values-aligned networks for over 20 years across the public, private, and social sectors. She started her first company, Style House, at the age of 23 in 2006. Style House became an award-winning public relations and brand strategy firm over the next 16 years, advising global brands from Estee Lauder to the WNBA, with a strong focus on the female consumer whose economic and political power is wielded both as primary household purchaser and as the largest voting bloc in the US. Today Janna’s cross-sector impact vehicle, Synastry Capital, houses her investing, advising, and advocacy work. Her signature Personal Brand Alignment offering, conducted 1:1 and through keynotes, workshops, and group facilitation, is a blend of leadership coaching, spiritual centering, and talent management, designed to build personal and professional narratives that maximize happiness, impact and earning potential. Janna is also the co-founder of VCs for Repro, a coalition of venture capital firms united in support of abortion access, and sits on the board of A Call To Men, a national violence prevention organization providing training and education on healthy manhood for communities of men and boys.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jannameyrowitz/

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Julie and Casey sit down with Erotic Wholeness coach Darshana Avila to discuss pleasure as a nutrient, a “more than sexy” definition of erotic, the importance of self- AND community care, and the ultimate cure for burnout. Along the way, we get into why the Powers That Be don’t want us to be embodied — and how staying connected to and feeling pleasure in your body may be one of the most powerful ways we can disrupt oppressive systems.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

“Erotic” as Darshana defines it is encompassing of sexuality, but so much more: our bodies as sensors, our world as full of sensory experiences, and our creativity and life force and desire and connection. “Wholeness” is about the work of knowing, exploring, and integrating all of our humanity.
The body / brain disconnect is systemic — we’re told that we ARE our brains, our productivity, our striving, etc, and that our bodies are only for utilitarian purposes. The principle weapon of systems of oppression is disconnect from the body. When we disconnect from the body, we disconnect from pleasure, and pleasure is an essential nutrient.
The “cure” for burnout is about building up resources in and for your nervous system — and that requires, once again, turning toward our bodies. While our nervous system is definitely a “brain thing”, our entire bodies are enervated by this system. It also requires turning toward our communities and relationships . . . this is something we simply can’t do for ourselves.
LESSON: How (and why) to find pleasure in creating sound with your voice.

Darshana Avila is nurturing a culture of Erotic Wholeness.

As an internationally recognized speaker, coach and facilitator, Darshana supports women and couples in exploring and reshaping their relationships to intimacy, sex and eroticism. She created the Map to Erotic Wholeness to weave together a somatic, justice-oriented and relational style of guidance, rooted in nature-based and trauma-informed wisdom. Erotic Wholeness is a path to personal liberation in service to our collective sexual liberation.

Darshana believes “we are erotic by nature.”

Known for her grounded, candid and loving approach, Darshana meets people in some of the most tender parts of themselves. Her methods breakdown barriers, unlock a greater authenticity and enjoyment and provide a pathway to realize your innate erotic power.

Combining the laboratory of her own life with extensive study and a decade of profound private practice experience, Darshana is dedicated to changing the way we talk, think, and act when it comes to sex and eroticism.

Darshana has been interviewed by several groundbreaking podcasts, and can often be found sharing the stage with other experts and influencers on IG Live. In October 2021, she was featured on the Netflix Series: Sex, Love & goop.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Disaster Clean up expert Jackie Carpenter to talk all things dirty. Along the way they discuss how taking things off the beaten path can be a pathway to success, gathering your team, and building success off messes no one else wants to touch.

Thank you to our Season 4 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Earning respect takes a combination of showing up and doing the work, knowing when to assert yourself, and when to sit back and learn. You can’t demand respect.
Opportunities don’t always wear name tags, require a fancy degree, or get good grades. (When a business lands in your lap, don’t talk yourself out if it, TAKE IT. )
We're not cutting good at cutting ties with consultants or employees that need to go because we're scared. We don't really know how to break up with somebody. If the relationship isn’t working, isn’t additive, or you’ve moved beyond it, it’s necessary to learn how to break up.
Our struggles, needs and obstacles are an inherent part of our story. You get to define what’s a dirty little secret, what holds power over you, and how you get to share your story.
Ask for help. We are not meant to figure out every situation for our selves. Sometimes asking for help, while it can feel like admitting failure, is actually the fastest way to get things on track, personally and in business. Being a person people can count on means having people YOU can count on.
LESSON: You don't get to choose your moments.

Jackie Carpenter is the CEO and owner of Ideal Restoration in San Francisco, focusing on emergency response for commercial properties in the San Francisco Bay Area. She joined Ideal in 2006 and ultimately purchased Ideal from her parents in her early 20's. She’s gained hands-on experience in all aspects of the business working in a variety of field and operations roles including running large projects, complex abatement projects and managing sensitive infection control environments. Today, she leads with that insight to address client needs, drive innovation, and shape the company’s future through a talented leadership team. Outside of work Jackie enjoys coaching and mentoring small business owners, travel, unique dining experiences, trekking and hiking.

linkedin.com/in/jackie-carpenter-1240565

Ideal Restoration: www.idealsf.com

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Julie and Casey sit down with Lena West (a unicorn in the business coach space) to talk what it means to stand in your value. Along the way we rehash the Girl Boss era, dig into integrity and being of service, and hear about finding a medical team that actually works for you.

TOP TAKEAWAYS: * The Girl Boss movement and the “create more places for women in leadership” movement aren’t the same thing. Girl Boss was about branding and youth and hustle, but not much beyond that. It was a formula more than a movement. When you give someone a formula (in business or, in voice work) you take their individuality out of the equation. * Predatory business practices like false scarcity are both ridiculous (you sold out of virtual seats? really?) and damaging. Start doing the work to get people to trust you so that they want to voluntarily, not from a manipulation standpoint, but voluntarily do business with you and give you their money from a wholehearted place instead of FOMO. * Maybe it’s less about charging “what you’re worth” and more about charging for the impact or transformation you are contributing to your clients. You’ll know what makes you feel compensated AFTER you do it for too little money. Transformational pricing is less about the YES than it is about reminding folks that YOUR TIME and YOUR ENERGY are not free. * LESSON: Don’t try to Miss Cleo your audience — on not trying to predict how your audience will respond.

Lena L. West’s razor-sharp business acumen is the well-hewn result of more than a decade of hands-on experience in digital transformation and strategic business growth. As an award-winning serial entrepreneur, writer, keynote speaker, inclusive business growth strategist, independent filmmaker, and grant maker, this truth-telling business advisor is often referred to as an “entrepreneur’s secret advantage”. She shows experienced, self-funded, service-based founders and entrepreneurs how to learn, love and leverage their inner CEO and build a business that loves them back.

Lena is the Founder of CEO Rising®, a virtual business accelerator dedicated to transforming principled solopreneurs into CEOs by providing them with the three growth tools they need most: coaching, community, and cash...so they can build ethical, profitable, and sustainable businesses.

CEO Rising® was intentionally founded to disrupt the landscape of business coaching by providing affordable access to business coaching -- all without resorting to the prevalent, yet commonly accepted, predatory practices of false scarcity, false urgency, and marketing manipulation.

Lena is also the visionary creator of CEO DNA®, a personalized inventory that uncovers a founder's specific CEO leadership archetypes and style.

She has written for American Express, Fast Company and Entrepreneur and has spoken for notable organizations such as American Express, Wharton School of Business, SCORE, National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) and Syracuse University. She sits on the Advisory Board of The Feminist Coaching Academy and is an Alum Ambassador of The Op Ed Project. An honorary highlight of her career was speaking about diversity, equity, and inclusion in digital media on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations.

Lena’s internationally acknowledged expertise has led to winning several business awards, among them: The Hall of Femme, BuzzFeed’s Most Influential Influencers, The Women’s Congress’ Entrepreneurial Champion for Women in Business and NCWIT’s Entrepreneurial Hero.

Her life’s work is to prove once and for all that service-based businesses can indeed scale. Her mission is to expand what's possible for self-funded founders of service-based businesses by pairing reinvented coaching, community, and funding models with increased digital media representation.

http://CEORising.co
https://LenaWest.com

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Lena is also the visionary creator of CEO DNA®, a personalized inventory that uncovers a founder's specific CEO leadership archetypes and style.

http://CEORising.co
https://LenaWest.com

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Julie and Casey chat with June Johnson, cofounder of Collective High, about the Cannabis Industry, the racist origins of the war on drugs, and along the way get to hear the magic behind what makes a great party and what modeling and being a CIA agent have in common.

Thank you to our Season 4 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Cannabis has been used safely for a very long time, and is not only used to get high- there are a ton of other benefits, no high necessary.
The origins of the war on drugs, specifically Marijuana, come from a racist and xenophobic decision of one powerful man to start associating cannabis with Mexico by calling it “Marijuana”.
The ins and outs of how an industry built on what used to be a crime that disproportionately affected Black people morphed into an industry that is disproportionally benefitting white people.
Lesson: “I don’t want to Lean In, I just want to Lay Down”. The power of laying on the floor, and five minutes in which to do nothing.

June Johnson is a model & advocate. She has been featured in numerous beauty & fashion campaigns and on the runway for various fashion weeks. In addition to modeling, she is also the Co-Founder of Collective High, a woman-owned company that provides cannabis education through highly conceptual events & experiences in an effort to eradicate the stigma around cannabis use. Their events sit at the intersection of cannabis, art, music, food, fashion, & sustainability. Her goal is to create impactful changes & cultural representation within the fashion & cannabis spaces. Prior to producing cannabis events, June created successful events for brands such as Paul Smith, Hennessy, Moët & Chandon, Deleón Tequila, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Fred Segal, adidas, Shiekh Shoes, etc. Though she has experience in numerous verticals, she specializes in producing events in the fashion, cannabis, entertainment, art & culture scenes & has curated parties for exclusive clients during NYFW, NBA All-Star, Outside Lands, & The Grammy's. After moving to Los Angeles to continue her career in events, branding + PR, June worked for two high-profile boutique PR firms that helped further her understanding and knowledge of the industry. This experience allowed her to take her knowledge and apply it to starting her own company for 8 successful years. By the spring of 2019, she began working as the event curator, social media manager, brand manager & community manager for one of the Bay Area’s premiere delivery marketplace for cannabis goods. The pursuit of joy led June to follow her passion & move to NYC to continue modeling, working on Afrofuturist projects, and curating one-of-a-kind cannabis events through her Co-Founded company, Collective High.

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Julie and Casey chat with Ruchika Tulshyan (author, speaker, and founder of Candour) about her viral HBR article on imposter syndrome, how to handle feedback (giving it and receiving it), and the gift of discomfort. Along the way, we dive into some of our favorite big subjects (authenticity, executive presence, etc.) and why the most important question to ask is: “for whom?”

Thank you to our Season 4 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

What do you do with conflicting feedback (the “Goldilocks” problem — “you’re too strong / you’re not strong enough” etc)? Feel your feelings, investigate it, think about it, check in with your tribe . . . and then remember that you’re existing within biased systems, and you can still stand in your power.
When it comes to the “big subjects” like authenticity, leadership, executive presence, the operative question is “for whom?” i.e, “For whom is this the “right” kind of authenticity?”
The foundation of so much discomfort is coming to terms with the fact that the world is not binary – that two things can be true at the same time (“I have experience marginalization AND I have privilege” or “my intentions were good AND I caused harm to another person”). We first have to learn to live with that complexity, and then additionally we have to learn how to communicate it.
LESSON: Discomfort and confidence can (and probably will) exist at the same time. And . . . what if a little imposter syndrome is a good thing?

Ruchika Tulshyan is the best-selling author of Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work (MIT Press). The book was described as “transformative” by Dr. Brené Brown. She’s also the founder of Candour, an inclusion strategy practice. A former international business journalist, Ruchika is a regular contributor to The New York Times and Harvard Business Review.

As a keynote speaker, Ruchika has addressed audiences at organizations like NASA, Pixar, Google and the U.S. Congress.

Ruchika co-wrote a paradigm-shifting article, Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome for Harvard Business Review, with Jodi-Ann Burey. The article was named among 20 most impactful HBR articles of all time. Best of all, people all over the world have said it helped change their relationship with the concept of imposter syndrome!

She was selected to Thinkers50 Radar 2019 and Hive Learning's Most Influential D&I leaders list in 2019 and 2020. Ruchika is an active investor in various women-founded ventures, including Armoire, Graham & Walker VC and Backstage Capital.

A self-declared Singaporean foodie, Ruchika has lived in four countries and currently calls Seattle home.

Follow Ruchika:

Twitter: @rtushyan
Instagram: @rtulshyan
LinkedIn: Ruchika Tulshyan

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Julie Fogh and Casey Erin Clark, co-founders of Vital Voice Training, finish Season 3 of their podcast VOICE(is) with a live recap exploration of the three main challenges and opportunities they saw across industries, location, and demographics during a busy spring of corporate communication coaching. Expect actionable tips, perspective shifts, and core principles to step into more powerful, present, and effective communication at work and in your life!

Watch the live video version.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

🌮 Everyone needs a nap after lunch: Investigate — and Design — Your Given Circumstances

⚡️Just “energy” doesn’t cut it: Get Specific

😜 It’s all weird right now: Embrace the Awkward / Love Your Toos

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

Vital Voice Training is a voice, public speaking, and communication coaching company on a mission to change the conversation about what leaders are “supposed” to sound like, help organizations revolutionize their communication culture, and help individuals communicate with savvy, charisma, confidence, and a deep connection to their core values. They work with top-tier executives and their teams, world-changing entrepreneurs, best-selling authors, legacy organizations, and high-growth startups, and their clients regularly bring their ground-breaking ideas and perspectives to stages all over the world. Co-founders Julie Fogh and Casey Erin Clark’s extensive backgrounds in speech coaching and professional acting give them a unique perspective on what makes people want to listen. For the client, the result is your voice: amplified (not just louder).

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Julie and Casey chat with author, speaker, and angel investor Fran Hauser (author of Embrace the Work, Love Your Career and Audible's Best Business Book of 2018, The Myth of the Nice Girl) about building relationships, rejecting the idea that being nice makes you weak, how to stand up for yourself, the difference between "nice" and "people pleaser", and why founders need to take care of themselves. Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Being successful in business is all about relationships
You don't have to choose between being nice and being strong.
If you're a founder/entrepreneur, are you jumping ahead to business model, marketing, partnerships, etc. before making sure you have an awesome product that consumers are delighted by? You’re skipping the most important step.
Taking a breath, taking the time and energy to care for yourself and others makes the WORK better. Compassion for ourselves and for other people makes us more productive, not less, and we need to bring more of it into our professional lives.
You don’t need to be the smartest kid in fifth grade (i.e. have all the answers all by yourself). Build out your community and your network.
Nice is a superpower - its "evil twin" is people-pleasing. Know the difference, and know when to stand up for yourself.
Mini-Lesson: How to embrace your "toos".

Articles referenced:

On the culture of over-work, and how it holds both women and men back - https://hbr.org/2020/03/whats-really-holding-women-back

Gender bias in performance reviews - https://hbr.org/2017/04/how-gender-bias-corrupts-performance-reviews-and-what-to-do-about-it

Vague vs specific feedback - https://hbr.org/2016/04/research-vague-feedback-is-holding-women-back

Fran Hauser is an author, keynote speaker and startup investor at the intersection of women’s empowerment, career fulfillment, and collective wellbeing. As a long-time media executive, Fran has always championed the power of content in shaping culture, educating the public, and driving awareness of important issues.

She is the best-selling author of The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate which has been translated into six languages and was named “Best Business Book of the Year, 2018” by Audible. Fran’s new book, Embrace the Work, Love Your Career, is quickly becoming the go-to for women seeking more joy and fulfillment in their career. Fran regularly speaks at conferences and organizations to help women build careers they love while staying true to themselves

Fran has invested in over 30 female-founded companies across CPG, media & publishing, and wellness. She also serves as an LP in the Female Founders Fund. Her writing, speaking and investing is informed by 15 years spent in media, from startups where she played an integral role in the $525mm sale of Moviefone to AOL, to ultimately rising the ranks at Time Inc. to President of Digital where she led innovation, acquisitions and digital expansion for powerhouse media brands People, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly, Essence, and People en Espanol.

Fran has been the recipient of the Fairy Godmother Award from Girl Be Heard, the W Award from the YWCA of the City of New York and has been included in lists from Business Insider's "30 Women In VC to Watch" to Refinery29’s “Six Most Powerful Women in New York City's Tech Scene”. She has been featured on TODAY, CNBC, Fortune, TIME, Fast Company, Forbes, Vogue.com, Ad Age, Oprah.com and more.

In 2020 Fran channeled her lifelong love of books into an Instagram platform @FransBookshelf focused on the joy of reading -- both the escapism and the celebration of diverse ideas that can change the world. Fran serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for Bedford Central Schools and is an advisor to Helpusadopt.org and LiveGirl. Fran is a summa cum laude graduate of Pace University. She resides just outside of NYC with her husband and two sons.

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Julie and Casey chat with Rebecca Soffer, journalist, author, and cofounder of Modern Loss, about the complicated journey and taboo subject of grief. Along the way, they get into how Rebecca found her “dead mom” community and what it taught her, dealing with ambiguous loss, what not to say to people who are hurting, our enormous world-wide moment of collective grief, and how to move THROUGH, not “move on”.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Nothing is more isolating that feeling like you have to play “normal” and hide your grief because of the taboo around discussing loss. Because grief affects every corner of your life, it becomes the backdrop for so much of what’s going on. The first step to dealing with grief may be simply TALKING about it . . . but there’s no “zero vulnerability” way to do that.
There is no “correct” thing to say to someone who is grieving, so you’re off the hook for the perfect response, if that’s keeping you from reaching out to someone. Particularly, the fear of “accidentally reminding someone” or bringing up their loss is misplaced . . . they know. They remember. That said, anything that smacks of a “fix it” mentality is probably not welcome.
Just as there is no correct thing to say to a grieving person, there’s no “correct” way — or even time — to grieve. There is room for humor and lightness too.
Mini-Lesson: Better things to do when a friend is hurting than “fix it”.

Rebecca Soffer is cofounder of Modern Loss, a global movement offering creative, meaningful, and practical content and community addressing the long arc of grief. She is also coauthor of the book Modern Loss: Candid Conversation about Grief. Beginners Welcome. (Harper Wave, 2018) and an internationally recognized speaker on loss and resilience. She writes regularly across media, including the New York Times, Glamour, NBC, and CNN. Rebecca is a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumna and a Peabody Award–winning former producer for The Colbert Report.

Rebecca and her husband and sons split their time between New York City and The Berkshires. For more information visit ModernLoss.com.

Twitter: @rebeccasoffer @modernloss

Instagram: @rebeccasoffer @modernloss @runningpressbooks

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ModernLoss

https://www.facebook.com/rebeccasoffer

https://www.facebook.com/RunningPressBooks

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Julie and Casey sit down with ADHD coach Frankie Berkoben to talks about her journey from PHD drop out to ADHD coach. We talk about the flawed criteria for a diagnosis, shame, and options for creating your own team (and how to be on it yourself).

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Women with ADHD are often misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression or borderline personality disorder. ADHD is often missed because it presents so differently in girls than in boys.
Many ADHD people have long running shame stories about their inability to measure up to expectations: they tend to believe they are hopelessly broken, and a correct diagnoses as a result can be both freeing and grief inducing for all the lost time
“Potential” can be a dirty word for ADHD folks; it’s about what you COULD be but never ARE.
ADHD brains aren’t broken, they just need different things to function at their best. They have enormous memory, but relatively small processing capacity. That means they can connect dots like nobodys business, but can get overstimulated seeing EVERYTHING AT ONCE. Things like task switching and unacknowledged over stimulation can have a negative impact.
Mini-Lesson: What ADHD has to do with your voice

ADHD Resources:

ADHD 2.0 by Dr. Edward Hallowell (a classic, well written, well researched intro to an ADHD brain)

Jessica McCabe’s How to ADHD Youtube

Our favorite podcast, 'Ologies does ADHD

Frankie Mansfield Berkoben

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Julie and Casey head out to Oakland to sit down with Maya Borgueta, founder of Stella Nova Psychology — they dive into emotional labor, how diversity movements in the workplace might be set up to fail, imposter syndrome, self-care, Chopin, and why beating yourself up is NOT, in fact, the secret to productivity.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

 **TOP TAKEAWAYS:**

Define your core values — both general and for communication — to give your life a north star. They should be a little aspirational, and you won’t nail it 100% of the time.
Imposter syndrome is pervasive, and connected to some really unhelpful ideas about what “confidence” looks like. You don’t have to feel like a Boss Bitch 100% of the time — and if you do, maybe you aren’t being very self-reflective.
Research says that people who are self-compassionate get more done and are more able to problem-solve than people who are self-critical . . . which might seem obvious, but is really hard in practice, especially for high achievers.

Maya Borgueta, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, a passionate lifelong feminist, and the founder of Stella Nova Psychology, Inc., a therapy clinic for women and non-binary professionals in downtown San Francisco. Her professional mission is to help women to live their most powerful and fulfilled lives at work and at home. Her personal mission is to pet as many cats as humanly possible. You can find Maya's work online at www.stellanovawomen.com, or by following Stella Nova on Facebook or Instagram @stellanovawomen.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Ann Shoket, founder of New Power Media and owner of The Li.st, to talk about her journey from editor of Seventeen to author to community builder, why millennial women revolutionized the workplace and the world, redefining polish, and building communities that help women of all ages achieve and succeed.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

As the Editor of Seventeen Magazine in the early 2000’s, Ann witnessed a sea change in what young women wanted to talk about — suddenly instead of advice about summer dating, they wanted advice about summer internships. It’s no surprise, really. Teen girls are natural innovators, and millennial women changed everything about how we work. (Watch Ann’s TED talk here.) https://www.ted.com/talks/ann_shoket_why_we_should_all_be_more_millennial
New power can’t just LOOK different (as in seeing more non-white, non-male people having it) . . . it must BE different. New power is diverse, transparent, inclusive, accountable, and collaborative.
We all have a part to play in changing the “women just don’t support other women” narrative. Challenging our own beliefs about scarcity of opportunity and seeing other women as opportunities to learn and grow instead of a threat is a start. And, you have to show up for other people if you want them to show up for you.
Mini-lesson: Taking your time space is a power move.

Ann Shoket is a trailblazing senior media executive who has been a key architect in shaping the national conversation about ambition and success for women.

She has brought two major young women’s media brands to number one across every category. And most recently, her media and events company, New Power Media, acquired TheLi.st, a pioneering digital community for high-impact women in media, technology and business.

Shoket is the author of the widely-acclaimed book, The Big Life, which was hailed by The New York Times as “a guide for women in their 20s and 30s who are hungry for a job they love, a supportive network of friends, respect from their posses and partners who want all those things for them as badly as they do.”

Shoket has been a consultant and a regular contributor for Good Morning America. She speaks for conferences and corporations including TEDx, SXSW, The Pennsylvania Women's Conference, Facebook, Microsoft, Avon and more.

Forbes has named Shoket one of the “10 Most Powerful US Fashion Magazine Editors.” Folio: named her one of the “Top Women in Media”. www.annshoket.com

Follow Ann on Instagram.

Follow The List on Instagram.

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Julie and Casey sit down with disability advocate Emily Ladau to talk her new book, being a full human and not just a disability, and how we can be better supporters and allies. Along the way, they discuss high school theater nerdery and embracing your inner peacock.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

As we talk about disability, it’s important to acknowledge the WHOLE human, not just the parts that convenient for your narrative.
There is a difference between being noticed and being seen — being noticed is about them, being seen is about you.
Before deciding to help, figure out if your help is wanted or needed from the actual individual you wish to help. Making assumptions about what someone needs (even if well intended) dehumanizes more than it helps. Let people tell you what kind of ally they need, instead of assuming your help is needed and welcome.
Mini-Lesson: Peacocking — taking the reins of your own visibility.

Episode Transcript here.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

Emily Ladau is a passionate disability rights activist, writer, storyteller, and digital communications consultant. She is the author of Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally, published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Links for Emily:

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally
Website | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram

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Julie and Casey sit down with speaker, author, and creativity expert Natalie Nixon, founder of Figure 8 Thinking, to discuss how everyone can find more creativity, how the workplace should be redefining productivity, and lessons from a life lived all over the world. Along the way, we learn about intuition, the gifts of being “in the margins”, and why leaders should consider learning the tango.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Noticing what she heard over and over again from the leaders and business folks she was talking to (“it’s like jazz” and “something told me to…” being two examples) and following her own curiosity led Natalie down her primary research paths: chaordic systems, intuitive leadership, and creativity.
Natalie explains creativity as “wonder + rigor”. Wonder is the necessary time/energy for reflection, play, experimentation, rest, etc., and rigor is the necessary time/energy for grit, practice, discipline, and gaining expertise.
What if we had new metrics for productivity? Natalie coined the term “invisible work” to put a label on the ideation, ruminating, reframing of problems, reflection, etc that goes into the VISIBLE results in the business world. This stuff is absolutely necessary but difficult to quantify — the old metrics of “widgets created/time on task” don’t work in our new era of work.
Mini Lesson: The challenges—and gifts—of being a “clumsy student”

Natalie Nixon, PhD is a creativity strategist, global keynote speaker and author. As president of Figure 8 Thinking, LLC she advises leaders on transformation—by applying wonder and rigor to amplify growth and business value.

Natalie is one of Real Leaders' "Top 50 Keynote Speakers in the World for 2022" She is the author of the award-winning The Creativity Leap: Unleash Curiosity, Improvisation and Intuition at Work—an honoree in the creativity category of Fast Company's 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards. Her firm Figure 8 Thinking, was named among the top 20 women-led innovation firms by Core 77 in 2021.

Natalie received her BA (honors) from Vassar College, and her PhD from the University of Westminster in London.

Follow Natalie on social media: https://www.instagram.com/natwnixon/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalienixonphd/ https://twitter.com/natwnixon https://www.facebook.com/natwnixon

Find out more about Figure 8 Thinking - https://www.figure8thinking.com/

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Julie and Casey sit down with designer and CEO Phnam Bagley to talk effective hard work, defying people’s expectations and changing how we talk about possibility.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Don't worry if your journey hasn't been linear. Our adventures and experiences in life influence who we will become as leaders.
Designing the future is both a rigourous discipine and expression of wild imagination. We must have both.
Don't confuse the bells and whistles with the person. Talent may or may not look like you think it should.
Mini-Lesson: Setting the pace for yourself

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

Phnam Bagley is a partner and creative director at Nonfiction, a San Francisco-based design firm that turns science fiction into reality for a better future.
She is a French industrial designer, aerospace architect and futurist. Her designs span many industries, including Wearables, Audio-Visual, Neurotech/Biotech, Healthcare, Education, Transportation, Robotics, Luxury and Aerospace. She specializes in turning groundbreaking technologies into attainable, intuitive, and beautiful products that help humans become the best versions of themselves. She speaks internationally on the subject of “Design for a Better Future”, covering stories of sustainability, social impact, and the future of humans as an interplanetary species. With her co-founder, she hosts Future Future, a video series that demystifies design and the future of everything. Links: Website: www.nonfiction.design Instagram: @nonfiction.design Twitter: @phnambagley LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/phnambagley/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NonfictionDesign/videos

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Julie and Casey sit down with Lynn Harris (founder of Gold Comedy, cohost of A Bintel Brief, and prolific writer) about how comedy can change the world. Along the way, they discuss why (and HOW) we should get rid of the term “women’s comedy”, and we discover our own personal connection to Lynn’s creation, “Breakup Girl”.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Comedy is power: when you make people laugh you make people listen.
One significant theory/framework for comedy is “disturbing a norm” . . . so doesn’t it make sense for people OUTSIDE of “the mythic norm” to be naturals at doing this?
“Comedy isn’t rearranging the stars, it’s just seeing your own pattern.” When it comes to comedy as a coping mechanism, comedy doesn’t change what happened (or is happening) to you, but it can allow us to see the stars in a new way — our OWN way. But it’s not just the processing . . . the sharing is powerful too.
Mini Lesson: In comedy, in speaking, and in life, you gotta put a stake in the ground. Here's how.

About Lynn Harris: I’m an award-winning journalist-comedian-creative strategist-multihyphenate driven by the power of comedy to change culture. I am founder and CEO of GOLD Comedy, the comedy academy, creative network, and content platform for women/non-binary folks who want to be their funniest selves. I’m also co-host, with Ginna Green, of A Bintel Brief: The Podcast, which brings the Forward’s iconic advice column into the audio age. With supergenius Chris Kalb, I co-created (in 1997!) one of the earliest internet success stories: Breakup Girl, the only superhero who can both bend steel bars and mend broken hearts. I’m an award-winning journalist, author and novelist, communications executive, and comedy producer / performer / instructor. Plus a co-founder of the comedy/event series Persisticon, which raises money to elect women. I am also a former Tonya Harding lookalike, which is a long story.

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Julie and Casey sit down with expert facilitators Xina Eiland and Emily Radowsky (cofounders of UNMUTE) to talk about what it really takes to change hearts and minds through difficult conversations about race.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

These conversations need guidance: a facilitator that can understand both the social and neurological aspects of the triggers that can be ignited.
People need to be able to sit in their "stuff" before they can engage in meaningful conversation. Facilitation can help provide these moments to look inward, and also guide us as we come back.
For white women who want to be an ally: Be prepared to confront your own discomfort, and offer understanding before asking for it.
Mini-Lesson: Putting the meaning in the middle.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

Xina Eiland, Co-Founder, UNMUTE In addition to her leadership with UNMUTE, Xina is the President and CEO of X+PR and a visionary leader and recognized authority in multicultural communications and digital media. Xina brings a wealth of experience to clients, helping them effectively connect with diverse and hard to reach populations. Her dedication and tenacity, complemented by energy and drive, have earned her a well-deserved reputation as an innovator who gets the best results.

Xina is also the co-host of Get Found Get Funded, a podcast about creating visibility, paths for growth and opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Emily Rasowsky, Co-Founder, UNMUTE Emily is a somatic release expert, entrepreneur, and marketing leader. She combines mindfulness and business expertise to help heart-centered leaders to build heart-led companies and teams. As an executive breathwork and somatic coach, she helps C-suite leaders and entrepreneurs leverage alternative therapies to manage triggers and develop emotional intelligence. With her background in marketing, she has worked with Fortune 50 brands, government organizations, nonprofits, and agencies to launch national campaigns and initiatives.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Stephanie Nadi Olson, founder of We Are Rosie, to learn how her personal journey led her to create a company that’s revolutionizing the way the marketing industry finds and utilizes talented people (and grew exponentially in just 4 years!). Along the way, we talk communication lessons from our families, how the marketing industry should be leading the way on innovation and social change, and the first question companies really need to ask their constituents to create an environment where people can truly belong.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

We’re in the middle of enormous shifts in both how we work and the balance of power between employer and employed. They’re long overdue! They’re also going to take consistent work, because pushback from the powers that be is inevitable. “Strategic rebels” make the difference.
There are far better ways to evaluate talent than old markers of “pedigree” — not only are they more inclusive (and more FUN!), but they have been wildly successful for the Rosies so far.
What communication skills and strengths has your past given you? We hear beautiful stories about Stephanie’s vibrant family and the turning point moment in her childhood that made her the communicator she is today.
Mini-lesson: How to find your inner communication Strategic Rebel. (And check out our Communication Core Values workbook!)

Stephanie Nadi Olson is an advertising executive who founded We Are Rosie in 2018 based on a genuine understanding of what it feels like to “not belong.” Her life experience as the daughter of a refugee has driven her affinity and advocacy for marginalized groups. We Are Rosie is a manifestation of her soul’s calling to create a better way to do business by focusing on the people doing the work. Over the course of her career in advertising, Stephanie has worked closely with big brands and major tech companies and has developed a unique 360-degree view of industry practices and the need for transformation. Using this experience, she has created a human-centered approach to marketing that celebrates diversity and facilitates happiness, while ensuring that We Are Rosie maintains integrity and authenticity every step of the way. Last year, Stephanie was named one of the EY Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ and joined the Class of 2021. In addition, Stephanie was named AdAge Visionary of the Year 2020, was recognized by Adweek in the 2020 Creative 100, was named World Changing Woman 2020 by Conscious Company, and was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 by the Stevie Awards.

Follow Stephanie on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Julie and Casey sit down with multipotentialite Bree Nachelle to talk all about social media, podcasting, curating your feed, taking care of yourself and even cosplay.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS

People want to be seen, heard, and most importantly belong. Finding the right communities to join can give you a place for all of that.
Your Feed is Your Fault: You can and should unfollow, block and delete liberally. Curate your content to delight your spirit.
When it comes to podcasting, Just Do It! There are resources available to help you out, but it doesnt have to be perfect to get it out there.

Lesson: Self Talk and the Self Critic

Brée Nachelle is a DC-based, creative strategist passionate about podcasting and helping others understand the joy of social audio. She is the host of the Fabulous Fuckery podcast and assists entrepreneurs in using their message to expand their community through guesting on podcasts. As a speaker, Brée has shared her podcasting and social media knowledge with the attendees of Podthon, ShePodcasts, Podcast Movement, Blerdcon, AfroPunk, and more. Find Brée 3-D printing cosplay goodies, ranting on Twitter, or wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket reading a movie script.

https://instagram.com/baronessbree
https://twitter.com/baronessbree
http://www.baronessbree.com/

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In this special series, Julie and Casey sit down together to look at the elements of executive presence: Polish, Poise and Power . . . what they are, what they represent, and where they go wrong. They also look at new tools and alternate pathways as we work toward a more inclusive definition of leadership.

EPISODE 3: POWER

Julie and Casey sit down in their first live recording to talk about all things power, what we can control vs. what we can't, and ways to find your own kind of power that doesn't require anyone's permission. Power is not only demonstrated through external presentation, of course . . . but the way we’re judged for whether or not we have it is often via cultural or surface-level standards.

Power is measured by:

Your effect on others: Do people listen to you and take you seriously?
Are people willing to be led by you? If they are unwilling, can you convince them, accomplish your goals, or manifest your will anyway?
How do you handle obstacles? When you encounter them, can you overcome them, destroy them, or ignore them . . . or are you weak?
Confidence — do you have it? Do other people think you have it?
Charisma — are people drawn to you?

Translation: Power is about pretending that “real leaders” don’t get scared or feel unsure of themselves or their ideas. It’s knowing how to gain buy-in and/or control over others by any (socially acceptable) means necessary, whether that’s positive (charm, charisma, confidence) or negative (force, dominance).

Top Takeaways:

Power is about whose voices get heard and whose perspective matters
Clinging to politeness or manners to avoid the friction of your edges has limits for how far it can take you
We don't have control of other's perceptions of us, but we do have some agency in setting up our own conditions for success. Spend your time there to find the power that doesn't require anyone else's buy in.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

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Watch the episode on youtube.

Episode 2: POISE

If polish is about how you look and how you act, poise is about how you REACT. How do “leaders” respond to stimulus?

According to an article in Forbes:

“A person with good executive presence never lets people see her sweat. She’s not harried running from meeting to meeting, she’s not flustered when she speaks, and she seems like the person who, even in the wake of a crisis in the middle of the night, could still show up looking put together. . . . Be calm, collected, and the person with all the answers, and you’ll be seen as a leader.”

Showing what we expect you to show: warmth, gravitas, decisiveness
Not showing what we expect you to hide: control over “negative” emotions, control over your response to conflict, control over fear or discomfort.
Control over uncertainty: Always know the answer, and if you don’t, be able to meaningfully fake it.

Translation: Poise is about self-control: pretending human beings don’t ever feel negative emotions and are not meaningfully affected by other people, challenges, and circumstances. It’s also about being a human version of Janet from The Good Place, with the correct answer to any and every question anyone may have for you.

Poise can become a nearly impossible standard to meet — mainly because human beings simply don’t and can’t have all the answers all the time, and because there is no such thing as “neutral”. Human beings are not neutral in how we ourselves respond to stimulus, and we are not neutral in how we are perceived by others. Demanding perfect calm in the face of all conflict sets people up for failure, emotional shutdown, and burnout.

Join us as we dissect, laugh, call bullshit and brainstorm some practical strategies and solutions to what for many is a landmine of impossible expectations.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

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In this special three-part series, Julie and Casey sit down together to look at the elements of executive presence: Polish, Poise and Power . . . what they are, what they represent, and where they go wrong. They also look at new tools and alternate pathways as we work toward a more inclusive definition of leadership.

Watch the video version here.

Episode 1: Polish

Calling someone “polished” seems to be shorthand for:

Looking the way we expect you to look — looking expensive, “understated”, “neat”, fitting into whatever spoken or unspoken standards this industry has for clothing and appearance
Speaking the way we expect you to speak — eliminating accents, regionalisms, speech we consider too “youthful”, slang, and dialects like African American Vernacular English; eliminating “problem words” like just, like, sorry; eliminating verbal fillers; using “good speech”
Acting the way we expect you to act — knowing your cultural etiquette, manners, and hierarchy. Being rehearsed . . . but not in any visible way - effortlessness is key

Translation: Polish is about looking (and sounding) financially well-off, about pretending human beings never sweat or get dirty or disheveled, and about pretending that we come from the same culture (or at least can learn to seamlessly fit into the dominant culture).

The problem is that this extremely narrow definition often only leaves room for those who learn to dress, speak, and act like those who are ALREADY leaders: i.e. white, wealthy, cisgender, straight, conventionally attractive, able-bodied men (and ocasionally women). This has enormous consequences for anyone who falls outside any of those categories. If you are seen as lacking traditional polish, you may not advance.

Join us as we dissect, laugh, call bullshit, and brainstorm some practical strategies and solutions to what for many is a minefield of double binds.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

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Casey Erin Clark and Julie Fogh, founders of Vital Voice Training and co-hosts of the VOICE(is) podcast, host a panel discussion on executive presence. In it, they explore the nebulous definition of executive presence and how our idea of what leaders should look and sound like has marginalized so many. Along the way, expect corporate horror stories, tales of triumph, and big laughs . . . along with truth bombs and mic drop moments that blow the idea that leaders need to look and sound one particular way out of the water.

PANEL GUESTS: Phnam Bagley is building the future . . . literally. She is a speaker, educator, and founder of the firm Nonfiction Design, taking on everything from headphones to furniture to space architecture to turn science fiction into reality. http://nonfiction.design

Kelly Hoey is the author of BUILD YOUR DREAM NETWORK, speaker, community builder, and world-renowned expert in networking. She also has an extensive corporate background in both law and finance. http://jkellyhoey.co

Christina Blacken is revolutionizing the modern workplace with her company New Quo, introducing how narrative intelligence can be used to tackle inequities and make work work better for everyone. http://thenewquo.com

Patty Alvarenga is on the ground every day running conversations on equity and inclusion that are shaping the future of work with The Collective. http://hello-collective.com

Watch the video version here.

Phnam Bagley is a French Industrial Designer and Space Architect with 15 years experience designing hardware in Audio, Wearables, Biotech & Healthcare, Luxury Goods, Transportation, Sports and Aerospace. She has designed and led teams at varied design consultancies including IDEO, Lunar, Matter and Lifestyledesign. Phnam's work spans 4 continents, and companies ranging from Fortune 500's to startups. Clients include Intel, Comcast, Facebook, Atari, Halo Neuroscience and more. She speaks internationally on the subject of “Design for a Better Future”, covering stories of groundbreaking technologies, responsibility, design thinking and education. Phnam is the CEO and Design Director at Eternal Luxe, a brand of luxury goods made in USA. She also teaches industrial design at California College of the Arts and mentors at Founder Institute.

Networking expert Kelly Hoey is the author of Build Your Dream Network: Forging Powerful Relationships In A Hyper-Connected World (Penguin Random House). She’s working on her second book which focuses on the unique networks women need for career success. A frequent speaker and source for networking insights, Kelly has been lauded from Forbes (“1 of 5 Women Changing the World of VC/Entrepreneurship”) to Fast Company (“1 of the 25 Smartest Women On Twitter”) to Business Insider (“1 of the 100 Most Influential Tech Women On Twitter”) and Inc. (1 of “10 Most Well-Connected People in New York City's Startup Scene”). Empowering A Billion Women By 2020 included her on their list of the “100 Most Influential Global Leaders Empowering Women Worldwide”. Not bad for a former corporate lawyer. Connect with Kelly via www.jkellyhoey.co.

Christina Blacken: I’m a public speaker, performer, and founder of The New Quo. The New Quo is a leadership development and inclusion consultancy helping leaders create inclusive cultural and organizational change through their narrative intelligence. I have helped 1500 leaders at Fortune 500 companies and VC backed startups leverage the psychological power of story to transform behavior, build inclusive culture, and communicate new ideas with deeper connection and influence to achieve status-quo breaking goals through training, courses, consulting, and coaching.

In my early career, I worked for 10 years across four industries, using stories to drive change including inspiring 300k teens to take action on social causes, and closing 6.5M in sales with the teams and household brands she's worked with. The New Quo has been featured in Elle.com, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Huffington Post, Forbes, Business Insider, and Thrive.com among other outlets. I graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelors Degree in Policy Analysis and Management. As an Utah native & NYC resident for 10 years, I know far more uses for jello than she’d like to admit.

Patty Alvarenga (she/her) is a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and Sr. Strategist at Collective. She has deep experience in building DEI programs from the ground up across the tech industry, ranging from large corporations to high-growth startups. She now works with clients across many different industries, helping them distill complex DEI concepts into impactful and executable strategies that advocate for meaningful change. Her lived experiences as a Latina woman and an El Salvadoran immigrant fuel her commitment to create equitable organizations where everyone can be their full authentic selves and thrive. Patty holds a B.S in Marketing from the University of Florida. In her free time, she loves to explore national parks with her backpack and tent, ride her bike, and eat pupusas from her favorite LA restaurant.

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Julie chats with Casey Erin Clark (her co-founder) about her winding path from “small town girl trying to make it in Broadway” perfectionist to multi-hyphenate rebel. Along the way, they cover the profound joy of using your voice, embracing your edges, seeing possibility all around you, and finding your “I want” song.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Casey was born a classic people-pleasing perfectionist. It took her years, a few serious bumps in the road, and one devastating election to finally clarify what was really important. (Hint: the answer was not “what other people think.”)
Articulating what you want is powerful. An “I want” song in musical theater tells us about the character’s desires and ambitions and needs…and spending your life and career exploring this kind of material is awfully helpful when you need to express your own wants. (Try finding your own “I want” song!)
Every human being contains infinite possibility and potential—seeing more in ourselves and each other requires self-exploration, curiosity, a supportive community, and a willingness to see what’s beyond the surface.

Casey Erin Clark is a voice, public speaking, and communication coach, performer, author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and leader in both the entertainment and business worlds. She is a fierce advocate for gender justice and spends her days speaking, teaching, and writing about the power of women’s voices, while seizing fulfilling opportunities to perform on screen and stage. In 2014, Casey and Julie Fogh co-founded Vital Voice Training, a voice and speech coaching company on a mission to change the conversation about what leaders are “supposed” to sound like and empower everyone to own the power of their full vocal instrument and presence. Casey hails from the cornfields of southern Illinois (where she grew up singing with her family Von Trapp-style) and has a BFA in musical theater from Illinois Wesleyan University. She also coaches musical theater pros of all ages, is a member of SAG-AFTRA and AEA, performed on the 2021 Tony Awards and at the 2013 Oscars with the Les Miserables movie cast, and sings with the Grammy-nominated and Tony-honored Broadway Inspirational Voices choir. Recommending books and breakfast restaurants is her love language. Will perform the Lafayette speed rap from Hamilton on demand.

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Casey chats with Julie Fogh (her Vital Voice Training co-founder) about lessons learned from studying acting all over the world, the gifts of introversion, and being a grown-ass woman. Along the way, they cover the superpowers of neurodivergence, and why sometimes, you just know you need to shake up the Etch-A-Sketch of your life.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest gave Julie her particular brand of slow-burn humor, her deep appreciation for the negative space of conversation, and a community-building style that takes awhile, but truly lasts.
Learning how her ADHD brain worked has led Julie to embrace the traits that used to be frustrating, and unlock her own unique superpowers of observation and idea-connecting.
Thinking about making (or going through) a big life change? It’s ok to be “in the goo” for awhile — that’s when your life is becoming a work of art.

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/vois and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

Julie Fogh is a voice coach and interpersonal communications specialist who works with actors and business leaders helping them navigate their individual tensions and blocks, revealing the personal power and unique and captivating humanity that exists in all of us. Through Vital Voice Training, Julie and her co-founder Casey Erin Clark blend the toolbox of the professional actor with their powerful frameworks for embracing one's authentic speaking voice to businesses, schools, and organizations all over the country. Julie was raised in Seattle and earned her BA in Theatre and Women Studies from University of Washington. She earned an MFA in acting from Northern Illinois University, a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum that engaged with the physical body, the emotional life, imagination, use of language, character construction, non-verbal communication and the truth of the moment. She has studied with the Moscow Art Theatre and University of Copenhagen and has studied Meisner Technique with Kathryn Gately, Michael Chekhov Technique with Deborah Robertson, and Movement and Period Style with Lloyd Williamson. She loves YA novels and her cranky rescue cat, Ashland.

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Julie and Casey chat with Lindsay Scola about her unique career path from TV-jingle-singing, CSPAN-watching child to impact strategist / political operative / entertainment production / entrepreneur. We cover the intersection of pop culture and culture change, how storytellers move the needle, and how activists of a certain age REALLY need to learn to take care of themselves. Along the way, we get stories about 1st grader-driven revolutions and finding your community by dropping your filter.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

TV shows are a unique vehicle for cultural change — something that really hit home for Lindsay while working on the Obama campaign in 2007 and encountering college students who couldn’t believe candidates weren’t behind gay marriage, because they’d grown up watching Will & Grace.
You never know what kind of work is out there that will combine your interests and curiosities and passions — especially if you’ve internalized a narrower career narrative. What happens if you step out of that box?
How do we teach activists (especially elder Millennials and older) that their needs and health are just as important as their cause (hear some STORIES about Lindsay’s time in the political arena…)?
Mini-lesson: Being called “intimidating”.

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Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/vois and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

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Lindsay Scola is an impact strategist, public speaker, entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of AUDEAMUS. With over 20 years working in political operations, advocacy campaigns, and entertainment production, Lindsay brings a depth of knowledge and experience to the social impact sector. Lindsay is an expert on the nexus of entertainment and advocacy. She is passionate about inspiring businesses of all sizes to engage in conversations and concrete actions on conservation, civic responsibility, and social justice, especially with non-traditional audiences.

After staging her first walkout over unfair lunchroom treatment in first grade, Lindsay knew she was meant for a life in activism. When she took on her high school for teaching "abstinence-only until marriage" sex education, she became the youngest board member in NARAL Pro-Choice Washington's history. Upon graduating from college, Lindsay worked for U.S. Congressman Adam Smith in Washington, DC, but quickly became disenchanted with how broken the nation’s Capitol really was. So, in early 2007, she quit her job, bought a car, and moved to Iowa to work for then-Senator Barack Obama. Following President Obama’s historic win in 2008, Lindsay joined the administration working for Energy Secretary Steven Chu. She later ran the scheduling and advance office for UN Ambassador Susan Rice, oversaw Michelle Obama’s advance operation during the 2012 re-elect campaign, was part of President Obama's advance team, and executive produced the 2013 Inaugural Parade.

Since then, Lindsay has nested her work at the intersection of advocacy and entertainment, working with organizations like The Television Academy (Emmys) and has spoken on the topic at the ATX Television Festival, SXSW, The Riveter, and more. Named a 2015 “40 Under 40” recipient for City and State New York, Lindsay couples creativity and actionable organizing with political savvy to shift the social needle, Lindsay continues to advise entertainment entities on their social impact causes as well as working with political campaigns and nonprofits to authentically engage with artists and influencers. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

https://www.lindsayscola.com

https://audeamus.net

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Julie and Casey sit down with Anne de la Croix to talk about soft skills, making unmeasurable things visible, and how to use extrovert powers for good in meetings so all voices get heard.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Language is more than the words we pronounce: it is shared connections, context, body language, and can be used to create connection.
The “skillification” of concepts like empathy creates teaching pathways that don’t work. Some ideas need to be taught experientially. Soft skills are human skills.
What people talk about at meetings isn’t always what the meeting is about: often there are layers beneath of what is really going on between people, and the hidden subtext, wants and intentions.

Join us Thursday December 2nd at noon ET OR noon PT for THE POWER AUDIT, a 90-minute workshop where we'll check in with our definitions of power and give you mental, physical, emotional, and social tools to feel more powerful right away in any situation. Get your tickets here.

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Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

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Anne de la Croix has a background in linguistics and educational sciences. She works as assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Vrije Universeit Amsterdam. Anne is fascinated by the way we try to teach medical students ‘unmeasurables’ such as reflection, empathy, communication, and professional identity formation. She is worried about ‘skillification’ of elusive and unmeasurable concepts, and believes the antidote to this trend lies in activities that celebrate amibuguity: comparing contrasting experiences, using the arts, embracing ‘aporia’ (yeah, you can look that one up). Outside of the University, Anne can be hired as ‘conversational pyromaniac’, to facilitate group discussions.

Website: www.annedelacroix.com
More Content from Anne:
- "How to Grow a Professional Identity"
- The Reflective Zombie – about reflection becoming a tick-box exercise

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Julie and Casey chat with CEO, speaker, author, and multi-hyphenate Hitha Palepu about her new book WE’RE SPEAKING: THE LIFE LESSONS OF KAMALA HARRIS. Along the way, they talk about the importance of names, the absolute necessity of supportive friends (check in on “the strong ones!”), a needed revolution in how we remote work, and the transcendent joy of romance novels.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Hitha’s multiple jobs and pursuits all inform each other: her years of content creation make her an awesome communicator in her job in the life sciences and her work in the life sciences brings rigor and discipline to her content creation. Where do your multitudes support and enrich each other?
In the push/pull of negotiation, context is everything, so curiosity is a powerful tool. What do they want, what’s their “red line”, and WHY? Why do they care about what they care about? This helps you build your case.
When it comes to both confidence and taking care of yourself, sometimes you need a little external help. Who can you trust to be your cheerleader when you need a little borrowed confidence and who can be your accounta-buddy to remind you that sometimes, you just need to drink the water / do the workout / get the blowout WITHOUT doing work at the same time . . .
Mini-lesson: Redefining power.

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Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

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Hitha Palepu is a woman of multitudes—a feminist, a lifelong politics enthusiast, a daughter of immigrants, and a mother raising feminist sons. These multitudes spill into her multi-hypenated career as an entrepreneur, investor, writer, and speaker.

Hitha’s passion for the news and politics is captured in #5SmartReads, a Webby-honored social series that shares 5 must-read articles every day to keep her community informed without being overwhelmed. Hitha's longtime blog, Hitha On The Go, established her as an authority on lifestyle topics and gave way to her book and collaborations with leading brands such as Headspace, Google, and Northwestern Mutual. Her book, How To Pack, was published by Clarkson Potter in 2017.

As CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, Hitha oversees financing, partnerships, and strategy for the company. Hitha also puts her money where her values are through early stage investing. A partner in Adama Ventures (her family office), she has invested in innovative companies primarily founded by women and focused on women (MM.LaFleur, Girls' Night In, Brightland, and Heymama among them). She is a sought-after speaker on politics & the news, investing, entrepreneurship, work-life juggle, and motherhood.

Hitha has spoken at The Riveter Summit, Fohr, Global Brands Group and was selected to speak at SXSW 2020. She is represented by AllRaise's Visionary Voices speakers bureau.

Instagram: @hithapalepu
Twitter: @hithapalepu
Website: https://www.werespeakingbook.com/

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Julie and Casey sit down with fellow public speaking and communication coach Sherhara Downing to talk all things charisma, finding your edges, and personal responsibility for creating environments and cultures that allow everyone to shine.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

The Great Resignation is a moment to be able to reevaluate and articulate your value. Not understanding yourself combined with our societal conditioning is a combo that contributes to making self advocacy a terrifying proposition- and what to do about it.
Being conscientious of others is always welcome, but appeasing chips away parts of you. Learn to find the balance.
When you don’t INVITE intentionally, you are excluding. We are all responsible for building more inclusive cultures.
Mini-lesson: Likeability

Thank you to our Season 3 sponsor, Armoire! If you're ready to try a new look, Armoire's high-end clothing rental service (full of amazing women-owned brands) will hook you up! For 50% off your first month's rental + a free item, go to http://armoire.style/voiceis and use VOICEIS in the referral box!

About Sherhara: Sherhara Downing’s mission is to make human interaction and connection effortless.

For INDIVIDUALS

From panels to podcasts, conference keynotes to crucial conversations, Sherhara helps business and thought leaders grow their public profile and attract more career changing opportunities, through confident and charismatic speaking. Through an 8-week virtual group coaching program, Sherhara develops leaders, so their speaking skills match their dynamic experience and expertise.

For COMPANIES

My company, Level Comm LLC, offers customized virtual trainings and workshops on how to improve performance and engagement through improved public speaking and effective communication skills-- empowering professionals to learn something new, use something new and have a good time doing it.

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Julie and Casey chat with activist and community builder Naomi Hattaway about how to reach across political and conversational divides, housing as a human right, and how to cultivate hope. Along the way, they discuss choosing your battles, “leaky boundaries”, and Wednesdays as a metaphor and a reset. (You’ll never look at hump day the same way again.)

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Talking to someone you might disagree with? Get curious about their values. What do they care about? Can you connect through that? Also . . . know when to walk away.
An oft-quoted stat: Women have to be asked to run for office 6 or 7 times. Maybe it’s because they know that what is asked of candidates is nearly impossible . . . rather than begging women to run for office, what can we do to make the SUPPORT SYSTEM BETTER for the right candidates?
Hope is a discipline . . . so how do we create the conditions to practice that discipline? Self-care (Naomi has a coffeemaker in her bedroom!) and community care (when you can’t find the light today, I can carry you . . . and vice versa).
Mini-Lesson: Acknowledging our given circumstances (the who, what, when, where, and why of your scene) and starting where you are, not where you wish you were.
BONUS: Naomi made us a PLAYLIST!!

Books mentioned:

BURNOUT by Emily and Amelia Nagoski

POWER: A USER'S GUIDE by Julie Diamond, PhD

ONLYNESS by Nilofer Merchant

Naomi Hattaway is passionate about community building, diversity, and accessibility in online and physical spaces, and is equally driven by a vision of adequate affordable housing so folks can thrive, not just survive, in the places they call home. Naomi previously served in executive leadership at Habitat for Humanity of Omaha, and consulted with nonprofits and organizations on inclusive program design, mutual aid and housing solutions. In addition to recently leading the COVID-19 eviction prevention and rental assistance program, and the 2020-2021 Winter Plan non-congregate shelter efforts in Omaha, Naomi is a licensed Realtor, and recently ran for Omaha City Council in West Omaha.

Follow Naomi on Instagram and Twitter, or visit her website.

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   Julie and Casey chat with Elsa Isaac, stylist extraordinaire for entrepreneurial women, about what we wear and why it matters. Along the way, they dive into what is “appropriate”, changing bodies and finding ways to make your authenticity more visible.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

 * No one can give you style or do you better than you do, but a stylist can observe, notice, and collate patterns and help you put it all together.

Your body language actually shifts when you wear something you feel good in. It doesn’t matter if something is “In” or not. If it doesn’t make you feel good, it’s not gonna work.
People change, needs change, and BODIES change and that is normal! Transformation is expected as we grow. The more time you spend wishing to be different, the more time you’re stealing from the work you’re supposed to be putting out into the world.
Mini-lesson: POLISH! What the heck is it, and is it even important?

Thank you to Armoire for sponsoring VOICE (is)! Find them at https://armoire.style/voiceis and use code: voiceis

Elsa Isaac is an NYC-based fashion + image stylist who believes style is really all about self-expression.

A seasoned pro with 18 + years in the fashion industry, the east African-born stylist has built quite a noteworthy portfolio, having bestowed her stylish magic on everyone from Marie Forleo to Lenny Kravitz; Katie Couric to Kris Carr. Nowadays, she helps successful career women + entrepreneurs revamp their wardrobes + create show-stopping ensembles that flatter their unique body shapes and lifestyles.

A self-dubbed anti-fashion stylist. Elsa doesn’t believe there’s one standard of beauty + strives to empower all her clients to celebrate their own individuality.

Learn more about Elsa’s extensive styling skills + fresh perspective on fashion over at www.ElsaIsaac.com

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Julie and Casey sit down with Kim Perkins, former journalist and pro speed-skater turned coach and positive organizational psychologist, to discuss how we know what we know about human behavior. Along the way they dive into authenticity at work (and why it may not actually be a good goal), studying competitiveness when no one wants to admit that they really want to win, and how to ask better questions instead of look for easy answers.

We also welcome our Season Three sponsor, Armoire, a clothing rental company for women who love great style but hate shopping. Try Armoire today via our link for 50% off your first month, PLUS an extra item! Use "voiceis" in the referral box for your best discount.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Our society currently seems to equate authenticity with the knee-jerk reaction (our FIRST response to a stimulus) . . . especially on social media, when so often that knee-jerk response can be a fear-based reaction, and not how we actually want to act. And on that note, maybe “bring your whole self to work” is neither possible nor ultimately DESIRABLE . . .
Sometimes, the correct scientific way to gather human data (i.e., the gatherer being a blank / neutral presence so that they don’t influence anyone) actually gives us flawed information, and the incorrect way (sharing some of your own humanity with the people you’re studying) gets you the truth . . . but it’s not “scientific”. WHEW. What does this mean for how we know what we know about human behavior?
How do we, as smart, savvy consumers of information, discern between what’s informative and what’s bullshit with the “studies say” genre of news article?
Mini-lesson: What is work armor, why do we develop it, and what if we want to upgrade to something better? Take our work armor quiz to find out!

Kim Perkins holds a Ph.D. in positive organizational psychology. A former journalist and pro athlete, Kim works on purpose, culture, and communication with leaders at cutting edge science, tech and entertainment companies. Her first book, Winner Take None (2022), explores the role competition plays in our lives.

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      Casey Erin Clark and Julie Fogh, founders of Vital Voice Training and co-hosts of the VOICE(is) podcast, host a panel discussion on executive presence. In it, they explore the nebulous definition of executive presence and how our idea of what leaders should look and sound like has marginalized so many. Along the way, expect corporate horror stories, tales of triumph, and big laughs . . . along with truth bombs and mic drop moments that blow the idea that leaders need to look and sound one particular way out of the water.

Patty Alvarenga is on the ground every day running conversations on equity and inclusion that are shaping the future of work with The Collective. http://hello-collective.com

Watch the video version here.

      **Phnam** **Bagley** is a French Industrial Designer and Space Architect with 15 years experience designing hardware in Audio, Wearables, Biotech & Healthcare, Luxury Goods, Transportation, Sports and Aerospace. She has designed and led teams at varied design consultancies including IDEO, Lunar, Matter and Lifestyledesign. Phnam's work spans 4 continents, and companies ranging from Fortune 500's to startups. Clients include Intel, Comcast, Facebook, Atari, Halo Neuroscience and more. She speaks internationally on the subject of “Design for a Better Future”, covering stories of groundbreaking technologies, responsibility, design thinking and education. Phnam is the CEO and Design Director at Eternal Luxe, a brand of luxury goods made in USA. She also teaches industrial design at California College of the Arts and mentors at Founder Institute.

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Julie and Casey chat with multidimensional visual and sound artist and hiphop ambassador D. Cross about exploring sound without filters, finding your path as an artist and educator, breaking down walls between disciplines. Be prepared for some poetry, multigenerational beatboxing, and hearing all about his innovative ad campaign and top secret recipe for “Universal Cola”.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

“Voices / voice”—what if we have more than one?
The rich history of D. Cross’s influences from the late 70’s/80’s: Buffy Robinson from The Fat Boys, Michael Winslow (voice artist/actor/comedian), Al Jarreau, Doug E. Fresh, and of course, cartoons.
Between his spot on imitations of famous figures (and his teachers) and a bit of class clown instinct, D. has some STORIES to tell . . . all of which point to the freedom and unfilteredness that we start out with as vocal creatures. What if we brought back that childlike spirit to exploring our voices and what they can do?
Sometimes the gifts others see in us don’t match our own narrative of what we’re supposed to do in life . . . but that information can be rewarding when we try it on for size.
Learning to powerfully express yourself and your point of view must live side-by-side with the curiosity about others’ voices and perspectives. It’s an exchange.
The crucial ingredient of vulnerability (and therefore bravery) when we think of both play and authenticity
Lesson: Consonants create compelling communication. (How’s that for alliteration?)

D.Cross (Derick Cross) is a Queens NY-born and Brooklyn-based multi-dimensional vocal and visual performance artist and arts educator. He creates imagery and vocal art that transcends and crosses boundaries of genres and labels.

This “Vocal Beat Expressionist” uses “vocal acrobatics “ to create sonic collages of his poetry combining words, raps and beatboxing. He has performed nationally & internationally in venues including Madison Square Garden, SOB’s, BB Kings, The New Vic Theatre, Carolines, and Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Mr Cross was selected as a cultural HipHop Ambassador for The US State Departments Next Level program. He recently served as a Hiphop Cultural Diplomat in Azerbaijan.

D.Cross has been featured on MTV, The Electric Company Nickelodean, TV Land and BET’s 106 and Park. His vocal talents have been featured on the award winning Aflac “Pigeon Rap” ad and 7–Up ‘s “10” campaign. He was the Hottest Poets $10,000 Spoken Word Grand Champion of 2002/03 as well as a member of their international slam team of 2003.

D.Cross’ visual art has been exhibited nationally and internationally (Sweden and Brazil). His artistry is currently featured in Dr Myrah Brown Green’s award winning art anthology “Brooklyn On My Mind”. Cross‘s work can be found as part of the collections of Erykah Badu (Singer), Ed Lewis (Founder of Essence), Ruby Dee (legendary actress), Judith Jamison (Alvin Ailey), Kool Herc (Hiphop founding father), Big Daddy Kane (Hiphop Legend), and Bashiri Johnson (world renowned percussionist). Mr. Cross is also a SVA (School of Visual Arts) graduate (Bachelors of Fine Arts) who has worked as an Arts Educator teaching youth visual arts and poetry for the over the past two decades.

Follow D.Cross on Instagram.

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Julie and Casey sit down with legendary San Francisco dancer and drag performer, Monique Jenkinson, aka FAUXNIQUE to talk about performing femininity, both through drag and not, finding authenticity through practices of artifice, and the journey of a Good Dance Student to nightclub performer, and get some San Francisco Dragucation. Note- we use the “c**” word a LOT in this episode, so take care for sensitive ears.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Drag is not (just) men in heels—it’s a rich, smart, funny, scrappy performance tradition that uses the body and artifice to access larger themes.
Other kinds of drag performance of femininity include the good girl persona, and the world of ballet.
Your curiosity is a prelude to discovering your wants- conditioning can make wants hard to identify, curiosity allows you to find them, lose them and find them again. Owning your curiosity, desires, and wants is crucial
Practices of artifice can be a version of authenticity
Balance is the answer to binaries—balance allows for dynamic movement and change between points.
Your strut is the embodiment of your energy as you enter a space, whether that is virtual or physical, and being with your right to be seen with the willingness to contribute what you have.

Please join us next week for a Strut Workshop with Monique 4/28 4pm PST/7pm EST. Details are HERE: https://vitalvoicetraining.com/labs

Find Monique at fauxnique.net

ODC June Performance: https://www.odc.dance/festival

Other People and Events Mentioned in the episode:

Heklina: https://www.dragtimewithheklina.com/

Juanita More https://juanitamore.com/

TrannyShack https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468563/

Prince “Cream” https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468563/

PJ Harvey Sheela Na Gig: https://youtu.be/Sjxr_No-yuY

Ana Matronic and Scissor Sisters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scissor_Sisters

About Monique Jenkinson: "I am an artist, performer, choreographer and writer. I made herstory as the first cis-woman to win a major drag queen pageant and subsequently my solo performance works have toured nationally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums — from Joe’s Pub, New Museum and the historic Stonewall in New York City, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, ODC Theater, The Stud, CounterPulse and de Young Museum in San Francisco, and in Seattle, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Provincetown, London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Zürich, Paris, Reykjavik, Rome, Catania and Cork.

I have created space for kids to dress drag queens at a major museum and created college curricula. I played the DIRT (originated by Justin Vivian Bond) in Taylor Mac’s Lily’s Revenge and Eurydike in Anne Carson’s ANTIGONICK. I engaged in public conversation with Gender Studies luminary Judith Butler and RuPaul bestie Michelle Visage within days of each other. I am currently writing a memoir.

Honors include residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, Tanzhaus Zürich and Atlantic Center for the Arts, an Irvine Fellowship and residency at the de Young Museum, GOLDIE and BESTIE awards and 7X7 Magazine’s Hot 20. I have been nominated for the Theater Bay Area, Isadora Duncan Dance (IZZIE) and Herb Alpert Foundation awards and have received support from San Francisco Arts Commission, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, CHIME, Center for Cultural Innovation and the Kenneth Rainin and Zellerbach Family foundations."

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Julie and Casey sit down to talk with Pleasure Strategist Lidia Bonilla about the value, politics, and fear around women’s pleasure, what it takes to go from survive to thrive, and life lessons from caring for an ill parent.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Reclaim your pleasure by following your curiousity
Pleasure is your god given right
Pleasure is unproductive by capitalist standards- yet it’s essential to our well being
Pleasure is about connection, numbing is about disconnection
We stay in our misery because it’s safe and familiar, but believing our misery is as good as it can get keeps us cut off from our pleasure and potential
Lesson: Following your curiosity

Lidia Bonilla is an empowerment coach and product inventor, committed to women having lives full of power, pleasure, and intimacy. She is the founder of House of Plume, an intimate lifestyle brand that provides the discerning consumer with storage options for their pleasure items.

Lidia co-founded Women of Sex Tech, a global organization dedicated to merging sex and technology.

She is a highly sought after expert, whose work has been covered by the New York Times, Refinery 29, Forbes and Essence Magazine. I'm passionate about speaking on topics like making pleasure a habit, learning how to love your body, and creating a life of freedom and authenticity.

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Julie and Casey sit down with speaker/top LinkedIn voice/author of The Memo Minda Harts to talk about how she cares for herself as a speaker (and how she became even more visible during lockdown), claiming your voice and your identity, and how all of us can strive to leave the workplace better than we found it. Along the way, we discover our mutual love for the Golden Girls.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Sometimes, you can’t wait for someone ELSE to write the book or say the thing you wish they would, even if you think they may be more qualified than you . . . you have to do it yourself.
What skills do the people who are in the rooms I want to be in have? “If you see yourself in those roles in the future, you should start working on that stuff now.”
For introverts who want to explore more visibility: remind yourself WHY you’re doing it, and make small, specific goals.
The crucial question for white folks who care about diversity, equity and inclusion and want to make the workplace better for everyone: what are the everyday acts that we can do to humanize the experience of others, especially others who might be different from me?
“There’s no shortage of power if we share it.”
You are the authority on your own lived experience. “I knew I had a voice. I just had to decide how to use it. And once I made that decision, it was very clear what to say next.”

Minda Harts is the CEO of The Memo LLC and an award- winning and best-selling author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need To Know To Secure A Seat At The Table. Minda is a Professor at NYU Wagner and hosts a live weekly podcast called Secure The Seat. In 2020, Minda was named the #1 Top Voice for Equity in the workplace by Linkedin. She is an Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar and has been featured on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Fast Company, The NY Times, and Time Magazine. Minda frequently speaks at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Nike, and Bloomberg on topics such as Managing Diverse Teams, Courageous Leadership, and Advancing women of color in the workplace.

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Julie and Casey sit down with theatrical casting director (and Tiktok rock star) Kate Lumpkin, to talk about the stories we tell and why we tell them, changing the jargon that creates unhealthy power structures, how authenticity happens in front of an audience, and burning our old ideas of “type” to the ground . . . both inside and outside of the theater world. Prepare for the dropping of many, many mics.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Kate's background in anthropology and folklore provides one of the major lenses for her work: how stories shape and change the world. “We hear this mythos that there are only seven stories and we keep repeating them and refreshing them and re-illuminating them […] but what I find fascinating is how we’ve taken those core hero stories and TRANSFORMED them over time, and the potential we have to continue to transform them if we change the gatekeepers of who allows us to tell what stories.”
The power of words and the problem with jargon: A phrase consistently used in the theater world is to refer to the casting director and creative team as “the other side of the table” . . . which, inherently creates a divide (and a power imbalance) in what ideally should be a space of play and collaboration.
On being "Publicly Personal”—when people walk into the audition space that Kate creates, they know who she is, they know what she stands for, they know that she’s there to listen and be their champion without judgement.
On the surface, a casting director’s job is to “acquire talent for a production” . . . but in addition to her job getting to know the immense talent pool of actors out there, Kate also finds herself being part therapist, politician, director, HR person, and explorer.
Type came out of the studio system in Hollywood, and was a way to essentially commodify an actor’s personal brand into something audiences would come back again and again to see . . . but where type has landed is “what do (mostly) white men find attractive/witty/sexy/charismatic” and what they can imagine someone with your body doing onstage. Rather than an actor trying to identify their “type” (fitting into someone else’s narrow box), she’d love them to think about their through line as a person: how does that expression of self affect what stories you want to tell and what point of view that their life’s journey allows them to bring to a role/story (of which your body is certainly a part . . . but not the whole).
What is your Point of View? The moments in your life that have made you YOU + the code that you live by (what you stand for, what you would fight for, what you believe in) + how you filter those things out of your body and into the world (how you express yourself).
Authenticity and performativity are NOT antithetical . . . because everything we do is in concert with other humans. We are always performing. So, how do we curate an authentic self that shows up? First of all: YOU are the arbiter of your own authenticity. Secondly: it requires self-reflection (those moments than shift your POV happen all the time). We have to check in with that, and we have to not judge the previous versions of our authentic selves. And . . . do the work. Stay curious. Learn about yourself. Go to therapy. Do the work. Things look performative when we try desperately to adhere to an external standard (what is popular, what is “successful”) rather than doing the inner work.
On that “thing” that certain people walk into a room with (charisma, confidence, whatever you want to call it) — it comes from having done that inner work on knowing who you are . . . and bringing it into the room with no apology or need for permission or validation. When you have that, you don’t have to even talk about it or “show it off” . . . you just ARE.
Kate considers her Meisner training “a two year professional certificate in listening.” Because this type of training is about listening and repeating, listening and repeating, listening and repeating, you not only learn to hear what’s being said, you learn to observe what’s underneath. In addition, Meisner requires that you get comfortable with discomfort, including the messier parts of ourselves. If we learn to sit with our own “messy uglies” and have compassion for those parts in other people, we could really change everything.
DO NOT MISS Kate’s Big 5 question answers.
LESSON: Getting out of the “prove yourself” mindset and walking into the room with power.

Kate Lumpkin (she/her) is the Founder of and Lead Casting Director at Kate Lumpkin Casting, CSA. Collectively, as a casting professional, she has worked on over 40 TV/Film productions and 80 theatrical productions in New York City and across the USA including shows at The Kennedy Center, The Actors Theatre of Louisville, The A.R.T, NYTW, and many others. Kate teaches workshops in New York and at numerous Colleges and Universities. She is a private coach to clients all around the world. Kate is also the host of Broadway WELLness for Playbill.

Selected casting credits include: New York Theatre: OSCAR @ The Crown, We Are Here (dir. Steven Hoggett), Medusa, We Are The Tigers, Safeword, Afterglow, Cleopatra, The Bad Years, Eco Village, A Complicated Woman, Boarders, Between The Bars, Unraveled, Letters to the President, Reunion '69, Single Rider, Diaspora, The Other Side of Paradise, Counting Sheep, Sitting Bull's Last Waltz, The Excavation of Mary Anning, Agent 355, Emma: A New Musical, Love In Hate Nation, Five Points, Hart Island, Eastbound, Interstate, Honey Dipped Apocalypse Girls, Fefu and Her Friends. National Tour: Bandstand (1st National Tour). Regional Theatre: Endlings at American Repertory Theater, West Side Story at The Kennedy Center, On The Town at The Kennedy Center, Beau at The Adirondack Theatre Festival, Evocation to Visible Appearance at Actors Theatre of Louisville, We Are Here atThe Cosmopolitan ofLas Vegas, Opium at The Cosmopolitan ofLas Vegas , A Christmas Carol 18', 19' at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Reunion '69 & Reunion '85 at the Newman Center. For more information, please visit kate-lumpkin.com. @katelumpkin

Interview intro and outro music: "Elevator Heart," music by Julia Meinwald, lyrics by Sara Cooper, from the musical Elevator Heart, music by Amy Burgess and Julia Meinwald, book and lyrics by Sara Cooper

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Julie and Casey sit down with leadership coach Iggy Perillo to talk about how outward bound survival trips are an excellent learning ground for leaders, strategies for difficult people and conversations, and what it’s like to leadership coach a grieving roller derby team.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

The outdoors has a lot to teach leaders including living your values, delegation, team work, and allowing everyone one meltdown.
Keep things tangible when you are defining your goals—what is "winning" to you? How do you know when you’ve achieved it?
In difficult conversations, address the behavior, not the individual. What are they DOING that is keeping you from there, and how can they fix it?
For those impression-based feedback conversations: get more information about vague feedback by asking for specific examples of the behavior and how you can improve. Make sure you both are crystal clear what is being asked.
The nuclear phrase for feedback you don’t agree with is “how does this feedback align with the values of our organization”

ABOUT IGGY:

I am a product of the Midwest who gets nostalgic about cornfields. I started in the field of experiential human development at the dawn of the twenty-first century which basically meant that I spent a lot of time outside entreating fifth graders to jump out of trees while hooked to ropes or scaring the crap out of them by hiking in woods at night under the guise of environmental education.

Ratcheting up the intensity I progressed to instructing personal growth oriented canoe/backpacking and dogsled/ski expeditions in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This included teaching people how to cook over an open fire and the power and self efficacy that comes from carrying everything you’ll need for a few weeks in your boat/sled/on your back. Even though it often felt like an individual endeavor to people it was done in a team context so my attention to the creation and culture of the team was also crucial. Doing this work with teens and adults made me realize that as the age of the participants increased it was my job to make sure the sophistication and impact of conversation topics kept pace. The evening fire wasn’t just wilderness tv, it was a place for talking about the struggle and growth of the people and their team; who someone is and who they want to be. I made that growth real to people and helped them navigate the world as the person they wanted to be. It was glorious to spend 150+ days a year sleeping outside facilitating the emergence of leaders and excellent teams. Eventually I added in spending a bit of time training other people to do this same thing.

Along the way I earned a Master’s Degree in Experiential Education and a teaching license in English Language Arts (obviously, right?). I did a ton of training on topics like: conflict resolution, restorative justice and mental health first aid mixed with technical wilderness travel and safety skills. I earned some fancy pieces of paper saying I can either likely keep you alive in various situations or that I do a pretty good job of not letting you get too close to dead in the first place. And I read what feels like a billion research driven books on topics in related fields like neuroscience, behavioral economics, educational psychology, performance studies and experiential theory. I still read all the time - they never stop coming out with new research or books.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Dani Medrano, a San Francisco based writer, community builder and sober lady to talk about all drinking, and the joy of a sober life. The pandemic has increased our collective alcohol intake pretty significantly, so if you are questioning your relationship with alcohol (whatever stage) this discussion is for you.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Women are drinking more during the pandemic, to the detriment of their health.
Alcohol is marketed to us as a catch all for celebration, connection, stress relief, etc. etc. Yet, questioning your drinking is considered a “you” problem.
You don’t need to hit “rock bottom” to question your drinking, and questioning your drinking does NOT automatically make you an alcoholic.
Alcohol is marketed to women in a way that takes advantage of the incredible stresses and double binds women live under.
12 Step programs are only one option—for women, the rhetoric of powerlessness and breaking down of the ego may be the exact opposite of what they need to recover.
Recovery isn’t a set of rules to live by; it’s a process unique to you to build a life you don’t need to escape from.
Community is critical.
Sober does not equal boring.

Resources:

Recovery options besides AA (these are just a few)

Tempest: jointempest.com

The Luckiest Club: theluckiestclub.com

Forever 35 Sober: Find them on Facebook

Book Recommendations:

This Naked Mind by Annie Grace

Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker

Nothing Good Can Come From This by Kristi Coulter

We Are the Luckiest by Laura McKowen

Podcasts:

Edit with Aidan Donnelly Rowley and Jolene Park

Recovery Happy Hour with Trisha

Instagram Follows:

@urbansagesf

@teedoodler

@recoveryhappyhour

@soberisthenewblack

Dani Medrano is a writer, program manager, recovery coach and pep-talk provider in San Francisco, CA. When she’s not working, writing, or lifting weights, you can find her walking her dog, Tater, or in the kitchen eating homemade mochi muffins with her roommates. Are you sober? Sobercurious? Check out Dani's newsletter at http://slowmotionsober.substack.com/ to learn more about The Sober from Bullshit Recovery Club and to join the community. She'd so love to hear from you.

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Julie and Casey chat with Liz Hara (prolific TV writer, expert puppeteer and costume designer, citizen of Sesame Street, candy expert, all-around-cool-chick) about running toward failure, the pure magic and community-building power of puppets, what it’s like to be the only POC in a writer’s room (and how that world is changing for the better), and why puppets and emus don’t mix.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Liz fell in love with puppets while working in theater in Minneapolis as a teenager and watching a gruesome dark comedy called Shockheaded Peter. Her first love is Butoh-style puppetry, where the puppeteers actually disappear even as they’re right in front of you working the puppets.
For the last several years of working with Jim Henson studios, she’s been learning the art of moniter-style puppetry, where you have to puppet while watching a reversed image on a monitor to make sure the puppet is doing what it’s supposed to. Our brains hurt just thinking about it.
Her work with puppets has allowed Liz to travel all over the world with shows and to festivals. One of those festivals, the World Puppet Festival of Charleville-Mézières, came along at a time when she was feeling some existential dread (“maybe I’ve just seen everything that there is to see and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life blah blah blah”), and renewed her faith in everything. Couldn’t we all use a dose of that?
“For puppetry to work, the audience has to buy into the premise. By putting it up there, the artist is inviting the audience to ‘come play’. You have to agree that the thing we are moving is not just a doll being wiggled—we have to agree that this thing is alive. So there’s this immediate sense of community that is built, and that’s what I think makes it so special and so powerful.” (And isn’t that the goal of every artist and every public speaker—to create community?)
Sesame Street is “the home of [Liz’s} heart”—she started out as a puppet builder and puppet costume designer and became a puppet “wrangler” (which she describes as the “pit crew” for the puppets on set.) And she’s got some STORIES…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pvtcWwPVmk&t=113s
It was actually one of the head writers on Sesame Street who encouraged Liz when she wanted to venture from writing plays and works for puppets to writing for TV. She began writing for Sesame Street, and then entered a pitch competition at the Austin TV Festival (which she won!), got a manager and an agent, and got her first staff writing position on a sitcom, and found out she had to move to LA from NY with about 17 hours notice.
Liz has now been in several writers’ rooms, sometimes diverse, and sometimes where she’s been the only person of color in the room. Her experience is that being “the only” means that she was looked at as the default expert on ALL people of color, or wondered if she was supposed to be the “BIPOC police”. Part of the ethos of a writers’ room is that you never want to kill an idea or a joke unless you can “one up” it. This means that a lot of energy goes into “do I speak up or will this moment pass,” which means you get quieter, which means you may be seen as not fully present . . . (classic double binds). A more diverse writer’s room means that each writer can draw on their own personal experience instead of having to represent EVERYONE’s experience.
Why YA TV shows might have some of the best writing out there.
If you need ideas for how to bring your community together digitally in this time, Liz has your back . . . (QUARANTEDTALKS!!??)
“Play is a joyful approach to life without fear of failure—play and failure are extremely linked and you can’t create good work or live a good life without failure.”
Puppeteering and writing is a “relentless process of learning a CRAFT”—which is why both the dedication to your own learning and the generous sharing of knowledge with others is so crucial. Institutional knowledge and the experience of/training from mentors is hugely important. Liz credits her many wonderful mentors, and is excited to now be playing that role for others.

LIZ HARA writes television for little kids, big kids, and even bigger kids. She currently writes for Sesame Street, and won an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in 2018. She has also written for CBS’ Life in Pieces, Apple+’s Helpsters, HBO’s Esme & Roy, and Nature Cat and Odd Squad for PBS. Her newest gig is writing for Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, the newest Marvel superhero cartoon for Disney. Liz is also a puppet and costume builder, winning an Emmy for Best Costume Design in 2015 with her team for their work on Sesame Street. She has worked on several other theatrical and film productions, including Avenue Q, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, and The Lion King.

Liz is also a fantastic dancer, is super fun at weddings, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of candy.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Brittany Gooden (founder of the Good End) to talk about changing the way we think about business, why we can't make change using the same tools that can hurt us, questioning tradition with truth, the surprising healing journey of entrepreneurship, and measuring success by lives changed, not dollars earned.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Effective leadership requires you to slow down, get vulnerable, stop comparing yourself to others, and most of all to heal yourself first.
Trust yourself: Your life experience is wisdom waiting to be deciphered
It's okay not to know everything.
Not all advice is good advice—get curious where they are coming from to see if it fits with your journey
Success can be measured by all kinds of metrics, not just monetary ones.
When you don't know what people need, ASK and then LISTEN to what they tell you.

About Brittany Gooden: The idea for Good End came to Brittany when she realized how often friends of small businesses approached her to help them create digital content to support their brand marketing. But with her experience in content creation working on large-scale productions in TV, media, and advertising, she knew the ins and outs of creating just one piece of content would require a thought-out strategy and a sizable budget that almost always wouldn’t guarantee a significant return.

Most of these knowledge seekers happened to be trailblazing women and people of color whose businesses are centered around a cause, so Brittany sought to help them create the marketing and digital tools they need on their own so their companies can continue to thrive. With an eye for engaging visuals and a passion for supporting the entrepreneurial community, Good End was formed.⁠

Find the Good End at good-end.com

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Julie and Casey chat with community leader and NYC City Council District 27 candidate Nantasha Williams about her journey into public service, her experience helping to organize the women’s march, looking young in an arena that doesn’t exactly prize youth, intergenerational translation and mediation, creating coalitions, and what it takes to engage everyone in the political processes that affect their daily lives.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

When people asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, Nantasha’s answer was “I want to be a judge” because of Thurgood Marshall. “I was really moved by this idea that someone could live a life in service to others in making conditions better for all
The necessity (and challenges) of creating coalitions—how can we come together around common goals and values even across difference . . . and how can we know when we CAN’T “come together”?
What would it look like if we spent as much time and money on educating people about the actual process of government as we did electing candidates? We have to broaden our attention beyond the “big” races to the local races (city council, sheriffs, police commissioners, judges, DAs) that profoundly affect our daily lives and the issues that we care about.
As a person with a great deal of knowledge and expertise in an era where some people distrust that expertise in government (and prefer “outsiders”), Nantasha’s strategy is to meet people where they are and LISTEN. “It goes back to collaboration and collective organizing.” She sees herself as the mediator between respecting history and past innovators and bringing fresh ideas—we need that intergenerational exchange.
Of all the communication challenges she faces as a young Black woman in politics, ageism seems to be the most “in your face”—as in, everyone feels very free to comment on it. Because ageism for her shows up as doubt in her level of experience, she often feels like she has to recite her resume . . . She then reminds herself that sometimes it comes from people who, for whatever reason, don't believe that she ought to be where she is, but she’s THERE. (We call this the “if you’re in the room, you belong in the room” principle.)
“Running for office is like a rollercoaster ride” emotionally— Nantasha keeps herself grounded and present by not allowing herself to get on that ride.
Sometimes our heartbreaks or “failures” are the catalysts that lead us to something better or more important that we could imagine.
Nantasha is learning to trust her voice every day - “lean[ing] in to how I really feel about something[…]and allowing myself to follow my own voice and not the voices of others.”

Nantasha Williams is a community leader, social justice advocate, and organizer committed to affecting real change in her community.

In 2014, she was appointed the Executive Director of the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus. Today, she serves as a member of Community Board 13 where she was appointed Chair of the Special Initiatives Committee. Nantasha also serves as board member of Life Camp Inc. – a cure gun violence program. Nantasha is currently the Project Manager for Minority Women Business Enterprise Compliance, and helped initiate community outreach efforts for the JFK Redevelopment Program.

Nantasha is currently in a PhD Program for Social Welfare at the CUNY Graduate Center with a research focus on Social Movements, Public Policy, and Racial Justice. She acquired her undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Virginia Commonwealth University and holds a Master’s in Public Administration from Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.

As a candidate for District 27 New York City Council Race, Nantasha’s key issues are creating new economic opportunities, youth development, housing, and protecting our seniors.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Nitika Chopra (founder of Chronicon) to talk about building a platform and community to celebrate and elevate the lives of chronically ill folks. Along the way, they talk about the medicine of feeling all your feelings (including grief), why “you can fix your problems via your THOUGHTS!” can be abusive, hearing the voice of the divine (whatever that looks like for you), and the revelatory power of Idina Menzel’s voice.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Nitika’s journey - from running a beauty and self-love publishing platform to talk show host to community creator for people dealing with chronic illness
Nitika saw chronically ill folks as being in the same boat the people of size were years ago: being ignored by the fashion and beauty and fitness industries because they assumed they wouldn’t want or didn’t need products and services built for them. “Oh, you’re sick now. Bye.”
It’s estimated that 133 million people in America have a chronic illness.
When it comes to living inside American hustle culture (particularly as a founder), Nitika is “not interested in conforming”.
Just as curvy folks want to be celebrated for who they are RIGHT NOW AS THEY ARE (not for losing weight), the lived experience of chronically ill people deserves to be celebrated in all its fullness.
The mission of Chronicon is not to make a case about the worthiness of chronically ill people or about “fitting in” to a wider culture—it’s about owning and honoring the full experience and the superpowers of chronically ill people. What does it look like not just to survive, but to thrive?
What can we learn from the lived experience of chronically ill folks? Perhaps the benefits of what Nitika calls “spiritual surrender”. After spending so much time working and striving to heal her body, she was brought to a point where she finally accepted what WAS and could be truly present. “This is our body, and it is doing the best that it can, and we can love it no matter what. And from THERE, we can live.”
Part of the subtle and important difference between that spiritual surrender and feeling like a failure is allowing yourself to grieve. Grief allows us to process the sadness of losing something you wanted without the shame of wanting it in the first place.
Spiritual surrender doesn’t mean that you stop striving, learning, fighting, etc.
So often, we teach the things we most need to learn (Casey, Julie, and Nitika all have experienced this). For Nitika, teaching self love has helped her to address many, many years of self-hatred.
Who gave Nitika permission to fight for herself? God, and her spiritual practice. At 15, at a serious low point, she heard a message that carried her through: “It’s not about you.”
So much of “wellness/spirituality/self-help” culture spreads a message of manifesting your way out of your problems—as so many do, Nitika found herself trying to heal herself via belief, and felt like a failure when she didn’t heal. To be clear, this “you can get rid of your problems by repeating mantras and changing your mindset” (and its dark mirror, if you still have problems, it’s because you didn’t believe hard enough) version of “wellness” and “spirituality” perpetuates abuse.
We’ve been conditioned by American culture to numb out and avoid feeling our pain, but according to Nitika, “Dealing with our pain, our truth about our pain is one of the greatest medicines in our life. There’s so much wisdom and medicine inside of our pain and suffering. It’s not a place I choose to stay - I don’t want to marinate in it or bring others down by spreading my pain everywhere, but when you give yourself permission to FEEL it, you allow it to be released and to move and take shape and move ON.”
Singing feels like home to Nitika. Seeing Idina Menzel in Rent on Broadway was a revelation to her—“Women can SOUND like that?” Her programing was that women should be neat and poised and small and tidy and not “flaunt their spirits”. And NOW, she’s part of the Resistance Revival Choir, and on their debut album!

Nitika Chopra is the founder of Chronicon, a media and events company, dedicated to elevating the lives of those living with a chronic illness. Nitika was diagnosed with psoriasis at the age of 10 and psoriatic arthritis at the age of 19 and lived over 17 years of her life being defined by her conditions. In 2010 she decided to take all of the lessons her health journey had taught her and use it to help others with the creation of her online magazine Bella Life. Since the start of her entrepreneurial journey Nitika has hosted her own TV talk show on Z Living called Naturally Beautiful, hosted over 40 events with hundreds of guests in attendance and has created dynamic partnerships with over 150 brands in the wellness space. After 10 years in event creation, Nitika launched Chronicon in the fall of 2019, focused on those living with a chronic illness. The event sold out, had over 2,000 livestream viewers, high-level brand sponsors and has been growing ever since. Now, Nitika is excited to announce that Chronicon is expanding online with The Chronicon Community, a new, accessible online space with inspiration, advocacy, and empowerment for chronically ill folks across the globe to connect. Follow her for daily inspiration @ChroniconOfficial.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Six Degrees Society founder Emily Merrell to talk about building communities, the best way to network, and how to host an event to foster connection. Along the way we get the epic stories behind how she met her husband in New Orleans doing everything wrong, and what happens when your dream wedding gets evacuated 30 minutes before the ceremony.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Show up as a human, not a human representation of a brand
Take the awkward out of networking situations by providing structure.
Be a good host by thinking of what your guests’ needs are—they’re simpler than you think!
Our adult lives all come down to summer camp skills.
The lessons we learn from jobs like retail, hospitality and babysitting are treasure troves of information on how we human.
More volume does not equal better networking. You can make deep connections even if you don’t have access to as many events as say, NYC.
Take care of your communities! Offer first, but don’t be afraid to ask either.
Sometimes doing the wrong thing is the way to make a memorable connection.
Use what you have on hand to come up with small talk . . . seriously anything (even penis straws).
Lesson: How to "Host"

About Emily Merrell:

HEY, I’M EMILY

I'm Chief Networker and Founder of Six Degrees Society. People also (lovingly) refer to me as "20 questions" because I've always loved figuring out people's stories.

While working in the fashion industry, I dreamt up a place where individuals could come together from all industries, all backgrounds and show up who they are —unapologetically. Nothing makes me happier than connecting people who could mutually make each other's lives more enjoyable.

In addition to Six Degrees Society, I also work with companies, founders, and more who are looking to build a strong community of their own, plan retreats to inspire their own teams, or need a mentor in their own business journey.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Stephanie Dalfonzo, AKA “Stevie Knox” (80’s-era celebrity radio DJ) and one of the very first automated voices, to talk about her amazing career trajectory and her work now as a hypnotist, coach, author, and expert in combatting anxiety.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Following your dreams: pre-The Secret/manifesting culture, Stephanie grew up KNOWING she was going to be a radio DJ . . . and she made it happen.
How Stephanie became “Stevie Knox”: alter-egos are a powerful way to access energy, intention, and different parts of ourselves when we need to.
The importance of listening, presence, and “tuning in” to the person we’re communicating with—even (and especially) when we can’t see them.
We are not wired to be looking at ourselves looking back at ourselves while communicating with other people—our brains find that EXHAUSTING (not to mention weird). There is a convenient feature on zoom called “hide self view” that is a game-changer!
The Power of the Pause - especially right now, try practicing small moments of presence many times an hour. Conscious breath, sitting in silence, etc.
Create a better soundscape for your life! Why are you waking up to an alarm clock that shocks your system? Are notifications driving you batty? Use the technological tools available to you to reduce interruptions and anxiety.
Check out Stephanie’s book, Goodbye Anxiety, Hello Freedom, filled with practical tips for managing anxiety and building resilience.

Stephanie Dalfonzo was the very first automated voice back in the 1980s when she was Celebrity Radio DJ “Stevie Knox,” Back then, she “hypnotized” her listeners to come back day after day. For the past 15 years, as an Integrative Hypnotist, she’s been using her voice to literally hypnotize her clients into making incredible life changes. One fear of flying client now has a successful business as The Five Foot Traveler, she’s helped countless female entrepreneurs create a life and business they love! Stephanie is also the author of Goodbye Anxiety, Hello Freedom, available on Amazon.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Kellie Wagner (founder of DEI consultancy and research lab Collective) to talk about the future of diversity, equity, and inclusion, creating “brave” spaces for growth, navigating the fuzzy line between discomfort and pain, and what we have to gain when we prioritize healthy, authentic, inclusive workplaces.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Kellie’s founder story begins as many do—with the desire to solve a problem that she herself was experiencing: that across industries, many people (especially women and people of color) spend too much energy dealing with the feeling that they don’t belong and aren’t seeing themselves represented in company culture
Too many people feel that to be seen as competent, they need to act like someone else . . . and it’s so socialized into certain people that even in environments that support authenticity, they still try to conform to an outside standard.
What could you create if you weren’t spending your time and energy being palatable to other people and trying to be heard?
When it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion work, sometimes the focus is on “what do I have to lose”: i.e., I don’t want to lose good employees, I don’t want to get it “wrong”, I don’t want to be publicly shamed. Which is fine . . . but it’s only the start. What do companies have to GAIN? We don’t have to view DEI work as something that takes time away from the vision and business goals and objectives - but something that can be layered on TOP of those things to make the business even more successful and impactful.
AND ALSO - beyond the compelling and well-researched business case for DEI work, founders have two opportunities when starting a company: 1) solving a problem in the world through your product or service, and 2) an opportunity to build a culture and workplace where people feel inspired and support and WANT to come. How do you want people to feel when they spend time in a place that you created? What you have to gain… is a LEGACY.
Do you care about diverse representation in your company or in media? When recruiting, make sure you are treating the person as an INDIVIDUAL, not a representative of a certain group. Also, sometimes companies have a tendency to focus so much on recruiting that they forget the necessity of creating a culture that is welcoming and inclusive to all. Basically, if you build it, they will come.
There’s no easy, consistent line between productive discomfort and actual pain when it comes to digging into complex issues. Kellie’s mentor has a helpful framework: sameness is safety, and difference is growth (and possibly “danger”) - and there’s a spectrum of where difference feels like growth and when it feels dangerous. Especially for the facilitation of tough conversations, it’s important to monitor the room for when we may need to pull people back into a place of safety so that they can recharge their batteries to go back into growth mode.
There’s no such thing as a fully “safe” space that leads to growth. Instead, we aim for brave spaces (for growth and leaning into productive discomfort) and healing spaces (for recharging and processing).
In a difficult year that also saw explosive growth for her company, Kellie had to process guilt over success seeming to come out of the suffering of her community—but ultimately she was reminded that this has been her mission since the beginning, and that it took tragedy for the world to wake up to the problem was not her responsibility or fault. Entrepreneurs solve problems they see that often many others don’t.
VVT Lesson: What happens in uncomfortable conversations? Sometimes, we go "primal". Understanding our goals when fear enters the picture is key to making difficult conversation work better.

Kellie Wagner is a consultant, speaker, and the founder of Collective, a national diversity, equity, and inclusion consultancy and research lab focused on shifting how companies build, grow, engage, and retain diverse teams in today’s world.

After nearly a decade working at fast-paced tech startups like Meetup and DoSomething.org, Kellie helps high-growth organizations address common culture problems hindering their diversity efforts. Having worked with dozens of startups as they evaluate issues of DEI from the ground up, Collective takes a human-centered, research-driven approach to building inclusion and equity into the foundation of organizations. Kellie's cornerstone research and practical work is centered around three objectives– understanding how to best engage effectively across difference both interpersonally and as a team, how to engender trust on diverse teams, and how to empower diverse perspectives and backgrounds to foster a culture of belonging.

Kellie has been featured in Forbes, AlleyWatch, and VentureFizz, and speaks regularly at businesses and conferences, including Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Culture Amp’s Culture Conference, HR Redefined Conference, The Muse, Deloitte, and The Wing. She’s a graduate of NYU's Managing Workplace Diversity & Inclusion program, holds an MFA from The New School, and sits on the board of Experience Camps, a free grief camp for kids who have experienced loss.

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Casey and Julie sit down with Eva Jannotta, founder of Simply Put Strategies, to talk all things thought leadership, influence, social media, legacy, and the real secret to successful marketing.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Your thought leadership is your legacy
Decide what you are creating FIRST before you start to figure out how to market it.
Figure out your likes and dislikes! Thought leadership doesn't exist in neutral.
Your thing will be constantly evolving- how you speak about something today will be different than the future, but that is no reason to keep quiet NOW.
Fill your cup with what is meaningful to YOU to sustain yourself.
You DON'T NEED TO DO ALL THE THINGS. When it comes to social media, subtraction is better. Choose the channel that best suits you, and let the rest go.

Eva Jannotta helps women leaders defy the status quo, amplify our influence and expand our wealth and power through thought leadership strategy, advisory and marketing. Clients have included women entrepreneur's mentor Ali Brown, diversity and inclusion advisor Stacey Gordon, women's leadership speaker Selena Rezvani and more. Her Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to end gender and racial discrimination. Eva grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland and now lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her partner.

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Julie and Casey sit down with speaker, author, top LinkedIn Learning instructor, and expert in how organizations can support women at work Selena Rezvani (who they met while working with her on her award-winning TEDx Talk “Interrupting Gender Bias Through Meeting Culture”) to talk about the necessity of bringing the “full color” version of yourself to work, dealing with Imposter Syndrome, and deeply practical strategies to make your presence felt. Along the way, they talk about the necessity of knowing what is and what is NOT the individual’s work in creating more inclusive work culture, and rewriting the prevailing “hero narratives” at your office.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Selena spent lots of time in rooms where she was one of the few, or the only, woman of color. So often, the response to this is either to try to Rubik’s Cube ourselves into fitting in, or step back and disappear. Selena finally realized that to make the impact she wanted to make, she had to SHOW UP.
Who is a leader? It doesn’t depend on your title, age, seniority, or experience. Are you bringing your full spectrum of contributions to solve problems?
Especially because we know that the pandemic is disproportionately affecting women’s careers (caregiving, etc), we need more than ever to make sure we’re not “muting” our presence in an organization. Where are the decisions being made? Am I in those meetings? What is important around here today, and how can I tie some of my voice, my contributions directly to that?
The better you know your environment, the easier it becomes to ask “what are they craving right now? What’s at the top of their minds?”
As long as we’re all isolated working from home, we have to CONSCIOUSLY reach out to connect with people.
The cultures where people can truly show up and do their best work are “low-assumption cultures” - where we remain curious and don’t assume that we know what other people want, need, or think.
High assumption cultures often reward certainty as a leadership quality, which tends to lead to over-confidence being adopted as a path to leadership. What if we adopted a beginner’s mindset instead?
Individuals can show up with awesome, progressive leadership values, but the culture ultimately decides what is valued. What are the hero stories in your workplace? If companies want to incentivize particular behaviors, those behaviors need to be part of the narrative too.
Imposter syndrome can feel like driving with a nervous, doubting passenger who is constantly second-guessing your every move and decision. Sometimes, that can lead us to never take risks at all—but what if instead, we valorized the “face-plant” moments as an integral, beautiful, necessary part of the journey?
“You can’t overestimate what everyone else can do, and chronically UNDERESTIMATE what you can do."
There is no question that, for many people, it can feel or BE unsafe to be fully authentic at work. This is part of what makes the “Diet Pepsi” (diluted, small, safe) version of ourselves seductive—it makes us feel like we can’t be punished or fail. But if your presence isn’t felt, it also won’t be MISSED.
The work of finding and implementing that “full color” version of ourselves requires self-knowledge and continual exploration—like cultivating a garden, it’s never “done”.
Connect with what REALLY lights you up, and evaluate whose opinion matters and on what scale it matters.
You don’t always have to be the “inconvenienced one” in order to keep the peace or be the good girl. Look at those sub-optimal situations and ask yourself what would make it better. Asking may be easier than you think!
Power comes when you feel like your 400% belong. Selena believes in creating those conditions in herself: “I know this. I prepared. I can do this.”
Even for someone as poised and polished as Selena, she believes that the moments of vulnerability onstage are usually the most powerful.
Lesson: Creating a ritual around showing up with your full presence - what to do before, during, and after a big presentation or other presence-intensive moment.

Selena Rezvani is a recognized author, speaker, and consultant on leadership. Her debut book, The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won't Learn in Business School (Praeger, 2009) identifies the need for Generation X and millennial women to be seen as a viable talent pool and leadership pipeline.

Her newest book, Pushback: How Smart Women Ask — and Stand Up — for What They Want (Jossey-Bass, 2012) focuses on the unmatched power of negotiation skills in women's career advancement, and was recognized with an Axiom Business Book Award.

She is a Philadelphia Magazine and Forbes.com blogger and former commentator on NPR's nationally syndicated 'The 51% Perspective'. In addition, Rezvani wrote an award-winning column on women and leadership for The Washington Post. In 2018, she gave a TEDx talk entitled Interrupting Gender Bias Through Meeting Culture, which was recognized with a Croly Journalism Award.

Rezvani's professional speaking credits include the following organizations, among many others: SAP, Microsoft, Harvard University, The Clinton Foundation, eBay, Accenture, Johnson & Johnson, GoDaddy, Princeton University, and the Forte Foundation Conference.

Selena also provides strategic consulting for clients who want to implement inclusion strategies with a focus on the advancement of women. She received her Bachelor of Science and Master of Social Work degrees from New York University, and has an MBA from Johns Hopkins, where she received the Edward Stegman CPA Memorial Award for Academic Excellence.

Pushback: How Smart Women Ask--and Stand Up--for What They Want

The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won't Learn in Business School

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Julie and Casey sit down with Master Chiller Audrey Holst, founder of Fortitude and Flow, to talk all things perfectionism and burnout—and how to find our way through, back to ourselves.

Top Takeaways:

Perfectionism is a survival mechanism...but what got you here, won't get you there.
Perfectionism isn't just limited to the people who seem "perfect". It's an internal experience of trying to prove yourself as worthy in a world that benefits from keeping that knowledge from you, deeply rooted in Patriarchy and Capitalism.
Individualism is counter to how we are built as humans. We are designed to work collectively, and collective resilience is more powerful than individual resilience.
Getting out of perfectionism is not about mindset or manifesting. It's about getting out of your head and into your perception.
Your perception is in your body. Your body not an afterthought to the brain! It's a whole system of perceiving and functioning in the world that actually informs the brain.
Noticing is the first and most important step.

Audrey Holst helps people reform their perfectionism so they can reclaim their agency and put their full energy into what really matters. Her work uses a combination of mindfulness and neuroscience tools and combines over a decade of experience teaching yoga with deep knowledge of the nervous system and extensive training and work as a Certified Professional Coach through the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC). Through her Fortitude & Flow® Process, Audrey guides individuals and groups through a holistic experience to shift the way they approach themselves and the things that matter to them – for good.

Audrey’s upcoming book You’re Not Perfect — And Here’s How to Deal With That teaches people how to tap into their unique Operating System to un-velcro from the status quo and reclaim their agency. She leads a virtual membership collective that works with the lunar calendar called Renew, which prioritizes healing, rest, self-care, and community. Her 1:1 work with clients in Emerge reconnect and heal their relationships with their Operating Systems through intensive support and custom-designed practices.

Audrey’s work pushes back on the spiritual bypassing and mindset-is-everything narrative that is rampant in the coaching and wellness industry. Perfectionism is a manufactured distraction designed to keep people from reclaiming their energy and agency while upholding Systems of Oppression. It’s time for something new.

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Julie and Casey sit down with their brilliant business coach, Tosca DiMatteo, to talk about authenticity in business and marketing, her own “leap” moment away from corporate and toward her new mission, and being a truth-seeker. Along the way, they’ll discuss why it’s so hard to ask for help, and what it really means (and why it's difficult) to “hold space”.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Can marketing be truth-seeking? Yes, when brands connect to their original missions and core understanding of why people come to them.
Brands embracing social positions - the benefits of being polarizing.
Sometimes standing up for what you believe in means NOT having the direct confrontation over messaging but about doing the work in other tangible ways. What is most visible isn’t always real, and isn’t always most effective.
“What do I not want to leave on the table before I leave this world?” - the question that ultimately inspired Tosca to jump the corporate ship.
Sometimes you need to have the epiphany that you CAN’T do it by yourself - that you need support and you need an outside eye.
There are all kinds of reasons why it’s difficult to reach out for help: “do it yourself/bootstraps culture”, organizations that don’t support reaching out, burnout, or a lack of ability/time/energy to do a real “needs assessment” on yourself. What do I NEED is sometimes the hardest question to ask (until things get really bad).
A very non-corporate idea: magic. We live in a world that majors on process and hard work, but when we can honor our needs and our bodies, we can allow for magic.
In Tosca’s coaching practice, the right tool for the moment comes when she’s not attached to a particular outcome for the client, and also because she’s done her own work on herself to try on new ways of thinking.
Sometimes the hardest part for ambitious people is accepting your own pushing off point for the work you want to do. Meeting yourself—and other people—where they are can be a challenge, but it’s necessary.
Lesson: boundaries for coaches, boundaries for people being coached, the toxic pursuit of the “a-ha!” moment, and the murky territory between discomfort and pain

Tosca DiMatteo is a certified coach who supports working professionals and businesses to experience transformational change in their lives and organizations. Her mission is to detoxify workplace environments through advocacy, empowerment, shifting mindsets and supporting clients to approach difficult situations from a connected heart and mind.

Tosca helps her clients stand in their full power, find clarity, expand their impact, and improve communication and messaging, which results in her clients owning their truth and dreaming big. As a former marketing executive, she brings strategic and branding principles to life, while ensuring plans will work where the rubber meets the road.

Her qualifications and certifications include:

20+ years in the Marketing field (B2C and B2B) in blue-chip companies on iconic brands including Unilever, Kimberly Clark, Absolut Vodka and Univision.
Michigan State University, MBA in Marketing
ICF Certified Coach
Guest speaker at top universities including NYU and University at Buffalo

Find out more about Tosca and her content here:

Website: https://toscadimatteo.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toscadimatteo/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toscadimatteo/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-xxxFfEe1IsnljUI52R2eA/

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Casey and Julie sit down with Beatriz Ayala (founder of Musicasa) to talk about her journey from the world of advertising to her creation of Musicasa. Her story takes us all over the world, and reminds us that connecting to pleasure, purpose and love help us connect better with each other.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

The balance between doing and pleasure is not neat or easily defined. Sometimes it's the highest highs that balance the lowest lows.
Choose people around you who recognize your potential.
Learn to receive. Learning to receive is just as much a part of the journey as what you give.
Create a "showing up" culture, where people can show up for themselves, and therefore show up for the collective.
If you make a decision today and it's out of alignment tomorrow, you can change your mind!
Setting your intentions and purpose will help plant seeds of your path for the future in many mysterious ways.

About Beatriz: "I've been referred to as a spark plug more times that I can count. I am high energy; my drive, passion, strategic wit, and love for music are the forces behind my latest venture, Musicasa. Musicasa is a tech music startup with aim to pioneer the future of live entertainment. With a focus on music, we help undiscovered musicians gain more visibility, exposure, and monetization opportunities through intimate, community driven, and highly curated intimate home concerts. We leverage the power of music to drive human connection. We launched on November 2019 and are currently 100% focused on virtual experiences. Check us out at www.musicasaa.com

I am also an award-winning Advertising and Communications executive. I spent 10 years in the corporate world working for global and local agencies co-leading the planning, media and creative initiatives for larger-than-life brands such as P&G, Cover Girl, Pantene, Downy, Medalla Light, Bacardi, Snickers, M&M’s, Pedigree, and Hyundai for the US Hispanic market, Central America, the Caribbean, and Puerto Rico. I've co-led key culture-driven strategies and initiatives, business operations, and new business development.

I am a connector; I value creating meaningful relationships, and championing others throughout their journey. I am idealistic, daring, and see possibilities everywhere."

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Julie and Casey sit down with Sam and Pauli, (our co-founder dopplegangers!) from Crew Events (crew-events.com).

Gatherings are on our minds. Sam and Pauli take us on a journey of what makes an event memorable: how to engage emotions, senses, and other unexpected mediums to make your events a gathering to remember.

We also get to share the very special relationship and magic of a co-founder small biz relationship, talk authenticity, and get to have some deep connections as we head into a holiday season like no other.

Top Takeaways:

Events NEED to have an emotional connection, or what's the point?
You can use all five senses to create connection- use your creativity! (Sam and Pauli give some ideas)
Thinking Surprise/Delight or Shock/Awe: using down to the last detail to create something people will be talking about FOR you.
Events are an investment- and a learning curve. Don't panic if it takes time!
The co-founder relationship will make or break you- find someone you trust, or find a way to create that trust.

SAMANTHA (SAM) WEINGLASS, CMP

Favorite Weekend Activities:
Running in Central Park, chasing after my 2 kids, and mixing up some of Sami's Signature Sangria

Most Memorable Events To Date:
2009 AOL Spin-Off
2016 Democratic Debate

A Jersey girl with a New York edge, Weinglass found her passion for events early on, leading her to the University of Florida to earn a degree in Event Management and to college internships for esteemed event companies, BizBash Media and BKA (now FIRST Agency). After graduation, Weinglass moved to NYC, where she continued her love fest for events at AOL. As part of the Corporate Events team, Weinglass was responsible for the planning and execution of large scaled events such as the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Media Center, AOL’s spin off from Time Warner at the NYSE, and client hospitality programs and sponsorship executions at CES, SXSW, and the Oscars.

In 2012, she took on a new and challenging role at Univision, where she helped establish the Event Marketing department from the ground up and led a team responsible for producing a range of internal and external events. At Univision, Weinglass worked on events such as the Latin Grammy Awards, the network’s annual Upfront, consumer promotions for premieres, a client program at the World Cup in Brazil, as well as numerous sponsorship executions for notable brands such as McDonalds, T-Mobile, Cover Girl, Dr. Pepper and Verizon.

Most recently, Weinglass left the comforts of corporate America, hand in hand with her best friend and partner-in-crime, both in business and in life, Paulina Tapia Lee, to start Crew Events.

During Weinglass’ 14+ years in the industry, she has earned the reputation of a collaborative and innovative event expert with a keen eye for detail. She is a mastermind when it comes to bringing a brand’s story to life and has a proven track record of producing results.

Outside of planning events, Weinglass is a wife and mother of two wild and crazy toddlers. She lives in Manhattan, and while she was born and raised by the Jersey shore, she is obsessed with the unmatched energy of life in the city.

PAULINA (PAULI) TAPIA LEE

Favorite Weekend Activities:
Yoga, gardening, and exploring Brooklyn's best cocktail bars

Most Memorable Events To Date:
2014 World Cup
2018 Univision Upfront

With more than a decade of experience strategizing, planning, and executing mid to large scale events, Lee started her career as a corporate events intern at AOL and quickly fell in love with the creativity, adrenaline and relationships she was able to build through her role. Her goal since then was to not only gain experience in the corporate world but also engage in-house clients in a way to clearly understand business goals and how to obtain them through events.

As her role evolved and expanded at AOL, she planned, directed and executed events with vastly different scopes; from a 15-day, 10-events execution at SXSW, to a 32-country global employee volunteer day. After three years with AOL, Lee made the switch to advance her career with the Spanish-language broadcast network, Univision. During her time there, she helped develop an award-winning event marketing department producing global events. During her six year tenure, she managed a team that supported both B2B and B2C events, as well as CEO initiatives. Furthermore, earning recognition and nomination as a rising female leader in the company through the Women’s Leadership Academy at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Throughout her career, Lee has produced best-in-class events alongside her best friend and business partner, Samantha Weinglass. Moreover, sparking a continued relationship and co-founding Crew Events, which has seen growth since its inception in 2018.

Lee was born in Mexico City, Mexico and moved with her family to the United States in 1991 in pursuit of the American dream. She grew up in McAllen, Texas and is a graduate of Stephens College with a BS in Marketing: Public Relations & Advertising. Currently, Lee lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband, Daniel, and their two fur-babies, Squid & Ziggy.

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Julie and Casey chat with expert Manual Laryngeal Therapist Christine Schneider (who works with professional "vocal athletes" and saved Casey from the migraines caused by her Very Weird Jaw) about our weird and wonderful bodies and how interconnected everything within actually is. Along the way, we dive into emotional storage, what keeps us from accessing our full voices, nervous system safety, effort vs ease, and why you should probably consider hugging a tree right now.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

The TMJ is the most used joint in the entire body. (No wonder our jaws are a MESS.)
Everything in the body is connected, literally, and in multiple ways. What affects one area will ripple throughout the body.
Emerging research is showing visible light patterns that flash through the fascia—and some neuroscientists believe that they may actually be photographing our CONSCIOUSNESS.
We carry and store emotions in our body. The mind, the body, and the emotions are all connected, therefore practitioners need to allow the body to lead the way in processing trauma.
You can't declare a safe space before actually creating one.
Our voices are the vehicle by which our heart and soul enters the world.
Our nervous system is ALWAYS asking one question above all: “How safe am I?”
Advice for managing our current “touch crisis”
Why minimum effort/maximum ease is our goal with the body and voice
Vocal injuries are common and nothing to be ashamed of— ESPECIALLY for professional voice users with extreme demands on their bodies. If you fall into that category, make sure you assemble your team to keep your voice healthy!
You heart has a brain. No, seriously.
This week’s lesson: the four-step journey through your physical voice—impulse, breath, vibration, resonance. See vocal cords in action here.

Christine Schneider has been a pioneer for manual laryngeal therapy in the US for almost a decade. Her private practice in NYC, LifeLight Massage Therapy PLLC, specializes in laryngeal and TMJ treatments for professional voice users. Working alongside New York’s top Laryngologists, Speech Pathologists and Voice teachers, she provides the manual component for vocal rehabilitation and vocal health maintenance. In addition to her practice, she created The Visceral Voice, a program and podcast which bring her passion and knowledge for vocal health and anatomy to the wide variety of vocal athletes throughout the world.

With the Barral Institute, Christine also has extensive training in Visceral Components of the Neck and Thorax, Visceral Manipulation, and Neuromeningeal Manipulation. Her other specializations include Myofascial Assessment and Release, Treatment of Whiplash and Related Disorders, and CranioSacral Therapy.

Graduating from Oklahoma City University with a Bachelor’s in Music in both Vocal Performance and French Horn Performance, Christine’s first expression of love for the voice was as a professional performer all around the world. She is a proud member of SAG/AFTRA, AEA, AGVA, and is a Voting Member for PAVA (Pan American Vocology Association). She is also The head of Research and on the Advisory Board for The Academy of Noise.

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Julie and Casey chat with DC-based multipreneur, feminist business coach, and invisible labor expert Rachel Wynn about the feminine economy, the difference between emotional and invisible labor, who cleans out the fridge, and simple strategies for a division of labor at home that doesn’t make you resent your partner. Along the way, they learn about the time when the USA had nationalized childcare and the definition of F.L.E.B.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

The Feminine Economy proposes a new model for doing business based in feminist principles: collaboration, interdependence, generosity, and equity.
The US has a TERRIBLE track record of policies that actually help working women, pregnant people, and working families, but it wasn’t always the case.
The phrase "emotional labor" was coined by sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her 1983 book The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, and refers to "a situation where the way a person manages his or her emotions is regulated by a work-related entity in order to shape the state of mind of another individual, such as a customer.”
Invisible labor refers to unpaid work that goes unnoticed, unacknowledged, and thus, unregulated. In recent years, “invisible labor” has become shorthand for the household maintenance and child-rearing activities that women, primarily in cisgender, heterosexual relationships, find themselves bearing the brunt of. This common usage gets its roots from the work of Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild, says Cherry. Even as more women began working outside the home in the latter half of the 20th century, Hochschild found they were still picking up the bulk of household and childcare duties when they got home after their "official" work day. In 1989, Hochschild coined the term "the second shift" to describe that extra labor, which was generally unpaid and unrecognized. If you want to make a shift in the division of labor in your household, it’s important to acknowledge the cultural factors at play and how society reinforces traditional gender roles (i.e. many men aren’t taught how to do these things, but they can learn!). Then you can get clear on exactly what needs done (make a list!), and when dividing that list, make sure that it’s equitable (it’s not about the NUMBER of tasks, it’s about the frequency and duration).
Division of labor issues doesn’t just affect cisgender, heterosexual couples, or families with children. These principles apply to all types of relationships, including roommates and business partners.
Resources from Rachel: The Feminine Economy Model, Emma - You Should Have Asked, Overwhelmed

Rachel Wynn is a creative entrepreneur and founder of Starlight Social (est. 2015) where she and her team of 5 amazing women help businesses and brands implement social media and influencer strategies to drive website traffic, engagement, and follower growth.

While scaling her first business, Rachel launched Feminist Founder (est. 2016), where she offers feminist business coaching to help women get clarity on their dream entrepreneur lifestyle and create more balance in their homes through invisible labor consulting.

Wynn earned her B.A. in Business, Media, and Communications from Gettysburg College and has extensive experience in sales, event planning, and community management. She currently lives in a DC co-op near Malcolm X Park with her partner, David, and dog-child, Rufus on Piscataway territory that was stolen from the Nacotchtanks during North American colonization.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Rahaf Harfoush, author of Hustle and Float to discuss her unusual journey to her speaking and writing career, reimagining work culture for creatives, burnout, and the impossible pursuit of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Following the breadcrumbs of opportunity and listening to your intuition can lead you on some amazing adventures
Burnout comes from trying to satisfy our obsession with productivity and our systems which were not designed for creatives. Burnout is real, and comes with a delightful range of scary physical and emotional symptoms.
Just because you CAN do all the things doesn't mean you should.
You are not your job. Your worth is not dependent on productivity or any other external signifier.
Is Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer the ultimate example of authenticity?

Rahaf Harfoush is a Strategist, Digital Anthropologist, and Best-Selling Author who focuses on the intersections between emerging technology, innovation, and digital culture. She is the Executive Director of the Red Thread Institute of Digital Culture and teaches “Innovation & Emerging Business Models” at Sciences Politique’s school of Management and Innovation in Paris. She is currently working on her fourth book.

Her third book, entitled “Hustle & Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed with Work,” was released in 2019. She has been featured by Bloomberg, The CBC, CTV, and Forbes for her work on workplace culture.

Formerly, Rahaf was the Associate Director of the Technology Pioneer Program at the World Economic Forum in Geneva where she helped identify disruptive-startups that were improving the state of the world.

Rahaf is the co-author of “The Decoded Company: Know Your Talent Better Than You Know your Customers” It was published in early 2014 and was listed on both the New York Times and USA Today best seller lists. It won a 2015 Gold Axiom Award for Best Business Technology Book. The Decoded Company explores how big data is providing an unprecedented opportunity for organizations to dramatically improve their decision making, increase their performance and, most importantly, intentionally create happy and vibrant work cultures.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Maria Yuan of Issue Voter to talk all things political engagement: the what, the how and the impact.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

How Issue Voter can help you sift through and engage with your reps and what's important to you.
Why the primaries are a critical time to choose candidates that represent you
Forget petitions- Maria tells us what and who your reps are really listening for (it might not be what you think).
What to say to your reps to get them to pay attention to issues you care about.
How issues with overwhelming voter support can still fail in congress.

Julie gives a short lesson at the end on the art and power of debate, and the two elements that are crucial to balance.

Bio: Maria Yuan is passionate about fixing significant, systemic problems by leveraging creativity and determination to achieve world-changing results and impact. As the Founder of IssueVoter, our mission is to give everyone a voice in our representative democracy. Individuals from all 435 Congressional Districts already use IssueVoter and we have sent over two million alerts to individuals and opinions back to Congress. IssueVoter has motivated Americans to vote, stay informed, and make their voices heard between elections, when the real work that affects our lives gets done. IssueVoter also collaborates with organizations to engage and activate their communities in impactful ways.

Maria's political experience includes introducing and passing a bill as a constituent, working for a Representative, and managing and winning one of the most targeted races in Iowa - an open seat in a swing district. Maria's professional experience includes investment banking, strategy, corporate development, recruiting, social enterprise, and consulting. She currently serves on the Bridge Alliance Board of Directors and Keep Families Giving Foundation Advisory Board and has served on the boards of Gibney Dance, The University of Texas Co-Op, and Friends of the Children New York.

Maria's interviews and writing have appeared in Real Clear Politics, The Hill, PBS, MTV, Fast Company, and more, and she has spoken at conferences, companies, and universities across the U.S. on civic engagement, technology, and democracy. Maria earned degrees from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania and The University of Texas at Austin.

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Julie and Casey chat with Tech Humanist, Optimistic Futurist, and in-demand keynote speaker Kate O’Neill about the future of technology. As the lines between the digital and physical worlds blur, as AI, automation, algorithms, and data mining increasingly affect our lives, how can we prepare for the future? Along the way, Kate gives us insight into virtual presenting, what it’s like to go viral, why you should think pretty hard before posting those “viral challenges”, and revealing hidden truths without feeding conspiracy theories.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Optimism is not about ignoring the bad stuff, it’s about envisioning and working towards the good.
Virtual Keynotes are a great leveler and an opportunity for more immediate and purposeful audience connection.
Every opportunity to be authentic is a strategic choice.
How can we expect to build products for all of humanity if we don’t have a wide representation of human experience in the room?
Data is important because humans create data, and because it represents what we find meaningful. We need to get savvier about how companies are using our data, and about what we give them to use.
Sometimes, you gotta reject “A to Z” in favor of “A to . . . Kumquat”

Kate O’Neill is known as “the Tech Humanist.” She is helping humanity prepare for an increasingly tech-driven future by teaching business how to make technology that’s better for humans.

Kate has led innovations across technology, marketing, and operations for more than 20 years in companies from startups to Fortune 500s. Among her prior achievements, she created the first content management role at Netflix; developed Toshiba America’s first intranet; led cutting-edge online optimization work at Magazines.com; was founder & CEO of [meta]marketer, a first-of-its-kind analytics and digital strategy agency; and held leadership and advisory positions in a variety of digital content and technology startups.

Kate is a favorite keynote speaker for audiences of leaders from companies such as Google, Etsy, Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Cisco, Adobe, Kelly Services, and Charles Schwab, as well as the city of Amsterdam, the University of Cambridge, and the United Nations. Her insights and expertise have been featured in outlets like WIRED, and she has appeared as an expert commentator on the likes of BBC, NPR, Marketplace, and NBC News.

Kate now lives in New York City, where she writes prolifically and contributes to numerous outlets on an eclectic array of topics, but her primary focus as both a writer and speaker is on the future of meaningful human experiences. Kate’s most recent book is Tech Humanist: How You Can Make Technology Better for Business and Better for Humans, and she now hosts a weekly live program and podcast called The Tech Humanist Show.

More about Kate: www.koinsights.com

Follow Kate on Twitter: @kateo

Watch/listen to The Tech Humanist: https://www.thetechhumanist.com

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Julie and Casey sit down with Cindy Gallop to learn the secret to saying what you really think. Along the way they discuss all kinds of "taboo" subjects, including ageism, anger, the future of porn and social sex, what the tech bros get so very wrong, why Cindy can't get funding for her world-changing startup, and how she plans to bring about world peace.

TOP TAKEAWAYS —

Be your own filter to attract “your” people and repel the ones who don’t get you.
The future of business is doing good and making money simultaneously.
Her company, Make Love/Not Porn, came out of her real-life experience with the consequences of the convergence of two real world problems: our inability to talk about sex, and the ubiquitousness of access to hard core pornography. Her giant goal is to socialize real world sex and good sexual practices and values, so that we can talk about it both in public and in private.
When you concept a venture around existing bias and prejudices, you only reenforce them. You have to build the future into your product from the beginning, and you design with enormous respect for your community.
Ageism affects EVERYONE at every single point along the age spectrum.
“Sexual harassment has kept out of leadership and power the women leaders who would MAKE diversity and inclusion happen”—and it’s time to both legitimize women’s anger and encourage men to get angry about it too.
Identify your values so that you can act upon them - then, instead of worrying about being brave or feeling confident, you simply act in the way that honors that.
Women should “bullshit like the men do”, because chances are, you’ll just finally be giving your talent, experience, and brilliance what they’re worth.
VITAL VOICE TRAINING COMMUNICATION SKILL: Define your communication core values to understand your habits and make powerful choices to show up the way you want to be seen in the world.

Cindy’s 2017 Keynote for the 3% Conference— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruowB5L33gY

Cindy’s TED Talk— https://www.ted.com/talks/cindy_gallop_make_love_not_porn

CINDY GALLOP is a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, whose background is over 30 years in brand-building, marketing and advertising - she started up the US office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in New York in 1998 and in 2003 was named Advertising Woman of the Year. She is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, co-action software launched in beta at TED 2010 and subsequently written up and taught as a Harvard Business School case study, which enables brands to implement the business model of the future – Shared Values + Shared Action = Shared Profit (financial and social). She is also the founder of MakeLoveNotPorn – ‘Pro-sex. Pro-porn. Pro-knowing the difference’ - a social sextech platform designed to promote good sexual behavior and good sexual values, which she launched at TED 2009, and for which she has raised $2million to build out mlnp.tv as ‘the Social Sex Revolution’. As a result of the funding challenges she has encountered, she is raising the world’s first and only sextech fund, AllTheSky Holdings. She acts as board advisor to a number of tech ventures and works as a personal brand/life/executive coach and a consultant on brand and business innovation for companies around the world, describing her consultancy approach as 'I like to blow shit up. I am the Michael Bay of business.' BusinessInsider named her one of 15 Most Important Marketing Strategy Thinkers Today, alongside Malcolm Gladwell and Seth Godin, and cited her as number 33 on their list of 100 Most Influential Tech Women On Twitter, and number one on their list of Top 30 People In Advertising To Follow On Twitter. Campaign named her number one on their list of Top 10 Trailblazers for both 2016 and 2017 and number two in 2018. She has a reputation as a highly compelling and inspirational speaker at conferences and events around the world on a variety of topics: her talks on the future of advertising and marketing have been tweeted as: ‘The most brilliant speech on the future of advertising ever – not the usual buzzword-laden bullshit’; ‘Watching @cindygallop slice and dice the ad industry status quo like a ginsu knife. #purewin’; and ‘There must be a DeLorean parked outside, because Cindy Gallop is from the FUTURE!’ InfluencerCon NYC introduced her as ‘Cindy Gallop is the truth Jack Nicholson told Tom Cruise he couldn’t handle.’ Together with Susan Credle of FCB and Margaret Johnson of Goodby, Cindy is one of three Campaign Review Committee chairs for the AdCouncil in the US, helping to make the work great. Cindy is an outspoken advocate of diversity and inclusion in advertising, tech and business - she was Jury President at CannesLions 2015 for the inaugural Glass Lion awards, proposed by Sheryl Sandberg to celebrate advertising that shatters gender stereotypes in advertising, and in 2017 was turned by digital agency R/GA into a chatbot for Equal Pay Day that helps women ask for a raise – search AskCindyGallop on Facebook and chat to CindyBot on Facebook Messenger. Cindy recently partnered with AARP on their DisruptAging initiative to challenge and change ageism. Cindy has published ‘Make Love Not Porn: Technology’s Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior’ as one of TED’s line of TEDBooks. You can follow her on Twitter @cindygallop.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Hetal Jani, founder of SPEAK Mentorship, to discuss the power of names, the power of saying your name with pride, and what we lose when people don’t try to get it right (and gain when they do). Along the way we’ll get into Bollywood, growing up between two cultures, and what her organization is doing to Support, Prepare, and Empower Aspiring Kids.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Our names hold immense power - they’re not just a collection of sounds, they’re a representation of our identity. When someone gets your name wrong, you almost become a different person.
Growing up between two cultures is not unusual in the US - but it’s particularly tough on teenage children of immigrants when they and their families don’t get access to the unspoken “Culture Code” of how to succeed in the dominant culture.
If you interact with someone with an “unusual name” (and really, what’s unusual? But we digress.), taking the time to ask them how they’d like it pronounced and PRACTICE getting it right is one fundamental part of creating psychological safety and true inclusion in any space. By getting it wrong (especially repeatedly), you telegraph that you don’t care. Don’t be that person.
All languages have a “library” of sounds within them - often where we trip up on names is when they include sounds that our lips, teeth, and tongue aren’t used to. The good news is that you can learn how to make these sounds - it’ll just take some practice!
Your name - like your body, your voice, and your ideas - deserves to take up space in the world. Join us, Hetal, and the #speakingmyname campaign on June 16th, and post a video of you pronouncing your name on social media.

HETAL JANI (she/her/hers) is a first generation South Asian American and New York City native, which has colored her experience as an educator and her interest in how culture, society, and interpersonal relationships affect people’s development. As the Founding Executive Director of SPEAK Mentorship, a nonprofit that ensures all individuals have the means to achieve personal and professional goals, Hetal develops youth of diverse backgrounds into future workforce leaders by bridging social support and opportunity gaps in their lives and giving them the tools to lift up their communities. For this work, she was honored as a 2019 L'Oreal Paris Women of Worth and a 2020 Daily Points of Light. She also holds a Bachelors in Behavioral Neuroscience from Lehigh University, a Masters in Psychology from Queens College of New York, an MBA from IE University, and a Masters in Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she received the distinguished Intellectual Contribution award . Her life’s work involves developing a person’s unique voice and empowering marginalized communities to achieve whole person success. She proudly furthers this mission by serving on the board of the New York Chapter of the New Leaders Council, and as a Council of Urban Professionals fellow and Coro Leadership New York alum.

Episode cover photo by Nilaya Sabnis for L'oreal Paris USA

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Julie and Casey chat with Miracle Olatunji (an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and speaker who happens to be a 20-year-old college student) about the power of finding your purpose and owning your story, what it's like to be a role model, how to deal with being "the only" in the room, and the mindset of going after what you want without "self-rejecting" first.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

“People say ‘Oh, you’re fearless’, but being fearless isn’t the absence of fear, it’s acknowledging the fear and finding ways around it.” - Miracle Olatunji
When you’re writing a rough draft, don’t expect perfection or you’ll end up with a blank page. It’s a ROUGH DRAFT.
Being a role model doesn’t mean you have to be perfect.
Imposter syndrome often comes when you are the “only” (woman/person of color/LGBTQ person, etc.) in the room . . . dealing with that has an internal component and an external component. The internal part is the only part you have some control over. The external component takes real, collective effort to change, and the work is only beginning.
Positive self-talk is a great way to influence your thoughts - but get specific as you create it. What do you need to hear from yourself as you become your own best advocate?
Optimism is about imagining and planning and working for the future you want to see, even when the future is unclear.
Technology has allowed us to forget that there are (often underpaid and poorly treated) humans doing the hard work of the apps that make our lives so much easier.
Don’t “self-reject” by not going after the opportunities that you want.

Miracle Olatunji is a student at Northeastern University, an entrepreneur, public speaker, and author of Purpose: How To Live and Lead With Impact. In high school, she founded OpportuniMe, an award-winning organization which connects youth with summer enrichment opportunities that empower them to learn about different career paths, build their skills, and ultimately, realize and reach their full potential. At Northeastern, Miracle is a finance and accounting major with a passion for entrepreneurship, technology, social impact, health & wellness, fashion, and innovation. She’s been honored as one of The Tempest's 2019 40 Women To Watch Who Are Changing The World, a Young Futurist and Game-changer, a Young Global Leadership Scholar, and her work has also been featured in Forbes, Thrive Global, Technical.ly, BostInno, The CEO Library, and other publications.

Miracle is also the founder of Her Wallet Media, a new platform for women and girls to gain knowledge and resources on the topics of building their "net worth, network, and self worth" through content, community, and coaching. She was honored as an EXTRAOrdinary Woman by Boston.gov during the International Women’s Day Celebration at City Hall. Miracle was recently part of Barbie's #YouCanBeAnything #MoreRoleModels campaign aimed at closing the dream gap and inspiring women and girls around the world. She was also part of Melinda Gates and the Harvard Business Review’s ‘Equality Can’t Wait’ campaign.

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Julie and Casey sit down with master executive coach Katia Verresen of KVA Leadership to talk all about leadership, your zone of genius, how "optimizing" can be related more to fear and anxiety than productivity, and most importantly all about the power of PLAY.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Your "zone of genius" is your super power. It needs to be nurtured with awareness, noticing, and codification.
Being generous and generative is the answer to the zero sum power game of "I win, you lose".
Fight or flight is diametrically opposed to your zone of genius. Soothing your nervous system is critical to your best thinking.
Good leadership inspires rather than commands followers.
The shadow side of "Optimization" is deep dissatisfaction
And bonus: What being an gen x'er can teach us about boredom, and why during Covid -19 it can be your friend.

Katia Verresen coaches C-suite executives and rising stars from the earliest startups to Fortune 100 companies. Her passion is to help ambitious leaders achieve their full human potential. Her practice is both in Silicon Valley and NYC with clients such as Amazon, Facebook, Figma, Spotify, Stanford Business School, Thrive Capital www.kvaleadership.com IG @katiastreasures Twitter @kvaleadership

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Julie and Casey sit down with Georgia Lee Hussey - artist turned financial planner and founder of Modernist Financial - to talk about another taboo subject: money. We learn about "money stories", "punk damage", whether it's possible to reconcile progressive values with financial success, and figuring out what you REALLY want.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Your money stories are the inherited and unconscious beliefs you have around money, and they are always pulling the strings in the background. Excavate and examine to make more empowered decisions.
"Punk damage" = the idea that all wealth and success is inherently bad. Spoiler: it ends up upholding traditional power structures.
The questions to ask are “how can I make decisions in line with my values within the structure that I exist in, and how can I work to change those structures."
It's time to update the money story of the "American Dream".
We can use down times to nurture our anxiety or to nurture our future. Investing in yourself and in your future is an empowering choice, even now.
Maybe you don’t need a vacation HOUSE. Maybe you need a VACATION.
One of most radical things we can do as creatives and entrepreneurs is build ourselves into our own budget.

Georgia Lee Hussey is the Founder and CEO of Modernist Financial, a B Corp wealth management firm dedicated to helping progressive people structure their wealth around their values. Her mission is to build a world where smart, creative people feel permission to enjoy today while providing a stable financial base for our common future. Before launching Modernist, Georgia worked for national and local financial firms as a CFP. Prior to working in finance, she was a sculptor and writer.

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Julie and Casey Zoom in the midst of the pandemic with Katie Dutcher (of Monterey Bay Meditation) to talk all things meditation, mindfulness, COVID-era Coping, and introversion.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Meditation is mindfulness, but mindfulness is not limited to meditation
Mindfulness and presence are strong coping strategies for... well, right now.
Compassion is key for the world right now. We are all fighting hard battles, personally and collectively.
How introverts are leaning into their strengths and managing physical distancing.
How build habits around small steps, ritual and pleasure.

This is a good one for our current times.

Also, RIP Bill Withers.

About Katie:

    Katie Dutcher is a mindfulness coach, teacher of meditation, and author of two workbooks,  Courage Amidst Uncertainty and  Transform Your Relationship to Anxiety. A co-founder of  Monterey Bay Meditation Studio and creator of its new online community, Katie believes that cultivating present-moment awareness is key to living a more satisfying life. Katie lives in Monterey, California with her husband, where she spends as much time as possible in the woods and by the sea.

Follow Katie on Instagram and Facebook.

Join Monterey Bay Meditation Studio's new online community and follow on Instagram and Facebook.

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Julie and Casey chat with angel investor Fran Hauser (author of Audible's Best Business Book of 2018, The Myth of the Nice Girl) about building relationships, rejecting the idea that being nice makes you weak, how to stand up for yourself, the difference between "nice" and "people pleaser", and why founders need to take care of themselves.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Being successful in business is all about relationships
You don't have to choose between being nice and being strong.
If you're a founder/entrepreneur, are you jumping ahead to business model, marketing, partnerships, etc. before making sure you have an awesome product that consumers are delighted by? You’re skipping the most important step.
Taking a breath, taking the time and energy to care for yourself and others makes the WORK better. Compassion for ourselves and for other people makes us more productive, not less, and we need to bring more of it into our professional lives.
You don’t need to be the smartest kid in fifth grade (i.e. have all the answers all by yourself). Build out your community and your network.
Nice is a superpower - its "evil twin" is people-pleasing. Know the difference, and know when to stand up for yourself.

Articles referenced:

On the culture of over-work, and how it holds both women and men back - https://hbr.org/2020/03/whats-really-holding-women-back

Gender bias in performance reviews - https://hbr.org/2017/04/how-gender-bias-corrupts-performance-reviews-and-what-to-do-about-it

Vague vs specific feedback - https://hbr.org/2016/04/research-vague-feedback-is-holding-women-back

     **Fran Hauser** is a long-time media executive, startup investor, keynote speaker and best-selling author of The Myth of the Nice Girl. She's held senior positions at some of the world’s largest digital media businesses, including PEOPLE, InStyle, Entertainment Weekly and AOL. Now a startup investor who largely invests in female founders, Fran was named one of Business Insider's "30 Women in Venture Capital to Watch in 2018." Fran and The Myth of the Nice Girl have been featured on a wide range of outlets including NBC’s Today Show, CNBC, PEOPLE, Fortune, TIME, Fast Company, Oprah.com, Business Insider, Elle, and many more. The Myth of the Nice Girl was named Audible's Best Business Book of 2018 and one of Amazon's Best Business and Leadership Books of 2018, among other accolades. Fran is a frequent speaker on women's leadership and writes a regular career advice column for Refinery29.

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Julie and Casey touch bases cross-country under shelter in place, and talk with powerhouse and wonderful human Cyndie Spiegel on how women can stop competing and support each other, what authenticity really means, developing community, and going through "the goo". More than a few F-bombs are dropped- for those with kids at home right now, we'll call this one "R" for language.

Top Takeaways:

Women are conditioned to compete with each other, but it doesn't have to be that way.
The superpower of authenticity is not about not caring what people think, it's about not giving your power away.
Sometimes wonderful things unfold, even without chasing them.
Women over 35 have experience and battle scars. They are voices to be listened to.
The reason why no one else can do the work for you and tell you what your process should be.

Bio:

Cyndie Spiegel is an igniter of powerful conversation and an aspirational voice within women’s leadership and culture. She is a commanding keynote speaker [who sometimes drops the F-bomb casually and also uses words like “manifesting” and “belonging”]. She is an innate connector, community builder and all-around truth teller on a mission to empower folks to live more boldly and refine their mindsets for good. She is a professional speaker and also the author of "A Year of Positive Thinking". (And she’s super cool.)

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Julie and Casey sit down remotely with Jennifer Dziura, founder of Get Bullish and the Bullish Conference, and key figure in their origin story. Prepare yourselves for some serious patriarchy smashing, some VERY strong opinions, a meditation on fragile bodies (and how anyone on Star Trek uses a bathroom), and a dose of no holds-barred advice on badassery. (Strong language)

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Human bodies are fragile, ridiculous meat sacks. Conference organizers should plan accordingly. Breaks! Bathrooms! Sufficient seating! And for goodness’ sake, real food.
When you’re used to people disagreeing with you with well-reasoned arguments in a formal setting, it’s hard to get riled by gross people on Twitter. (Debate team FTW)
John Stuart Mill’s theory of the “marketplace of ideas” doesn’t hold much water in the year of our lord 2020 - people don’t change their minds via well-reasoned argument (usually they just entrench further). But a “buffet of ideas” where everyone can come and take what they want might be more realistic and more feminist!
Setting up your business so you don’t have to deal with toxicity is a great way to have leftover energy to deal with toxicity in your life. (It’s also a compelling case for entrepreneurship.)

Jennifer Dziura is the founder of GetBullish, a blog about careers and business from a feminist POV, and the annual Bullish Conference. GetBullish's online shop now sells over 4,000 items, including the signature "We will dance on the graves of the patriarchy and drink the bitter tears of mediocre men" travel mug. She lives in Brooklyn and her name is pronounced "Di-ZUR-a."

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Casey and Julie sit down with Monica McCarthy - talented actor, entrepreneur, writer, and philosopher - to talk, well, all the things, from good acting to theatre history to the meaning of life, to favorite philosophers.

TOP TAKEAWAYS -

You can change your mind- whether you feel called to do something else, or something in your life just feels constricting, you have the right to change your story.
Theatre is a playing ground for exploring humanity.
Philosophy can help us build better, more self-aware lives.
Studying structure, whether in language or ideas, gives you something to embrace or push against.
If you don't see what you are looking for out there, create it.

Monica McCarthy is an actress, emerging playwright, Shakespeare coach, podcast host, community impresaria, public speaker, and messaging consultant. She is the creator and host of the live monthly events series and podcast The Happier Hour: Philosophy To Help Your Life Suck Less. Monica was previously the impresaria for popular communities like Holstee, Impact Hub, Escape The City, and the 92Y, where she has curated and facilitated thousands of events including Holstee’s Campfire Chats (on stage interviews with folks like Tim Urban, Gretchen Rubin, James Victore, and AJ Jacobs), Moonlight Society (a conversation series interviewing guests about life off the clock), 100 Days of Impact (in response to Number 45’s first 100 days in office), and Escape Mondays. Monica frequently speaks on the topic of purpose and with organizations on the value of philosophy and community, including her TEDx talk Philosophy: The Life Hack Of The Future. Monica has facilitated numerous workshops on the topic of Creativity, Purpose, and Collaboration for organizations including: the United Nations Development Programme, AirBnB, Eileen Fisher, Starwood, Global Citizen and more. She has also authored and co-authored internal and external messaging around purpose for Uber, Starwood Hotels, Brugal Rum, and Broadway Bound Kids. She prefers her bourbon neat, her coffee black, and the window seat from which she has seen 52 countries on six continents.

Website: MonicaMcCarthy.net

Instagram: @MissMMcCarthy

Twitter: @MissMMcCarthy

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Julie and Casey sit down with Rev. Dr. Courtney Pace to talk about social justice, racism and sexism within religious traditions, how to have difficult conversations, the powerful story of civil rights activist Prathia Hall, and how both faith traditions and workplaces can decentralize power and uplift everyone. And also figure skating.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

To understand people who are different from us, we have to understand intersectionality, and how everyone carries multiple identities that often complicate their experience of discrimination.
Sometimes, an environment doesn’t have to TELL you to be quiet if it teaches you effectively to quiet yourself. And sometimes you don’t realize how weird that is until you get out - the fish doesn’t understand what water is, because it’s just their world.
Courtney’s philosophy: the central deity in faith is working toward liberation and dismantling hierarchy where everyone treats everyone else with love - but because people think in terms of dominance and power, we project our own stuff onto God and create toxic systems.
The worst thing that can happen if you ask a question (even of something as big as GOD) is that you don’t get an answer . . . but often you find information that helps you understand and participate in the world in a richer way.
Difficult conversations require practice. Telling people the truth is important (and sometimes the kindest thing you can do for the community and the individual), and how we do it and the intention with which we do it with is incredibly important.
Prathia Hall (the subject of Courtney’s book) was central to the story of the Selma march, a leading voice in the civil rights movement, and one of the most formidable minds of her generation.
When people can be their real selves, they are happier, more productive, and more creative. When everyone has what they need, it leads to community thriving.
Re: the patriarchy and/or toxic circumstances: “If my tombstone reads “That Girl Was a Problem”, then glory be.”

Mentioned in the episode:

Jes Kast https://www.revjeskast.com

Broderick Greer http://www.broderickgreer.com

Allyson Dylan Robinson http://allysonrobinson.com

Robyn Henderson Espinosa https://irobyn.com

Emmy Keggler http://emmykegler.com

Hear Prathia Hall preach:

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/256-stole-sisters-31041590/episode/rev-dr-prathia-hall-a-38236357/

https://soundcloud.com/dradambanks/01-between-the-wilderness-and

Read Courtney's work for Forbes.

Read “Freedom Faith: The Womanist Vision of Prathia Hall”

Courtney Pace is Associate Vice President of Talent at FedEx Credit Association, overseeing Human Resources, Training, Leadership Development, and Volunteering. She joined the invitation-only Forbes Human Resources Council in 2019. Her research interests include race and gender, Baptist history, the Civil Rights Movement, and social justice in American religion. Her first book, Freedom Faith (UGA Press, 2019), is the first ever biography of Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall, a womanist Baptist preacher and civil rights activist. She is currently completing an anthology of Hall’s sermons and essays. She has a PhD in Religion from Baylor University (2014), a Masters of Divinity in Theology from George W. Truett Theological Seminary (2007), and an Honors Bachelor of Science in Computer Science Engineering, with minors in Mathematics and Psychology, from The University of Texas at Arlington (2004) and is the Prathia Hall Scholar in Residence of Social Justice History for Equity for Women in the Church. She is ordained through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and works closely with the Alliance of Baptists and Baptist Women in Ministry. She is a board member of Equity for Women in the Church, a non-profit organization that promotes the acceptance and placement of women in ministry as well as interracial and ecumenical cooperation, and is frequently invited as guest preacher to churches across the country. She is also the founder and chair of the Clergy Advocacy Board for Planned Parenthood of Greater Tennessee and North Mississippi. Rev. Dr. Pace also created popular podcast “Stole Sisters,” which features women preachers representing multiple denominations, races, and regions.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Alex Batdorf, founder of Get Sh*t Done, to talk all things scaling, fundraising, getting rid of your "shoulds", finding your North Star, and creating businesses that are about legacy as much as profit. Warning for Language.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Current narrative gives us all or nothing options when it comes to funding.
Scale is growth, but growth is not scale.
Your purpose or "north star" is a better guide then most "advice".
Focus
Experiment with what works for you, but measure outcomes.

Alex Batdorf is the Founder & CEO of Get Sh!t Done, the superpower scaling sidekick for female entrepreneurs building $1M+ companies. Prior to founding Get Sh!t Done, she was co-founder & CMO of ZipFit Denim, a multi-million dollar, venture-backed eCommerce platform that sold to BirdieBox. She's been featured in Forbes and has spoken around the nation at Harvard, Turner Broadcasting, Fear Paradox, etc.

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Casey and Julie visit the Peach Pit in Refinery 29’s New York office and go deep with co-founder and executive creative director Piera Gelardi on failure and success, self-image, the media, aging, and what it means to create a company - and be a person - that strives to be “real, raw, and relatable.”

(RIP Sassy magazine.)

TOP TAKEAWAYS

If someone looks like an “overnight success”, you’re missing part (or most) of the story. And success comes in moments along the journey, not a destination.
Counter the instinct to watch yourself perform by focusing on generously sharing your expertise, your ideas, and your energy.
Friction creates sparks: “the power of a problem” to give us insight and creativity that might have never come otherwise.
Representation matters - from top stories down to the stock footage you use.
Vulnerability can be a superpower and give others permission to talk about their own struggles.

Piera Gelardi is co-founder and executive creative director of the trailblazing media and entertainment company, Refinery29. As of 2019, Refinery29 was acquired by Vice Media Group, in a transaction valued at over $400 million. Refinery29 has won countless awards for its creativity, helping to change the way media and advertising speaks to and represents women through original content and live experiences. Piera is dedicated to championing inclusive stories that resonate globally, with an eye towards what matters most to this powerful generation of women. She has been honored as one of Adweek’s Creative 100, Ad Age's 50 Most Creative People, Entrepreneur magazine’s 50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs, and one of Adweek's 37 Women Who Are Disrupting the Status Quo and Championing Gender Diversity. She also sits on the board of The Lower Eastside Girls Club, an organization training the next generation of ethical, entrepreneurial, environmental leaders.

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Julie and Casey talk with Fear expert Mary Poffenroth about her work as a fear researcher and science communicator - and try very hard not to fangirl too much.

After discovering Mary on one of our favorite podcasts (Ologies with Alie Ward) we have been quietly (gently, classily) social media stalking her for some time now. We were thrilled when she agreed to talk to us about all things fear: its origin, how it manifests, and what we can do about it...because fear ain't a stop sign.

TOP TAKEAWAYS

Fear is a primal response that our bodies need to survive.
You cannot "Crush" or "Dominate" or "Eliminate" fear.
Fictional fear (fear of things that are not direct physical danger to us) generally gain power by the stories we tell ourselves about our experiences.
We live in a culture that glamorizes stress and denigrates fear. Yet, they are the same thing.
Mary is launching a FREE course on identifying and working with your fear. Check it out! https://www.marypoffenroth.com/hello

Mary Poffenroth is a biology lecturer and fear researcher for San Jose State University. In addition to contributing to Science magazine, Forbes, TEDx and SXSW, she advises growth driven individuals and organizations on how to use science to transform their relationship with fear to improve strategic decision making and increase creativity while cultivating more authentic communications.

Mary, a Salzburg Global Fellow and first generation college student, holds two masters degrees, one in biology and the other in science communication from Imperial College London, and will be completing her PhD in Media Psychology in 2020. She is the author of Write Present Create: Science Communication for Undergraduates and has taught nearly 20,000 students both in person and online since 2007. She began her research career in astrophysiology at NASA Ames Research Center Moffet Field in 1999 and now focuses her research on the intersection of fear science, communication, and personal/social change.

www.marypoffenroth.com

See her TedX talk here.

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Julie and Casey interview 6-time NYT bestselling author Jodi Lipper about her work as a collaborative writer. Along the way they discuss interview skills and listening, presence and preparation, and how many Twitter followers you need to get a book published.

TOP TAKEAWAYS:

Writing is a team sport.
Preparation is key, but so is the ability to let it go and be in the moment.
To truly listen, you have to both hear the words and what’s behind them. To tell someone’s story requires attention to both, and an ability to allow and facilitate rather than manufacture a reveal.
Want to write and publish a book? You need more than just an interesting story.
It's not the size of your twitter following, it's how you use it.

Jodi Lipper is a six-time New York Times bestselling writer who partners with high profile experts and celebrities to garner major publishing deals and translate their experiences and expertise into highly effective and marketable books. Jodi has co-written several notable memoirs as well as prescriptive books about business, wellness, and personal development. Her clients include iconic shoe mogul Steve Madden, the “father of biohacking” and creator of Bulletproof Coffee Dave Asprey, and Fran Hauser, whose book The Myth of the Nice Girl was named the Best Business Book of 2018 by Audible and was listed by Amazon as One of the Best Business and Leadership Books of the Year.

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Julie and Casey sit down with Rick Lockhart to talke voice, identity and code switching. Rather than a "how to" this is a very personal discussion surrounding the need and impact for code switching for anyone that lives outside the "mythic norm".

Rick Lockhart grew up on Chicago’s west side and west suburb of Maywood. Currently living on the city’s northwest side with his fiancé, Al, and their two puppies (Jackson and Theodore), he currently works as an engineering recruiting specialist, although he spent most of his working career in various positions in restaurant hospitality. Outside of work, Rick spends time acting in musical theater and co-hosting a radio talk show with his fiancé. He’s had the pleasure of living throughout the Midwest, Tri-State, and the south, which has afforded him the opportunity to meet so many great people.

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Julie and Casey chat with Erin Stutland (mind-body wellness expert, founder of The Movement, and major catalyst in Vital Voice Training's origin story). They'll dig into why leading from your core values is so important, the "female lifestyle brand", and the good and bad of "manifesting" - and why we're always doing it whether we know it or not.

Erin Stutland is a renowned author and mind-body wellness expert. She is the host and life-style coach of Z Living’s cable series, Altar’d. Nominated for a Real Screen award alongside Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, the show is currently in its second season.

Stutland’s book, Mantras in Motion: Manifesting What You Want through Mindful Movement, (Hay House) explores her proprietary approach to creating meaningful change by harnessing all the body’s mental, physical, and spiritual energy through a series of stories, journaling exercises, meditations and movement.

Stutland is the creator of several mind-body fitness programs including her signature Shrink Session workout and Soul Strolls and has appeared on The Rachael Ray Show, People.com, Fox News, Glamour Magazine and more.

She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Lance and daughter, Kwynn.

IG: https://www.instagram.com/erin.stutland/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/EStutland
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EStutland

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In their 10th episode, to celebrate and kick off 2020, Julie and Casey dig deep on two of the questions they ask every guest: What is your definition of power? And what is your definition of play? Along the way, you'll hear powerful and playful answers from brilliant previous guests, as well as thoughts on the state of the world and why "head down, power through" isn't the best way to learn new skills.

They also announce their brand new "My Communication Manifesto" workbook.

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Casey and Julie connect NYC to SF to have a frank conversation about memories past this decade, holidays, and what's upcoming, including:

Talking Pessimism and Hope
What's changed in the past decade
What it means to have a change in narrative or structure from your current life story.
Their "Word" for 2020

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Do you ever think about the story your home tells? Designer Jenn Salvemini does! Jenn founded a lifestyle coaching business and in the Catskills out of her love for design, anthropology, and the power of a beautiful home, that suits YOU. Jenn creates real spaces for real people, and offers services ranging from coordinating a move to a complete overhaul of your space. With compassion and humor, Jenn shares her glimpses into our spaces and our lives.

Jenn says...

"After diving into anthropology and philosophy in college, my academics evolved into a passion for aesthetic expression in all areas of culture, from architecture to mythology, textiles to cuisine.

New York City was the perfect place to begin my exploration of these expressions, but I had to get out to touch and taste it all for myself. So after college I hit the road and experiencing the boundless creative power of the human spirit continues to inspire everything I do.

From my travels in Asia, Europe, Central America and here in the States I grew to appreciate and practice minimalism. I learned how maintaining an economy of stuff and keeping that stuff organized and tidy literally meant more freedom - more time, more money, more flexibility - a rule of thumb I still employ everyday.

My professional experience straddles careers in hospitality and fashion spanning over 15+ years.

I'm now thrilled to take my skills in systems building, project management, event planning, design and customer service and really use them to do what I truly love - homemaking and, ya know... making it nice. Yay!" Find out more about her work at jenniferlsalvemini.com

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Julie and Casey sit down with prolific podcaster and Anti-Diet revolutionary Christy Harrison of Food Psych to talk about the racist and sexist roots of diet culture, the Health at Every Size movement, and why "trusting your gut" requires . . . well, trusting your gut.

TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

Your voice and your ideas have value - if you know you have something to offer, don't let a lack of confidence (or vocal fatigue) hold you back from getting your voice out there.
Weight loss as a health intervention wasn't a thing until the thin ideal was demands and deified by other sources.
Anyone outside Audre Lord's "mythic norm" will be extra affected by diet culture - and diet culture is a potent political sedative, because we don't have the time, energy, or brain space to think about or act on more important things.
Progressives in particular have work to do around fat phobia. We tend to be more conscious of other issues of diversity and inclusion but still default to jokes about bodies. We gotta work on this.
Struggle with seeing pictures of yourself? Fill your social feed with diverse bodies!
Your gut has actual wisdom - indeed, science thinks that our "gut" is actually a second brain. But we can't listen to it when we aren't truly IN our bodies - and we can't be IN our bodies while diet culture has its claws in us.
Power is the power to uplift, to include, to make changes that benefit everyone.

Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CDN is an anti-diet registered dietitian nutritionist and certified intuitive eating counselor based in New York City. She offers online courses and private intuitive eating coaching to help people all over the world make peace with food and their bodies. Since 2013 Christy has hosted Food Psych, a weekly podcast exploring people’s relationships with food and paths to body liberation. It is now one of iTunes’ top 100 health podcasts, reaching tens of thousands of listeners worldwide each week.

Christy began her career in 2003 as a journalist covering food, nutrition, and health, and she’s written for major publications including The New York Times, SELF, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, Gourmet, Slate, The Food Network, and many more. Her forthcoming book, Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating, will be published by Little, Brown Spark in December of 2019 and is available for pre-order now. Learn more about Christy and her work at christyharrison.com.

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Julie and Casey sit down with San Francisco actor (and Julie's fellow MFA alumni) Rotimi Agbabiaka to talk about his journey as an actor who never fit into anyone's idea of what he should be. Along the way, they talk about visibility, claiming space, how what is "true" isn't necessarily what is "realistic" what it's like to develop the character of "God", and owning your strut.

Rotimi Agbabiaka is an actor, writer, director, and teacher who uses humor, glamor, and drama to challenge the status quo. Most recently, Rotimi originated the role of Salima in House of Joy (California Shakespeare Theatre) and the role of Cellphone in If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, NYC). Other acting credits includeFather Comes Home From The Wars … (Yale Rep, American Conservatory Theatre) Tom Waits’ Black Rider (Shotgun Players), Bootycandy (Brava Theater, Theatre Bay Area award), originating the role of Boy in runboyrun (Magic Theatre), and several shows with the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. Rotimi's solo play, Homeless, won Best Solo Performance at the SF Fringe Festival and Type/Caste, Rotimi's next solo, premiered at the National Queer Arts Festival and received the Theatre Bay Area award for Outstanding Solo Production. Rotimi's latest solo, MANIFESTO, plays San Francisco's Brava Theater in February 2020. Rotimi also cowrote the play, Seeing Red, with Joan Holden and Ira Marlowe, receiving a TBA award nomination for Outstanding World Premiere Musical. Rotimi teaches acting, movement, and play creation to students from pre-school through college and has presented work at museums (the deYoung), in parks (with We Players), on street corners (with Jess Curtis’ GRAVITY), and on nightlife stages around the world. www.rotimionline.com

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Julie and Casey head out to Oakland to sit down with Maya Borgueta, founder of Stella Nova Psychology - they dive into emotional labor, how diversity movements in the workplace might be set up to fail, imposter syndrome, self-care, Chopin, and why beating yourself up is NOT, in fact, the secret to productivity.

TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:

It’s important to separate “shame” (“I am bad”) from “guilt” (“I did a bad thing”), particularly in thorny conversations about racism and diversity/inclusion. (Thanks Brene Brown)
If you’re asking your employees to do the work of helping your workplace be more diverse and inclusive, you may be preventing them from doing their ACTUAL job, and asking them to perform a ton of emotional labor. Instead, hire an expert and give them the power to change things.
Define your core values - both general and for communication - to give your life a north star. They should be a little aspirational, and you won’t nail it 100% of the time.
Imposter syndrome is pervasive, and connected to some really unhelpful ideas about what “confidence” looks like. You don’t have to feel like a Boss Bitch 100% of the time - and if you do, maybe you aren’t being very self-reflective.
Research says that people who are self-compassionate get more done and are more able to problem-solve than people who are self-critical . . . which might seem obvious, but is really hard in practice, especially for high achievers.
Self-care is a critical component of self-compassion, and it doesn’t always looks like bubble baths and face masks. Sometimes the mundane stuff is way more crucial to taking good care of yourself.
Power = the ability to enact your agenda

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Julie and Casey sit down remotely with Christina Blacken (founder of The New Quo) to talk about the power of story - telling your own story, and how organizations can use storytelling to "convey their unique purpose, navigate change, gain buy-in, and create status-quo breaking communications that shift hearts, mindsets, and culture for the better."

TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

Sometimes growing up as an outsider can become a superpower - as in "I can't care what people thought"
Living your life in order to be invisible MAY protect you from judgement (although it probably won't) - but what it will definitely do is keep you from realizing your full creativity and the impact you can have on the world.
Storytelling is a powerful medium for communication - 65% of our daily communication is via storytelling.

"[Storytelling] is where the art comes in. As science fiction author Cassandra Clare writes, 'Fiction is truth, even if it is not fact.' This is what storytelling is for - and in fact research has found that people understood science better when it's communicated through storytelling...story goes where science can't." - Emily and Amelia Nagoski, Burnout

CHRISTINA'S BIO

I love cheese but its proven to not love me back. I also love stories. Why? They are the most powerful tools on the planet for connection and change. 65% of all daily communication is story.
My story starts with my family being part of the Great Migration from the South and landing in Utah, my childhood through teenage years home (questions about Mormons, being black in a place where about 3 other black people live, and the merits of Jello, are expected). My childhood of being an outsider religiously, politically, and racially taught me how powerful story can be for influencing how we treat one another.
I’ve used story to manage teams creating social movements in the non-profit world that inspired 300,000 young people to volunteer on various causes, and to connect brands to the communities they care about, helping secure 6.5M in profits for the companies and teams I've worked with and for along the way. I now teach the science and power of storytelling as a tool for creating deeper connection between people and creating influence and buy-in for bold ideas.
My mission is to flip the status-quo on leadership through story. Leadership isn’t an elitist and built-in trait — it’s the ability to inspire and move other people through your vision and the lessons you’ve gained across your life experiences. The New Quo is creating a new communication paradigm for a new generation of leadership, unleashing your potential to deeply connect, influence, and inspire others through your stories of change.

We will build stronger senses of self, create better products, service wider audiences, and solve seemingly insurmountable problems when we stand in our truths and share them authentically across diverse social lines.

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Julie and Casey talk with Nicole Brewer, a thought leader and passionate activist for anti-racist theatre. We talk racism, diversity and inclusion, owning your voice, and creating inclusive environments. She shares with us both her personal and professional journey to the work she's doing today, and sets the house on fire with her truth bombs. Find more about Nicole and her work on her website.

Here is a bit more about Nicole:

Nicole Brewer earned her M.F.A. in Acting from Northern Illinois University and her B.F.A. from Howard University. She's worked professionally as an actor, director and educator in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as in Washington DC. Nicole has facilitated workshops in embodied acting techniques and disrupting traditional acting training programs at the 2017 and 2018 TCG conference, The Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and internationally at Goldsmith’s University in London.

She is a founding member of the HBC Playback Theatre Ensemble in Washington D.C. who at the time was the only all-female women of color playback ensemble in The United States. She is the founder of Creative Acts Learning Center LLC in Washington DC which provided workshops and seminars to actors in the Nation’s Capital.

In 2019, Nicole launched reportracisttheatre.com as tool for reporting racism when it occurs in theatre. She authored two articles that outlined the need for the theatre industry to shift to being anti-racist; Why Equity Diversity and Inclusion Are Obsolete published by American Theatre and Playwrights of Color, White Directors and Exposing Racist Policy published by HowlRound. Nicole has spent the last 5 years refining an inclusive method of theatre training and practices which she calls Conscientious Theatre Training. Nicole’s article, “Training With A Difference” published in the January 2018 edition of American Theatre highlight the need for theatre training to adapt more inclusive models of instruction. Nicole is invited all over the US to teach workshops on both conscientious theatre training and anti-racist theatre.

Ms. Brewer has worked at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a premier performing arts high school in Washington D.C. as visiting faculty (acting). Nicole is visiting faculty at the National Theater Institute (NTI). She was on faculty for seven and half years at Howard University. Nicole has also worked as faculty at Northern Virginia Community College and Montgomery College teaching acting and introduction to communications courses.

She is a member of the 2018 artEquity cohort, VASTA, and Black Theatre Network. Directing credits: Milk Like Sugar at The Black Rep, Jonkonnu at Howard University, and Hair Chronicles DC Fringe Festival. Acting Theater Credits include: White Rabbit Red Rabbit Theater Alliance, For Colored Girls Colored Peoples Theater, In The Blood The Hegira, Tartuffe & Taming of the Shrew African American Shakespeare Company, Anton in Show Business Spreckels, and Gypsy and the Bully Door by Nina Mercer. Nicole currently resides in Washington D.C. with her husband and three imperfectly perfect kids.

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Julie and Casey visit the offices of C.A. Goldberg Law to speak with actual superheroine Carrie Goldberg, victim’s rights attorney for people dealing with revenge porn, stalking and harassment, blackmail, sexual assault, etc. Hear Carrie’s take on standing up to the powerful, getting over her fear of public speaking, embracing your inner f*ck you, and why sometimes the key to confidence is stabby accessories.

Content warning: Discussion of Carrie’s cases, which involve victims of sexual assault, rape, and stalking, as well as some salty language.

TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

How you say your name is incredibly important - and worth working on.
You are the only one who can tell your story - it’s not about you, it’s about the message
You don’t need to feel combative with your audience, but you ALSO don’t need to coddle or accommodate them.
Upping your tolerance for risk is a necessity for a big life - failures are raw material for the next level
Imposter syndrome
24 hour rule: Celebrate the victories - and then move on so you can do the work
Who gave you permission to take risks? Sometimes it comes from within, sometimes it’s from an important supporter in your life. (Cultivate those supporters, and also cultivate your “inner f*ck you”.)
What’s your superhero costume/armor?
Imposter syndrome strikes even the most glamorous among us - and also maybe it’s a good thing. It keeps us from wrecking the world, and it also leads us to prepare and do good work.
Have someone you can send a bat signal to when you’re scared. Sharing fear helps us through it. #neverworryalone
You don’t have to be a perfect public speaker - ums and uhs aren’t the death of your gravitas.
You get to decide how (or whether to) use notes in your speech.
“Play” = what’s left when you aren’t censoring yourself

Carrie Goldberg is a victims’ rights lawyer born and raised in Aberdeen, Washington. Her law firm, C.A. Goldberg, PLLC, is based in Brooklyn and litigates nationally for targets of online harassment, stalking, and sexual assault. Before starting her law firm, Carrie provided social services to Nazi victims and went on to become a lawyer for the Vera Institute of Justice. Her major litigations include Herrick v. Grindr, NNAF v. John Doe, Hadley v. City of Anaheim,L.W. as parent/guardian of K.M. v. New York City Department of Education. Her work was featured in the documentary Netizens. Carrie attended Vassar College and Brooklyn Law School. She resides in Brooklyn, New York. Carrie’s book Nobody’s Victim: Fighting Stalkers, Psychos, Pervs and Trolls was published by Penguin in August 2019.

Find Carrie Goldberg: website, twitter, instagram

Buy Carrie's book: Nobody’s Victim, Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls

Articles about cases mentioned:

Herrick vs Grinder

Craigslist case

Taking on the NYC Public School system

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Julie joins Casey in NYC from San Francisco to talk all things Keynote, Panels and public speaking with the inimitable Kelly Hoey, author of “Build Your Dream Network” and all-around badass.

Follow Kelly on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram and check out her fantastic podcast!

TOP TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

Make your talk porous enough to allow for the unexpected
Assume a benevolent audience (what’s the harm)
Choose your most effective working style
Instead of speeding up when time is short, slow down
Leave people wanting more
Find your foundation
Build your speaking career before you need it
Think how you can serve your audience instead of your audience serving you

Kelly Hoey is the author of Build Your Dream Network (January 2017 / Tarcher Perigee).

Kelly has been lauded from Forbes (“1 of 5 Women Changing the World of VC/Entrepreneurship”) to Fast Company (“1 of the 25 Smartest Women On Twitter”) to Business Insider (“1 of the 100 Most Influential Tech Women On Twitter”) and Inc. (“1 of the 10 Most Well-Connected People in New York City's Startup Scene”). EBW 2020 included her on their list of the “100 Most Influential Global Leaders Empowering Women Worldwide”.

Kelly’s career story is one of transformation – through networking. Her career started out with a law degree and a job in a big Toronto law firm. She continued along a predictable career path, until a chance opportunity landed in her lap in 2009 and she stopped playing it safe, leaping at the chance to work with a visionary leader of a global business network for women. Co-founding a startup accelerator then an interim CMO role with an emerging tech company are just part of her journey of reinvention as an author, writer, creator and investor. She has appeared on CNBC’s Power Pitch, moderated a speaker series at Apple, and contributed to publications such as The New York Times, Forbes.com, Fast Company, Inc. and more. Today, Kelly continues to spread her networking message as a sought-out speaker, and host of the Build Your Dream Network podcast.

Voice Is: Recent Episodes

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