Curating Career Life Stories: How did I get here?

Join me for the career reflections of Andrea Andrews, founder & creator of salleejay.com, a travel & lifestyle blog. Her journey is one with themes in music, writing and community.

After about a decade of career and life experience she discovers another theme -- that’s she’s living for other people, trying to fit into a mold that doesn’t work for her, and focusing on making other people comfortable when she’s miserable.

Prompting her to make some big bold changes to her life all in one month -- March 2013! Fast forward to today where she describes her life as “awesome” and has big plans for travel and her blog -- inspiring others to travel solo (guided by her) to see the world!

What’s served Andrea best is passion, commitment and integrity.

As a writer she has no shortage of words of wisdom:

· “Good, better, best – never let it rest until your good is your better and your better is your best!”

· “Begin with the end in mind.”

· “Pay yourself first.”

· “To thine own self be true!”

Join me for the career reflections of Riah Gonzalez, founder & CEO of Linq Consulting Solutions. A journey with various starts and stops, each leading to learning and growth and closer alignment with her areas of expertise until she finds her niche!

What a cool and unique niche it is – she’s a virtual assistant match maker, a delegation educator and an entrepreneur maximizer! Riah is a big idea person and loves working with people to expand their business.

Tenacity (or maybe it’s stubbornness she kids) is what’s served her best.

Riah’s words of wisdom come from someone she interviewed on her podcast who said: “Any action is good action!” Then she adds: “If you take one step, one tiny step toward something, that is good action!”

Join me for the career reflections of Claudia Miller, career coach & workplace expert. For many of us, getting that first job is a struggle, but Claudia takes that experience and decides she’s going to “figure this career thing out!”

And figure it out she does! Not only does she successfully negotiate significant salary increases, she gets the jobs and roles she wants at the salaries she wants. Find out how she does it for her own career, then how helping friends and family with their careers reveals her expertise prompting her to start her career coaching business.

What’s served Claudia best: “Success favors the bold – I’ve been bold!”

Her words of wisdom: “Do what others won’t to achieve what others can’t”.

Join me for the career reflections of Joyce Feustel, social media trainer. A journey with themes in education, health care, public information, non-profits, politics, public speaking, chambers of commerce, on-line education, and now social media.

She’s always been open to new ideas and learning new things, as evidenced by the variety in her career choices. It was at the suggestion of others that she even considered going into sales and starting her own business.

What’s served Joyce best -- perseverance, she’s pleasantly perseverant, with kindness and friendliness.

Words of wisdom that have impacted her are based on a quote from Henry David Thoreau: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have imagined.” And her own words of wisdom: “Be open to opportunities, be willing to learn and embrace new concepts.”

Join me for the career reflections of Marla Press, transformational life coach. After adventurous college experiences following her passion in psychology, her first job in that field leaves her disillusioned and looking for something completely different -- which she finds in dental hygiene school.

A flexible career she’s still working in and still finds gratifying. That flexibility enables her to pursue other passions – being with her kids, writing and coaching.

Marla references three things that have served her best: 1) having a really good work ethic & focus, she puts 110% effort into everything; 2) seeing the positive, focusing on the positive, and seeing opportunities and the good in people; and 3) being creative in problem solving, thinking out of the box.

Her words of wisdom: “think bigger” and “everything is up for grabs.”

Join me for the career reflections of Kelli Dennehey Christina, CEO of two companies and international bestselling author. A journey where doing the hard work pays off -- success, promotions, new opportunities -- then the bottom falls out and she finds herself homeless and working three jobs.

Not one to stay down, Kelli learns from her experience and uses her strong work ethic to reopen her business plus give back to the community with a non-profit she started. Kelli shares her “rollercoaster” story in her book and coaches people who are “flatlined” on how to build themselves back up.

What’s served Kelli best is having the ability to move forward, she has that go-getter attitude, she’s willing to learn and willing to go that extra mile.

Her words of wisdom are a quote from Abe Lincoln: “You should learn something new every single day.”

Join me for the career reflections of Marc Cherabie, director of sales for SiteStaff Chat. A journey with a plan to become a physical therapist working temporary jobs to support him through this plan, until one of his temporary roles is such a great fit that it becomes the new plan!

He’s constantly learning and growing from his peers, employees, bosses and clients.

What’s served Marc best is his natural ability to really connect with people of all ages and backgrounds.

His words of wisdom come from a toast in the movie Cool Runnings: “Peace be the journey.” Marc adds his own wisdom: “When you’re spreading a lot of positivity it has a funny way of coming back into your life.”

Join me for the career reflections of Carol Ross, leadership coach, healer & writer. A journey about transition and discovery revealing her natural leadership, coaching & healing abilities.

Leveraging her engineering approach to solving problems and the trust she's built with her engineer colleagues, Carol discovers she’s a natural leader when it comes to personal growth and development. So much so, she successfully makes the case to create a new role for herself as Retention Leader.

What’s served Carol best is “keeping a higher truth, always digging and digging for the truth, even if it might not be pretty.”

Carol’s words of wisdom come from a trusted friend: “We are all walking miracles, follow the miracles.”

--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Join me for the career reflections of Molly Vaile, CEO & founder of her life! A journey using all her degrees (PR, marketing & management), taking her around the world, through multiple industries, culminating now into a career as a strategic accelerated growth consultant.

Her career choices are based on where she could ski or bike, and contribute her unique skill set – which she describes is like a Swiss Army Knife.

What’s served Molly best is “trusting and listening to myself, really believing that I have the answer. I just need to sit quietly with myself, and the answer will come.”

Molly’s words of wisdom come from a card her mom gave her at a pivotal point in her life: “She put on her brave and decided to be amazing!”

--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Join me for the career reflections of Dave Johnson, managing partner of C Squared Solutions. A journey traversing many disciplines from farming, engineering, accounting, military service as a pilot, telecommunications, technology, operations, teaching, economic development and now business leadership/consulting.

For his undergrad degree, he double majors in engineering & accounting, to figure out which he likes best and is best at, plus giving him more career options. After a stint in the military, he uses his GI Bill to get his MBA and then while working full time somehow finds time to get a master’s in psychology. Later in life he earns his PhD in the economic development of Native American land.

With such a versatile background it’s no surprise that what has served him best through his career is the skill of being able to fit into high performing teams. His words of wisdom: “You have to believe in yourself, be humble and trust others.” One of his favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

--- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app