Roberta Dombrowski – Redefining Leadership and Thriving at Work

May 13, 2025

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Roberta Dombrowski invites us to rethink success, tune into our intuition, and lead with intention —sharing how mindfulness, healing, and self-compassion can transform the way we work and live.

======

Episode chapters

00:00 – Defining Success on Your Own Terms
00:30 – Welcome and Introduction
01:17 – Meet Roberta Dombrowski
04:25 – Growing Up as a Transracial Adoptee
09:04 – Reading Other Adoptees’ Stories and Finding Comfort
13:42 – Owning Her Story and Entering a Healing Phase
14:30 – A Restless Career Journey in Learning, Research, and Coaching
20:00 – An Anxiety Injury and Learning to Slow Down
23:00 – Family Influences, Perception, and Letting Go of Control
26:18 – Founding Learn Mindfully and Levelling the Playing Field
31:00 – Coaching as Gardening: Planting Seeds and Managing Weeds
36:30 – Helping Clients Face Their Inner Critic and Emotions
42:30 – Challenges Researchers Face: Stress, Layoffs, and Recognition
50:30 – Work, Burnout, and the Shadow Side of Empathy
57:30 – Intuition, Listening to the Body, and Trusting Your Gut
1:10:30 – Closing Reflections: Curiosity, Fun, and Reconnecting With Joy

======

Who is Roberta Dombrowski?

Roberta Dombrowski is a certified leadership coach and experience strategist, dedicated to transforming the way people live, learn, and work.

She is the founder of Learn Mindfully, a coaching and training company she launched in 2022. Since then, Roberta has supported hundreds of leaders from companies such as Adobe, Instacart, ServiceNow, Zapier, and Zoom.

Previously, Roberta was a Research Partner at Maze, where she helped clients maximize the platform’s potential. Before that, she was VP of User Research at User Interviews, where she built and scaled the research function while tackling the meta-challenge of researching researchers.

Roberta is also the author of Consciously Crafting Your Career Path, a self-reflection and career planning workbook designed to help people shape fulfilling and intentional careers. Her insights have been featured on podcasts like Lead the People and BLOC, and at events such as Rosenfeld Media’s Advancing Research conference.

======

Find Roberta here:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertadombrowski/
Company website: https://learnmindfully.co/
Personal website: https://robertalearns.com/

======

Subscribe to Brave UX

Liked what you heard and want to hear more? Subscribe and support the show by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (or wherever you listen).

Brendan Jarvis hosts the Show, and you can find him here:

Brendan Jarvis on LinkedIn
The Space InBetween Website