Lessons from a Quitter

On this week's episode, we talk about the duality of life, the good and the bad. Life is always going to throw curveballs at us and we need to deconstruct the idea that we need to be happy all the time. Owning our dissatisfaction and working toward goals that allow for small wins will help us be more fulfilled.  We also have a Find Your Path challenge in October: Sign up here www.quitterclub.com/mindset

This is the last episode in our 3-part series that will help you start managing your mind. This week is all about emotions. While we all realize that we feel emotions every day, we're never taught how to process them. We end up staying stuck because we're so afraid to feel our negative emotions like shame, embarrassment, regret, or discomfort.    In this episode, I hope to reframe how you can look at your emotions so that you can start living your dreams.

This week I have Dawn Kelly on the show. I'm excited for this episode, not only because we cover her career journey but also because we delve into a truly important conversation related to today's social climate. Dawn spent decades climbing the corporate ladder to become the department Vice President at Prudential Financial. She is a proven public relations and strategic communications executive.   A major theme of this episode touches on is that oftentimes we believe we have security in corporate America. We believe that businesses have an equal investment in us, but we regularly see individuals with the rug pulled out from under them. Dawn worked for Prudential for 16 years but was blindsided by a layoff in 2015.    It left her with an immense amount of grief. Although this tragedy touched many of us, Dawn's experience as a black woman in corporate America is vital to understand. She realized that her race played an immense part in her treatment as well as her abrupt layoff. It's important to listen to and highlight these stories of discrimination and microaggressions to move forward in a positive way. Understanding the gravity of these demeaning actions will help us show up in the world in a highly impactful way.    Today Dawn is serving and feeding her community with The Nourish Spot in Jamaica, Queens. She is committed to serving healthy, balanced meals to underserved communities and works to create programs to help build children up. Dawn really is the epitome of a go-getter and true inspiration to us all.

This week I have the incredible Raman Sehgal on the show. As a self-proclaimed recovering marketer and upcoming podcaster, Raman has spent years building a remarkable portfolio. He began his career climbing the corporate ladder with big brands like Proctor & Gamble and Dannon and, later, left the security of corporate America to work at in the startup scene. While we talk about all of his transitions, it's his latest one that I really wanted to highlight on the show.    Raman left the startup world to bring his unique perspective to life across his first 3 (of many?) podcasts: "the P&G Alumni Podcast," "Model Minorities," and "Quarantined Comics." These shows share candid conversations that aspire to provide mentorship, solve racism, and debate Superman's management style, respectively.    I wanted to have this conversation on the podcast because most of my past guests had already figured out their transitions. With Raman, we get to hear about how he's figuring out this new venture right now, his approach to this new medium, and how he decides which projects to pursue. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and hope you gain as much from this conversation as I did.

This episode is a detailed review of Cal Newport's Deep Work. 

This week's incredible guest is Emily Giffin. She is a former lawyer and 10-TIME New York Times bestselling author. It wasn't until after law school when she had moved to Manhattan to work in a big law firm to pay back her loans, that she began writing in her spare time and dreamed of becoming a writer.    In 2001, she decided to quit and move to London to pursue her dreams full-time. It was there that she started writing her first breakout hit, Something Borrowed, which was turned into a movie that starred Kate Hudson and Jennifer Goodwin and John Krasinski. And the rest, as they say, is history!   While I'm so excited to talk to her all about her journey and her incredibly inspiring career as an author, I think her story is such a great example of the power of taking a risk. So often we're paralyzed by what we could lose that we fail to even consider the immense opportunities that we could gain if we just tried. Emily and I talk about how timing and luck has a part in all of our stories. But if she had never taken the chance, if she had never decided to take a risk that most people wouldn't take, she would've given up a career so many only dream of. And what a shame that would have been!    In this episode, we dive in to talk about her journey, her new book called The Lies That Bind (it is so good!), and so much more!

This week I am thrilled to have Cher Hale on the show. What I love most about Cher's story is how she demonstrates that we can each find ways, in our own lives and work, to right the wrongs we see in our society. One of the best part about entrepreneurship is that you have the freedom to do things your own way. And that's exactly what Cher is doing! Cher started out as a waitress on the Las Vegas strip and freelanced on the side. We talk about how she never had a formal PR education but found a fantastic mentor who inspired her to dive headfirst into entrepreneurship instead.  Cher is the founder and director of Ginkgo Public Relations, a company that specializes in amplifying marginalized and underrepresented voices. After working in PR and realizing that the same voices were getting all of the attention, Cher decided to focus her attention on changing that. Her company now aims to reduce inequity in the media landscape, stop the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes, and offer much-needed representation across all sectors.