Action's Antidotes

Intuition, often our inner compass, plays a pivotal role in life's decision-making. It's the unspoken wisdom that guides us, helping make choices aligned with our authentic selves. By utilizing it, it empowers us to make decisions that deeply resonate. However, how can we harness it to lead a more fulfilling and purposeful life?

In this episode, we're joined by Tara McFarland, a civil engineer turned intuitive leadership coach. Tara discusses the importance of tuning into intuition, how intuition and logic must work together in engineering and coaching. Furthermore, Tara provides a sneak peek into the highly anticipated Rocky Mountain Young Professional Summit 2023. 

If you're ready to embark on a journey of self-discovery and transformation, this episode is a must-listen.

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Tuning into Your Intuition for Lifelong Fulfillment with Tara McFarland

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. This podcast, I always kind of describe as being a little bit of a fifty-fifty podcast in that 50 percent of it is centered around my hometown of Denver, Colorado, and 50 percent of it is with guests in some other places. In some of the more recent episodes, we featured some guests from other places but this episode is something we’ve kind of done before which we’re featuring a specific opportunity and event in Denver, Colorado, coming next month, October 13th, the Rocky Mountain Young Professionals Summit. In order to talk about that as well as her more recent endeavors is my guest today, Tara McFarland, intuitive healing coach, hopefully I got that right, and the founder of Create Conversation LLC.

---

 

Tara, welcome to the program. 

 

Thank you. Yeah, I call myself an intuitive leadership coach.

 

Intuitive leadership coach. I’m sorry, I tried to get that right.

 

Yeah, no worries. Well, and I like the combination between the intuitive and the leadership because my background is in engineering and so a lot of the people that I work with are very analytical types and so when we talk about leadership, people understand what that means. The intuitive part is what they’re learning when they work with me.

 

And one of your key endeavors has been taking people with a similar background to yours, engineering, and introducing them to kind of concepts that don’t necessarily come naturally to a lot of people with the engineering mindset. Tell us a little bit about your journey in that particular realm.

 

Like I said, my background is in engineering and I was a civil engineer for over 20 years. Right about year 20, I hit a very major patch of burnout where I just completely shattered, had absolutely no idea what I was going to do. I thought my career was over. And this was predicated by being in a position where I had been a technical team lead, meaning I had been doing designs for most of my career, and then I shifted into a more non-technical program position and I became a project manager, program manager, I was suddenly leading multidisciplinary teams and I actually didn’t have any idea how to do it. 

 

Oh, wow. 

 

And I didn’t get the training that was needed to understand what the dynamics are within teams and really how to deal with people, like I had been evaluating dams almost 15 years at that point and now I’m having to lead teams and it’s a totally different skill set. And so I was on this project that was very high profile, it was politically sensitive, it was a really big project. It would have — like if I could have carried this project through to the end, it would have been a launching point for me to continue up the ladder. What happened instead was that it was just like a series of things that kept happening where I knew that something wasn’t quite right in the project but I didn’t know how to bring that up and I didn’t know how to bring it up to the project team and I didn’t really know how...

In our modern world, it's undeniable that we're exposed to various toxins. Over recent decades, we've witnessed a surge in physical ailments like diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. But what about diseases of the mind? Are the diseases of the body and mind interconnected in ways we're only beginning to understand?

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Pat Boulogne, a renowned consultant and coach specializing in health, wellness, and mindset. We delve into the essential 5 pillars of health, stressing the significance of accurate medical assessments. Dr. Pat explains how optimizing brain function and the role of boundaries contribute to the success of high achievers. 

Tune in for expert insights to enhance your overall well-being and productivity.

---

Listen to the podcast here:

How Your Mind and Body Shape Your Total Wellness with Dr. Pat Boulogne

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. There’s no doubt that, today, we live in a toxic world. Instances of diseases of the body, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease, have gone up in recent decades and so have instances of diseases of the mind, things such as ADHD as well as anxiety and depression. My guest today, Dr. Pat Boulogne, is one of the people out there trying to help people overcome some of these challenges that we have in our modern world to create a healthier existence, both physically and mentally. 

---

 

Dr. Pat, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you so much. I am so thrilled to be here with you and share time.

 

Thank you so much for taking your time out. And, first, I want to start out by talking a little bit about what it is that you do in your practice. 

 

Well, I really don’t have a practice, per se. I am a consultant and I’m a coach and what I do is I help people in their health goals, in their wellness goals, in their mindset goals so that they can go from point A to point C in the quickest way possible that’s safer and also with simpler solutions that are not harmful. So, there’s ways to do that and understanding where somebody’s at to get them to that point, I do and I help people organize that thought process and like simplified steps so that they have the checklist. I love seeing people thrive and I bend over backwards to do it.

 

That’s part of the reason I started this podcast, hope to inspire people to look into what they can do to thrive. One of the questions I have is do you encounter more of the physical or more of the mental challenges or do you see them as going hand in hand?

 

Well, my premise for when I talk about what health is and what health isn’t, because it’s not merely the absence of disease and I agree with the World Health Organization on that part of the definition, the health part of it is much more integrated with our daily lives. How do you perform every day in order to go from point A to point C? And when you start lagging and you start going like, “Oh, I’d rather do something else,” or you’re like, “I gotta take a nap, I’m depleted by noontime, can’t even wait ’til five o’clock and you got to take a nap,” because you have to take a look at what kind of foods that you’re eating. So when you ask about mindset, I talk about five pillars of health and the first part of the health that I talk about is food, exercise, I talk about sleep, I talk about positive mindset and positive mental attitude, and I talk about structured function, which is basically proper posture, but the key component to make all those other four pieces successful is the mindset and the positive mental attitude because if you go in saying like, “I’m gonna try this diet,” you automatically are going to have an issue with it. There’s something that’s going to make you struggle and it clicks off this thing in your head that tells you that you’re like, “Oh, you’re not gonna be successful,” even though you don’t say it to yourself.

Among all the valuable metals, gold stands out as the preferred choice for investment. Unlike fiat currency, gold has consistently retained its value over the centuries. Many view gold as a means to transfer and safeguard their wealth from one generation to another. However, in the present, is investing in gold still a profitable option?

In this engaging episode, I sit down with Deven Soni, a seasoned private investor with a strong focus on alternative and digital assets. Join us for an insightful discussion as we dive into the world of gold, exploring its unique characteristics, inflation rates, and what sets gold apart from the world of cryptocurrencies. 

Tune in and gain valuable insights from our expert guest!

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Gold Investments: Strategies and Insights with Deven Soni

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. I’m back here, episode number 101, after taking a little bit of a summer off. Hopefully, you checked out the 100th episode where I got my friend and podcast host, Luana Bossetti, to interview me and talk about my new endeavors. But here we are at the end of the summer, right back to the same format of interviewing people who pursue their true passions in life, pursue something that they really want to see in the world. We’re going to start off this kind of new season, kind of new time here with my guest today, Deven Soni, who is the co-founder and CEO of the Matador Network. 

---

 

Deven, welcome to the program.

 

Great. Thank you for having me.

 

Yeah, thank you very much for joining us from lovely Las Vegas, Nevada. Always a wonderful place. And let’s start off telling us a little bit about the Matador Network. It’s kind of an alternate way that people can invest their money.

 

Absolutely. So, what matter really is that, at the end of the day, is a company, lots of people buy, sell, and trade precious metals, starting with gold in a really easy streamlined fashion, the same way that they could buy stocks with Matador or crypto tokens with Coinbase. It’s just really an easy, streamlined way for people to participate in the precious metals economy.

 

I know we just went through a period, potentially still in this period or have another period again where people are really concerned about inflation and people are wanting hedges against that and hedges against kind of the entire expansion of the monetary supply, which has really been going on in earnest for a little over 15 years now. So what does the precious metals offer that, say, something like bitcoin, what’s the difference between when someone’s going to want to invest in one versus the other?

 

Absolutely, that’s a great question. It’s a really interesting one. I’m going to take a little digression because I think when you think about gold, historically, or precious metals over the last 500 years or hundreds of years, it’s been sort of that mainstream go-to asset when times get rough, when there’s wars, inflation, pandemics, inverted yield curve, all these things, you generally see precious metals outperform the majority of other assets. However, we really haven’t had a time like we have in the last couple of years where you’re seeing some of these issues in the world but you also have a whole variety of new assets, right? Bitcoin wasn’t around in the 80s. And, similarly, there’s just fewer options. You can go on your phone and invest in a bunch of things, fine art, whiskey, whatever, but I think our thought at Matador is really that gold and bitcoin have their own kind of places for people to buy. Digital assets are great because they kind of are investing in the future in some sense, in this idyllic world where a lot more transactions are digital, the unbanked use cryptocurrencies and if you watch crypto for the last 10 or 15 years, I think the world is certainly getting closer to that but I think there’s still a lot of challeng...

You don't have to live your life the way others expect. All of us face constant pressure to live according to someone else's rules and expectations—but there is another way. A way to break free from the chains of societal norms and find true happiness. 

Welcome, dear listeners, to a very special episode of Actions Antidote! I'm your host, Stephen Jaye, and today we're marking a significant milestone as we celebrate our 100th episode. But instead of our usual format, I'll be taking the guest seat to share my journey and the story behind this podcast. Join me as I delve into the depths of my life, discussing the pivotal moments, the diverse pursuits, and the jobs I've undertaken along the way. 

This 100th-episode celebration is not just about me; it's about you, our devoted listeners. A huge thank you to all of our listeners for sticking with us and helping make this community so amazing! Here's to the next hundred episodes of Actions Antidote!

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Celebrating 100 Episodes of Actions Antidote with Stephen Jaye

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Action’s Antidotes today. I’m Luana and I’m your guest host. I’ve been a guest on this podcast for two times and I was so happy when your host, Stephen Jaye, that I will introduce in a minute, came to me to ask me to host this in honor of the 100th episode of the Action’s Antidotes podcast so I’m super happy, so here with me, of course, the host of the podcast.

---

 

Welcome to the show, Stephen Jaye.

 

Oh, thank you very much, and thank you very much for hosting this 100th episode.

 

Yeah, I’m so excited. So, now, this episode will be about you and so let’s start about what’s your background story. Can you tell us a little bit about your life before you even like had this podcast?

 

Yeah. It’s kind of an interesting story and I’m so glad because, after 99 other episodes, to get the chance to share a little bit of my story in the podcast and for anyone out there that’s listening, that’s like, okay, I wonder if you have a story as well or if you’re just kind of showboating — not showboating but telling everyone else’s story. And my background is that I actually originally began loving the weather and studying meteorology in college as well as graduate school because I recognized from a very early age, how, growing up in Long Island, how hurricanes, nor’easters, or even changes in weather, where, let’s say it’s March and, one week, it’s really cold, it feels like it’s still winter and you don’t want to go outside, you don’t want to do anything so you’re stuck inside, and then another week, you get like another weather pattern and it would be like in the 60s or 70s, it will say 15 to 23 Celsius, for anyone international out there listening, and that’s like so much different of a week and so much different of a life experience and I just really wanted to understand the mechanisms, the scientific mechanisms of how that worked out. But, early on in life, of course, I very much was what I refer to living by the script. I had kind of a little bit bought into it. I’d always suspected something a little weird and I’ve always suspected that I was going to have to push against something, even from back when I was a teenager or 11, 12, 13, when you’re first realizing what your true identity is, I always knew that something was going to have to be different for me than what I’m seeing all around me but I didn’t kind of maybe come to the full grips of every single idea, like the way I was being educated, the way I was learning that if you get the answer wrong, you fail the test and you fail, that’s the worst thing that could possibly happen to you and now you have these consequences was not the way to go so I tried to find a more normal, typical career, which, for me, was meteorology in the insurance industry and that’s what I did for the first five or so years after I left school.

 

Oh, wow. So you started with that,

Self-love is not merely a luxury but a necessity for our well-being. It involves acknowledging our worth, embracing our strengths, and forgiving our flaws. By practicing self-compassion and self-care, we create a solid foundation for personal growth and resilience. In a world filled with obstacles and challenges, how can we carve out time for self-love amidst our busy lives?

In this episode, I have an interesting conversation with Arliss Dudley-Cash, a highly esteemed business consultant and self-love coach. Join us today as we delve into Arliss's remarkable personal journey and explore the profound significance of cultivating self-love, not only within the realm of business but also as individuals. With a background in neuroscience, Arliss founded Soullutions to guide clients toward personal growth, utilizing self-love and self-acceptance as catalysts for success.

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Empowering Yourself for a Life You Love with Arliss Dudley-Cash

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you selling for less. Today, I want to talk to you about a situation that you may find yourself in or may already be in and that’s a situation that you have already kind of made some progress or started taking some action toward your goals, you figured out what you want to do, but now you need to take account for a couple of things. First of all, how you maintain that balance, how you maintain that balance of taking care of yourself while you’re, say, potentially working a full-time job but also trying to promote a business or taking on two or three pursuits, trying a whole bunch of things, it can be stressful, it can be a lot, and also how you’re controlling your mindset because nothing’s going to really work that well if you don’t have a positive mindset and there’s plenty of people talking quite a bit about how the information you consume into your brain and the messages you tell yourself, what you believe about yourself eventually becomes the results of whatever pursuit you’re trying to take on. And this is where my guest today, Arliss Dudley-Cash, and her business, Soullutions, comes into play.

---

 

Arliss, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me here today. It’s such an honor.

 

Well, thank you so much for joining. And, first of all, I want to ask you, Soullutions, just give us a little overview of what the whole thing is all about.

 

You know, I had a dream and this is the business name that came to me and, really, it’s the marrying of the business pursuits that we’re all looking at, and it could be in business but it could be in life, those solutions that we’re looking to achieve or those goals that we’re looking to achieve, and really bringing a soulful approach to that, tapping into our humanness and what we need for the caring and feeding of us as humans on this planet as we go through the process of accomplishing our goals.

 

So, do you think that the business world tends to ignore the human soul, the human needs and focus only on things such as output, things such as numbers and metrics?

 

Absolutely. I think that that is a huge part of our societal structure and a huge part of the way that business is structured. And other professions as well. This is not just in business, it just is in business as well. 

 

Yeah. 

 

And I think that it’s kind of a short-sighted approach to having success in business because the research shows that the more that we look more holistically at what we need as humans to be successful, the more successful we are.

 

Yeah, that makes sense, and you showing the research, is this all recent research or would someone 20 years ago have had any reason to be aware of this idea that if we take care of our human needs, our business is also going to be better?

 

So, 20 years ago, there was some research out there. Most of the research that is discussed now is very recent...

Employee engagement is a topic that often blurs the lines between commitment and engagement. In any organization, having a clear vision, mission, and goals is crucial. However, to effectively achieve these objectives, it is essential to provide employees with a sense of purpose and direction. So, what are the best strategies for organizations to improve company culture and enhance employee motivation and performance?

In this week's episode, we have a special guest, Andrew Kitchner, the Founder of New Wave Solutions, who joins us to discuss the crucial role of employee commitment in organizational success. Andrew illustrates the distinction between commitment and engagement by providing practical scenarios within organizations. His platform, New Wave Solutions, is dedicated to measuring employee commitment and uncovering effective strategies to enhance employees' dedication to organizational goals and values. 

Tune in and discover strategies to enhance commitment for your organization. Listen now!

---

Listen to the podcast here:

The Power of Commitment for Success in Organizations with Andrew Kitchner

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. The last couple of episodes, we focused quite a bit on jobs, both how we find a job as well as how we could kind of network to become better connected to some of our potential jobs. The question we’re asking today now is what happens once you get into the job because one of the problems that we have with a lot of organizations these days is employees, you’ll get your job, then it takes maybe a month or two, the new job thing, where it’s off and you wonder, “Is this what I really want? Is this what I really expected, am I really happy?” and as my guest, Andrew Kitchner, will say, “Am I really committed?” Andrew Kitchner is the founder and chief survey administrator, hope I’m getting that right, of New Wave Solutions, and he focuses on commitment rather than engagement, so that’s a good place to start.

---

 

Andrew, welcome to the program.

 

Thank you, thank you for having me. 

 

Definitely. This is great because we’re talking about the last few episodes, the different ways people go about getting to their ideal career. We know that the process of — the applicant tracking system process is broken, the process by which people discover who they are, the way people post postings can be a little bit broken, and, now, we also have some issues that we’re going to talk about today with what happens once someone gets into a job, what employees are doing, because so many organizations, whether you’re the one at a job or you’re the one who started your company and you’re looking to keep your employees, you say that we should be focusing on commitment rather than engagement.

 

Yeah. I originally he was a believer in engagement. What we found was, when we were looking at what is the best predictor of long-term retention, my hypothesis was engagement. Companies are spending millions of dollars on engagement surveys. I wasn’t cocky enough to say I know better than all these companies, I assumed that these companies are measuring the best metrics. After looking at about a hundred different variables, engagement was about the 35th best predictor of long-term retention. It frankly ruined my hypothesis so it’s not like I came into this wanting this to be true. What was the best long-term predictor of retention as well as performance was a term called organizational commitment and what that means, it’s an employee’s commitment to their company’s goals, values, mission, and people, and just on an intuitive level, what I say now is when you think about something that you worked hard to achieve, whether it’s in your personal or professional life, why did you put in that discretionary effort? Very rarely will somebody say, “I put in that discretionary effort because I was engaged.

Networking is the art of building connections and fostering relationships with individuals who can provide support, guidance, and opportunities. It involves cultivating a diverse network of mentors, peers, and protégés to learn from their experiences and expand one's perspective. But how can we effectively leverage our networks to maximize personal and professional growth?

In this week's episode, we're joined by Andrea Macek, the Founder and CEO of AYM Consulting, to talk about what networking is and how to do it correctly. Andrea shares valuable insights on how to cultivate a strong network that can help you grow both personally and professionally. She enumerates the three types of people you should have in your network and some proven networking strategies. 

Tune in and learn practical tips for building a strong and supportive network.

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Networking: Making Connections for Growth with Andrea Macek

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. In the last episode, we talked about my friend Keith developing a whole new system to replace our applicant tracking systems, how we’re going to find a better way to connect employees to employers. However, there are other ways to make connections and one of those ways that a lot of people often ignore is networking. My guest today, Andrea Macek, is a woman that actually helped me quite a bit on my own job search journey last year and is also starting a new initiative around helping people with their networking game. Andrea basic is the founder of AYM Consulting.

---

 

Andrea, welcome to the program.

 

Thanks, Stephen, for having me, it’s so fun to connect with you and support you in a different way so this is really fun. 

 

It’s always interesting to have these relationships that take on a couple of different forms and one of the weird things I always say is that this podcast, the first 10, 12 episodes really began with just me talking to my friends and sharing it out here, so it is important to cover all that networking. First of all, actually, before we get into networking, tell us a little bit about what AYM Consulting, your full business, is all about.

 

Sure, thank you. So, yeah, my name is Andrea Macek and I am speaking to your community, hi, everyone, today as the founder and CEO of my career coaching business, AYM Consulting. And so I started this business after I got laid off back in 2019 from my corporate healthcare career. I was in healthcare for almost 10 years and this really was out of necessity and out of my own experience, if you will. So, I started my career, like a lot of people, not knowing what I was going to do. I actually was dropped into the job search in 2008 during the Great Recession, two degrees in hand ready to go conquer the world and the market had other plans for me. So, I became my own career coach kind of early on in my career and really had to develop different skills and pivot and understand the market in ways that’s a whole ’nother podcast episode, Stephen —

 

Well, yeah, for sure.

 

— in a way college does not prepare you.

 

Oh, yeah. I’ve mentioned that plenty of times about our education system teaching you, “You get one wrong answer, you’re going to fail and failing is the worst thing ever,” and that’s just not how the world works.

 

Not how the world works, no. I’m happy to come back and rant with you about that topic. I used to work at a college, I was the career advisor. So, long story short, over the past 10, 15 years, I’ve been able to grow and pivot my career in a multitude of ways and networking has been that foundation. And while I was working, I was an HR business partner, I was in healthcare for a long time, one of my main passions and expertise areas was supporting my team. I grew and developed my team, a lot of my team got promoted and moved on after working with them and coaching them so I’ve be...

Many companies find themselves inundated with over 100 applicants for a single job vacancy, often resorting to traditional job interviews to make their hiring decisions. However, this process can be time-consuming and inefficient, leading to a significant investment of resources for just one hire. How can we address this challenge and ensure that we secure the best talent? Is there a solution that streamlines the hiring process and improves the quality of hires? 

In this episode, join us as we sit down with Keith Hulen, the Founder and CEO of SmartRank. Keith brings his extensive experience as a Hiring Manager spanning over two decades to the table, and he's here to discuss an exciting and groundbreaking solution for talent acquisition and optimizing employee-to-employer connections. SmartRank, the AI system Keith developed, revolutionizes the hiring process by not only saving valuable time and effort but also ensuring the hiring of the top talents for your business. 

Tune in to discover how SmartRank leverages and predicts top talent for your business success. 

---

Listen to the podcast here:

SmartRank: Revolutionizing Talent Acquisition with Keith Hulen

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, I’m going to talk to you about something that’s near and dear to me because I think it causes a lot of suffering in this world, and that is this inefficient daunting process by which we go about finding jobs or finding employees, basically connecting an employer to an employee. This kind of really drawn-out process where people are submitting so many cover letters, so many resumes, reading so much, is what keeps a lot of people fearfully clinging to jobs that are making them miserable and a lot of business owners trying to hang on to employees that are just simply not working out and I personally think that we’d be in a much better state if we were to find a more effective way to connect these people so that if something isn’t working out, if someone is miserable or if someone’s not getting the job done, we can much more easily move on without this fear of what comes next and how much work am I going to have to put into what’s coming next. And that’s one of the core motivations for my guest today, Keith Hulen. Keith’s business is called SmartRank, more effective way in which to kind of sort through all the resumes, cover letters, or whatever employment materials that we get when we put out a job posting.

---

 

Keith, welcome to the program.

 

Yeah, thanks, Stephen. Glad to be here. 

 

Glad to have you here. S, Keith, first of all, let’s start by talking about your story. What motivated you to start SmartRank? What were you observing in your field that you had been in for a couple decades before that? 

 

Yeah, so I’ve been a hiring manager for over 20 years, and me along with all of my peers over the last 20 years have all felt the same way about the hiring process, which is that it was fairly dysfunctional and it needed some sort of improvement. The hiring process, as a hiring manager, from just my perspective, hadn’t changed in 20 years.

It didn’t matter if I was at a global 500 company or a startup, it didn’t matter if I was dealing with an internal or an external recruiting team, the process, the tools, everything was almost identical.

 

I mean, very small nuanced little changes between each one of those but, for the most part, everything was very, very similar and it was very frustrating. And so when I set off to want to start my own company, I knew that this was an area that I really wanted to explore further. What we ended up doing was not coming in with any preconceived ideas. I knew what our problems were from a hiring manager standpoint, I had spent a lot of time hearing from my friends and colleagues and peers about their experiences and I knew what mine were, but what I really wanted to do was understand more from th...

Creating and developing a product can be a daunting task for most business owners. A minimum viable product (MVP) allows customers to provide feedback for future development. Thus, developers can avoid lengthy and unnecessary work. However, how can we go beyond turning this idea into a reality and make it a running and successful venture?

Join us in this episode as I sit down with Allie Reitz, the Founder and CEO of MEEP, to explore the essential steps in building a minimum viable product (MVP). We delve into the world of automation and discuss the significance of creating a functional and captivating website that fosters efficient connections with people.

Tune in to this episode and learn actionable strategies from the expert!

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Building a Minimum Viable Product and Efficient Website Development with Allie Reitz

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. I’m going to talk to you today about a common situation, maybe you’re in it, maybe you’ve been in it, maybe you know someone in it. You found your idea after all this digging in, that idea that’s at that perfect intersection of what the world needs, what you’re good at, and the idea that’s going to bring your life to where you want to bring it, but the question is how do you actually make that idea become a reality? That’s a whole ‘nother daunting task after all this personal reflection that can sometimes actually deter people from really doing anything because it is long, it is drawn out to go from, okay, I have this idea, to, now I’m doing it, now people are buying it, or now people are engaging with that. And that’s where my guest today, Allie Reitz, and her organization, Meep, come into play.

---

Allie, welcome to the program. 

 

How it’s going?

 

It’s going pretty well today. How’s it going for you?

 

So good. I was outside most of the morning so I’m feeling very good now looking at my computer.

 

Well, that’s amazing because one of the things that inspires a lot of people to pursue any of these paths is the ability to live the life they want and you decided this morning, “I wanna be outside because,” to give a little detail about the Colorado weather today, it was a very sunny morning, and the afternoon is probably going to have a high chance of rain in most places so that’s a great way to orient your day. 

 

Yes, I’m very glad I did it.

 

So at Meep, you specialize in having someone go from, you talk about from zero to traction, from zero to where you’re actually getting there. How does that process really work? When someone comes in, I assume most people that come in are, as I’ve described, people that already have that idea, they’ve already searched and they figured out what they want to physically do but now, of course, how to get it from, “It’s this thing in my head, I think, oh, it’d be really cool to do this for these people,” to where you’re actually getting these people to engage with you.

Totally. Like you said, it’s a long process, right? And what’s in your head is probably not what you’re going to start with because what’s in your head is probably the big, fancy, shiny, awesome version that’s going to be version 10 or 20 down the line. It’s going to be —- one way that I like to describe it or analogy that I like to use is from Jeff Patton in his book called User Story Mapping. He describes it really simply, which I love. It’s like if you’re wanting to solve the problem for people, that is, getting them from point A to point B, and your idea of the solution is a car, you’re not going to start with a wheel because that doesn’t necessarily solve that problem for them right out of the gate and your first objective is to kind of validate that assumption that you can solve that problem for them. So his analogy is, you start with a skateboard. It still gets people from point A to point B. It’s a lot more janky than a car, much,

Transitioning into a new career can be immensely challenging particularly when the majority of your time has been devoted to pursuits that might not align with your true passion. However, deep within, you may sense a persistent longing for a life that resonates with your authentic self. How can we have the courage to make a decision on a significant career shift?

Welcome to today's episode! We are delighted to have Michael Ryno as our guest. In this episode, Michael will take us on a captivating journey as he shares his remarkable transition from the world of corporate banking to pursuing his true passion in photography. With an impressive 25-year career in finance under his belt, Michael's story is one of courage, perseverance, and the pursuit of personal fulfillment.

Tune in to this episode to gain a deeper understanding of the personal and professional transformation that occurs when one follows their passion. Stay tuned and get ready to be inspired!

---

Listen to the podcast here:

Career Shift from Corporate Banking to Professional Photography with Michael Ryno

Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. It’s been a while since I’ve shared a story about a significant career transition and some of these significant career transitions are a little bit harder to come by because it’s so much easier to transition to something with like, quote-unquote, “transferable skills” or even to just move on to, say, a competitor or a slightly different job, get a promotion than to take a whole different path. But sometimes, that whole different path is what you really want out of life. It’s your true passion and it affords the life that you really want. And if you don’t want a certain lifestyle and you want a career that’s going to give you the lifestyle, you’re going to have the adventures you want, the travels you want, the types of things you want to be doing, then that’s a great thing to come by. My guest today, Michael Ryno of Michael Ryno Photography pursued recently his passion of being a photographer as opposed to his prior career.

---

Michael, welcome to the program.

 

Yeah. Hey, thank you so much, Stephen, for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity.

 

No problem. I’m glad to have you because I’ve done a lot of stories about people leaving whatever job they had to pursue what they really wanted. It’s been a little while since I’ve shared one of those that, I’m kind of covering some other topics. So, yeah, Michael, tell me your story about where you were for, I don’t want to say most of your life but for a significant amount of time?

 

Sure, sure. I think most of my life, that’s probably a pretty accurate statement. So, out of college, I went right into banking. I majored in finance so I was in the banking and finance world from 1983 all the way until August of 2021. While an enjoyable career, it sort of got to the point where I was, to be honest, maybe a little bit burned out and so forth with that corporate grind and what had occurred there was over the course of the last, I guess, five, six years while I was doing that corporate banking, I had picked up a camera, I think I learned how to use it properly and really became passionate about photography. So, like I mentioned, in August of 2021, it felt like the right time to let go of that corporate environment, that corporate job, banking, move on and pursue this new career In photography.

 

So would it be accurate to say that at least for well over a decade, potentially, that that job in finance did serve you well?

 

Throughout that time, I had, like I said, great relationships, great people that I worked with. Having said that, there were a few different banks that I had been involved with the last, say, 14 years of that career was in the large corporate food and agribusiness lending, large food processing companies and I still look back and enjoy having had that experience...