Brave

What if the past has shaped you, but doesn’t have to define your future?

On this episode of Brave, host Tammy Dunnett talks with Dr. Russ Irwin about generational trauma, childhood abuse, and the painful patterns that can shape how we see ourselves and relate to others.

Dr. Irwin shares how mentorship, curiosity, and the willingness to ask for help began to change his path, and why he sees people affected by trauma as wounded, not broken.

Together, Tammy and Russ explore healing as an ongoing journey, reframing triggers, and finding courage in moments of uncertainty.

Dr. Russ Irwin has worked at the intersection of human behavior, mental health, and high performance. His perspective is shaped not only by advanced study but his work with leaders, individuals, organizations, and his own journey through poverty and childhood abuse.

Learn more about Dr. Russ Irwin, his recent book, and coaching at www.irwincoaching.ca

Visit thetalkshop.ca

What happens when you're the only woman in the room and you're expected to prove you belong there?

In this episode of BRAVE, Tammy Dunnett sits down with Doris Paquette, an award-winning executive, community builder, and advocate for women's leadership, to talk about finding your voice in male-dominated industries.

Doris shares her experience of being questioned because of her age and gender, second-guessing herself, and eventually shrinking her voice just to avoid conflict. She also shares the pivotal moment when she stopped waiting for someone else to advocate for her and decided to take control of her own destiny.

We talk about:

• What it feels like to constantly question whether you belong
• The impact of being underestimated on confidence and creativity
• Finding people who will champion you when you can't yet champion yourself
• Having difficult conversations instead of quietly going along
• Coming prepared and trusting your expertise
• Speaking up without softening what you really mean
• Being labelled "difficult" or "too much" and refusing to let that make your decisions for you

Doris's message is simple: your voice matters. Don't dim your light.

And the question she leaves us with:

Where have you been editing your voice, and what might happen if you trusted yourself enough to say what you're already qualified to say?

Stay in the conversation. Stay in the brave.

#BRAVE #WomensLeadership #Leadership #WomenInLeadership #Confidence #Communication #WomenInTheWorkplace #Courage #CareerConfidence

Have you ever been completely clear about what you wanted to say or do - until someone reacted?

They questioned you. Got angry. Pushed back. And suddenly, the certainty you had a moment ago disappeared.

What happened?

In this episode of BRAVE, Tammy sits down with writer and somatic clarity specialist Stephanie Dawn Clark to explore what happens beneath the surface when fear, our nervous system, and past experiences begin to shape what we can see as possible.

Stephanie spent much of her life learning to trust her intellect and solve problems. But after finding herself in an abusive relationship, she discovered something that changed the way she understood clarity, fear, and choice.

Sometimes, the problem isn't that we don't know what to do.

Sometimes, our physiology has changed what we're able to perceive.

Stephanie shares her deeply personal story of moving from freeze to clarity and how that clarity ultimately helped her find a way out of a dangerous situation.

Together, Tammy and Stephanie explore:

• Why our nervous system can narrow our perception without us realizing it
• The connection between past experiences and present-day reactions
• Fight, flight, freeze and fawn as survival responses
• How self-doubt can become a form of self-gaslighting
• Why trying to intellectually understand an irrational situation may keep us stuck
• The difference between fear as a warning signal and fear as an old prediction
• What it means to move from reaction to choice
• Why clarity isn't always cognitive - it can be something we experience throughout the body
• The importance of slowing down the moment when something shifts
• Why Stephanie believes we shouldn't manufacture certainty, but instead maintain contact with reality

One of the most powerful ideas in this conversation is that bravery isn't necessarily about pushing through fear.

For Stephanie, brave has come to mean something much simpler:

Being willing to look. To want the truth more than we want to be comfortable.

And sometimes, that means becoming curious about the exact moment when something changed.

A question for you

The next time you find yourself questioning something you were once clear about, pause.

What happened in that moment?
What changed?
And what did I know before that?

Because sometimes the brave thing isn't to push forward.

Sometimes it's to stop, get curious, and look.

About Stephanie Dawn Clark

Stephanie Dawn Clark is a writer and somatic clarity specialist who helps people work with consequential situations by developing more accurate perception and greater choice.

Her work focuses on the relationship between the brain, nervous system, fear, clarity and our ability to stay connected to reality.

Find Stephanie at StephanieDawnClark.com, where you can also access her Situation Locator tool.

She also writes on Substack, which she describes as the intellectual home of her work.

About BRAVE

BRAVE is about the moments that shape us, the choices that define us, and the courage it takes to become more fully ourselves.

Because brave isn't just one moment.

It's something we keep choosing.

Brave is what happens when who you are becomes more important than what you're afraid of.

Until next time, stay in the conversation.

How much of your life are you willing to spend proving you can succeed in a place you no longer want to be?

Stacey Berger spent 16 years climbing to the executive level then walked away with three kids, a new mortgage, and no plan. A conversation about values, fear, and jumping anyway.

Stacey Berger had the career most people would call a win: 16 years at one company, promoted from administrative assistant all the way to a decade in a high-stakes executive role, in an organization she genuinely loved. And then the things that made it worth loving - the people-centric vision, the room to grow, the ability to make an impact - began to be clawed back.

As the breadwinner for a family of five with a stay-at-home husband, she found herself never fully at work when she was at work, and never fully at home when she was home.

In this episode, Stacey walks Tammy through the anatomy of her brave decision. She names the morning she woke up not wanting to go to work and did a quiet life assessment in bed; and the roughly two years of indecision that followed.

She describes the "when/then" game so many high achievers play: when the kids are older, when the mortgage is paid, when there's money in the bank, then I'll make the change. And she describes the day she stopped playing it, with a brand-new dream home, a big mortgage, a one-, three-, and five-year-old, and no nest egg to speak of. Relief and terror arrived in the same breath.

What follows is the unglamorous middle: an exit that was "a bit of a gong show" after 16 years of loyalty, a shaken sense of confidence, an identity crisis without the title, and three non-negotiables she held onto when she had no answers: impact, growth, and freedom.

In this conversation:

• Why loyalty became the value that competed with every other one she held
• The difference between "I think I've made a decision" and a line-in-the-sand decision
• Building security out of faith rather than conditions — "we're going to figure it out"
• The values you compromise without noticing, and the weight that lifts when you stop
• Why she couldn't have predicted the life she has now — and why that's the point

Connect with Stacey: staceyberger.ca — and on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

Got a story of your own? Visit TheTalkshop.ca to apply to be a guest on BRAVE.

Until next time — stay in the conversation, and stay in the brave.

What happens when you’re told “no” and it feels like the choice has been taken away from you?

In this episode of BRAVE, Tammy Dunnett talks with Jason Alderson about rejection, fear, self-advocacy, and the power of having a brave conversation when you could simply walk away.

Jason had already spent years educating members of the Canadian Armed Forces about mental health when he applied to become a Mental Health First Aid instructor. He was confident he was a good fit. Then came the rejection: he wasn’t accepted.

For a couple of days, Jason grieved what felt like a future that had suddenly disappeared. But eventually, he made a choice: he wasn’t finished.

Instead of accepting the rejection as the end of the road, Jason reached back out. He respectfully challenged the decision, advocated for himself, and opened a conversation that revealed something he hadn’t expected.

The problem wasn’t that he was a soldier. He simply hadn’t gone deeply enough in his application.

That brave conversation changed everything.

Jason shares what he learned about standing up for yourself, navigating rejection, finding your voice, making courageous choices, and refusing to let fear make the decision for you.

Together, Tammy and Jason explore:

• Why rejection can feel like a loss of choice and power
• How fear can convince us to do nothing while making it sound completely reasonable
• Why fear can have a vote, but it doesn’t have to be the only vote
• The courage it takes to advocate for yourself
• How a “no” can sometimes mean “not yet”
• Why taking a breath and becoming intentional can change what happens next
• The importance of looking inward before making a difficult choice
• How brave conversations can create opportunities we thought were already gone
• What it means to choose courage, even when you’re afraid of disappointment or failure
• How our choices shape the path forward, even when we can’t control the circumstances

This is a conversation about bravery, resilience, rejection, self-advocacy, leadership, mental health, courage, and the choices we make when life doesn’t go according to plan.

And it leaves us with a question:

Where in your life have you been acting as though the choice has already been made for you?

Because maybe there’s still a choice there left unexplored.

Maybe it’s yours to make.

Learn more about Jason Alderson and his work in mental health, leadership, resilience, and workplace speaking at jasonalderson.com.

Learn more about Tammy Dunnett and The Talk Shop’s work in communication, leadership, brave conversations, coaching, training, and keynotes at thetalkshop.ca.

BRAVE is a podcast about the moments that shape us, the conversations we avoid, the choices that define us, and the courage it takes to become more fully ourselves.

Because sometimes, one brave conversation can change everything.

On this episode of Brave Rebellion, leadership and communication coach Tammy Dunnett speaks with sex and intimacy coach Xanet Pailet, a former high‑achieving healthcare attorney who walked away from a 26‑year sexless marriage and a prestigious career that looked perfect from the outside.

Xanet shares how she poured all her energy into work and motherhood while feeling lonely, disconnected from her body, and terrified of vulnerability. She opens up about leaving her marriage at 50, discovering tantra, healing sexual shame, writing Living an Orgasmic Life, and redefining success, intimacy, and identity.

This conversation is for high‑achieving women who feel broken, “too much,” or “not enough”—and secretly wonder if this is all life has to offer.

When your paycheck depends on your silence, what do you choose?

In this episode of The Brave Rebellion Podcast, career ownership coach Stacy Heisey-Terrell shares how she uncovered financial manipulation, refused to falsify reports, and lost her HR director role for choosing integrity over security. We explore toxic leadership, “battered career syndrome,” the hidden costs of staying, and how Stacy rebuilt a values-aligned life through entrepreneurship and service.

You’ll hear:

• How financial irregularities were uncovered and dismissed
• The emotional toll of being punished for telling the truth
• The real cost of choosing integrity over security
• “Battered career syndrome” and why so many stay in harmful roles
• How Stacy rebuilt her career, values, and sense of freedom

Keywords: integrity, toxic workplace, HR leadership, whistleblowing, career transition, burnout, ethical leadership, psychologically safe workplaces, brave conversations

Connect with Stacey https://sheisey-terrell.esourcecoach.com/
Connect with Tammy: thetalkshop.ca

In this episode of The Brave Rebellion, Tammy Dunnett sits down with Michelle Steiner, a writer, teacher’s aide, and disability advocate who grew up with an invisible learning disability. Labeled early as an “outcast” and repeatedly told college wasn’t for her, Michelle was urged toward trade school and “limited” paths.

Through candid storytelling, she shares how years of defeat, stigma, and discouraging reports from professionals eventually gave way to a brave decision: to trust her own interests, pursue college, and advocate fiercely for accommodations. Michelle explains how shifting her self-talk, focusing on what she can do, and leaning on family support helped her build a meaningful career and life.

This episode explores the power of self-advocacy, mindset, and quiet rebellion against other people’s expectations—offering hope and practical insight for anyone living with an invisible disability or walking beside someone who is.

When the most powerful person in the room orders you to violate your values, what do you do? In this episode of The Brave Rebellion, HR consultant Patrick Snook shares how he refused a president’s demand to fire an injured, traumatized employee labeled as “damaged goods.” We break down the legal, ethical, and deeply human sides of his decision, the risk to his career, and how brave moments at work can spark culture-changing ripple effects.

Together we explore:

• How Patrick recognized the values conflict in real time
• The pressure of a rigid, powerful, status-driven leader
• Why he refused to fire her—and how fast that decision really was
• The legal, ethical, and moral dimensions HR professionals must hold
• What “human-centric” leadership looks like when the stakes are high
• The career and reputational risks of saying no to a president or CEO
• The ripple effects: respect from middle managers, allyship, and culture shifts
• Practical advice for employees who don’t trust HR or feel alone
• How to build a support network and approach HR (or allies) as partners
• Why small, everyday “brave moments” can snowball into real organizational change

This story is for you if:

• You’ve worked for a rigid, strict, or controlling boss
• You’re in HR and feel torn between protecting people and protecting the company
• You’re a leader who wants to build a psychologically safe, trauma-informed workplace
• You’ve ever wondered if speaking up is worth the risk

👉 Key Themes: workplace bullying, toxic leadership, HR ethics, integrity, courage at work, psychological safety, trauma-informed leadership, conflict resolution.

If Patrick’s story resonates, take a moment to reflect:

Where are you being called to stand firm in your own leadership journey—and what might your next brave rebellion look like?

🔔 Subscribe to The Brave Rebellion for more real stories of leaders who choose integrity over comfort, even when the path isn’t easy.

Connect with Patrick:

https://patricksnoekconsulting.ca
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-snoek/

Connect with Tammy:
Leadership & communication coaching | Workplace bullying & conflict resolution | Trauma-informed leadership & psychologically safe workplaces

When your career implodes, do you hide it to “protect” your reputation—or share it and risk looking like a fraud?

In this episode of The Brave Rebellion, Dr. Christy Taylor—career coach, military veteran, and former higher-ed leader—reveals what happened when she was suddenly laid off from the job she thought would define her future

Christy and host Tammy Dunnett unpack:

• The grief of losing not just a job, but an identity
• How overthinking and perfectionism became self-sabotage
• Why finally admitting “this happened to me” increased her credibility
• How vulnerability unlocked new creativity, programs, and a support community for job seekers

If you’ve ever wondered whether to keep a setback secret or use it to serve others, this conversation will challenge how you think about credibility, courage, and what it really means to be “the expert.”

Hit play to discover how sharing the truth about your hardest moments can become the most powerful part of your story.