This week we continue to discuss “straddlers,” i.e. individuals who grew up working class but worked their way into white collar careers. Yancey Spruill grew up in a rough neighborhood in west Buffalo, NY where food stamps and eviction were part of his reality. He attended Georgia Tech and earned his MBA at Dartmouth’s Tuck School. Yancey worked on Wall Street for seven years then took two separate private companies public as their Chief Financial Officer.

Susan Nicholas was raised in an unstable, single-parent home in Morgantown, WV. She earned her MD from University of Iowa Medical School, completed a general surgery residency at University of San Francisco and a cardiothoracic fellowship at Stanford. Not to mention and MBA from Emory University. Yet none of these degrees brought her the validation she was looking for. Listen for the whole story.

For more about Paul, go to http://paulollinger.com