In Her Words

My fellow Squad Members kept stopping me at the GRAB LIFE BY THE GOALS SUMMIT kicking off the New Year and saying, “You’ve GOT to talk to Alina Doran!” So I did! And I was suitably impressed.

We’d known each other for two days before I learned that A) she survived a thyroid cancer scare and B) she immigrated from Kyiv where she lived as a girl during the infamous Chernobyl nuclear disaster. You buried the lead there Alina!

We talk about her girlhood experiences with anti-semitism and her important work elevating the best in humanity now as an Executive Coach. Memorable conversation!

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Bronwyn Hinton on her late husband, artist Steve Hinton. 

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Bronwyn Hinton grew up in Chattanooga, moved to Texas when both of her parents died, went to college at Vanderbilt and moved with her husband Steve to NYC. When they had children the couple moved to Albany, GA, my home town. We talk frankly about “the trailing spouse” and how she fell in love with South Georgia and how she reinvented herself as a chef. Then in bonus tracks she talks about her late husband Steve Hinton and his unique art.

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Tamara Park is a master storyteller: on video, in book form, and live in person. She’s travelled all over the world capturing the tough stories of refugees from war, famine and sex trafficking. Now she empowers others to tell their own stories after studying the neuroscience of story. Hint: storytelling benefits both the teller and the audience by bathing the brain in positive, natural mood elevators like dopamine. Fascinating! You’ll feel better just hearing Tamara!

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Kathleen Murray Moran’s first husband was an NYPD Bomb Squad technician killed in the line of duty by a terrorist bomb. She has written a superb memoir of the tragic loss of her husband Brian Murray after terrorists placed a bomb in Grand Central Station.

Our conversation starts with her bleak childhood in a Bronx basement and how her lifelong love of reading and writing took her to college at age 30. It’s the story of a gifted and disciplined writer who has mastered the craft of non-fiction narrative. 

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Betsy Hauser (HOO-zur) knows what it’s like to be passed over in the hyper-masculine world of tech just because she’s a woman. She stuck around to found and run her own company TTS - Tech Talent and Strategies - and to lead programs that taught thousands of women to code. She believes coding should be taught alongside any other language in school. And she’s living proof that more diverse companies are more nimble and creative companies. We talk in her parents' home with 270 degree views of Lake Norman. A fun and illuminating conversation.

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Cheryl Brayboy is no typical TV anchor at WBTV. She went to an Ivy League School (U. Penn). She has a Ph. D. She attended one HBCU (Spelman College) and now teaches at another (Johnson C. Smith University). We talk bluntly about race, slave narratives (about which she is well-versed) and pathways to racial healing - oh, and also about why she never dated a white boy in her almost all-white high school. (Hint: it was NOT because they didn’t ask!)

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Kelly Finley came highly recommended by one of our most powerful podcast guests ever - USMC veteran Erin Cobb, who survived two gunshots to the head from her ex-husband. Kelly taught Erin Women’s Studies at UNCC, but there’s some question of just who taught who more. The two have become fast friends and mutual admirers. When Erin was lying in a hospital bed fighting for life, Kelly Finley was there. To say they are friends doesn’t do justice to the relationship. But this interview is about Kelly and what made her the amazing woman she is today.

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Dominique Johnson ran away from home barefoot, unable to stand a mother who had at times whipped her bloody. Yet by the time she had a daughter of her own, she found a way to let go of a lifelong resentment and invite her mother into their lives. How did she find the strength to let go and grant her mom Grace? That’s a great story...

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