Kathleen Hicks became the first Senate-confirmed woman to serve as Deputy Secretary of Defense, the highest-ranking woman in the department's history. She left the role in January 2025, her third time leaving government, after three decades building a career she never approached as a burden to carry, but as a duty to hand off. This is a Work Unscripted conversation about leadership, confidence, and what it actually takes to lead the Pentagon as a woman in a role no woman had held before.

In this episode:

• What her first week of civilian life looked like after leaving the Pentagon
• Why she calls public service jobs a duty and not something you own
• The weight, or lack of it, she felt as the first woman in her role
• How she built confidence without ever claiming to have all the answers
• Her advice to young women navigating doubt and discrimination at work

CHAPTERS

• Leaving the Pentagon: what freedom looked like in week one
• Three exits from government and what changed each time
• Being the first woman as Deputy Secretary of Defense
• Confidence, curiosity, and why she never claims to know everything
• Advice for young women in mission-driven careers

Katie Savage took the CIO job for the state of Maryland eight months pregnant. She came from Defense Digital Service, where she learned that the most important thing any technology organization can do is build in-house expertise rather than outsource its thinking to vendors. In Maryland, she found a team that managed contracts. She built a different kind of team. This is a Work Unscripted conversation about what it takes to lead a technology organization at scale, what it's like to be a woman doing it, and what she's building for the six million people who depend on Maryland's systems.In this episode:- What it was like to start a major CIO role eight months pregnant and what that forced her to figure out fast- How she shifted Maryland's tech organization from vendor management to in-house expertise- What Maryland's infrastructure actually includes: their own fiber network, first responder radio, and the public benefits platform that handles SNAP, WIC, and energy assistance- What female leadership in tech looks like when you stop trying to lead like your male predecessors- What the DDS experience gave her that most state CIOs don't haveCHAPTERS0:00 – Judging a datathon and the human-centered design principle she never stops preaching6:00 – How she got to DDS and why the CIO track was always the plan7:30 – Starting as Maryland CIO eight months pregnant and what that was like9:30 – What it means to lead as a woman and stop trying to lead like your male predecessors10:00 – The mentors who dragged chairs to tables for her and what she does in return14:30 – What a state CIO actually does and how Maryland's portfolio is different16:30 – Maryland's fiber network, first responder radio, and the DC plane crash17:30 – Building in-house talent and recruiting former USDS and DOGE employees18:30 – The public benefits platform: SNAP, WIC, and what it means to serve six million people_________Buy the LBT book: https://amzn.to/4fQUVakSupport LBT → https://buymeacoffee.com/lifebtwtitlesListen→ Spotify: https://sptfy.in/fd0u | Apple: https://apple.co/4mkfOwpGuests & Sponsors → https://www.lifebetweentitles.com/become-a-sponsor#lifebetweentitles #careertransition #personaldevelopment #lifetransition #identityshift

Kelli Martin found the job listing in a red binder inside her college's career office. It was for a publicity assistant at Simon & Schuster. She didn't get that job. A month later they called her about a different one, and she said yes before she'd even thought it through. Thirty years later she's edited books at Simon & Schuster, William Morrow, Hyperion, Harlequin, and Amazon Publishing, and she's never once wanted to do anything else.If you enjoy conversations like this one, you can buy me a coffee, it keeps the show going.In this episode you'll learn: How to find and vet a freelance editor if you're self-publishing How editors actually work with authors, from the first pitch meeting to the final line edit Why the author-editor relationship works a lot like any other relationship, honeymoon phase included How data and spreadsheets reshaped her job when she moved to Amazon Publishing* What the numbers say about who gets to work in publishing, and what's changed since 2018Kelli's spent three decades on the other side of the manuscript, and this conversation is as close as you'll get to sitting in the room with her while she works. What We Discuss: (0:00) Welcome and introduction (0:43) Who Kelli Martin is (3:00) The move to Seattle for Amazon Publishing (10:45) Growing up a bookworm in Detroit (19:09) Choosing where to go to college (22:59) A psychology degree and not knowing what came next (26:44) The red binder and the job listing that changed everything (28:12) The interview, the white suit, and the offer (35:26) What surprised her in her first publishing jobs (41:47) What an editor actually does (46:08) Balancing the author's vision with the publisher's interests (50:19) Simon & Schuster versus Amazon Publishing (58:30) Why editors love to edit, and how the job has changed (1:01:22) Learning Excel and the data side of Amazon Publishing (1:03:07) Advice for self-published authors on hiring an editor (1:04:01) What separates a great editor from a mediocre one (1:06:15) Where to actually find a freelance editor (1:09:18) What her psychology degree taught her about working with authors (1:29:23) The numbers on diversity in publishing (1:34:39) How self-publishing changed who gets to tell their story (1:37:11) Her one wish for the industry (1:39:53) Her message to the next generationSUPPORT THE SHOW & TOOLS: Teal AI Resume Tool | Online-Therapy Anxiety Assessment | Guided Reflection JournalSome links above are affiliate links. They cost you nothing and help support the show.MORE FROM LBT: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon MusicCOMMUNITY: Substack | LinkedIn | TikTok | InstagramPARTNER: Become a Sponsor | Be a Guest#lifebetweentitles #careertransition #layoff #reinvention #humanstories #nextchapter #leadership

Leslie Barber calls herself a multipotentialite: a babysitter, snake handler, organic farmer, race director, HOA president, and triathlon coach, all in one lifetime. Her new book, Unemployable!, took twenty-eight years to write, not because she worked on it slowly, but because it took that long to stop treating every job search like a referendum on her worth. This is a Life Between Titles conversation about career reinvention, the psychological toll of proving yourself, and what happens when you finally stop measuring your value by what other people decide to offer you.

In this episode:

• Why Leslie calls herself a multipotentialite and what that actually means
• The slot machine psychology behind compulsive job applications
• Twenty-eight years of saved rejection letters and what she learned from them
• Caring for her father after he became quadriplegic, and the boundaries she wishes she'd set sooner
• Her Fuck Yes philosophy and how two words reshaped every decision in her life

CHAPTERS0:00 Intro0:11 The "Fuck Yes" philosophy explained2:11 Why the book is called Unemployable!3:21 The ski accident that changed everything at eighteen6:05 What "being the best" really meant to her9:07 The job list: snake handler, HOA president, and everything in between12:29 Master of reinvention: dallying in many fields15:08 The psychological toll of proving your worth16:16 The job search as a slot machine addiction19:28 Saving rejection letters since 199826:53 Choosing Montessori school for her own kids27:52 The two-room schoolhouse that dimmed her passion32:58 How joy came back through triathlon1:00:49 The one thing she'd change: boundaries with her dad1:02:12 What ties all her work together1:04:58 A message to her kids, twenty years from now1:06:49 Closing thoughts: say fuck yes

Unemployable! was recently named Book of the Month by Women of Wisdom Magazine, recognized for its honest, funny take on rejection, reinvention, and redefining success outside a traditional career path.

GET THE BOOK

• Women of Wisdom feature: https://womenofwisdom.com/unemployable-by-leslie-barber-women-of-wisdom-book-of-the-month/
• Amazon: https://amzn.to/4444Qmv
• Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unemployable-leslie-barber/1149964765

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Happy New Year and welcome to 2026.If you are starting this year between roles, questioning your job search, or wondering why doing everything right still is not working, this video is for you.In this episode of Life Between Titles, I break down the real cost of being unemployed, not just emotionally but financially, and why the job market feels frozen even when headlines say things are fine.We talk about what low hire, no fire actually means, why mass applying no longer works, and how shifting your strategy toward relationships and focus can completely change outcomes.This is not about working harder.It is about working differently.If you are feeling stuck, you are not broken.The system changed.

I tried recording a polished version of this update four or five times.It was terrible.So here’s the real one.Since launching in October, Life Between Titles has grown into something bigger than I expected. We’ve published over 25 conversations with people navigating career pivots, identity shifts, burnout, reinvention, and the quiet struggle of being between chapters.The mission has always been simple. Talk about the in between. The part people usually struggle with in silence. And it’s working. People are listening. People are engaging. And for every guest who has trusted me with their story, thank you.The latest episode features Danielle Luhmann, and it might be one of the most fascinating yet. Her path from lawyer to product designer to insurance consultant to entrepreneur to mental health therapist, while raising kids and running ultramarathons, is almost hard to believe. But it’s real. And it’s intentional. We talk about sacrifice, discomfort, and choosing hard things on purpose.I also share a transparent update on introducing affiliate partnerships, starting with Online Therapy. If something aligns with the conversations and genuinely helps you, supporting through those links helps sustain the show at no extra cost to you.You’ll also start seeing curated, tactical videos breaking down tools and techniques. The first one dives into resumes, artificial intelligence, and how AI can help or hurt your job search.And finally, I’m launching a new show under the umbrella called Work, Unscripted. This series will spotlight people with unique, extraordinary, and unconventional jobs. The specialists. The off beat paths. The careers you didn’t even know existed.If you’ve been listening, thank you. If you’re navigating your own transition, hang in there. It gets better.Like, subscribe, comment, or just send me a note and tell me what you think.Let’s build this the right way.

Alan Levy was a CPA who became the CFO of a telecom company in his early thirties, helped raise its first hundred million dollars, scaled it from 30 people to 1,300, and sold it right before the dot-com bubble burst. A few years later, spending hours online reading about his father's cancer treatment, he stumbled onto the blogosphere and had an idea: what if the people writing these blogs could host their own radio show, using nothing but a phone? That idea became Blog Talk Radio, the platform where Savan got his start, and which Alan grew into one of the largest podcast contributors on iTunes before selling to iHeartRadio.Buy Me a Coffee ☕ if this episode is worth a cup.In this episode you'll learn: How a CPA who retired from telecom at 40 ended up inventing one of the first podcasting platforms Why Alan's father's cancer diagnosis led him into the blogosphere and, eventually, to Blog Talk Radio How a $9 domain name became a platform that streamed Obama's Affordable Care Act event to 60,000 live listeners Why being early to a market isn't the same as being positioned to win it, and what sub-scale really costs you* What 30 years of building and selling businesses taught him about protecting an idea once it worksWhat We Discuss: 0:00 Reuniting with an old boss and the problem-first approach to building businesses. 4:30 From CPA to telecom CFO, raising the first 100 million dollars and scaling to 1,300 employees. 10:00 Selling right before the dot-com bubble burst and the limo in the parking lot that tipped him off. 17:00 His father's cancer diagnosis, discovering the blogosphere, and the idea behind Blog Talk Radio. 22:00 A nine dollar domain name, TechCrunch, and crashing the servers on day one. 27:00 Streaming Obama's Affordable Care Act town hall to 60,000 concurrent listeners. 34:00 Why Blog Talk Radio was sub-scale and what that meant for selling to iHeartRadio. 42:00 What scares him about AI, and what he thinks it can't replace. 49:00 If he were investing right now, what would have to be true.SUPPORT THE SHOW & TOOLSTeal AI Resume Tool | Online-Therapy Anxiety Assessment | Guided Reflection JournalSome links above are affiliate links. They cost you nothing and help support the show.MORE FROM LBT📺 YouTube | 🟢 Spotify | 🍎 Apple Podcasts | 🎵 Amazon MusicCOMMUNITY📝 Substack | 💼 LinkedIn | 🎵 TikTok | 📸 InstagramPARTNER💰 Become a Sponsor | 🙋 Be a Guest#lifebetweentitles #careertransition #layoff #reinvention #humanstories #nextchapter #leadership

Dr. Aaron Dossey spent 14 years running a company that was ahead of its time. He was the first in the Western Hemisphere doing insect protein research for human consumption. He had DARPA funding. He had patents. He had products. What he didn't have was investors who believed the market was ready — and in 2024, the money ran out.

This one's for anyone who's ever been right about something and still watched it fall apart.

☕ If this episode hit, buy me a coffee and keep the show going.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why insects are one of the most efficient and sustainable protein sources on earth
• How the science career pipeline quietly collapsed — and what that means for the next generation of researchers
• Why the biggest insect food companies raised hundreds of millions and still folded
• What it costs to spend a decade building something the market isn't ready for
• How Aaron is still pushing forward through a nonprofit focused on insect genomics and biodiversity

The funding dried up. The grants evaporated. And Aaron kept going. What We Discuss: [timestamps TBD]

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Some links above are affiliate links. They cost you nothing and help support the show.

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-------------If the ISI’s work speaks to you, there is a GoFundMe running right now. Every contribution moves the vision forward.GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-invertebrate-studies-institutes-missionISI Website: https://www.isibugs.orgBook: https://shop.elsevier.com/books/insects-as-sustainable-food-ingredients/dossey/978-0-12-802856-8

Brett Cohen started an internet radio show at 15 from his childhood bedroom in Long Island, calling in on his mom's landline because that's how Blog Talk Radio hosts did it in 2005. Nobody at school knew. By the time he was booking Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Jimmy Fallon, he was still doing homework between segments. Years later, as a college intern at Lorne Michaels' production company, he spent forty dollars on Craigslist actors and fake bodyguards and walked through Times Square pretending to be famous. By Friday morning he was on the cover of the Metro, doing Good Morning America, and sitting across from Lester Holt on the Today Show plaza. A week later he was back in class for fall semester. Now he produces the Forbes Under 30 Summit and other flagship events as Group Vice President at ForbesLive.Buy Me a Coffee ☕ if this episode is worth a cup.In this episode you'll learn: How Brett booked A-list celebrities from an AOL email address and his mom's landline phone The PR Newswire playbook that got him Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Jimmy Fallon What made People Magazine cite his high school radio show as a source How a forty dollar prank video shot in Times Square went viral on Reddit and landed him on every major network within 36 hours What going viral before going viral was a thing actually did to his life, his confidence, and his career What it takes to produce live events for Forbes, from the Under 30 Summit to a CMO summit where the power went out mid-sessionWhat We Discuss: 0:00 South Florida, a baby on the way, reconnecting after decades. 3:00 Growing up in Long Island and where the drive came from. 4:30 Starting internet radio at 15 on Blog Talk Radio in 2005. 10:00 Booking Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Jimmy Fallon from his mom's landline. 13:30 The guest booking playbook, PR Newswire, and how to get a yes. 18:00 The Jimmy Fallon sweat glands story and how to surface a newsworthy moment without being obvious about it. 25:30 The forty dollar fake celebrity prank video shot in Times Square. 30:00 Reddit, Good Morning America, and Lester Holt in 36 hours. 34:00 Back in class a week later. 45:00 How he landed at Forbes after years running event activations. 51:00 What it takes to produce the Under 30 Summit and executive level events. 56:00 The night the power went out during a CMO summit in Aspen.SUPPORT THE SHOW & TOOLSTeal AI Resume Tool | Online-Therapy Anxiety Assessment | Guided Reflection JournalSome links above are affiliate links. They cost you nothing and help support the show.MORE FROM LBT📺 YouTube | 🟢 Spotify | 🍎 Apple Podcasts | 🎵 Amazon MusicCOMMUNITY📝 Substack | 💼 LinkedIn | 🎵 TikTok | 📸 InstagramPARTNER💰 Become a Sponsor | 🙋 Be a Guest#lifebetweentitles #careertransition #layoff #reinvention #humanstories #nextchapter #leadership

Here's the Spotify description:

He joined the Air Force for a paycheck. No direction, a chip on his shoulder, and no real plan beyond getting out of a small mountain town in western North Carolina. What happened over the next 20 years — 14 deployments, a gunship over Afghanistan, a torn pec mid-hoist in East Africa, a waffle man who turned out to be the enemy, and eventually a bottle that almost cost him everything — is the kind of story that doesn't get told enough. Anthony Dyer told it anyway. And he wrote it down.

☕ If this episode hit, support the show → buymeacoffee.com/lifebtwtitles

In this episode you'll learn:

• How to find purpose again after the mission that defined you is gone
• How to feed the positive wolf when you've spent years doing the opposite
• Why "we'll see" might be the most powerful two words you carry into uncertainty
• How writing down your trauma becomes the beginning of healing
• How to keep your identity intact through every reinvention, not just the ones that worked

There's a line Anthony said that I keep thinking about: scars are a roadmap to perseverance. This episode is that map. What We Discuss: 0:00 Intro | 3:00 Growing up in the Appalachians | 4:45 The two wolves | 7:18 Why he joined the Air Force | 11:05 9/11 and the shift that changed everything | 14:26 What being a gunship operator actually means | 20:09 Afghanistan — RPGs and the Casablanca mission | 22:17 The Waffle Man | 31:20 Hospitalized in Germany and telling no one | 41:46 Rock bottom — the bottle, the pills, and the choice his wife forced | 43:34 Prolonged exposure therapy | 48:00 Writing the book | 54:16 Navajo culture and raising Sullivan with two belief systems | 1:04:45 What he hopes Sullivan finds in this conversation 35 years from now

Get Anthony's book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3Q8XYAJ

MORE FROM LBT: 📺 YouTube | 🟢 Spotify | 🍎 Apple Podcasts | 🎵 Amazon Music. COMMUNITY: 📝 Substack | 💼 LinkedIn | 🎵 TikTok | 📸 Instagram. PARTNER: 💰 Become a Sponsor | 🙋 Be a Guest

#LifeBetweenTitles #careertransition #layoff #reinvention #humanstories #nextchapter #leadership