Plunge into Prosperity

3 Turnarounds. $5.2M to $20M. The Money Mindset Nobody Teaches | Dr. Pamela Maraldo

What if the secret to building wealth had nothing to do with finance — and everything to do with energy?

Dr. Pamela Maraldo has led three major organizations through complete financial turnarounds. She ran Planned Parenthood Federation of America at the height of clinic violence, serving five million Americans a year on a fifty-million-dollar budget. She took the National League for Nursing from 5.2 million dollars to 20 million dollars in revenue in just six years. And today she leads Girls Inc. of New York City — building the next generation of financially free women through her groundbreaking "Her Future" financial literacy app and the Mind Body Matters curriculum.

In this episode of Plunge Into Prosperity, Dr. Maraldo joins host Brandi Kolosky — Founder and General Partner of Sacral Capital, Sacral Fund I, and Sacral Sisters — for a conversation that goes straight to the root of why women hold back from wealth, what breaks organizations at the top, and why making money your friend changes everything.

Dr. Maraldo shares the JP Morgan story — how she caught herself crossing the street to avoid her own bank and what that fear cost her. She breaks down the Denmark educational model that Girls Inc. NYC uses to build fearless women. And she delivers one of the most honest distinctions in the prosperity conversation: "Fear is greater than motivation for most people. Whatever your parents did — they overcame it."

This is not a finance episode. This is a consciousness episode. And it is exactly what the show was built for.

Topics covered in this episode: → Why the leader of three financial turnarounds never put money first → The JP Morgan story: when fear makes you cross the street → How meditation dissolves the fear synapse (Brandi's grandmother's lesson) → What breaks organizations: complacency, isolation, and lost vision → The "Her Future" app: teaching girls in underserved communities to make money their friend → The Denmark model — teachers who major in students, not subjects → Why women are smart with money but fear holds them back → The two voices inside every leader — and which one to follow → "Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world." — Margaret Mead

Connect with Dr. Pamela Maraldo:

→ Girls Inc. of New York City: girlsincnyc.org

→ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pamela-maraldo-84a489a/ → Instagram: @girlsincnyc → Book: Medicine in Search of a Soul

00:00 Welcome & Guest Introduction 01:48 Anchor Q: "For Those New Here" — Making Money Your Friend 05:01 The JP Morgan Story: Walking Away From Your Own Bank 06:29 Meditation, Money as Energy & Brandi's Grandmother 07:43 The Wall Street Hedge Fund Friend: "You Want Me to Look Within?" 08:52 We Are Creators — Conscious vs. Unconscious Wealth 09:33 3 Turnarounds: What 99 percent of Organizational Problems Come Down To 10:52 Authenticity, Vision, and Building Consensus at the Top 11:27 Girls Inc. NYC: The "Her Future" App and Financial Literacy for Girls 12:54 The Denmark Model — Teachers Who Major in Students, Not Subjects 14:32 Fear Is What Separates Women From Wealth 14:52 Brandi's Origin Story: Born in a Trailer 15:38 "Fear Is Greater Than Motivation" 16:39 "You Have to Feel That You Deserve It" 17:37 The Two Voices Inside Every Leader 19:30 The Plunge, Margaret Mead & How to Find Dr. Pamela Maraldo

10 percent of board seats. 5 percent of media interviews. 2 percent of venture capital.

This is the math against women in leadership. And it's not accidental.

In Episode 19 of Plunge Into Prosperity, Brandi Kolosky sits down with Linda Fisk — Chairwoman, CEO & Founder of LeadHERship Global, President of CurvUp, and a U.S. Senator for the World Business Angels Investment Forum — to talk about what these numbers mean, why they persist, and what actually changes them.

Linda brings three credentials to this conversation: a Ph.D. in clinical psychology (she's studied why high-achieving women still feel behind), a CEO career that fast-tracked her to the C-suite, and a hard-won awareness that her success story is the exception, not the rule. She and Brandi dig into the confidence gap, the science behind why women rate themselves lower than their actual ability, and why closing the funding gap for women-led businesses is a mission, not a talking point.

You'll hear about building a "power tribe" of women you truly trust, turning pain into passion, why "the world doesn't need more busy women — it needs values-driven leaders who are recognized and remembered," and how platforms like CurvUp (with $150 million earmarked for women entrepreneurs) and communities like Sacral Sisters are working to level access to capital. Plus: "skillfishing" — the gap between the skills people claim and the skills they actually have — and why preparation + confidence is the formula that sticks.

The through-line: abundance is a daily practice, not an overnight event. And the only thing standing between you and the next level is you.

CONNECT WITH LINDA FISK

LeadHERship Global: https://leadhershipglobal.com

CurvUp: https://curvup.io

CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome & Introducing Linda Fisk 01:45 Why You Should Keep Listening 02:33 Linda's Definition of True Prosperity 05:53 The Bold Plunge: Abundance Is a Daily Practice 07:20 Happiness Is a Decision 08:00 Inside LeadHERship Global 10:35 Your Power Tribe: Why You Should Never Lead Alone 13:44 When It Got Personal: Women, Bias & the C-Suite 16:55 The Numbers: Board Seats, Stages & Under 2 Percent of VC 17:29 Capital & Access: WBAF and CurvUp 19:05 The Sacral Parallel: Women Investing in Women 20:13 The Confidence Gap: What the Science Says 23:30 Growth Mindset & the Tennis Court 25:06 A Confident Person Is a Prepared Person 26:03 Skillfishing: Inventing vs. Reporting 31:49 "Be Ready When They Pass You the Ball" 34:55 Confidence & Handling the Setbacks 35:31 Close & Where to Find Linda

Angel Latterell took the plunge with 16 other women in the first round of the Sacral Sisters SPV.

She is the founder of Latterell Law, a dual-state estate planning practice serving families in Washington and Florida. She is also a PMP, a Certified Scrum Master, a published poet, an Instructor of Project Management at the University of Washington, and a Certified Guide and Healer in the Lineage of King Solomon through the Modern Mystery School International.

In this Sacral Sisters on the Record episode, Angel and host Brandi Kolosky go deep on what happens when ancient healing meets modern legal strategy. Angel explains why she sees law and lineage as two sides of the same coin, reveals the transformation that happens inside a well-crafted estate plan, breaks down what a Life Activation actually is, and shares why every woman who comes into wealth needs a container — not just a bank account.

This conversation is a full-circle moment for the show. If you believe the revolution starts with one individual waking up to their highest potential, this episode is for you.

Angel M. Latterell, JD, PMP, CSM, LAP, is the founder of Latterell Law, a dual-state estate planning practice serving families and small businesses in Washington and Florida. With over 22 years of legal experience, Angel focuses on wills, trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, business formation, contracts, IP consulting, and succession planning. She is an Instructor of Project Management at the University of Washington, a published poet ("Poetry from the Heart"), the host of the upcoming podcast "Distillation of Joy," and a Certified Guide and Healer in the Lineage of King Solomon through the Modern Mystery School International. Angel holds a BA in Philosophy and Classics from Macalester College and a JD from Hamline University School of Law. She is a practicing Buddhist of over 30 years, an Ordained Leadership Minister through the Institute of Awakened Mastery, and runs the Hermetic Book Club in St. Augustine, Florida. She is a Sacral Sisters SPV investor and community leader.

CHAPTERS 00:00 → Welcome and Introduction 02:10 → Anchor Q1: Why Should You Keep Listening 02:36 → Anchor Q2: What Does True Prosperity Mean to You 04:03 → The Flow State: Wind, Purpose and Gratitude 05:26 → Crystal's Gold Nuggets and Messages from the Universe 06:26 → All of Us or None of Us 08:22 → The Hermetic Book Club 13:50 → Two Worlds, One Coin: Law Meets Lineage 15:23 → Magic: Creating Something from Nothing 17:25 → Transformation Inside an Estate Plan 23:09 → What Is a Life Activation 27:55 → Women, Wealth and the Foundation Question 32:38 → Where to Find Angel 33:52 → Closing

CONNECT WITH ANGEL → latterelllaw.com → angellatterell.com → paprikaangel.com → Instagram: @latterelllaw → Podcast: Distillation of Joy (launching) / Laws of Abundance (previous)

She grew a dance fitness brand to over 300K YouTube subscribers and 2.4 million annual video views — with zero paid acquisition. Not one dollar in ads. All organic search, all content strategy, compounded over years.

In this episode of Plunge Into Prosperity, Brandi Kolosky sits down with Charlene DiPaola, Founder and CEO of Hip Shake Fitness, to unpack how she went from managing million-dollar paid media budgets at Spin Media (acquired by Penske) and Perfect Market (acquired by Taboola) to building one of the most engaged women's dance fitness communities online — entirely on her own terms.

Charlene opens up about the polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis and six years of fertility treatments that led her back to movement, the postnatal anxiety she experienced after her second child, and how reclaiming her body became the foundation of her business.

She also breaks down Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) — the practice of getting your content surfaced inside AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity — and why the fundamentals of good SEO haven't actually changed, even as the channels have.

This conversation covers founder humility, ruthless content iteration, building a regenerative (not extractive) community of women, and why Charlene is now stepping into advisory work with consumer health brands.

Connect with Charlene DiPaola: 

YouTube: youtube.com/@HipShakeFitness

Instagram: @charlene.dipaola

Website: hipshakefitness.com

00:00 – Cold Open & Charlene's Introduction 02:32 – Welcome Charlene DiPaola 03:10 – Anchor Question: Why Keep Listening 04:24 – Defining Prosperity: Reclaiming Her Body 08:36 – The Bold Plunge: Leaving Spin Media 11:39 – Building Hip Shake Fitness to 300K Subscribers 13:18 – Pivoting From Paid Ads to Organic YouTube 15:12 – Treating YouTube Like a Business 16:03 – Building a Regenerative Community of Women 18:04 – Diet Culture vs. Community Care 19:00 – The Motherhood Journey & Postnatal Anxiety 22:31 – Why Sharing Your Story Is Your Power 23:20 – From Acquisitions to Personal Capital 25:08 – How the Hip Shake Business Model Works 25:39 – Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Explained 27:39 – What Hasn't Changed About SEO 28:08 – What HAS Changed: How People Ask AI 30:31 – Stepping Into Advisory Work for Health Brands 32:41 – Where to Find Charlene 33:54 – The Gender Capital Gap in Investing 34:39 – Branded Close & Sign-Off

Do Google and Amazon still need someone to teach them more about curiosity?

Dr. Julie Pham came to the United States as a boat person fleeing communist Vietnam. She earned her PhD in history at Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley, and experienced what she calls her "real life MBA" by running her family's Vietnamese language newspaper through the Great Recession.

In the middle of a pandemic, she left a stable career to found CuriosityBased — and she has not looked back.

In this episode, Julie shares why freedom is her definition of prosperity, the moment her father told her "now you will have freedom," and how her understanding of curiosity evolved from knowledge accumulation to a daily practice rooted in self-awareness, relationship building, and clear communication.

She walks us through the 7 Forms of Respect framework — her #1 Amazon bestselling book that she compares to the 5 Love Languages but for the workplace — and demonstrates it live with Brandi in real time.

They go deep on building across differences, the through line connecting Julie's two books (the South Vietnamese military experience and workplace respect), and the capital gap facing women founders: $34 trillion in assets by 2030, yet less than 2% of venture capital reaching women-led startups. Julie's answer reframes the conversation entirely: stop giving advice, start sharing numbers, and deploy your social capital.

• Founder, 7 Forms of Respect
• CEO, CuriosityBased
• Connect with Dr. Julie Pham:
• curiositybased.com
• formsofrespect.com
• LinkedIn: Julie Pham, PhD
• TEDx Talk: "Curiosity as a Practice"
• Book: 7 Forms of Respect (Amazon)

What if your deepest sense of prosperity has nothing to do with your business?

That's where this conversation starts — and it only gets better from there.

Courtney Wasserburger is the CEO of Right Left Agency, a digital marketing powerhouse helping B2B and SaaS brands scale through the belief that great marketing requires both sides of the brain: analytical rigor and creative conviction. She's also the host of How They Scaled It, a podcast featuring growth-stage eCommerce and SaaS founders on the pivotal decisions that shaped their success.

In this episode of Plunge Into Prosperity, Courtney flips her own script — from interviewer to guest — and gets real about what building a decade-long agency actually looks like from the inside.

We cover:

→ Why she walked away from a toxic job in 2013 — and what she and her business partner built from that exit

→ The philosophy behind the name Right Left Agency (data-driven creativity and why you can't have one without the other)

→ What she learned from 28+ episodes interviewing founders: they all think their problems are unique — they're not

→ The forced time off that changed everything: she came back and the agency was fine. Nothing was on fire. That's when she knew she'd built something real.

→ The 10-minute rule she teaches her team for client fires and late-night spirals

→ Buying her first home as a millennial who once thought it was impossible — and what making it her sanctuary looks like

→ Incubating the agency's own SaaS and product ideas from within

→ Why women's community spaces hit differently — and what Sacral Sisters represents for women building wealth

This is a conversation for founders who've confused output with prosperity, leaders who want their teams to last, and anyone building something they actually want to live inside.

Connect with Courtney & Agency:

🔗 https://rightleftagency.com/

📍 LinkedIn

What does prosperity really mean? For Heather McElrath, the answer is one word: freedom. 

In Episode 14 of Plunge Into Prosperity, host Brandi Kolosky sits down with Heather McElrath — Founder and CEO of Sandbox Communications, Fractional CMO, 30-year communications veteran, and adjunct PR professor — to unpack what it really takes for small businesses to stop being invisible and start getting found. 

Heather's path was anything but straight. From journalism to global banking, fintech to national nonprofits, and finally to building Sandbox Communications after COVID upended a career she loved — she has turned a lifetime of reinvention into a framework that helps small business owners show up on Google, AI platforms, and in the hearts of the customers they were built to serve. 

In this episode: 

• Why prosperity is freedom — not just money 

• How COVID forced Heather to start Sandbox (and why survival mode became her greatest teacher) 

• The non-linear career that made her a better communicator than any straight line could have 

• What small businesses get completely wrong about AI 

• Why your Google Business Profile is your most underused visibility tool right now 

• How AI is making us MORE human — and why that's a good thing 

• The shocking statistic: only 1.1% of all investment capital flows to women-led businesses 

• Women-led teams return 78¢ per dollar invested vs. 31¢ for all-male teams 

• "Only Love in the Sandbox" — the t-shirt that says everything about Heather's philosophy 

Connect with Heather McElrath: 

📧 [email protected] 

🌐 sandboxcomm.com 

What happens when a clinical psychologist — someone who has spent 15 years sitting with people in their most fragmented, disconnected, uncertain moments — decides she isn't just going to heal the wound, but build the infrastructure that prevents it? 

That is Dr. Leslie Hemedes. 

In this episode of Plunge Into Prosperity, Dr. Hemedes — Licensed Clinical Psychologist, certified EMDR therapist, Filipina-American, mother of three, and now Founder & CEO of KeepSaiQ — sits down with host Brandi Kolosky to talk about the intersection of psychology, AI, and one of the most underserved spaces in family life: intergenerational story. 

KeepSaiQ is the world's first Family Intelligence Platform — a privacy-first, voice-first AI system that transforms the everyday moments families live through into living legacy artifacts. Not just photos and videos sitting disconnected in a camera roll. But context. Meaning. The stories behind the stories. Designed for the people you love, not for advertisers. 

We go deep on: 

• The clinical insight that sparked KeepSaiQ — and the gap no one was filling 
• What EMDR therapy is, and why it matters for how we understand memory and identity 
• The "box of puzzle pieces" — what Leslie learned about human disconnection in the therapy room 
• Why women remain at 1.1% of global capital raised — and what the psychology of that actually looks like 
• What it means to build something with purpose when you have a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 2.5-month-old at home 
• And what prosperity really means — not the Instagram version, the lived one 

🔗 Learn more about KeepSaiQ: keepsaiq.com

🔗 Connect with Dr. Leslie Hemedes: linkedin.com/in/leslie-hemedes-psy-d-b02b4022

Park City and Deer Valley are two of the most coveted mountain real estate markets in the country — and Barbara Larsen has been working them for 35 years. In Episode 12 of Plunge into Prosperity, host Brandi Kolosky sits down with Barbara, Real Estate Advisor at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Utah Properties and founder of Larsen Real Estate Group, for a grounded, number-rich read on what's actually moving in Park City, Deer Valley, Jordanelle, and the Heber Valley right now.

Barbara's path reads like a masterclass in positive pivoting — aviation, healthcare leadership, President's Circle recognition at Abbott Laboratories, six years inside the title and escrow industry, and now real estate. The through-line across all four careers: relationships and long-term gain thinking.

In this episode you'll hear:

• The hard numbers — roughly 10% appreciation across Park City, a $4M median sales price in Jordanelle, 50% more sales in Q1 2026 versus Q1 2025 in the new East Village of Deer Valley, and a $1.1M average in Heber Valley
• Where women are leaving the most money on the table (and why the 1031 exchange is the move)
• The Blue Sky development with Auberge — equestrian, farm-to-table, and the strategic value of community-driven luxury
• Why Park City keeps its exclusivity through limited construction — and why that's the strategy, not the bug
• The private jet uptick into Heber, the international airport effect, and how the East Village changes drive times
• Barbara's framework for second homes, ski properties, and investment buyers across Park City and Deer Valley
• A power-couple operating model with her husband, the broker for Berkshire Hathaway in Park City

🔗 Connect with Barbara:

Website: larsenrealestategroup.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larsenrealestategroup

Instagram / X / Facebook: @BarbaraLarsenRE

In this episode of Sacral Fireside Sessions, Brandi Kolosky sits down with Manish Maheshwari — Founder of Soldi Now, Inc., Silicon Valley veteran, and author of the six-book Divine Life series — for one of the most layered conversations in the show's history.

Manish spent three decades inside eBay, Netflix, Snapchat, and PayPal. He holds a payment processing patent from his PayPal years. He helped build the technology that gave eBay the leverage to force PayPal into its acquisition — an untold story he shares publicly for the first time here!

He also built the first TikTok-style scrollable video app — six months before Vine. Then headed to Snapchat. And then, he thought he was done. Until he wasn't.

Today, Manish is the founder of Soldi Now, a fintech company solving the 2–3% credit card tax that merchants across the US absorb on every single transaction. With 68% repeat users and an average of 13 uses per user in early experiments, Soldi is building the pay-by-bank infrastructure that the rest of the world already has.

In this episode:

• The five axioms from the Divine Life series — and the one that changes everything
• Non-attachment: what it actually means, and what it doesn't
• The Default Mode Network, entropy, and why "without energy, everything dissolves"
• The Soldi Now origin story: FedNow, a patent, and a nephew who wouldn't stop asking
• Why PayPal signed over — and who's left standing
• The cap table flip: what it means to back and be backed by the same person
• The real number: capital allocated to women founders just dropped to 1%

This is Sacral Fireside Sessions #2 — the series where Brandi sits down with the investors, advisors, and strategic partners inside the Sacral ecosystem.

📩 Interested in Soldi Now: [email protected]

📚 Manish's Book Series on Amazon: amazon.com/author/manishmaheshwari

0:00 Intro — The Cap Table Flip

1:54 Why Keep Listening: Passing Knowledge to Posterity

3:40 What Is Prosperity? Full Action + Peaceful Mind

6:11 Non-Attachment: Pursuing Without the Lie

7:10 The Default Mode Network + Releasing Energy

9:23 30 Years, Many Failures, Six Core Learnings

11:52 Soldi Now: Cutting the Credit Card Tax on the Economy

15:14 The Five Axioms of Divine Life Walkthrough

19:28 Joy in Nature, Love in People, Peace in Yourself

23:34 Nothing Is Lost — Failures Transform You

25:15 The Origin Story: FedNow + A Nephew Who Kept Asking

26:08 The PayPal Patent — How It Started

26:36 The Experiment: 68 Percent Repeat Users, 13 Uses Each

33:02 The Untold Story: He Built the Tech That Made PayPal Sell to eBay

34:39 Before Vine: The First TikTok-Style Scrollable Video App

35:42 Both Sides of the Cap Table — The Sacred Trust

38:25 Shakti, Self-Image + How Sacral Supports Portfolio Companies

40:28 All Six Books + How They Work Together

41:15 The Stat That Dropped: Women Founders Now Receive 1 Percent

43:29 Final Axiom: Without Energy, Everything Dissolves

44:44 Outro + How to Reach Manish