Reinvent Yourself

Doug Noll claims he can calm an angry person in 90 seconds or less. Growing up in an affluent Southern California community, he was born with many disabilities: partially deaf and almost blind, he couldn't walk until he was three years old. Although he had a loving family, the community and society at large didn't fully understand how to interact or connect with a disabled child. Noll  cites learning to overcome his physical disabilities and emotional turmoil as his introduction to reinvention. Watching his father go through bankruptcy and rebuild himself as a stockbroker gave him a second window into reinvention. Eventually, Noll went on to become a trial lawyer for over 20 years, learning martial arts, tai chi, and energy healing work in his free time. By his mid-40s he had chosen to go back to school for a master's in peacemaking and conflict studies. Walking away from a ten million dollar law practice, Noll  chose to become a mediator. Working in prisons, courtrooms, and beyond, he developed a simple technique for calming anger in less than a minute and a half. “Once you start doing this, you start to change yourself,” Noll observes. Listen in on his conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour to learn how you can adopt this simple technique and bring more peace, compassion, and authenticity into your life.

Bio: Doug Noll speaks about and teaches people how to solve difficult, intractable, and highly emotional problems. He was a business and commercial trial lawyer for 22 years before turning to leadership development, problem-solving, and peacemaking. He is a Senior Consultant with Mobius Executive Leadership and maintains a high-level mediation and arbitration practice.

Social & Website

"If a company is looking past you then you don't want to work there anyway," says Gillian Williams. "It's almost a way to avoid working at a place that would have probably been incredibly toxic." These are words of wisdom from someone who knows a thing or two about job placement. After moving to Maine to pursue an unsuccessful romance, Williams found herself back in New York in her 20s with no career, no connections, and a growing battle with depression. With nothing else to do but take a risk, she founded her own recruitment firm, Monday Talent. Almost 20 years later, Monday Talent has grown into a thriving business focused on marketing communications and creative strategy across multiple industries, from consumer to healthcare and beyond. The “why” of Monday Talent is focused on diversity and inclusion, with people of color making up 50% of the company. In this conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Williams discusses everything she’s learned from her industry and shares the most important job search tips she’s uncovered for women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s.

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Gillian Williams is a Partner and Founder of Monday Talent, a recruitment firm with a deep commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, that specializes in finding talent within the marketing, communications & creative arenas. Coming from a creative/editorial background herself, Gillian brings her in-depth understanding of these industries to the search process. With over seven years of recruitment experience and an inherent understanding of people, Gillian has become a trusted thought leader in the talent acquisition space. Her expertise and insights have been featured in several iconic publications including Forbes, Marie Claire, Business Insider, BuzzFeed & Well + Good. Raised in a multi-racial family in the heart of New York City, Gillian is a fierce social activist who sits on the Board of Directors of Ardea Arts and can often be found rallying for change.

Social & Website

When Carrington Smith had a traumatic experience in college, she found very little support from family and friends. Her mother told her to never speak of “it” again. Burying the memory, she went on to become a lawyer before reinventing her career as an executive search consultant for Fortune 500 companies and law firms. With a successful career and a fabulous social life, Smith had it all. But unhappiness led her to finally uncover and take ownership of the experiences she had avoided long ago. Through therapy, writing, and “doing the work” she began to heal, ended her unhappy marriage, and created a  life with a new sense of self. Unfortunately, some friends, threatened by her reinvention,rejected her for giving up a seemingly ideal life in order to live her truest self, forcing her to move communities and change schools for her kids. “It’s those experiences that help us build emotional resilience,” she tells CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour in this intimate, vulnerable conversation. “People who pretend to be perfect are oftentimes the people who are hiding the most,” she says. Listen in to learn how Smith overcame adversity and trauma, embraced her identity, and told her story in her new book, Blooming: Finding Gifts in the Shit of Life.

A gift from our speaker! Go to our website for an opportunity to receive a free copy of Carrington Smith’s Gratitude Journal and create your own 30-Day Gratitude Challenge

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Carrington Smith is a single mom, attorney, business owner and executive search professional. In her debut best-selling memoir, Carrington combines wit and wisdom to share her journey through life’s tough moments, with a positive attitude and a shift of mindset, into a life bursting with joy, opportunity, and purpose. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Tulane Law School, Carrington resides in Austin, Texas, with her two teenage boys.

Website

Time Stamps

9:29 - Leaving a law career to begin her first reinvention

11:49 - What happened in college that her mother told her never to speak about

16:20 - Writing about and reliving the trauma

18:28 - Ending her marriage and being rejected by her friends

22:54 - Giving up her dream house to escape toxic relationships and starting over

26:26 - Learning a growth mindset at any age

30:00 - Why gratitude is important and how to start a 30 Day Gratitude Challenge

Social & Website

CoveyClub website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Ivy Slater always wanted to be a dancer. She earned a degree in dance and went on to become a professional dancer, something many young ballerinas don’t achieve. But at 23 years old, an injury brought her dance career to an immediate halt. Heartbroken, Slater knew it was time for a reinvention. Living in New York City with no idea where to begin next, she went through several reinventions, as an exercise instructor, as executive assistant to the powerhouse woman behind a global athleticwear brand, and more. At 27, Slater entered into the hardest negotiations of her life - with her father. In this conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Ivy Slater discusses what it was like to reinvent from the wreckage of tragedy to build a multi-million dollar company. She explores her midlife crisis at 45 and the secrets for success that led to her newest reinvention, Slater Success Coaching, a firm that helps women scale and grow their businesses. A truly resilient force, Slater gives listeners insights into tapping into their power and taking ownership of their lives and careers.

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Ivy Slater is an entrepreneur, internationally-bestselling author, speaker, podcast host, and professionally-certified business coach. As the CEO of Slater Success, Ivy works closely with C-Suite executives and upper-level managers to advise and create clear strategies that provide instant and longterm impact on businesses. From generating team synergy and launching new sales initiatives, to holding mastermind retreats and corporate trainings on communication, finances, or strategic planning, Ivy is an expert at cultivating and facilitating relationships that are the hallmark of any successful business.  

Website

From the Barre to Boardroom - Ivy’s book

Podcast

Time Stamps

Social & Website

CoveyClub website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

“Money is power,” Eleanor Beaton’s mother told her at a very young age. “Always make your own.” Growing up in Nova Scotia with an economist father, Beaton learned all about finances. She began her career in advertising, where she opened her own communications consulting agency before later reinventing herself through business journalism. By her mid-20s she had brought her love of storytelling together with her passion for personal development and founded SafiMedia. An acronym for Self-Actualized Female Innovator, SafiMedia aims to double the number of female founders who scale past $1,000,000 in revenue by 2030. Ten years after creating SafiMedia, tragedy struck when her father passed away from a sudden illness. In this conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Beaton discusses the dissolution of ambition she experienced at the loss of her father, how her grief became the catalyst for reinvention, and her advice for women who are ready to take the leap into entrepreneurship. Now the host of the Power + Presence + Position podcast, Beaton helps other women reinvent their lives and their careers on a daily basis.

Bio: Eleanor Beaton is the founder of Safi Media, a business coaching and advisory firm for women entrepreneurs. Eleanor and her team provide business coaching, learning programs and custom content to thousands of women entrepreneurs globally, as well as the conferences, associations and corporations who champion them. Eleanor and her colleagues at Safi Media are on a mission to advance global gender equity by doubling the number of women entrepreneurs who scale past $1M in revenues by 2030. In addition to running Safi Media, Eleanor hosts one of the country’s top-ranked podcasts for women entrepreneurs, Power + Presence + Position. Eleanor’s work has been published or quoted in publications including The Globe & Mail, The Atlantic, CBC, Chatelaine and Readers Digest. She has spoken at conferences and events throughout Latin America, North America and Europe.

Website

SafiMedia

Podcast

LinkedIn

Social & Website

CoveyClub website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Liz Lange was fresh out of college when she landed her dream job as an assistant at Vogue. With a degree in comparative literature from Brown, Lange never expected her career path to lead her into fashion design. Nevertheless, after watching her pregnant friends struggling to fit into regular clothes, she couldn’t let the need for fashionable maternity wear go by. In 1997 she reinvented herself as a designer, launching Liz Lange Maternity. Ten years later, the brand became the biggest-selling maternity line in the US. Now the Creative director and CEO of the Figue fashion brand, Lange is also the co-host of the Just-Enough Family podcast, a series in which she chronicles the rise and fall of her once-untouchable Stienberg family in 1970s New York City high society. In this conversation with Covey Club founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Lange discusses what it was like to work with Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, how she navigated her many career reinventions, and what advice she would give to aspiring entrepreneurs

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Liz Lange is a retail and fashion pioneer. In 1997, out of a one-room office, she created Liz Lange Maternity, changing forever the face of maternity fashions. A decade later in 2007, after dressing every major pregnant celebrity, forging license deals with Nike and Target, and opening three flagship Liz Lange boutiques, Lange sold her business. She is the author of “Liz Lange’s Maternity Style: How to Look Fabulous During the Most Fashion-Challenged Time” (Random House, 2003). Lange is actively involved in many charities and is spokesperson for cervical cancer awareness. She lives in Manhattan with her 12-year old son, Gus and her 10-year old daughter, Alice.

The Just-Enough Family on Spotify

The Just-Enough Family on Apple

Time Stamps

02:30 - Vogue, working in fashion and pioneering maternity wear

Social & Website

CoveyClub website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Kathleen Smith’s first career was as a lawyer, particularly an assistant prosecutor working in juvenile justice in New Jersey’s Hudson County. Smith loved her work, but after giving birth to the second of her three children her career became overwhelming, and she gave it up to raise them. After fifteen years away from her industry, Smith found herself with no connections and no idea what to do next. Feeling stuck, she decided to reach out to other women in the same predicament for inspiration. She traveled around the country interviewing women on video, a project that grew into the lifestyle website MorphMom.com. Smith went on to teach classes and speak at conferences before launching a radio show, a podcast, and most recently a television show. Listen in to her conversation with CoveyClub founder,  Lesley Jane Seymour, to learn how she handled the challenges of starting all over from scratch and mastered working from home in a post-Covid world. Smith also shares her advice for starting your own business and for avoiding the mistakes most people make when first stepping into entrepreneurship. 

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Kathleen Butler Smith is the founder of morphmom.com. After graduating from Holy Cross and from Georgetown Law, she served as an Assistant Prosecutor in Hudson County, New Jersey for six years. She stopped working following the birth of her second child, and later discovered that re-entering the workforce would be difficult. Kathleen quickly noticed that she was not alone and that there were, in fact, many women who found themselves in a similar position, struggling to discover their next step, be it work related, volunteer-based, or simply rediscovering their passion. She began to chronicle the inspirational stories of women (whom she named "Morphmoms") who had managed to chart their own course with the hope of helping other women do the same. Since its launch in 2012, Morphmom has become a platform to promote and to support these women and their remarkable stories. Kathleen and her husband, Jim, have three children in various stages of leaving the nest.

Website

Facebook

LinkedIn

Instagram

Twitter

For Stephanie Raffelock, reinvention runs in the family. After her parents divorced when she was four, she watched her mother constantly reinvent herself as a single woman in the ‘50s, moving across the country every year. At just 17, Raffelock dropped out of school and moved to LA, where the drug-laden culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s led to self-medicating and homelessness. A passion for writing inspired her reinvention and she became a college freshman at 35. But life intervened and it would be three decades before she wrote her first book. In her conversation with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, Raffelock explains how it’s never too late to reinvent–she attended a Buddhist college, interviewed luminaries such as Allen Ginsberg, and ultimately began her publishing career at 63.

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Stephanie Raffelock is the author of Creatrix Rising, Unlocking the Power of Midlife Women. (She Writes Press in August, 2021).  She also penned the award winning, bestseller, A Delightful Little Book on Aging.  A graduate of Naropa University’s program in Writing and Poetics, Stephanie was a contributor to The Rogue Valley Messenger, in Oregon.  She’s blogged for Nexus Magazine, Omaha Lifestyles, Care2.com as well as SixtyandMe.com.

Creatrix Rising on Amazon

Social media:

Facebook

Time Stamps

[00:3:02.00] Becoming a writer and working in journalism

[00:5:18.00] Struggling to work freelance and landing current job

[00:14:30.00] First book and burying stories

[00:16:06.00] Revision and reproduction 

[00:19:12:00] Sexual violence and #MeToo

[00:22:02.00] The importance of telling your story 

[00:29:15.00] Skills learned throughout writing life

CoveyClub website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Susan Schoenberger always knew she wanted to be a writer. After graduating from Dartmouth with a degree in English, she launched her journalism career in newspapers. But when the market crashed in 2008, the publishing industry faltered, and Schoenberger’s career of over 30 years came to a standstill. As she applied for new work (more than 50 applications over the next 2 years), Schoenberger never gave up on her writing. Listen in to her conversation with CoveyClub founder, Lesley Jane Seymour, to learn how a personal trauma informed her stunning new novel. 

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Susan Shoenberger serves as Director of Communications for Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, a graduate school with an interfaith dialogue focus. Her first novel, A Watershed Year was published in 2011. She is also the author of The Virtues of Oxygen, published in July 2014 and The Liability of Love, published in July 2021.

Time Stamps

[00:3:02.00] Becoming a writer and working in journalism

[00:5:18.00] Struggling to work freelance and landing current job

[00:14:30.00] First book and burying stories

[00:16:06.00] Revision and reproduction 

[00:19:12:00] Sexual violence and #MeToo

[00:22:02.00] The importance of telling your story 

[00:29:15.00] Secret skills she learned throughout her writing life that you can use

Social & Website

CoveyClub website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Ellen Snee grew up in New Jersey, the oldest of five children in an Irish Catholic family. When she was 12 years old, a priest friend came to the house for dinner and gave everyone a blessing. Young Ellen then announced to her family that she wanted to become a priest when she grew up, for the opportunity to bring peace and joy to others. When her elders enlightened her to the fact that women are not allowed to become priests in the Catholic church, a young rebel was born. Snee decided instead to become a nun, discovering the Sacred Heart community while attending Fordham and going on to teach for Sacred Heart University. One of many reinventions caused her to transition to a career in women’s development, and after 18 years she left her convent. In this conversation with CoveyClub founder Lesley Jane Seymour, Snee recounts the reinventions of her life, including launching a Fortune 500 business, moving to California and meeting her husband, helping women claim leadership roles in the business world, and writing her book, “Lead: How Women in Charge Claim their Authority”. Learn Snee’s steps for dealing with fear of transition and how to take the leap to follow your passions.

FREE GIFT! Don’t start your reinvention without downloading CoveyClub’s starter guide called “31 Badass Tips for Launching Your Reinvention Without Fear!”

Bio:

Ellen Snee has been at the forefront of women’s leadership for more than 25 years. Dr. Snee brings strategy, research and executive experience to global companies and their top female talent. Her original research at Harvard University on women’s experience in roles of authority formed the foundation of her consulting and coaching work with Fortune 500 companies such as Cisco, Goodyear, Marriott, Pfizer and Schwab.  Later, as the Global VP of Leadership Development at VMware, she launched the company’s groundbreaking business initiative, VMwomen, designed to attract, develop, advance and retain talented women. Her new book Lead: How Women in Charge Claim Their Authority makes her wisdom and experience accessible to all women seeking to accelerate their careers. Dr. Snee lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where she continues to coach and advise women leaders and executives worldwide, and frequently speaks to companies and conferences.

Time Stamps:

3:19 – Catholic family and childhood dreams

6:32 – Life changing books and female empowerment 

8:52 – Starting coaching business 

13:02 – Writing her book 

19:20 – What the younger generations are doing right 

22:28 – What you can do to get ahead

25:20 – How to lead effectively 

32:50 – Coaching stories

Website

Facebook

LinkedIn

Instagram

Twitter

Social & Website

CoveyClub website

Facebook

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn