Still Figuring It Out

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📋 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲

In this episode of Still Figuring It Out, Emily and Marc welcome Lisa Belczyk for a wide-ranging conversation about art, hospitality, cocktails, community, and how to stay human in a turbulent world. Lisa shares her wonderfully layered identity — Pittsburgh native, former classical musician, drinks educator, cocktail designer, and lover of food, books, travel, and design — and reflects on how beauty and culture have shaped her life from an early age.

The conversation moves from Frank Lloyd Wright and Fallingwater to the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, cocktail menus, and the craft of helping people grow their palates. But the heart of the episode lands in a deeper place: how to keep showing up with hope, joy, and care when the world feels unstable and overwhelming.

Lisa offers a compelling vision of taverns, bars, and cultural spaces as places where people gather, reconnect, replenish, and imagine what comes next. It's a thoughtful, emotionally grounded episode about civil society, creativity, resistance, and the small but meaningful ways we can contribute to a better world.

🔑 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬

• Art and beauty can shape a life early, and those influences often keep echoing into our work and identity.
• Hospitality matters, especially in hard times. A welcoming space can offer real nourishment for people who are tired, grieving, or trying to keep going.
• Civil society is built in shared spaces — taverns, theaters, clubs, guilds, and gathering places where people remember how to be human together.
• Trust is central to growth, whether you are helping someone expand their palate, supporting a professional community, or walking with others through difficult times.
• Creativity and art are not luxuries. They can be part of how people endure, resist, connect, and imagine something better.
• Even in seasons of global uncertainty, people still need joy, flavor, conversation, and community.
• Hope may feel harder to hold right now, but small acts of beauty, gathering, and care still matter.

🗣 𝐐𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐞 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬

"I want to learn everything about everything, and so I follow a lot of tangents." – Lisa

"We still know how to blow bubbles, guys. Bubbles can exist in this world." – Emily

"You can live in art, and it can be just so integrated into who we are as humans." – Lisa

"It means harmony. It means working in that resonant space of when your values and your life and your work and your team are like guitar strings humming off each other." – Emily

"We need these spaces that are outside of our homes and outside of our ideological castles." – Marc

"How do we support our neighbors? How do we support our global neighbors in times of atrocity?" – Lisa

"We were asked when we thought humanities best time was. I still really, really believe it hasn't happened yet." – Emily

"Don't keep digging up the seed. You planted the seed — don't keep digging it up to see if there are roots." – Marc

"Revolutions were built in taverns and pubs and communal third spaces." – Lisa

"If I can provide a hospitable space that also happens to have a kick-ass cocktail, I feel like that can replenish the soul for the fight." – Lisa

🧰 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 & 𝐌𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

• U.S. Bartenders Guild (USBG) • Jess Pettitt • Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) • Frank Lloyd Wright • Carnegie Museum of Art • Fred Rogers • Julia Child • The Hold Steady • Join or Die (documentary) • Dietrich Bonhoeffer

👥 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐧

• People trying to stay hopeful and grounded in a turbulent political and cultural moment • Bartenders, hospitality professionals, and anyone who cares about the deeper role of gathering spaces • Artists, musicians, and creatives thinking about what art is for in difficult times • Leaders and community-builders who want to create spaces of connection, trust, and renewal • Listeners who enjoy thoughtful conversations about culture, beauty, resistance, and joy • Anyone interested in the intersection of food, drink, design, and meaningful human connection

🎺 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐌𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐜!

Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary This episode begins, as many do, in the wonderfully ordinary—missing pillows, pollen season in Greenville, and the small negotiations of shared space. But quickly, the conversation pivots (intentionally and unexpectedly) into a deeper exploration of transitions—what they are, how we navigate them, and what truly anchors us when everything feels like it's shifting.

Marc reflects on the modern pressure for certainty in leadership and life, while Emily reframes the idea of "pivot" from a tired buzzword into something embodied, grounded, and even elegant. Drawing from dance, grammar, coaching, and spirituality, they explore what it means to have a true pivot point—not just a change in direction, but a grounded place from which meaningful movement happens.

The conversation unfolds into a rich, layered reflection on agency, identity, and perspective: Are we the ones acting, or the ones being acted upon? And how might shifting that lens change how we move through seasons of transition?

🔑 Key Takeaways • A true pivot isn't just a change in direction—it requires a stable, grounded point to turn from. • Modern leadership often craves certainty, but today's reality demands adaptability rooted in values. • We tend to oversimplify problems by searching for a single cause instead of recognizing broader systems. • Transitions invite curiosity and expectancy—not just problem-solving or loss-focused thinking. • Language shapes perspective: shifting subject and object can radically change how we understand our role in change. • Agency in transitions is more complex than control—it may involve both acting and responding.

🗣 Quote Highlights "Pivot is the act of pivoting… but it's also the place where your foot lands before you turn." – Emily

"I think it's more realistic to ask, what are the guiding principles…rather than what's the five-year plan?" – Marc

"I remember the strength and the sassiness I felt when I learned to pivot turn." – Emily

"I have an amazing ability to find one thing to blame in what's actually a systemic issue." – Marc

"We often focus on what we're losing in transitions instead of being curious about what's coming." – Marc

"The pivot point is you—and the action you take toward those things." – Emily

"We don't impact everything… sometimes we're the ones being impacted." – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions • Merriam-Webster (definitions of "pivot") • WordHippo (word exploration tool) • Pivot tables (Excel reference) • Dr. Nadia Nuxemblyva / Reinvention Lab • Anne Handley ("Justice for M-Dashes") • Robert Webber (writings on worship) • Richard Rohr (the "divine dance")

👥 Who Should Listen • Leaders navigating uncertainty and tired of rigid long-term planning models • People in a season of transition who feel pressure to "figure it out" quickly • Coaches, facilitators, and consultants exploring deeper frameworks for change • Couples or partners working and growing together through life transitions • Anyone wrestling with control, agency, and meaning in times of change

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary In this episode, Emily and Marc take up the word shift and explore it from several angles: literal, emotional, vocational, and spiritual. What begins with fish tanks, threshold art, and a joke about spelling quickly turns into a story about an unexpectedly manual rental car in Germany, a long-delayed train trip, and Marc's sudden return to driving stick shift after decades away from it.

From there, the conversation deepens. A stick shift becomes a metaphor for all kinds of life changes: the shifts between work and home, pride and self-consciousness, intention and muscle memory, control and listening. Emily names the in-between moment of pressing the clutch — disengaging before re-engaging — as its own kind of threshold. Marc reflects on the difference between switching off and actually shifting, and both of them notice how much of life is less about forcing control than learning to listen and adjust.

It is a thoughtful, funny, grounded episode about noticing what is changing beneath the surface — and what it might mean to meet those changes with curiosity instead of strain.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Shifts are often smaller and subtler than big transitions, but they still shape how we move through life.
• A literal stick shift became a vivid metaphor for unexpected adaptation, muscle memory, stress, and learning in real time.
• The space between gears matters: shifting involves a moment of disengagement before re-engagement, not just a hard stop and restart.
• Marc reflects on how difficult it can be to shift from work to home when the work is meaningful and deeply integrated into life.
• Emily notices shifts most clearly in energy — body, mind, and spirit — and questions whether those shifts are meant to be controlled or listened to.
• Pride is not always vanity; sometimes it is about ease, confidence, reliability, and not having to carry extra self-consciousness.
• Curiosity can be a healthier response to change than forcing, managing, or trying to dominate every variable.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"A shift, to me, says adjust." – Emily

"That's when I realized the unseen shift. The stick shift." – Marc

"There's a point of disengage and re-engage where we're back to that threshold." – Emily

"I think I do live in liminal spaces, and relish that." – Marc

"I think it may be a listen to and adjust." – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• WordHippo.com
• Shift work in factories and hospitals
• Driving stick shift / standard transmission
• German train delays
• Leiden, Netherlands
• Bremen, Germany
• Enterprise Rent-A-Car
• ChatGPT as a travel helper during the rental-car scramble
• The Autobahn
• Sabbath as a weekly forced switch away from income-producing work
• Thresholds and liminal space
• Aquarium life: neon tetras and snails
• The "Brew House" threshold picture above the garage

👥 Who Should Listen

• People navigating subtle but meaningful life changes
• Anyone adjusting to unexpected travel, work, or family stress
• Work-from-home people who struggle to shift out of work mode
• Listeners interested in liminal space, thresholds, and everyday metaphors
• People exploring how energy changes through the day and how to respond with more awareness
• Anyone who appreciates reflective conversations that begin in ordinary life and end somewhere deeper

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary Season 4 opens with Emily and Marc doing what they do best: starting in the middle of real life and letting the conversation unfold from there. This episode sets the theme for the season — transition — and explores it from multiple angles: family life, grief, business shifts, creativity, aging, parenting, and the strange in-between spaces where you do not fully know what comes next.

Emily introduces the idea of using a different word related to transition for each episode this season, and what follows is playful, thoughtful, and surprisingly grounded. They move from WordHippo rabbit trails to labor metaphors, from no-show certification cohorts to children's books, thresholds, poetry, and the honest recognition that this season of life is asking something new of both of them.

The result is a warm beginning to the season: part orientation, part confession, part invitation. It is about change, yes, but even more about learning to inhabit change with a little more spaciousness, a little less forcing, and a willingness to be more real than safe.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Season 4 is built around the theme of transition, with each episode exploring a different related word or facet of change.
• Transition is not just a single dramatic moment; it can be a process, a threshold, a departure, a grief passage, a creative opening, or a business reorientation.
• Emily reflects on transition through the lens of childbirth: the moment of "I can't do this anymore" can actually be the sign that something new is about to emerge.
• Marc shares how an unexpected business disappointment became an invitation to stop forcing outcomes and instead invest more deeply in existing relationships.
• Both of them name how much of this season of life includes overlapping transitions: children launching, aging parents, grief, work shifts, and changing identities.
• Space and rest are not empty; they can become the conditions for creativity, clarity, and a quieter kind of conviction.
• One of the hopes for this season is to show up less guarded and more honest — to play it more real than safe.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"When I'm at the end of my strength that I know I have, then there's more that's within me to follow." – Emily

"I am free-falling, but I'm totally held." – Marc

"I don't need to apologize for the fact that I love children's books, and I think that they're really important art." – Emily

"Playing it more real than more safe." – Emily

"One of the things that I really enjoy about us is that we continue to grow, and change, and learn." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Zoho Projects
• WordHippo
• The idea of using one transition-related word per episode this season
• Birth and midwifery as a metaphor for transition
• Leadership certification and the transition from pushing for a new cohort to tending existing graduates
• Epcot's hang-gliding-style ride as an image of being held in uncertainty
• Chicago and "He Had It Coming"
• Thinking on Thresholds: The Aesthetics of Transitive Spaces
• The Eric Carle Picture Book Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts
• Children's books as serious art
• Poetry Foundation's poem-a-day podcast

👥 Who Should Listen

• People navigating a season of personal or professional transition
• Couples who work, build, and reflect on life together
• Parents adjusting to children launching into adulthood
• Adults caring for or thinking about aging parents
• Creative people trying to make room for what feels quietly true
• Anyone learning to stop forcing the next step and live more honestly in the in-between

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary In this warm and reflective season finale, Marc and Emily close out Season 3 by looking back at the conversations, surprises, and throughlines that emerged. From getting their first live Christmas tree in two decades to reflecting on the grief and growth that shaped their year, they offer a candid behind-the-scenes look at how the season unfolded.

They talk about the intention behind creating a story arc, the joy of unexpected episodes, and how Concord Leadership Group is more than just a name—it's a shared vision of harmony and wholehearted leadership. Plus, they preview hopes (and side quests!) for Season 4 and 2026.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Most podcasts don't make it past 3 or 20 episodes—finishing Season 3 is a milestone worth celebrating.
• Conversations around grief, transition, and rest shaped this season in unseen but powerful ways.
• Planned arcs are great—but spontaneous questions often spark the best episodes.
• "Concord" means harmony—and that resonance is core to their life and leadership work.
• 2026 will bring themes of legacy, hardwiring, coaching, and living into one's vision.
• Leaders don't need to bottle hope—they need space to be seen and grow at their own pace.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"This season was not a color I could name—and not a sock yarn pattern either. But there were threads that came through." – Emily "We've never been answer holders. We say, 'Here's my understanding—tell me what you think.'" – Emily "Don't keep digging up the seed. It's part of the process." – Marc "Perfectly imperfect—that's us." – Emily "The shortest way is often the long way." – Marc "We get to be part of a vision. A wholehearted approach to life." – Emily "May there be light and color, and comfort and joy." – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• 📚 Legendborn & Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
• 🌲 Live Christmas tree (first in 20+ years... with cats!)
• 🧶 Yarn metaphors: solid, variegated, sock yarn
• 💻 ConcordLeadershipGroup.com & Emily's blog post on "Concord"
• 📰 Jeff Gibbard's Infinite Impact Newsletter
• 🧭 Coaching conversations around values, legacy, and intentional leadership
• 🧠 Magnetized 2026 cohort—ongoing growth and goal setting

👥 Who Should Listen

• Longtime fans who want a wrap-up and peek behind the scenes
• Leaders navigating grief, life transitions, or legacy work
• Coaches, founders, and partners building a vision together
• Listeners who value curiosity, humility, and meaningful conversation
• Anyone looking for a reminder that they're not alone—and still figuring it out, too

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary In this thoughtful conversation, Marc and Emily reflect on the deeper dimensions of rest—not just as sleep or downtime, but as intentional recovery, play, and emotional repair. They share how this past year of travel, loss, and transition reshaped their understanding of what it means to truly rest. From the importance of daily routines to the power of letting go of urgency, they invite listeners to reconsider their own rhythms and how grief, joy, and presence all play into real restoration.

With humor and candor, they explore how play can be a portal to healing, how sabbath practices protect against burnout, and how sometimes the best productivity tool is a jigsaw puzzle.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Rest isn't just sleep—it's emotional, physical, and psychological recovery.
• Play is restorative, especially when it's free from deadlines or expectations.
• Self-employment blurs work/rest boundaries—intentional sabbath rhythms help.
• Grief and loss require more recovery than we often acknowledge.
• Daily rituals (walks, puzzles, Switch games) offer a foundation for renewal.
• Patience and reserves are essential leadership postures for 2026 and beyond.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"There's something about this season that says both ramp up and slow down at the same time." – Emily "Rest isn't just sleep. I had plenty of hours last night, but I had neither sleep nor rest." – Emily "My job is not to worry about revenue on Sabbath. Worry will have to wait." – Marc "The jigsaw puzzle lets me focus and still be part of the room." – Marc "Play pulled me into rest. I didn't realize how important that was until I missed it." – Emily "Reserves." – Marc (on his 2026 word for rest and renewal) "Patience—with a 'C,' not a 'T.'" – Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• 🧩 Jigsaw puzzles as a focus-friendly play tool
• 🎮 Nintendo Switch & Skyrim as relaxing escapes
• 🎥 Movie theater as monthly immersive rest ritual
• 📖 "How to Judge Beer Like a Pro" by Marty Nachel
• 🕯️ Sabbath as a framework for rest: sundown-to-sundown tradition
• 💬 Reference to Lark Rise to Candleford: "This is my one weakness."
• 🧠 Talk of grief recovery and the weight of unprocessed emotions

👥 Who Should Listen

• Self-employed leaders and entrepreneurs who struggle to "turn off"
• Coaches and therapists navigating grief, transition, or burnout
• Anyone feeling the tension between productivity and presence
• Listeners wrestling with their own rest rhythms or end-of-year overwhelm
• People who want to restore play, stillness, and rituals of renewal to their life

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary In this spontaneous episode, Emily surprises Marc with a question about 90-day goal planning. What unfolds is a layered conversation about timelines, personal wiring, vision vs. focus, and the often overlooked practice of celebrating accomplishments.

Together, they explore how goal setting and pacing intersect with neurodivergence, business rhythms, and the real-life complexity of working toward big things while juggling many.

They challenge productivity myths, question quarter-based planning, and offer a more compassionate, flexible model for building momentum—one that honors both milestones and maintenance.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• 90-day plans can create urgency and traction—but they're not one-size-fits-all.
• Parallel goals (maintenance + growth) help prevent a "goal cliff" when one big milestone is reached.
• Celebrating accomplishments is just as vital as achieving them.
• Knowing what comes after a goal helps sustain momentum.
• Not all goals are linear or tidy—life often requires juggling priorities, not sequential steps.
• Vision can be zoomed in or out, like turning the dial on a microscope.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"Whenever I go to my favorite stationery store... I feel like I'm at the candy counter again." – Emily "If a goal doesn't have a 'what's next,' it's a cliff." – Emily "I can see it will eventually come together—I've had to work on what I'm doing today to make that happen." – Marc "There's something to the revisiting, to knowing what's next. A goal without a step to step onto is a drop-off." – Emily "Celebrating the accomplishment, not just resetting the horizon, matters too." – Marc "Some people stop when they're winning. But maybe there's momentum that could carry them further." – Marc "I think the 90-day takeaway is that we can set a goal and zoom in and out on it, like twisting a microscope lens." – Emily "What will doing this in the next two weeks allow you to do in the next two months?" – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• 📖 Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
• 🧁 Penny candy, stationery pens, and Swedish Fish nostalgia
• 🧠 EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), Big Rocks, and Quarterly Goals
• 🛠️ CRM goals, coaching goals, and parallel goal structures
• 💬 "Begin with the end in mind" and "history of the future" frameworks
• 📊 Coaching tip: always help clients define what's next after the goal

👥 Who Should Listen

• Coaches and consultants navigating goal structures with clients
• Entrepreneurs wrestling with time horizons and traction
• People who struggle to revisit or reframe their goals
• Listeners looking for a more personalized alternative to rigid productivity frameworks
• Anyone learning to set big goals and celebrate the small wins

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary In this episode of Still Figuring It Out, Marc and Emily Pitman reflect on how the holidays have shifted over the years—from childhood traditions to parenting young adults, and from being nonprofit staff with year-end intensity to running a coaching practice with more margin. They discuss how working from home affects their ability to truly pause, how their values show up in how they decorate and celebrate, and how they now approach holidays with more intentionality, spaciousness, and flexibility.

It's a conversation about embracing change, honoring rest, and refocusing on what matters most as the seasons (and family structures) evolve.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Holiday traditions evolve—and that's okay.
• Being self-employed means intentionally creating boundaries around rest.
• Decorating the home can be an act of meaning-making, not just aesthetics.
• The end-of-year season is an opportunity for recalibration and imagination.
• Quietness, reflection, and margin are gifts we can give ourselves.

🗣 Quote Highlights

• "I really want a cookie." – Emily
• "Being self-employed, you can always be working." – Marc
• "Setting space, setting home, fixing our attention and affection on each other in such a way that in the dark months, we are refilling ourselves." – Emily
• "There's less friction when you just sit back for a minute and look at the horizon." – Emily
• "Growing up, we had a lot of traditions. Some of them changed every year, which is kind of hilarious." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• Gordon Lightfoot's Don Quixote album
• The "balcony moment" leadership metaphor (from Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky)
• Stephen Covey's Quadrant II framework
• South Carolina State Parks

👥 Who Should Listen

• Parents navigating changing holiday traditions
• Coaches and entrepreneurs working from home
• Nonprofit professionals trying to reclaim year-end joy
• Anyone feeling the pressure—or the permission—of the holiday season
• Listeners needing a gentle reminder to pause and recalibrate

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno – composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman – composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki – bass

📋 Episode Summary Marc and Emily explore the nuanced and personal decision of when (and whether) to get help—whether that's in business, around the house, or in life. From their early years of hiring vacuuming help as new parents to their experiments with cleaning services, virtual assistants, and administrative support, they reflect on how each decision is shaped by values, seasons of life, and evolving clarity. They share candid lessons learned about identity, strengths, outsourcing too soon, and the surprising ways "help" can either support or strip away joy.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Getting help is not always about saving time—it can also disrupt your rhythm or remove something meaningful.
• Business owners should learn core skills (like bookkeeping or CRM) before outsourcing—but not forever.
• Delegation is more effective when you define what "done" looks like and document the process.
• Knowing the why behind seeking help—whether it's to free up creativity, maintain peace, or ensure professional integrity—is critical.
• It's all seasonal: the right help at one time might be the wrong help later.
• Hiring help doesn't always mean hiring employees—contractor models offer flexibility and values alignment.
• Pricing your time properly helps reveal when it's "too expensive" to keep doing certain tasks yourself.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"Cleaning the house settles my brain. I didn't realize how much I missed that." - Emily "It's not hard, it's just new." - Marc (quoting Nicole Cramer) "We treat our clients and prospects as partners—not annoyances." - Marc "Knowing your limits allows other people to flourish." - Emily

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• 📚 You're a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
• 📚 Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin
• 🛠️ Loom (for documenting processes via screen recording)
• 💡 Tip: Use "definition of done" language from Agile/Scrum when delegating
• 🤖 CRM Tools: Infusionsoft / Keap → Zoho CRM with SpeakerFlow
• 🧾 Outsourcing bookkeeping, CRM, VAs
• 🧠 StrengthsFinder: Learner strength as both superpower and trap

👥 Who Should Listen

• Founders, freelancers, and business owners feeling overwhelmed but unsure what help to get
• Coaches and creatives struggling with what to delegate—and when
• Anyone who's ever hired help and felt like "it didn't actually help"
• Partners in business or life considering how to divide work and protect joy
• Listeners interested in building teams, documenting processes, or making values-aligned decisions about growth

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Mereno: composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman: composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki: bass

📋 Episode Summary In this episode, Emily and Marc sit down with fundraising consultant and bow tie enthusiast Chris Baiocchi to explore how a career rooted in journalism led to a calling in philanthropy. Chris shares candidly about the leap from nonprofit staff to self-employed consultant, and what it's taken to redefine success, stability, and service in his work.

They unpack the nuances of donor relationships, alignment, and the importance of momentum—and toss in a few great sci-fi references for good measure.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Fundraising is about alignment—doing the right things in the right direction.
• Donor relationships take time, just like all meaningful relationships.
• There's no such thing as true job stability in nonprofits—only consistency.
• Consultants need to shift from "here's what I do" to "here's what we'll achieve together."
• Invite people into your mission like you're inviting them to a party they'll love.

🗣 Quote Highlights

"What I thought was stability was really just consistency." – Chris "You can study swimming all you want, but at some point, you have to get in the water." – Chris "Fundraising is the fuel that drives your mission." – Chris "There's a threshold moment when organizations stop scraping by and start growing on purpose." – Emily "Let's stop talking about deliverables. Let's talk about transformation." – Marc

🧰 Tools & Mentions

• ResolutePhilanthropy.com
• The Compass Within by Robert Glazer
• Bartender Between Worlds (light fantasy novel)
• Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly
• Scrappy fundraising mindsets: "Golf, Grant, and Gala"
• "Threshold moments" in mythology and leadership
• LinkedIn: Chris Baiocchi (look for the bow tie!)

👥 Who Should Listen

• Nonprofit leaders considering the leap to consulting
• Fundraisers tired of the "spray and pray" approach
• Consultants learning to talk about outcomes
• Board members who want to help—but don't know how
• Anyone figuring out how to build a business with heart

🎺 That Music! Special thanks to Lexi Moreno, Caleb Pitman, and Zoe Czarnecki for the original music. Lexi Moreno: composing / mixing / mastering / guitar Caleb Pitman: composing / mixing / trumpet Zoe Czarnecki: bass