The Courage Effect

The Courage Effect

By Suzanne Weller - Weller CollaborationSociety & CultureBusinessHealth & FitnessMental Health
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The Courage Effect episodes

  • Kevin Bott: The Homecoming Ritual Prison Never Gave

    #93: Suzanne Weller speaks with Kevin Bott about Ritual4Return, a homecoming project for people returning from incarceration. They explore why re-entry needs more than logistics, how storytelling and theater can help restore dignity, and why communities have a role in welcoming people home. Kevin also shares how the project works as a Rutgers University course, what participants experience during its 14-week process, and how the work aims to change the culture around mass incarceration.

     

    Key topics:

    • How Ritual4Return and public recognition can support people in the transition home
    • Incarceration as a degrading experience that can reduce a person to a label or number
    • Theater as a way to reconnect with voice, movement, emotion, and personal storytelling
    • The role of family and community members as witnesses
    • Kevin’s reflections on trust, consistency, humility, and accountable leadership
    • The broader question of what kind of community awaits people returning home

      • Notable quotes:

      • “Before my story owned me and now I own my story.”
      • “What does it mean to come home?
      • “I’m not going to hide behind my privilege.”

        •  

        Action items:

        • Visit the Ritual4Return website and use its contact form to learn more or support the work.
        • Consider how your community welcomes people returning home from incarceration.
        • Reflect on whether your assumptions about crime and punishment leave room for human complexity.

          • Connect with Kevin Bott:

          ➡️ Website: http://www.ritual4return.org 

          ➡️ All socials: @ritual4return 

           

          Connect with The Courage Effect:

          ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

          ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

          ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

          ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about

           

          If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

          49 min
        • Nwando Anyaoku: Stop Translating Yourself

          #92: In this episode of The Courage Effect, Suzanne Weller talks with Dr. Nwando Anyaoku — a board-certified pediatrician, physician executive, and advocate for women in leadership — about finding the courage to use your voice, own your story, and imagine a bigger future.

          Dr. Anyaoku shares her journey from Nigeria to the United States, from clinical practice to executive leadership, and the lessons she’s learned about navigating spaces that weren’t designed with everyone in mind. Together, they explore what it means to show up “untranslated,” speak up when something isn’t working, and build the support system that makes meaningful change possible.

           

          Key Topics:

          • The importance of representation and context in healthcare
          • Why speaking in your own voice can bring clarity to a room
          • The challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces
          • The importance of including clinicians’ perspectives in health technology and AI
          • Why storytelling is a powerful leadership strategy
          • How courage begins with daring to dream

            • Ideas to Take With You:

            • Notice where you may be editing or shrinking your voice to fit someone else’s expectations.
            • Consider who is part of your support team: a mentor, sponsor, coach, and trusted personal connections.
            • Ask whether your current environment allows you to bring your best to your work.
            • Remember that telling your story can help someone else see a path forward.

              • Connect with Nwando Anyaoku:

              ➡️ Website: https://nwandoanyaoku.com/

              ➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nwandoanyaoku/

              ➡️ Her TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQA3JH2CEos

               

              Connect with The Courage Effect:

              ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

              ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

              ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

              ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about

               

              If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

              41 min
            • Siamak Namazi: Never Out of Options

              #91: Suzanne Weller speaks with Siamak Namazi about the eight years he spent detained in Iran, and how he turned an extreme loss of freedom into a set of practical decision-making tools. This conversation is equal parts survival story, systems thinking, and unexpectedly funny reflection on how to create leverage when you seem to have none.

               

              Siamak shares how he used routine, distance, humor, and deliberate problem-framing to stay mentally intact, advocate for himself, and eventually build allies inside and outside prison. The episode also explores what freedom means after captivity, and why it has to be chosen again every day.

               

              Key Topics:

              • In this episode, Siamak recounts how a four-day trip to Iran in 2015 turned into 2,898 days of captivity, and how that experience reshaped his life and identity.
              • He explains why he reframed himself as two separate roles - hostage me and consultant me - so he could create distance, stay analytical, and solve problems instead of spiraling.
              • Siamak breaks down the first major leverage win of his captivity: negotiating for showers and shaving rights after using his own smell as pressure against an interrogator.
              • He explains how allies emerged once he began writing letters, studying prison law, and making his case with persistence, conviction, and help from other prisoners, lawyers, journalists, and filmmakers.
              • They touch on Siamak’s plea for help in a live interview with Christine Amanpour on CNN from Evin prison in 2023 (watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXLjM-Z_dHo )
              • Siamak describes the difficult return to ordinary life after release, including relearning technology, banking, work, and relationships after eight years away.

                • Connect with Siamak Namazi:

                ➡️ Website: https://siamaknamazi.com/

                ➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siamaknamazi/

                ➡️ Twitter: https://x.com/sianamazi

                 

                Connect with The Courage Effect:

                ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

                ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about

                 

                If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

                53 min
              • Jessie Swisher Spiers: Why Great Leaders Stop Trying to Look Like Leaders

                #90: Suzanne Weller sits down with Jessie Swisher Spiers (Executive Director of Seattle Humane) to talk about leading lived inside a high-stakes, mission-driven organization. Jessie traces her leadership back to a service-oriented upbringing in West Virginia and a career in nonprofit fundraising, and gets candid about the cultural shifts she's driven at Seattle Humane, the emotional weight of animal welfare work, and why trust, self-compassion, and adaptability matter so much in both leadership and life.

                 

                Key Topics:

                • Seattle Humane's scale: nearly 100,000 pets and people served each year, almost a million meals through the pet food bank, over 10,000 surgeries, and more than 5,000 adoptions annually.
                • Leadership as an ongoing practice, not a destination — compared to yoga and gardening, and the discipline of letting go of what no longer serves growth.
                • Being underestimated as a young woman leader, criticism about how she dressed, and choosing authenticity over a narrow leadership mold.
                • Why trust, self-compassion, and adaptability matter as much in life as in leadership.

                  • Connect with Jessie Swisher Spiers:

                  ➡️ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-swisher-spiers-533a695/

                  ➡️ Seattle Humane: https://www.seattlehumane.org

                   

                  Connect with The Courage Effect:

                  ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                  ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

                  ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                  ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about

                   

                  If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

                  47 min
                • Julie Averill: Why the Best Tech Leaders Put People Before AI

                  #89: Suzanne sits down with Julie Averill (author of Chief Impact Officer and founder of Gold Thread LLC), who spent nearly three decades in retail technology, most recently as Global CIO at lululemon, where she helped scale the company from $2 billion to over $10 billion. Julie started out as the only woman in her college computer science classes, and this episode traces what that cost her: a mask she didn't know she was wearing until a mentor stopped her mid-pitch and asked how she was going to get her team to follow her when nobody knew the real Julie.

                  Julie makes the case that culture isn't a soft skill, it's infrastructure – and Julie shares why she believes AI makes human leadership more important, not less.

                  Highlights:

                  • The mentor question that cracked her open: "Nobody knows the real Julie"
                  • Why she believes culture isn't a soft skill, it's infrastructure
                  • Why AI makes human leadership more important, not less

                    • Resources & Links:

                    • The Courage Effect #85 with Brent Robertson: Unpacking Courage, Blasphemy, and Organizational Narratives: https://youtu.be/9DdLZ_r-QJc?si=qM79MC97Ng1sF0nl
                    • Julie’s recent New York Times article “I Helped Run Lululemon. Companies Need to Stop Kidding Themselves About A.I.”: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/opinion/ai-hype-tech-layoffs.html
                    • LinkedIn post with the video documenting her son Ermias’ return to Ethiopia and reconnect with his biological family: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/julieaverill_ethiopia-adoption-family-activity-7421985912537907200-NLug?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAAYHHoBt_VDu18iZffDR7GAWQMQkClXARw

                      • Connect with Julie Averill:

                      ➡️LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julieaverill/

                      ➡️Her book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GM1KT1V5?lv=shuf&bestFormat=true&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_VN2CAYAH8JEG3FSP0NG7&channelId=704&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_VN2CAYAH8JEG3FSP0NG7&plpRedirect=mhFallback

                      ➡️ Her company: www.goldthreadllc.com

                      Connect with The Courage Effect:

                      ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                      ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

                      ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                      ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about

                      If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

                      46 min
                    • Shawn Vanderhoven: Tap the Pause

                      #88: Discover how slowing down can revolutionize your leadership approach and help your team excel amidst constant distractions. Shawn Vanderhoven shares his journey, insights from research, and practical tools to implement deliberate pauses for improved focus, impact, and well-being. He talks with Suzanne Weller about his book Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World (which he co-wrote with his wife Anne).

                      In this episode:

                      • The moment that changed the direction of his work
                      • Why the highest-scoring leadership behaviors were all forms of "tapping the brakes"
                      • Permission to focus vs. sponsoring it
                      • Why environment — not personal productivity — decides whether deep work is possible

                        • Shawn is a Partner at The Wiseman Group, a collaborator on the NYT bestseller Multipliers, and co-host of Leadership Matters with Liz Wiseman.

                        A question to sit with: Where are you unknowingly training your team to stay "always on"?

                        Resources & Links:

                        • Pause: How to Lead Brilliant Work in a Busy World: https://www.pausebook.co/
                        • Leadership Matters Podcast : https://thewisemangroup.com/leadershipmatters/
                        • Liz Wiseman's Multipliers research and book: https://thewisemangroup.com/books/multipliers/

                          • Connect with Shawn Vanderhoven:

                          ➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnvanderhoven/

                          ➡️ Website: https://www.pausebook.co/

                          ➡️ Book Shawn to speak : https://www.pausebook.co/keynotes

                          Connect with The Courage Effect:

                          ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                          ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

                          ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                          ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about

                          If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

                          50 min
                        • Sharon K. Gillenwater: The Myth of the Flawless Founder

                          #87: Suzanne Weller talks with Sharon Gillenwater; a four-time founder navigating one of entrepreneurship's hardest moments: rebuilding from scratch after her previous company (Boardroom Insiders) was unexpectedly shut down following its sale. In this episode, she shares how she turned that setback into her current venture, ExecutiveIQ, an AI-driven platform helping go-to-market teams engage the C-suite.

                          Sharon opens up about the emotional and practical realities of starting over - leaning on transparency with her team and customers, rejecting the myth of founder perfection, and choosing focus over funding to compete with larger, better-resourced rivals. She also makes the case for a different kind of startup culture: one that rejects toxic "996" grind norms in favor of trust, work-life balance, and sustainable growth.

                          Drawing on lessons from storytelling and her outsider's perspective on the industry, Sharon offers a grounded take on what it really means to lead lived, and why long-term sustainability beats rapid scaling every time.

                          Resources & Links:

                          🔹 Sharon’s book Scaling with Soul: How to Build a Tech Company Without Losing Humanity: https://www.sharonkgillenwater.com/scaling-with-soul-how-i-built-sold-a-25-million-company-without-being-an-asshole

                          🔹 Executive IQ platform: https://www.executive-iq.com/

                          Connect with Sharon K. Gillenwater:

                          ➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonkgillenwater/

                          ➡️ Website: https://www.sharonkgillenwater.com/

                          ➡️ TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@sharonkgillenwater

                          Connect with The Courage Effect:

                          ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                          ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

                          ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                          39 min
                        • Emily Parkhurst: Men Ask Forgiveness, Women Ask Permission

                          #86: In this episode, Emily Parkhurst talks with Suzanne Weller about her inspiring journey from classical musician to Founder and CEO of Formidable Media, an organization dedicated to amplifying women's voices in media, leadership, and healthcare. Discover how she challenges industry norms and advocates for more inclusive, impactful storytelling. 

                          Main Topics:

                          • The origins and mission of Formidable in transforming media coverage of women’s issues
                          • Addressing women’s reluctance and misconceptions about media engagement
                          • Building a sustainable, multi-revenue model for a purpose-driven media company
                          • Leadership development through unconventional career paths and mentorship
                          • The importance of women sharing their health stories and advocating for themselves

                            •  

                            Connect with Emily Parkhurst:

                            ➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilyparkhurst1/

                            ➡️ Formidable: https://beformidable.com/

                            ➡️ Formidable Women’s Health Summit on October 30th, 2026: https://beformidable.com/p/new-event-brings-actionable-health-info-to-everyday-women

                             

                            Connect with The Courage Effect:

                            ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                            ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

                            ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                            ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about

                             

                            If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

                            41 min
                          • Brent Robertson: Unpacking Courage, Blasphemy, and Organizational Narratives

                            #85: Suzanne Weller sits down with Brent Robertson, founder of Be Generative and TEDx speaker, for a conversation about courageous leadership, storytelling, and challenging the status quo.

                            Brent shares why “blasphemy” is his word for what happens when someone questions the prevailing truth — and why that friction is often the start of real progress. He and Suzanne explore how leaders can create environments instead of just reacting to them, and why the stories people live inside shape their behavior, culture, and performance.

                            A major theme of the episode is listening: not just to behavior, but to experience and narrative. Brent explains that if leaders want different results, they need to understand the deeper stories running through their organizations.

                            They also discuss “love punches” — the hard truths that can help people grow when they’re shared with care and courage.

                            If you’re interested in leadership, culture, and what it takes to break out of familiar patterns, this episode is for you.

                            Key Themes:

                            • Challenging the status quo
                            • Storytelling and leadership
                            • Listening beyond behavior
                            • Culture and organizational change
                            • Courageous feedback

                              • Connect with Brent Robertson:

                              ➡️ LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/brentrobertson

                              ➡️ BeGenerative: http://www.be-generative.com

                              ➡️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/brentrobertson

                              Connect with The Courage Effect:

                              ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                              ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect 

                              ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                              ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about 

                              If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

                              51 min
                            • Kat Kibben: There's Always Another Way Out

                              #84: Discover how intentionality in creating your personal and professional environments can cultivate courage and lived leadership. In this episode, Kat Kibben talks with Suzanne Weller about their transformative journey into van life, insights on leading through uncertainty, and practical ways to build healthier, more resilient teams and communities.

                              Main Topics:

                              ➡️ How choosing discomfort fosters growth and courage

                              ➡️ Challenging inherited rules from toxic workplace cultures

                              ➡️ The power of quitting intentionally as a design tool

                              ➡️ Building organizational resilience and emotional intelligence

                              ➡️ The importance of asking for help and fostering curiosity

                              Resources & Links:

                              ➡️ The Bounce Back Factor book: https://threeearsmedia.com/the-bounce-back-factor-book/

                              ➡️ Kat Kibben’s Newsletter: https://katrinakibben.com/ 

                              ➡️ Three Ears Media: https://threeearsmedia.com/ 

                               

                              Connect with Kat:

                              ➡️ LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/katrinakibben

                              ➡️ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katrinakibben/ 

                               

                              Connect with The Courage Effect:

                              ➡️ Host: Suzanne Weller / Weller Collaboration

                              ➡️ Website: https://wellercollaboration.com/thecourageeffect

                              ➡️ Social Media: https://linktr.ee/suzanneweller

                              ➡️ Substack: Sign up for Suzanne’s Reimagine Growth newsletter at https://suzanneweller.substack.com/about 

                              If this conversation resonated, share it and leave a review on your podcast platform. That's how this show grows — one courageous conversation at a time.

                              48 min

                            About The Courage Effect

                            From the publisher's feed

                            The Courage Effect is a show about what becomes possible when you stop waiting to feel ready. Hosted by Suzanne Weller, it's honest conversation about the fear, risk, and uncertainty behind every meaningful step — and how courage gets lived, not just talked about.