The Sage Sayers

My guest this week is Yasna Garcia da Rosa, an executive assistant and ICF-certified coach based in Uruguay who simply loves her job. This feeling becomes rare in today's turbulent economy where many feel despair vs. joy.

Yasna works for a leading pharmaceutical firm and through a recent work trip to Africa felt reminded of her purpose, her passion, and her love for what she does. One of my favorite parts of the interview, which we conducted last month, is Yasna's joy when learning her company chose her to become the ambassador for Uruguay for the program she visited in Africa. I also loved hearing her tips on how we too can find gratitude and joy within every day.

Connect with Yasna Garcia da Rosa via her LinkedIn page, which you can find here.

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators 

If you're finding you're more anxious than normal speaking in meetings and/or presenting to higher ups, you're not alone. Communicators all over feel the same and we know why: Many of us have fewer opportunities with our leaders than before; with that, more pressure to be brief, clear, and feel heard. Also, those same leaders we must update or persuade must decide (in many cases) who to let go and who can stay, and that feeling can feel fearful indeed. 

I don't have all the answers; but I do have insights. In this week's episode (very low key, recorded from my garden hammock) I'm sharing tips and techniques which have served me and those I coach. I've podcasted on public speaking fear and the role our inner critics play a few times with another favorite episode here.

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

My guest this week, Bhawna Sharma Puri, is a successful Fintech industry marketing leader and a council board member of California State university. She's also a first generation immigrant, a Silicon Valley philanthropist, an investor, and a Mum to two wonderful little children.

I've brought Bhawna to the Sage Sayers to unpack how to share our  accomplishments in non-bragging, comfortable ways. This communication challenge feels tricky for those who've emerged from nations which value humility and now function as professionals elsewhere. As two women who came to the U.S. to pursue our dreams (Bhawna from India and me from New Zealand and Japan prior to the U.S.) we've quite a bit to say!

You can find Bhawna via her LinkedIn page here.

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

My returning guest this week is Jenn Kho. She's the newly appointed Chicago Sun-Times executive editor, president of the Journalism and Women Symposium, and former managing editor of two global publications with millions of readers: the HuffPost and the Guardian US. 

This week, Jenn's back to share what she's learning about herself and her industry through her latest career pivot from consultant to executive editor of one of America's largest daily papers. And she's helping me respond to many requests from the field on how business communicators can learn to think, write, and speak more like a journalist. I can't think of a better person to help me unpack what we journalists do when we're synthesizing vast swathes of information and keeping that copy clear, concise, and compelling.  

You can find Jenn Kho via her LinkedIn profile here. You can hear our earlier episode where Jenn shares her absolute passion for journalism here. And Jennifer invites listeners to visit the Chicago Sun-Time’s career page for job openings, which you can find here: https://chicago.suntimes.com/pages/chicago-sun-times-careers-internships

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

My guest this week is Marie-Louise Pereira, a leadership and mental wellness coach based in France. Marie-Louise helps leaders replace stuck, unhappy feelings with a confidence that helps them achieve their dreams, find better balance, and with that, a more fulfilling career.

Marie-Louise and I spoke in the New Year on a problem many of our clients shared: Switching off from work, especially on mandated work break, and then challenging whatever inner critical, old, and fixed cultural mindsets get in our way of relating well with our work. Though we recorded our interview late December, with global news of pivotal leaders like New Zealand's PM Jacinda Ardern resigning due to burnout, our conversation might spark something new within.

You can find Marie-Louise Pereira through her LinkedIn profile.  I've also interviewed Marie-Louise earlier on how she navigated her own burnout, which you can find here.

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

James Cameron's Avatar: the Way of Water is breaking box office records all over the world. The sci-fi epic just overtook Top Gun Maverick to become 2022's highest grossing international release and sailed past the $1.1 billion mark. Within this phenomena sits Isaac Te Reina, a filmmaker, actor, and writer from New Zealand who stars as the Sea Dragon First Mate in this Avatar epic.

Isaac joined me on the Sage Sayers over the festive break to talk about his soaring filming career and all the gifts, opportunities, and knowledge he's gathered from landing a role within Avatar. His story and insights can uplift actors, entrepreneurs, aspiring leaders and hopeful business communicators all over. Isaac landed this first blockbuster role through drawing from vital qualities many of us aspire towards as communicators, especially with high-stakes audiences, like James Cameron: Courage. Creativity. Play. And most of all: Presence.

You can follow Isaac Te Reina on Instagram here. Contact his agent for acting and other creative opportunities here  and find his IMDB page by clicking here. Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

My guest this week is Wisconsin-based executive coach Deb Skarda whose brother Rick was murdered  on Father’s Day here in the states. In Deb’s own words: “He was unjustly taken by the hand of another.” Deb’s convinced that her life destiny now must make sense of this tragedy. 

Her touching post on LinkedIn and other social media asks her audiences to live by her Rick rules, all aligned with this idea of cherishing time with each other over work, money, and not taking the simple things (nor each other) for granted. Hundreds have replied—and many executives, even CEOs. 

Our interview helps honor Rick, his legacy, and provides a vital and hopeful perspective during the festive holidays and a turbulent world economy.

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

Three or so years ago I entered coaching school to train to become an International Coaching Federation certified coach. This move felt slightly bizarre given I’d never received coaching before nor knew much about the industry. But I had a hunch that my work as a professor of communications and journalism, as a reporter, and as a publicist might blend nicely with coaching, especially if I made communications coaching a niche.

In last week’s Medium post, which I read in this week’s podcast,  I’m sharing a big milestone. On the day I wrote this piece, I had coached 3,184 individual paid coaching hours since my training began early September 2019. (The numbers now sit at around 3,210.) This now sets me up to apply to become a Master Certified Coach, a credential that the ICF has granted to few coaches around the world. (You need at least 2,500 individual coaching hours—and a bunch of other stuff—to apply.) This episode chronicles all of the feelings and lessons coming up for me as I celebrate this risky but exciting crossroad in my new reinvent and coaching career.

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

Most of us waste a sad amount of time worrying about what others think of us when we post to LinkedIn, the social media platform for professionals with  875 million members worldwide. So, how might we have fun and love playing on LinkedIn vs worry about torpedoing our careers?

In this week’s Sage Sayers episode I’m sharing tips and techniques I’ve cultivated in this global social media space—and with surprising results. Almost all of my business has come from LinkedIn; and now I’m at capacity (almost) with 90 coaching clients. (LinkedIn and how I play on LinkedIn replaces my need to outsource any marketing efforts whatsoever.) 

You can read my musings on LinkedIn on Medium by clicking here. Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators

I’m no expert on work-life balance; but I have found that applying the mental fitness tool of innovation, specifically to how I manage my time, has yielded blissful and surprising results. By innovating the flow of my day, i.e. the order in which I go about things, I’ve found more space for art, my writing, exercise—and with that, less stress. (I’ve even improved my blood pressure.) 

In this week’s Sage Sayers podcast episode, recording on a rainy Friday, I’m sharing this idea of staying creative to add in more things we love and better align with our values.

Connect with me, Coach Debbi McCullough, about your group's communication challenges via my LinkedIn profile and website. Look for my individual and group packaging offerings via the hashtag #bravecommunicators