The Tessa Tubbs Podcast

In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa sits down with Howard Morgan, executive coach, entrepreneur, author, and global change maker, for a grounded conversation about success, perseverance, self-improvement, and the quiet seasons that shape who we become.

Howard has spent decades helping individuals and organizations perform at their highest level, with work spanning industries, continents, nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and women founders across Africa building sustainable businesses. But this conversation goes beyond accomplishment. It explores the long road behind visible success: the seasons that feel lonely, uncertain, or unremarkable while they are quietly building character, perspective, and purpose.

Together, Tessa and Howard discuss what it means to know both “the bottom” and “the top,” why success carries an obligation to help others, and how taking meaningful risks becomes possible when you believe in your ability to find a way forward. Howard shares how early hardship, entrepreneurship, career pivots, and a commitment to helping others shaped his definition of success.
They also explore the power of self-improvement, optimism, listening, choosing the right people, and learning to measure success by impact rather than status alone. Howard reminds us that helping someone else gain clarity can be more meaningful than personal achievement, and that the most important work often happens in the seasons no one else is applauding.

This conversation is for anyone in a quiet season, navigating uncertainty, rebuilding confidence, or redefining success beyond the peaks. Listen in for a thoughtful reminder that the lonely years may be doing some of the deepest work in you.

Connect with Howard Morgan:
Website: https://howardjmorgan.com

Podcast Episode Description

In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa sits down with Dr. Charlie Apigian, founder of Data Inspire and lead data and AI strategist at LBMC, for a thoughtful conversation about success, identity, AI, reinvention, and staying human in the middle of achievement.

Charlie’s path has moved from the automotive industry to academia, entrepreneurship, data strategy, and artificial intelligence. After decades as a professor helping people make sense of complex systems, Charlie entered a new season of work focused on helping companies and individuals begin their AI journey with clarity and intention.

Together, Tessa and Charlie explore the tension between achievement and alignment: what happens when you are still “winning” externally, but something inside you has started to drift. Charlie shares how becoming an entrepreneur, losing his father, parenting four grown children, and rethinking his own definition of impact have shaped the way he now thinks about work, family, purpose, and what matters most.

They also discuss how AI can be used not to replace our humanity, but to make more room for it. Charlie shares his personal AI guardrails, built around creating deeper experiences and connections while staying genuine and authentic.

This conversation is for anyone refining what success means, navigating a new chapter, or asking how to keep growing without losing themselves in the process. Listen in for a grounded discussion on AI, self-awareness, identity, entrepreneurship, family, reinvention, and building a life where the journey matters as much as the outcome.

More about Dr. Charlie Apagian:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/capigian

Data Inspire: https://www.datainspire.io/about

In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa sits down with Beth Raebeck Hall, founder of The Quantum Creator, to explore identity, reinvention, and the quiet threshold many women reach when the life they built no longer feels aligned.

Beth brings more than 30 years of experience across music, media, technology, entrepreneurship, and coaching. A TEDx speaker, Grammy-nominated songwriter, award-winning writer, and strategic business coach, she has advised founders, creatives, startups, and small businesses through seasons of growth, change, and self-discovery.

Together, Tessa and Beth discuss what happens when women outgrow roles that once defined them, from career titles and motherhood seasons to old expectations, external validation, and the pressure to keep pushing through. Beth shares how reinvention often begins when “remaining the same” becomes more painful than change, and why origin stories can hold both the wounds we need to heal and the parts of ourselves we are ready to recover.
This conversation is for women who are successful, capable, and grateful for what they have built, yet sense that something inside them is asking for a new chapter. It is a grounded invitation to listen to that signal, reconnect with your values, and ask: What do I want now, and is the life I’m living still aligned with who I am becoming?

Listen in for a thoughtful conversation on reinvention, identity, self-leadership, women’s power, personal change, and building a life that holds up over time.

Connect with Beth Raebeck Hall:
Website: https://www.quantumcreatorcoach.com
LinkedIn: Search Beth Raebeck Hall / The Quantum Creator

In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa sits down with Bryan Neely for a powerful conversation on resilience, faith, identity, and the quiet strength it takes to keep rising when life does not unfold the way you imagined.

Bryan is the owner of Billy Goat Coffee Cafe, a Krav Maga instructor, Young Life Ministry leader, ultra marathoner, military funeral honors officer, TEDx speaker, and author of Embrace Your Roar: A Call to Stop Comparing, Start Rising, and Step Into the Life You Were Created For. His story is marked by deep faith, personal grief, military transition, rejection, endurance, and a commitment to turning obstacles into opportunities for growth and service.

Together, Tessa and Bryan explore what it means to hit rock bottom with your “rock” in the right place, how faith and community can help remind you who you are, and why rising is not always dramatic. Often, it is one honest decision repeated over time.

Bryan shares how self-talk, doing hard things, surrounding yourself with the right people, and staying connected to purpose have helped him move through breaking points and become a stronger, more grounded version of himself.

This episode is for anyone walking through hardship, rebuilding after disappointment, or learning how to lead themselves with courage, humility, and intention.

Listen in for a conversation on self-leadership, resilience, emotional endurance, faith, personal growth, and choosing to rise into who you are becoming.

For more on Bryan check out his links:

Business:

BILLY GOAT COFFEE CAFE

Books:

Embrace Your Roarrr: The Key To Rising Up In Everything You Do

Mile 17 Devotional: Where Breaking Points Become Breakthroughs

Socials:

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa shares a simple five-minute reflection practice leaders can use at the end of the day to build greater self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and intentional leadership.

Rather than adding another complicated routine or lengthy journaling exercise, this practice invites you to pause and ask honest, compassionate questions: Where did I feel most like the leader I aim to be today? Where did I lead from insecurity, urgency, or ego? What might I try differently tomorrow?

Self-awareness does not grow through self-criticism. It grows through recognition. By taking a few quiet moments to observe your impact, notice your patterns, and reflect without judgment, you create more room to lead with clarity, steadiness, and choice instead of reactivity.

This episode is for leaders, professionals, and anyone practicing self-leadership who wants to become more intentional in how they show up each day.

Ever walk out of a meeting feeling less like yourself than when you walked in?

In this episode, Tessa names a common but subtle self-abandonment pattern: softening your position when there’s tension, not because you learned something new, but because you felt displeasure in the room.

She breaks down the “tells” many of us don’t notice until after the meeting is over:

• Adding qualifiers, over-explaining, or quickly finding something to agree with just to restore warmth
• Mistaking conflict-avoidance for collaboration, then leaving with an outcome you didn’t actually want
• Creating “meetings outside the meeting” because the real conversation never happened in the room

You’ll learn how to hold your ground without being combative, acknowledge different viewpoints without dismantling your own, and leave the room with integrity and clarity.

If you’ve been people-pleasing in professional settings or quietly eroding your voice to keep things smooth, this episode will help you lead yourself differently.

More at TessaTubbs.com

Setting boundaries doesn’t have to sound cold, defensive, or overly emotional. In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa shares a handful of simple, repeatable sentences you can use to say no with clarity while still protecting the relationship.

You’ll learn:

• How to decline a request without over-explaining or apologizing for your boundary
• The “redirect” approach: “That doesn’t work for me, but here’s what does”
• How to frame a boundary as an act of care, especially in close relationships
• How to say “I’m not the right person for that” without guilt, and still be helpful by offering an alternative

If you’ve been avoiding boundaries because you don’t want to disappoint people, this episode gives you language that’s firm, human, and clean, so you can stay honest without burning bridges.

Learn More at TessaTubbs.com

How do you tell the difference between being supportive… and over-functioning for someone?

In this short episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa offers a simple distinction that can change the way you lead, parent, partner, and collaborate:

Support empowers. Over-functioning replaces.

Tessa breaks down what over-functioning actually is: substituting your capacity for someone else’s, often because watching them struggle makes you uncomfortable, you want things to move faster, or you’ve learned to feel useful by stepping in.

She also names the deeper truth: over-functioning is frequently more about the helper than the person being helped. It can relieve your discomfort, satisfy your need to feel needed or in control, and unintentionally communicate to the other person that you don’t believe they can handle it on their own.

To stay honest, Tessa shares the question she uses as a real-time check:
“Whose comfort am I serving right now?”

If you’ve been exhausted from carrying too much, rescuing too quickly, or feeling responsible for outcomes that aren’t yours, this episode will help you build healthier support, clearer boundaries, and stronger self-leadership.

Learn More at TessaTubbs.com

Many of us are carrying responsibility, expectations, and care for others, often with very little room to be fully human ourselves. This conversation lives right there, not in performance or polish, but in the real work of showing up honestly, being seen, and creating safe space for others without abandoning yourself.

In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa sits down with Rachael Lewis, owner of Honey and Sage Salon and former educator, to talk about reinvention, vulnerability, and what it costs (and gives) to choose alignment over expectation. Rachael shares her courageous shift from teaching during the COVID era to hair school, the sacrifices that came with it, and the freedom she found on the other side.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why vulnerability isn’t “one and done,” it’s a lived state of being
• The hidden weight of staying in soul-sucking environments, and what changes when you finally choose presence over protection
• How to navigate judgment, disruption, and the real barriers that make change complex
• Creating safe space and community, including what it means to be a trusted “beacon” for others
• Over-functioning, boundaries, and the self-leadership skill of saying “no” without guilt
• Why you shouldn’t light yourself on fire to keep someone else warm

If you’ve been holding everyone else up while quietly disappearing yourself, this episode will help you rethink what you’re tolerating, reclaim your boundaries, and choose a life that actually holds up.

Connect with Rachael Lewis / Honey and Sage Salon:
Website: honeyandsagessalon.com
Instagram / TikTok / Facebook: @HoneyandSageSalon
Also: @SaltandWavesHair

See Rachel's TedX Talk Here: https://youtu.be/EcrlmMtG-uU?si=noWUvH4aT5y_ok59

What’s the boundary you wish you’d learned a decade earlier?

In this episode of The Tessa Tubbs Podcast, Tessa answers with a truth that hits a lot of high-functioning people right in the chest: your availability is not the same as your commitment.

Tessa reflects on a season where she treated being available as generosity and “yes” as proof of value, only to realize that radical availability can be an angst-driven pattern rooted in not trusting that your real value is enough. She unpacks how she made herself indispensable through access, and what boundary work taught her about protecting energy, focusing on what matters most, and thinking through the downstream trade-offs of automatic yeses.

You’ll hear why over-availability can quietly turn you into “infrastructure” in relationships instead of a mutual person, and how constantly responding keeps you from initiating the life you actually want.

If you’ve been exhausted, overextended, or resentful while telling yourself you’re just being helpful, this episode will help you reconnect to self, set cleaner boundaries, and make choices that protect what deserves your deepest focus.

Learn more at TessaTubbs.com