Stan Gibson built four decades of corporate success — and then watched it dissolve in a single phone call. When the Fortune 100 company he'd given everything to displaced his position, Stan wasn't blindsided by the job loss. He was blindsided by the question underneath it: who are you when the career that defined you is gone?

In this conversation, Stan Gibson — executive coach, keynote speaker, and author of Living a Rich and Intentional Life — walks through what it actually takes to rebuild identity after disruption. He covers the moment a friend's terminal cancer diagnosis reoriented his entire understanding of what "rich" means; how his wife's stage four cancer diagnosis forced him to practice what he preached about self-care; and the coaching framework he uses with executives navigating their own identity collapse — from strengths mapping to "I am" identity statements to a reverse-engineered five-year vision process.

Stan introduces a through-line he calls the "genius paragraph" — a granular translation of your five core strengths into a statement of who you are at your best. It's not motivational filler. It's a tool for people who've lost the external structure that told them who they were, and need something internal to replace it.

Why Listen Now: If you've ever let a job title answer the question "who are you" — and then lost the job — this episode is a hand on the shoulder, not a blueprint. Stan's been there. He built a life from the rubble twice.

If this is you… You're still carrying the weight of a disruption you didn't choose, and part of what's heavy is that you don't know who you are without it.

Resources

Double Down on You PDF (neuroscience-based resources: sleep, nutrition, fitness, visualization) — Stan Gibson: https://leadwithstan.com

Living a Rich and Intentional Life — Stan Gibson (book)

Website: https://www.stangibsonspeaks.com

Speaker Reel: https://www.stangibsonspeaks.com/speaking

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/stangibsonspeaks

The Inspiration Podcasts with Stan — Stan Gibson's podcast

Psycho-Cybernetics — Dr. Maxwell Maltz (referenced by Stan)

About the Things Go Sideways Podcast

When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting.

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down.

New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.

Connect With Things Go Sideways:

Substack: https://thingsgosideways.substack.com/welcome

Website: https://thingsgosideways.com

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikilitalien/

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For Business Inquiries: [email protected]

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00:00 — KiKi introduces Stan Gibson and the episode's stakes

01:53 — Stan describes his first sideways moment: threatened with termination at 23

03:45 — Writing the plan on a piece of paper: "No one will ever dictate my future again"

05:12 — The second sideways moment: Fortune 100 layoff he didn't see coming

06:40 — "Always have a plan B" — why Stan was ready the morning after

07:30 — Jerry walks over at dinner: "When death becomes certain, life becomes rich"

09:10 — Wife's stage four cancer diagnosis changes how Stan lives his own framework

11:00 — The swim lane metaphor: knowing who you are and who belongs beside you

12:15 — Neuroscience of identity: RAS, amygdala, and why early lies become truth

15:23 — Working with a client whose career became her entire identity

17:45 — The genius paragraph: translating Clifton Strengths into who you are at your best

20:00 — Visioning backward: assuming five-year success and asking what got you there

22:10 — "I am" versus "I will someday": stating identity, not intention

23:15 — Mother's passing, wife's cancer, and using affirmations to embrace hard seasons

24:49 — Solomon's vapor: life isn't meaningless, it moves fast

29:00 — Marianne Williamson quote: it's our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most

34:46 — Stan's closing counsel: "Own the moment. Are you a victim or are you an owner?"

Cecilia Satovich was 40, raising three young daughters, and living inside the life she had hoped for.

Then she went in for her first mammogram.

What started as something routine (an appointment you know you should make, the kind you might delay because life is full and you are busy and also, let's be real, who wants to deal with it?) became the beginning of a breast cancer diagnosis right as the world was heading into the uncertainty of early 2020.

In this episode of Things Go Sideways, Cecilia talks about what it felt like to hear the word cancer when her children were still small, treatment was suddenly complicated by COVID, and the future she had been counting on no longer felt guaranteed.

We talk about mammograms, fear, motherhood, asking for help, saying the wrong thing, and how hard it can be to stay close to someone else's pain when you don't know what to do with your own discomfort.

This is not a neat cancer-survivor story with a shiny bow on it. Cecilia's story is about what happens when the body interrupts the plan, when ordinary life becomes precious in a way that feels almost unbearable, and when surviving something changes how you show up for other people who are still in it.

Because sometimes the sideways moment is not only the diagnosis. Sometimes it is realizing how much you love your life.

And yes. Get the mammogram.

---

What is it like when your first mammogram leads to a breast cancer diagnosis?

When a first mammogram leads to a breast cancer diagnosis, the shock is not only medical. It can interrupt your sense of safety, your plans, your family life, and the future you thought you were standing inside. In this episode of Things Go Sideways, Cecilia Satovich talks about being diagnosed with breast cancer at 40, while raising three young daughters and beginning treatment during the uncertainty of early 2020. Her story is about fear, motherhood, asking for help, and what changes when your body forces you to pay attention.

---

Connect With Things Go Sideways:

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For Business Inquiries: [email protected]

What happens when you've already had your wake-up call — and life sends another one? Lori Zoss Kraska built Growth Owl into a thriving consultancy helping nonprofits and associations land Fortune 1000 sponsorships.

Then, in 2022, a doctor's hunch caught bilateral pulmonary embolisms that had no symptoms she could feel.

She was answering client emails from the ER!

The lesson stuck — until her mother walked into knee surgery in 2024 and walked out with the first signs of vascular dementia. In this episode of Things Go Sideways, Lori shares what it's actually like to run a business while becoming a primary caregiver.

She talks about "grace fatigue" — the exhaustion of trying to make everyone else comfortable.

She talks about boundaries that aren't slogans.

She talks about why her client roster looks completely different now, why perfectionism didn't survive the second crisis, and the conversation with her mother on a patio that became an assignment for the rest of her life.

This one is for anyone in the middle of caregiving, anyone whose body has tried to warn them, and anyone rebuilding a business around a life that won't sit still. Listen now.

When things go sideways, that's where the real story begins. Connect with Lori:

• Website: thegrowthowl.com
• Books: lorizossbooks.com
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lorizoss

00:00 — Cold open / intro

01:30 — Welcome and setup: holding responsibility and uncertainty at once

02:30 — The knee surgery waiting room: noticing the signs

04:00 — The sundowning event after surgery and the diagnosis

06:30 — "I had to start respecting my boundaries"

08:30 — Why she stopped taking every client and started getting selective

10:30 — Working with creators and voiceover artists — the new audience

12:00 — Walking, journaling, gratitude: self-care as infrastructure

15:00 — 2022: the pulmonary embolism and the lesson she didn't quite learn yet

18:00 — The healthcare system, the squeaky wheel, and being your own advocate

20:30 — Throwing out the perfectionism

22:30 — "Once I made the choice to work on myself, the right clients came"

25:00 — Trust, taboo, and the people who can't talk about dementia

27:30 — Grace fatigue (this is the segment to clip)

30:00 — The patio conversation with her mother

32:00 — Becoming an exceptional listener

34:30 — Her father, the protector vs. the daughter, the solutions-provider

37:00 — Final advice: listen to your body

39:00 — Close and CTAs grace fatigue, boundaries, caregiver burnout, sandwich generation, women in business, only child caregiver, corporate sponsorship, nonprofit consulting, health scare, blood clots, perfectionism, client selection, business pivot

For Business Inquiries: [email protected]

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When career, grief, and identity all come apart in the same 30 days, the instinct is to fight harder. Geoff Livingston learned the opposite. In this episode of Things Go Sideways, marketer, author, and Zen Buddhist Geoff Livingston walks through the month his co-founded company Cognitive Path wound down and his father died — and the "think liquid" mindset he built afterward for navigating change you can't outrun.

This is a conversation about forced surrender as a starting point, not a failure. About honoring red flags the first time you see them, instead of the third. About what the body teaches you that the mind can't. And about why the fastest way through grief, job loss, or any sideways moment is to let it bleed — not stuff it down.

Geoff's new book, "Now Is Gone: Think Liquid to Navigate Never-Ending Change," comes out June 2.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN - Why surrender isn't losing — and what it actually unlocks - The "think liquid" framework for adapting at the speed of real change - How to recognize red flags before they become exit signs - Why misery often lives in how we consume life, not just what happens to us - What endurance running teaches about managing pain vs. quitting well

TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Cold open: the 30 days everything came apart 02:11 Cognitive Path winds down as Geoff's father is dying 04:42 The heart attack, the DNR, the drive back 07:11 "Begin by surrendering" — what surrender actually looks like 10:13 Honoring red flags: why we ignore what we already see 14:58 The "think liquid" mindset, explained 19:00 What the body teaches the mind about discomfort 21:48 Sassy the dog, Zen sits, and the social media audit 25:03 Writing the book in 30 days 28:18 The red flag Geoff is honoring right now 31:15 Manageable pain vs. real pain — and when to quit 41:33 "Let it bleed": honest advice for someone in their sideways moment

CONNECT WITH GEOFF LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffliving/ Substack — The Buzz: https://buzzbylivingston.substack.com Generative Buzz: https://generativebuzz.ai Geoff's book, Now Is Gone: Think Liquid to Navigate Never-Ending Change, comes out June 2, 2026. Pre-orders are eBook-only; print will be available shortly before the publishing date. Available here: https://www.amazon.com/Now-Gone-Liquid-Navigate-Neverending-ebook/dp/B0GHNMM383/

FOLLOW THINGS GO SIDEWAYShttps://thingsgosideways.com/home Things Go Sideways Substack: https://thingsgosideways.substack.com/welcome TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thingsgosidewayspod and https://www.tiktok.com/@thingsgosideways For Business Inquiries: [email protected] Libsyn RSS Feed: https://feeds.libsyn.com/597715/rss Libsyn Podcast Page: https://sites.libsyn.com/597715/site Libsyn Video Feed: https://feeds.libsyn.com/597715/spotify Spotify (video): https://open.spotify.com/show/0AToVdda4omlLpG9KpQ0Hj Spotify (audio): https://open.spotify.com/show/2K6DYzLMRkbT4FfmDaFP7a?si=4b4c70c5a3a84ce2 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/things-go-sideways/id1849510232 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/87fc90ea-455c-443d-a24f-bd3bccc2e764/things-go-sideways Audible: https://www.audible.com/podcast/Things-Go-Sideways/B0G59XM2XY YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhenThingsGoSideways

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#ThingsGoSideways #CareerChange #ChangeManagement #GeoffLivingston #ThinkLiquid

What is digital nomad life really like? For Katherine Tuominen — marketing strategist and founder of Catalyst Brand Strategy — it looked nothing like the Instagram version: visa battles, reverse culture shock, lost friendships, and the slow realization that a beautiful destination doesn't outrun an unhealed self. It started during Melbourne's hardest lockdown, when she couldn't leave her house without a grocery receipt and made a quiet promise to herself: she would never feel that trapped again.

In this conversation, Katherine talks with KiKi about what the lifestyle actually costs, why the nine-to-five script makes any other path feel reckless to the people around you, how she landed on a travel rhythm that worked for her after almost three years of trial and error, and how the cultural fluency she's built abroad now shapes the brand work she does with founders in the health and wellness space.

The thread running through it: when you strip away the titles, the resume, the corporate version of yourself nobody calls you by overseas, what's left tends to be what was already there — the kid who wrote plays, drew on lunch breaks, made up worlds. The life she designed didn't invent a new Katherine. It handed back the original one.

Resources

• Catalyst Brand Strategy — Katherine Tuominen (website): https://catalystbrandstrategy.com
• Katherine Tuominen (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/katherine-tuominen/
• Catalyst Brand Strategy (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/catalyst_brandstrategy/

HIGHLIGHTS 00:00 — KiKi opens with the gap between designed life and lived life 01:15 — Katherine on what a digital nomad actually is 02:48 — Melbourne lockdown becomes the non-negotiable turning point 04:18 — Making the jump: backlash, lost friendships, going against the grain 06:53 — The Instagram version meets the laptop on the beach 08:55 — First real hurdle: baggage travels with you 10:25 — Finding her travel rhythm after almost three years of trial and error 13:18 — How cultural nuance reshaped her brand work with clients 16:39 — The third culture kid origin: Finland, China, Australia 20:08 — Identity stripped of titles: who you were as a kid is who you are 24:30 — Fear as guide, and breaking the leap into bite-sized starts 30:11 — Closing: you don't have to resolve everything, just stop pretending

If you've been suspecting the life you carefully designed is starting to design you back, Katherine's story is a steady, honest look at what happens when you stop performing the version that's been working.

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He Built a $25 Million Business. Then Everything Collapsed.

🔴 JOIN on SUBSTACK: 👉https://thetrustproject.substack.com/

Shane Barker thought he was building something that mattered. His company grew fast during the mortgage crisis by helping people challenge predatory loans. Within two years, the business exploded to 130 employees and a reported $25 million valuation. Then everything shifted. A $62 million lawsuit, frozen bank accounts, public attacks, and years of uncertainty forced him into a fight he never expected.

In this episode, Shane Barker talks with KiKi L'Italien about what it feels like when your name, your business, and your future all come under pressure at once. They discuss the emotional toll of public scrutiny, the collapse of professional trust, losing opportunities because of online narratives, and the strange reality of trying to rebuild while still in the middle of the storm.

This conversation also explores how that experience eventually led Shane into online reputation management and the creation of TraceFuse.ai. Underneath the business story is something more human: what happens when survival replaces strategy, and the only way forward is one day at a time.

Resources

Website — Shane Barker: https://shanebarker.com/

TraceFuse.ai — Shane Barker: https://tracefuse.ai/

LinkedIn — Shane Barker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanebarker

About the Things Go Sideways Podcast

When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting.

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down.

New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.

Connect With Me On Other Platforms:

• Substack: https://thetrustproject.substack.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhenThingsGoSideways/shorts

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kikilitalien/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikilitalien/

• For Business Inquiries: [email protected]

If you're the one everyone leans on… this conversation with brain health coach Barbara Gustavson is worth your time.

Barbara's path to becoming a brain health coach started with a piece of paper handed to her at a Cracker Barrel on Thanksgiving Day — a document that revealed a family history of covered-up crimes, mental illness, and Huntington's Disease. That moment didn't end anything. It started something.

What followed was fifteen years of navigating caregiving alongside a career just beginning to take shape, children, a marriage, and a growing awareness that her own brain was carrying more than she'd admitted. In this conversation, Barbara walks through the difference between resetting and regrouping — why you can sleep eight hours and still wake up depleted, and what it takes to actually address the root causes. We also talk about the limbo season: that stretch of time after something shifts where the old rules don't work and the new ones haven't formed. Barbara doesn't frame it as a problem to solve. She frames it as a pause that asks you to listen differently.

The conversation also covers the window of tolerance, what it costs to work outside it, and how learning the language your brain actually speaks — signals, not shoulds — changed how Barbara made decisions, set limits, and stayed present through the hardest stretch of her life.

Her book is Regroup: How to Reset Your Mind to Unlock Hidden Energy, Enjoy Productive Peace, and Feel Like Yourself Again.

Resources mentioned the following during the episode:

• Regroup (Audiobook) — Barbara Gustavson: https://amzn.to/48AWdCw

• Welcome to Your Crisis: https://amzn.to/3QJpyVc

• Think Again — Adam Grant: https://amzn.to/3P2SxTg

• Calm — mindfulness app: https://www.calm.com

• Five Minutes' Peace — Jill Murphy (children's book): https://amzn.to/4w536G8

Connect With Things Go Sideways On Other Platforms:

Substack: https://thetrustproject.substack.com/

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikilitalien/

For Business Inquiries: [email protected]

• 00:04 — Show opens; KiKi introduces today's guest

• 01:53 — The Thanksgiving moment that changed everything

• 06:18 — Caregiving guilt: the feelings we don't name out loud

• 09:17 — What limbo season actually is and why it isn't a mistake

• 11:24 — From quicksand to surrender: reframing the stuck feeling

• 14:40 — Survival mode is biology, not a character flaw

• 18:32 — Regroup isn't reset: the difference and why it matters

• 23:30 — Listen to the whisper before it becomes the two by four

• 25:59 — The window of tolerance and the cost of ignoring it

• 31:12 — The principle Barbara still wrestles with: negativity bias

• 34:30 — Staying present in the current season, not the last one

• 36:32 — What to do when you're in the middle of your own limbo

About the Things Go Sideways Podcast

When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting.

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down.

New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.

Justin Brown was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at 12, and for years he found ways to keep going anyway — ski life in Utah, cooking professionally, staying physically active. Then around 2005 his body stopped cooperating in ways that couldn't be pushed through. A bowel resection changed the baseline. Some of what he'd assumed about himself didn't come back.

👤 Connect With Me On Other Platforms:

Substack: https://thetrustproject.substack.com/

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikilitalien/

For Business Inquiries: [email protected]

In this conversation, Justin talks about the slow process of understanding what his body could and couldn't do — not as a limitation on who he was, but as information he had to work with. He's the founder and CEO of Rhino Skin Solutions, a company built around durability and staying in the game longer. It's hard not to notice how directly that philosophy tracks back to his own story. Want to check out the promo pack for Rhino Skin? Justin shared this great offer for our audience! https://rhinoskinsolutions.com/products/podcast-starter-pack

The conversation covers: the year things broke down before surgery; what "identity" actually means when it's not tethered to a condition or a sport; the craftsman approach to illness, work, and incremental improvement; how Jiu Jitsu gave him a kind of community that cooking never quite did; and what he says when someone asks if it's going to get better. Join the Things Go Sideways Substack!

HIGHLIGHTS

00:04 — KiKi sets the episode premise and introduces Justin

01:15 — Justin describes the body breaking down: two good hours a day

03:58 — Self-discovery before surgery; the physical paths that closed off

06:17 — Being diagnosed at 12 and what it did to his sense of self

08:32 — Justin explains what Crohn's disease is and how it works

10:24 — The cultural story about strength, and when it stopped fitting

11:04 — The craftsman philosophy: illness, cooking, Rhino, all one approach

13:25 — Why identity shouldn't be tethered to a condition or an object

15:37 — Wondering if disability was the path; what pointed him toward Rhino

22:09 — Two pieces of family wisdom he still carries

24:07 — His annual resolution: no complaining without a solution

25:30 — Jiu Jitsu and the kind of community that earns your trust

29:53 — The honest answer: it's not going to get better for everybody

31:26 — What passion looks like today: family, Rhino, incremental improvement

Resources

Rhino Skin Solutions: https://rhinoskinsolutions.com/

Podcast Starter Pack — Rhino Skin Solutions: https://rhinoskinsolutions.com/products/podcast-starter-pack

Justin Brown on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-brown-772717105/

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About the Things Go Sideways Podcast

When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting.

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down.

New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.

Mark Wallach was diagnosed with ALS in April 2021. By then, he'd already been losing function in his right arm for years — adapting each time, finding workarounds. He's now a quadriplegic and also a working entrepreneur who recently posted about learning to drive his wheelchair with his eyes. That post reached more than 300 people outside his network. An assistive technology company in Germany reached out to send him equipment. (Could this be what happens when someone stops protecting the image and starts telling the truth about their sideways moment?)

In this conversation, host of Things Go Sideways podcast, KiKi L'Italien, and Mark cover what it means to keep building when the losses keep coming — and they don't stop. They talk through the grief that doesn't end (he lost use of his right arm, then his left, then both legs), how ALS clarified rather than collapsed his sense of what matters, and what legacy actually looks like when you have a real timeline. They also get into bandwidth, delegation, AI as a genuine equalizer, and why Mark believes vulnerability isn't a soft concept — it's an access point.

Mark has a name for his disease that isn't ALS. He calls it "CSA: Constant State of Adaptation."

If you were hoping for tidy resolutions, you won't find them here. This episode doesn't end cleanly. It ends with a man still in the thick of it, still building, still figuring out how to receive what other people offer him.

And that's where things get interesting!

00:04 — KiKi names the premise: stories about reckoning, not highlight reels 01:45 — Mark shares his mission: earn the right to be the first call 04:01 — Mark renames ALS to CSA: constant state of adaptation 06:07 — Going public with vulnerability: unexpected reach and a $8K technology offer 09:49 — What the disease taught him that anyone could use 14:47 — Outsourcing admin, leaning on AI, and working as a quadriplegic 18:21 — Mind shift: from salesperson stigma to connector with purpose 22:34 — Why building for legacy means learning to replace yourself 26:29 — What legacy actually looks like: his wife, his reputation, pizza nights 29:54 — The first sideways moment: August 2018, a weak right arm at Whole Foods 33:28 — The diagnosis, stopping driving, and doing what he'd been putting off 38:51 — Getting out of a funk: goals matter more than self-pity — with permission for rest 40:45 — The hardest thing he's learned: accepting help and letting go of the how 44:33 — The cave question: learning to receive what others offer

🔗 Mark Wallach on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwallach/ 🌐 Engagement Mobile Strategies: https://www.engagementmobile.com/ 💙 I Am ALS (advocacy organization): https://www.iamals.org/ 💙 The ALS Association: https://www.als.org/

About the Things Go Sideways Podcast When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting. Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down. New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.

Vidar Hokstad has spent more than 30 years building, scaling, and exiting tech companies. He's started price wars he couldn't win, fired people who didn't deserve it, and hit the kind of burnout that doesn't announce itself—it just slowly narrows your field of vision until all you can see is the next task.

In this conversation, Vidar talks about what it's like when investors override your judgment, when a dot-com crash forces you to cut a team from 50 to 7, and what happens inside you when the company you relocated countries for starts to collapse. He also gets honest about why big corporate jobs felt like a vacation after startup life, why he kept going back to building anyway, and what finally made fractional consulting feel like the right fit—not a fallback.

This episode is for anyone who's building something that looks successful from the outside but feels quietly unsustainable on the inside. Vidar doesn't offer a clean resolution. He offers what 30 years of sideways moments actually taught him: the sooner you take the break, the shorter it needs to be.