There are moments in our Career when risk doesn’t feel so risky anymore.

Because the traditional path can’t give us something. And the path less travelled calls us.

Our excitement and fear equally asking: “Am I really giving up my secure life?”

If you’ve ever felt this, you’re not alone.

This week, Sarah Ouis, visual design guru and Founder of Law But How, takes us through her journey from her secure, but unfulfilling, career as a lawyer to building her visual design business that inspires thousands every day.

In this reflective and insightful interview, Sarah looks back on threads from her childhood to see the natural gifts that gave her the strength to build her massive LinkedIn brand and launch a career phase filled with meaning.

In this interview you’ll take away:

3:35:   Creative threads from our childhood

6:26:   Entrepreneurs don't get that way all of the sudden

10:10: When laziness helps us see something new

14:00: Visual design taking shape

18:50: Uncovering Sarah's gifts

23:30: When the riskier path feels less risky

26:38: Show what you do (not just tell)

34:00: Give first to create new opportunities

36:00: How to turn a side hustle into a business

46:03: Learning what your clients want

53:50: Advice for younger Sarah

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Sarah Ouis about how to use visual design to enhance your LinkedIn presence and grow your business here: www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-ouis-lawyeruk and www.lawbuthow.co.

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or your Team, connect with me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/chadaboud/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.chadaboud.com

It can feel nice to have complete control over our environment.

To stop anyone from changing our vision.

But doing everything on our own has downsides too.

There are parts of our business where we aren’t strong. We miss feeling connected to others with a shared vision. We begin to see everyone as competition because we aren’t working with anyone.

But when we find trusted partners we gain inspiration, capacity and skills.

That’s exactly what Brandon Louis and Jeremiah Iroff realized as they were sharing an office while competing for the same clients.

So they made the tough choice to leave their personal businesses behind and co-found Loudr Media and they’ve never looked back.

In this raw and funny interview, Brandon and Jeremiah share their learnings about the power of impactful relationships through homelessness, an international music career and their media company where they help Lawyers and Law Firms share their unique brand.

In this interview you’ll take away:

3:38:   There are two choices in foster care

7:00:   Googling "how not to be homeless"

11:58: Go on a skill acquisition journey

15:25: Do quick tests before choosing an outcome

20:58: Get feedback from Clients (even though it hurts)

23:42: Fighting back our doubts over and over again

24:30: What’s wrong with doing everything on our own?

27:10: Uncovering Jeremiah’s gifts

31:15: The quality of our work doesn’t matter if no one knows about us

38:00: Uncovering Brandon's gifts

40:30: Collaboration beats competition

47:00: Creating content that brings out the best in Lawyers

59:00: Advice for their younger selves

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Brandon Louis and Jeremiah Iroff about how to create memorable content to grow your business here: www.loudrmedia.com

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or your Team, connect with me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/chadaboud/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.chadaboud.com⁠⁠

When our Career is in a tough spot, it feels like the world’s against us.

No one will give us a chance. So we retract and hold tightly to what we have. Which leads us to feel even more alone.

But what if we took the opposite approach?

By giving first and tapping into every resource available.

Jessica Nguyen, CLO of Lexion, grew up with no resources or community support. She had to carve her own path if she wanted a different future.

So, she began selling stationary door-to-door at 9 years old.

In this honest and passionate interview, Jessica reflects on how she built her incredibly supportive ecosystem and uncovered every resource available, to get jobs and win awards that to most seemed impossible.  

In this interview you’ll take away:

2:45: The impact of giving mentorship at scale

3:50: Why your journey starts at the start (not what you see on social media)

5:50: What to do when you don’t have any resources

9:30: Uncovering Jessica's gifts

13:13: When your purpose meets the right circumstances

17:45: How important it can be to have agency

21:30: The mindset of: “Here's how what I've got, can help you”

24:30: The impact of mentors you relate to

26:40: How to keep being yourself when it’s hard

28:35: Why you don’t want to swim upstream

33:30: What happens when you give without the expectation of return

40:30: To little Jessica: focus on what you can control

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Jessica Nguyen about how to give at scale and tap into every resource here: www.linkedin.com/in/jessicanguyen.

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or your Team, connect with me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/chadaboud/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.chadaboud.com⁠⁠⁠

We receive advice constantly.

Following the right advice can change our lives.

So how do we know whose advice is worth taking?

John Lindsey intuitively knew the answer from a young age. And that allowed him to make two critical decisions: (1) not following his parents’ financial advice, and (2) listening when his technology adept partners pushed him out of the Product Team and into Sales.

John’s ability to see his own talent and to listen when others are the experts is a hallmark of his leadership style and has allowed him to build a portfolio of successful businesses across health, technology and professional services fields.

In this interview you’ll take away:

5:00:   When your Career feels fun

6:35:   Recognizing who you take advice from

10:50: Uncovering John's gifts

14:00: Failure is a natural result of trying

17:25: The distance between expectation and reality

21:17: When quitting is actually recognition

24:00: Leading with vulnerability so your team takes chances

31:44: Celebrating others' greatness builds yours too

37:05: It is meant to be hard (so it becomes easier)

42:00: Why we don't see our own gifts

Episode Resources:

Learn more from John Lindsey about how to lead and build communities here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-lindsey-incitelegaltech/ and how InCite LegalTech is allowing Law Firms to advance their digital infrastructure here: https://incitelegaltech.com.

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or your Team, connect with me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/chadaboud/⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.chadaboud.com⁠⁠

Have you ever felt self-conscious about your look at a corporate event?

Trying to fit in, so you won’t stand out.

Leila El Gharbi used to feel that way. In fact, she was told to dress and act that way. So, she did. Never feeling quite like herself. Struggling to create meaningful connections.

But after her health began failing and a life changing experience hiking the Camino Trail, she decided it was time to discover herself and let others discover her too.

And what she found was a creativity and passion for the blend of technology, style and community that has catapulted her to become one of the leading voices in the LegalTech space.

In this interview you’ll take away:

5:45:   Curiosity is business development

9:05:   A kid missing connection

13:08: People pleasing vs. real relationships

20:05: Perspective changes hiking the Camino Trail

27:40: Using your gifts in every job you do

31:05: Uncovering Leila's natural gifts

41:00: Embracing who you are

46:35: How to see your growth while you’re in it

52:15: Your style selection empowers you

57:33: All the ways we are creative

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Leila El Gharbi about how to embrace who you are to build your community here: www.linkedin.com/in/leila-el-gharbi/

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or your Team, connect with me: ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/chadaboud/⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠www.chadaboud.com

What if your friend was a surgeon. Teaching, training and helping those in need.

You’d probably be thrilled for them, right?

What if that friend was also spiraling. Ashamed of their unhappiness but terrified to change their outwardly perfect life.

This was Dr. Bryan Sagray. And it took the passing of his father to pull him out of it.

Thankfully, Bryan turned that tragic loss into a career rebirth. He gave up his career in medicine, took over the family’s successful plumbing business, and built the skills to optimize his mental, emotional, and physical states. To reduce the grip that shame and fear had over him.

It had such a profound impact on his life that now he teaches others to do the same.

In this interview you’ll take away:

3:20:  Emotions follow you home from work

6:40:  Uncovering Bryan's natural gifts

8:00:  Process over outcomes

13:20: Being pulled vs. pushed into our career

15:00: Shame, fear and coming home

23:00: Deploying our gifts in a new way

31:10: Taking digital connections offline

35:00: What others see in us (when we can't)

40:00: The power of your good thoughts

46:05: We don't need to pre-know the answer

49:10: Tips for young Bryan

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Dr. Bryan Sagray about how to optimize your mental, emotional, and physical performance here: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-sagray-dpm-facfas/⁠

As a kid arriving from the Soviet Union, Victoria Tollossa marveled at Whitney Houston.

She wanted to sing like her. Be like her. Share a message.

So she worked tirelessly to win in the music industry. She was even nominated for a Grammy. But after years of contorting herself to fit others’ expectations, she left. Walking away from a childhood dream that was no longer serving her.

But her creativity found new life in experiential events, corporate marketing and now in her Personal Branding agency, Illume. Driven by the resilience to share her message, Victoria reflects on losing herself during her music career and how she found the strength to take back control over her path.

Reminding us that when we hear too many No’s, sometimes we just need to Exhale and get out of our own way.

In this interview you’ll take away:

3:20:  Creativity in the Soviet Union

5:45:  Whitney Houston dreaming

10:05: Holding space for your purpose

14:00: We control Inputs, not Outcomes

18:00: Grammy nomination and pivoting from No's

21:23: Uncovering Victoria's natural gifts

22:50: Our purpose is not our job title

26:50: Seeing ourselves as Creative

31:15: What children's books teach us

34:55: When branding is the star

40:40: Reinspiring your Creative force

44:55: In 10 years where do you want to be?

48:55: Fast growth by unlocking your brand

52:30: How to get out of your own way

57:15: There's no one else that can be you

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Victoria Tollossa about how to build your personal brand here: ⁠www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-tollossa/

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or your Team, connect with me: ⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/in/chadaboud/⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠www.chadaboud.com⁠⁠

He had it all. Fancy job. Nice salary. Prestigious employer.

And then he found himself on the operating table trying to stay live. Owen McGrann’s job as a complex case litigator looked really impressive to the outside world. But it was destroying his health so significantly that it almost killed him.

And from the operating table, Owen gained a new perspective. That he needed to create meaning from his work that went beyond the external metrics of success.

In his thoughtful and disarming way, in this interview Owen reflects on the elements of his life and career that matter most to him. And how he’s building multiple businesses to reflect his values, so that he stays healthy in heart and mind.

In this interview you’ll take away:

2:55: Planning not to be a Lawyer

5:50: Music was his perfect trap

8:40: When our Career is in trouble

10:15: ADHD and being bored

12:10: Balancing big money vs. rewarding work

16:10: How our environment matters as much as our gifts

16:50: When our job nearly kills us

21:21: Constructing a career to maximize our gifts

25:55: Scaling our impact, not widgets 

31:50: What still feels hard today

33:45: How to find your people

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Owen McGrann: www.linkedin.com/in/omcgrann/ and check out his On The Record newsletter, here: https://www.sonderunion.com

How do our chosen families impact our behavior? Why aren’t we all given an equal starting point? And how can we help those that need support? These questions have been foundational to Lisa Blasser’s career.

Through her legal practice, her book and her new course, The Law School Operating System, Lisa has had enormous success personalizing legal education for her clients and students around the world.

So how does Lisa get so many people to open up and trust her? She has a natural gift of expressing her emotions. In this honest and insightful interview, Lisa breaks down how this gift creates a pathway to open up the greatness in others.

In this interview you’ll take away:

3:50: A young child with a big heart

5:53: Lisa's natural gift of expressing her emotions

7:45: Getting closer to knowing ourselves (pt. 1)

8:40: The FBI told her to learn Spanish

11:10: The chase of proving our value to others

12:00: How learning is so personal

15:20: Why acknowledging our feelings is fuel, not a weakness

19:25: Getting closer to knowing ourselves (pt. 2)

22:00: Using process to climb out of a career valley

29:45: Opportunities that reveal themselves when we share what we're about

34:25: Uncovering more of Lisa's natural gifts

36:25: How Lisa realized she had to build her Law Student learning program

40:40: Why it matters to get to know your talent for who they are

46:05: What happens we reflect back the words running through in your mind

49:45: How to stop our greatest gifts from becoming our greatest weaknesses

50:45: The impact of Lisa's new course, The Law School Operating System

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Lisa Blasser: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisablasser/ and check out her new online course, The Law School Operating System, here: https://thelawschooloperatingsystem.com/

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or your Team, connect with me: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadaboud/⁠ and ⁠www.chadaboud.com⁠

Your parent is a doctor, so everyone calls you Doc. Because of course, you’ll be a doctor too. But that’s not what you want. You have other gifts. But what if no one else can see them yet?

This was the path that Mando Sallavanti III, Financial Planner at a MassMutual agency in Pennsylvania, walked before he became a go-to financial planning voice. In this inspiring interview, Mando shares how he uses self-discipline to consistently take the good actions that make it unreasonable for him to miss out on his goals.

In this interview you’ll take away:

2:15: Shattered dreams of pro football

4:15: Overcoming the gap between expectation and reality

8:25: Uncovering Mando’s natural gifts

9:10: Learning business by sneaker reselling

11:10: Seeing our natural gifts when we look back

15:20: The advice that changed his career path

17:24: Mando’s values and core belief

21:55: The hardest thing he had to learn in business

26:50: Motivation drives discipline

31:15: Stepping out of our parents’ shadow

33:25: The Inputs vs Outputs model

37:45: Mando’s advice to his younger self

Episode Resources:

Learn more from Mando Sallavanti III: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallavanti/

To uncover your natural gifts and elevate your Career or

Armando Sallavanti is a registered representative of and offers securities and investment advisory services through MML Investors Services, LLC. Member SIPC. Supervisory Office: 2 Bala Plaza, Ste 901, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004. Tel: 610.766.3000.

MassMutual refers to Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (Springfield, MA 01111-0001)