Where Coffee Gets Spilled

She once asked a broker where the mentors were in real estate. He told her that isn't how the industry works; nobody hands over their secrets. Her response? Watch me.

Mindi Kessenich spent twelve years as a surgical tech in an orthopedic operating room, a career she loved but one with no room left to grow. A season of home staging while raising her kids turned into an unlikely opening in real estate, and she jumped in with her license paid for and everything else still left to learn.

So, she spent the next decade being exactly the mentor she'd been told couldn't exist, sharing every mistake and lesson with anyone willing to listen. Years later, a coordinator and a lender she trusted, unconnected to each other, told her within the same week that she needed to meet the same man. That's not a coincidence, she thought, and that meeting turned into the team she still runs today.

Ten years in, she still hasn't bought a single lead. No big marketing, just coffee dates, real relationships, and a decision to keep showing up for people.

Pour a cup and listen to Mindi spill her story in this week's episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

When asked what she did, she said it quietly. She had just become Chief HR Officer for the State of Wisconsin.

Hear how Jen Flogel went from uncertainty to conviction once she let the work show her why she belonged there in this clip from her episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

Curiosity isn't just a personality trait. It's a career strategy.

Watch Jen Flogel share why staying curious will open doors and help you grow in this clip from her episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

What if not knowing exactly where you're going is actually the point?

Jen Flogel never set out to be a generalist. She set out to be curious. And that curiosity walked her through finance, technology, change management, organizational design, compliance and eventually to the top HR role for the State of Wisconsin, not because she climbed a ladder, but because she kept asking how the pieces connect.

In a world that hires for specialists, Jen has built a career on something harder to name and just as hard to replicate: the ability to walk into any room, see what isn't working and help a team find its way forward. She took lateral moves and promotions with equal ease because the title never mattered as much as the problem she was stepping into.

Pour a cup and listen to Jen spill her story in this week's episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

Most of us spend more energy on what we're not good at than what we are. In this clip, Ali Khaleel and Erich George dig into the 80/20 rule for strengths development and what it actually looks like in practice.

Watch the full conversation in his episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

Every leader has people they connect with more easily, and people they don't. Ali Khaleel has a name for both, and a challenge that every leader needs to sit with.

Catch his Butterflies and Moths framework in this clip from his episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

The career you plan and the career you build aren't always the same thing. For Ali Khaleel, that gap turned out to be the whole story.

In college, Ali decided to major in international studies with the idea of becoming a foreign diplomat. Then a friend of a friend arranged a coffee conversation in DC with someone who'd actually done the job, and in about an hour, Ali had a clearer picture of what that life would really look like. After realizing the role wasn't for him, he began exploring other areas, which led him on a path through teaching, college access work, teacher training, and leadership development, each chapter building on the last.

Some of what he was building, he didn't have words for yet. On a competitive college dance team, when practices got tense and people started getting testy with each other, he threw parties because he understood that people who know each other outside of practice have more to draw on when things get hard.

He now works at Interfaith America, building bridges across religious, racial, and political differences, which, as pointed out near the end of our conversation, is close to the diplomat he once thought he couldn't be.

In life, don't just show up. Don't just take initiative, be prepared. 

Listen to Doug Cox explain how he learned this lesson in this short clip from his episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

If you understand what motivates and drives you, you'll be more successful in your work. 

Hear Doug Cox explain what that means to him in this short clip from his episode of Where Coffee Gets Spilled with Erich George and Lindsay Mayer.

For fifteen years, he knew exactly what he wanted to do next.

This year, he stopped waiting.

Doug Cox spent 30 years in the healthcare industry, in sales and other leadership roles. It was never about hitting his targets. It was always about the people. Early on, he had managers who believed in him and then teams he helped develop, and he discovered that helping others grow felt more fulfilling than any individual win.

His mom spent fifty years in a classroom. Teaching has always been in his blood. He just needed thirty years in healthcare to confirm it.

Recently, he and his wife moved back to Fort Worth, where they started, to finally step into a high school classroom. It wasn't going back home. It was just going home.