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Dr. Lynette Reed says it’s time for a reality check. Her mission is to help people and organizations feel more connected to the world around them and the relationships that are most important to them. She believes that when your expectations and reality connect, you will see an increase in personal self-awareness, improve relationships with others, and expand your understanding of how humanity impacts the world. On the ground level, Lynette teaches and coaches people to match their words and actions to improve their workplace connections.
Early in her career, Lynette started as a speech pathologist in Montgomery, Alabama where she worked in a Head Start program with children and their families based in a public housing project. As a white woman working in a predominantly African American community, Lynette focused on building trust and learning as much as possible to provide the best services she could. Later, she would volunteer with Austin Smiles, traveling to El Salvador to work with patients who were receiving cleft palate surgery.
Eventually, Lynette decided to switch gears and earn her Doctorate of Ministry degree in spirituality, sustainability, and interreligious dialogue. Today, she is a people and culture partner who mentors executives to help improve connections within the workplace. She also mentors people in nonprofits, schools, allied health agencies, chambers of commerce, government, and churches.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Lynette’s unique journey:
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From tracking criminals and terrorists on the dark web to creating marketplaces and new authentication systems, Mark Herschberg has spent his career launching and developing new ventures at startups and Fortune 500s and in academia. He helped to start the Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program, dubbed MIT’s “career success accelerator,” where he teaches annually. At Harvard Business School, Mark helped create a platform used to teach finance at prominent business schools.
Mark attended MIT for six years. He earned a B.S. in physics, a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science, and an M.Eng. in electrical engineering and computer science, focusing on cryptography. You might think that he was just a super focused, nerd. But Mark will be the first person to tell you that he was a poor student during his first three semesters, lacking a clear vision and organization. He thought he wanted to be a theoretical physicist and get a Ph.D., but his advisor sat him down early on and painted the stark picture of what he was aiming for. It was enough to make him reconsider his options.
It was the mid-90s and computer science was growing while funding for physics was decreasing. After graduation, he stayed at MIT and worked doing research for a professor. He wasn’t sure what else he wanted to do. He looked at jobs and knew he didn’t want to work on Wall St. or in consulting. Microsoft was getting bigger but Mark was not attracted to large corporations. He wound up at a startup company, as he says, by default. Then he had to make some real decisions as the startup company split up and he had to choose which way to go.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Mark’s journey:
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At nine years old, Jenny Lisk wanted to be Perry Mason. She loved the books and watched the TV show, imagining herself as a lawyer and doing something meaningful. In college, still aiming for a legal career, Jenny studied political science and economics and enjoyed Washington, DC-based internships in both Congressional and Senate offices. After graduation, Jenny secured a policy role with the Chamber of Commerce in her hometown area of Seattle.
Unfortunately, the position at the Chamber was not what Jenny expected. She left the job with another plan in mind. She wanted to write a guidebook for interns in Washington, DC. To support herself, Jenny did bartending while she worked on the book. Researching the book became unwieldy and Jenny felt it was not going to be a success. At that time, she had become interested in website development and taught herself HTML. Jenny started a website design business and began to engage clients. While she enjoyed it, she felt she needed something more and decided to get an MBA. At this time Jenny met and married her husband, Dennis.
Upon graduation, Jenny was interested in technology yet she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do. Her sister worked for IBM in New York and offered to pass her resume around there. Fast forward, Jenny and Dennis moved to New York a few months later, and her 20-year corporate career began. They spent five years in New York and returned to the Pacific Northwest, to Portland, Oregon and later to Seattle as a family with two young children.
Jenny was growing restless in her job, but could not identify what else she wanted to do. Life continued to be busy with the demands of work and family. Then, one day Dennis said he had been feeling dizzy. After a few medical tests, Dennis was diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. Jenny’s life literally changed overnight.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Jenny’s journey:
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Like many young people, Dayna Del Val went off to college to fulfill dreams and ambitions. For her, it was to earn a theater degree, move to LA and become a movie star. There was no question in her mind that this was her plan. Instead, she ended up back in her hometown of Fargo, North Dakota giving birth to a beautiful baby boy. She was in the depths of despair, a young, single mother who had never even held a full-time job before.
But Dayna is tenacious. She held onto threads of hope for her acting career and got an agent, becoming a SAG union member by doing commercial work which enabled her to work as an actor while being there for her son. It wasn’t always glamorous but she made it happen, and she continues to work as an actor today.
Fast forward 25+ years … Dayna is the President and CEO of the Arts Partnership in Fargo, North Dakota where for the past 10+ years she has consistently and successfully advocated for the enduring power and value of the arts across every facet of the community. Her core belief is that there is always more for anyone who's willing to pursue it, and she'll help you do it.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Dayna’s journey:
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Sher Downing, PhD is an EdTech strategist who loves bringing people, learning, and technology together. As CEO of Downing EdTech consulting, her company provides eLearning design for entrepreneurial programs, affiliate partnerships with leading vendors, and professional coaching for those in the EdTech industry.
Sher is a pioneer with over 32 years of experience in the digital arena during the evolution of online learning. She never would have expected things to turn out this way. Not only does Sher have a PhD, two masters and a bachelor's degree, she is a first-generation college graduate. Early on, she struggled because she had no real vision or goals for her future. With time, she discovered interests that sparked something in her. Sher studied hospitality management and upon graduation, she worked for the university conference center. She then became immersed in the world of higher education working in different areas on campuses in Arizona, Wyoming and South Carolina, while also earning graduate certificates and degrees in teaching, learning and design-focused in the online arena. This was in the mid-90s when online learning was in its infancy.
After 32 years, Sher decided to create her own brand and left the day-to-day world of higher education. Today, her focus is to define opportunities for individual entrepreneurs and companies in professional and organizational brand growth through online education and related technologies.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Sher’s journey:
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Andy Lopata has been a specialist in professional relationships and networking for over 20 years. He was called one of Europe's leading business networking strategists by the Financial Times, and a true master of networking by the Independent and Forbes.com. He is the author of five books. Andy is a fellow and a board member of the Professional Speaking Association UK and Ireland, and a fellow of the Learning and Performance Institute, as well as a Master of the Institute for Sales Management. He is also one of just 26 recipients of the PSA's top honor, the Award of Excellence. And, believe me, he didn’t take any shortcuts to accomplish any of those achievements.
Andy came from a background where the expectation was that he'd be a lawyer or an accountant and he did study accountancy, then switched to political science. After two years at a university, he left to work in the music recording industry, something he had dreamed of for a long time. He scouted bands for London Records. Andy bounced around to many jobs in his twenties as he lacked direction. He worked as a civil servant, ran car parks, did sound engineering, tax collecting, worked on film sets, and at some of the finest golf clubs in the world. During this time, he traveled extensively around the world, working all along the way. Some of his jobs lasted a couple of years before he moved on to new places.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Andy’s journey:
Andy also hosts The Connected Leadership Podcast in which he interviews a variety of business leaders discussing the role that networks and professional relationships play in leadership success.
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Jeff Wald has been frustrated with the way people talk about the future of work for quite some time. He says, “Too many so-called experts make predictions outside the evidence available in the world of work; specifically, the history of work, the data trends and patterns, and how companies actually engage workers. Predictions made without this ... can be, in many cases, harmful. I wanted to provide a framework for thoughtful conversations on the future of work for families, for companies, and for society.” He offers his framework in his recently released book, “The End of Jobs: Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations”. If you are concerned about how you or your children, your company, employees, or anyone else you care about will navigate the world of work going forward, I highly recommend Jeff’s book. It took him seven years to complete it and if you get to know Jeff through today’s podcast episode, you will know that for most of us, that would have required 14 years of effort.
Jeff is the Founder of Work Market, an enterprise software platform that enables companies to efficiently and compliantly, organize, manage, and pay freelancers (purchased by ADP). He has founded several other tech companies including Spinback (sold to Salesforce) and is an active angel investor and startup advisor. Jeff serves on many public and private Boards of Directors.
Most recently, Jeff created the Future of Work prize competition which includes essays from 20 thought leaders on the future of work. Jeff will award a $10 million prize in 2040 to the person whose essay came closest to reality.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Jeff’s journey:
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Like many young boys, Harsha Boralessa dreamed of playing professional sports and in his case, that was cricket. When he was nine, he played for one of England’s professional teams and by the time he was 19, he was playing top-level cricket at his university. While he thoroughly enjoyed cricket he knew that moving into another career would be best as he had no future in the sport. Yet, Harsha credits playing cricket with teaching him important life lessons, that he has applied to his professional career:
Self-discipline – the motivation to keep practicing, even when things are not going well.
Resilience & dealing with failure – learn to deal with pressure, no matter how good you are, and learn to handle failure but keep going.
Self-confidence – it’s very difficult to succeed if you have a negative mindset so even if you’re not feeling great, you have to almost fake it to make it.
Teamwork – learning to engage with different personalities on a team.
Gratitude – I was in the fortunate position that I was at university and was able to move into another career after cricket.
Harsha is a CFA charter holder, a chartered accountant, and a graduate of the London School of Economics. He has worked for over 15 years in Investment Banking, the “big 4” accounting firms, and Investment Management. He has also worked in the Private Equity Secondaries market and consulted on a professional learning development platform for the CFA UK Society.
Over the last few years, he has developed a passion for career & personal development and its interaction with neuroscience, in particular concepts such as mindset, reframing, visualization, and habit creation.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Harsha’s journey:
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At 26, Perry Marshall had a lot to look forward to in life. He was happily married, anticipating the birth of his first child and working as an engineer. Then, one day he was called into a meeting and was laid off. Perry quickly transitioned into a sales job as he didn’t want to “start all over” in another engineering role and felt it would be the easiest path to supporting his young family. Two years later, with bologna sandwiches, ramen soup, and lots of credit card debt, Perry realized that it was much harder than he thought it would be. Then, he was fired from that job.
Perry managed to get his next sales job before his new employer learned he’d been fired. But something was different. The second job started working. He discovered direct marketing. Perry attended a Dan Kennedy seminar, spending the last $300 he had on a credit card, and bought manuals about direct mail for small businesses. Next, he applied what he learned to do online marketing. The first commission check he got from that job was the biggest check he’d ever gotten. Four years later that company was sold for $18 million. He cashed out some stock options and started the business he continues to run today.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Perry’s journey and marketing strategy frameworks:
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Kathy Robinson has been working since she was 11 years old when she had a paper route. She grew up in a middle-class suburban environment near New York City and had modest expectations for herself, thinking she might want to become a teacher. As a kid, she loved the arts. She went to college majored in business (a practical choice) and minored in the arts.
Kathy went to work on Wall Street as an internal auditor. She had no idea what the role entailed, yet she knew she’d be able to pay off her student loans and travel internationally. Over the next 30 years, Kathy rose through the ranks becoming a Chief Audit Executive and Chief Risk Officer, assessing the wellness of Fortune 500 companies.
At 54, Kathy, an avid runner, completed her first marathon and ultramarathon. At 55, she entered a new phase of her life she calls ‘rewirement’. She refocused her lens from professional assessments to personal ones and began helping people optimize their well-being as a certified wellness coach. Kathy practices what she preaches and is passionate about wellness, nutrition, and exercise. She believes that a positive attitude is an accelerator that propels us through transformation.
In this week’s Work From The Inside Out podcast, learn more about Kathy’s journey:
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From the publisher's feed
Work From The Inside Out is a biweekly podcast focused on helping people to pursue work they will love. Inspiring stories of real people who overcame the barriers and unhappiness that kept them…