Leap To Purpose

If there’s one word that Brandon Peele would use to describe his journey from venture capital, investment banking, and startups to the founding of his very own Unity Lab, it would be ‘purpose.’ Brandon, together with Unity Lab, is on a mission to activate purpose and belonging at scale in companies. Brandon thinks that knowing one’s purpose is a human right, and they should at least know where and how to start.

Most business names probably have good stories, but Kristina Shea’s is one for the books. Kristina thought about naming her company Blue Skys Life & Beauty after looking up the blue skies in one of the darkest days of her life and realizing that even when everything is falling apart, everything will be okay. This realization helped her change her mindset and helped her keep moving forward.

Kristina, having used to working for 60 to 80 hours, decided to do something more purposeful. She pushed for this dream, despite not having much and despite not knowing what the future holds for her. This is why her company name’s is spelled as “BlueSkys” instead of “Blueskies”— because she believes that people should always be about their  Y (why) or their purpose.

What is Kristina and her company’s purpose? She built a brand that empowers women to reprioritize self-care because she believes that when people feel good outside, they will also feel good inside. And feeling good changes a lot as of things as it can reflect to how they deal with their business, career, family, and every single relationships they have, including with their own selves.

Kristina’s discovery of the health benefits of the CBD oil rooted from health issues that she herself experienced. Eventually she realized how it helps her skin from inflammation, along its other benefits such as its capability to fight free radicals that cause cancer as well as it being an antioxidant. Kristina also obtained a science degree in cannabis then later left her career in marketing communications and move to the cannabis public space to learn more.

Spending over a year doing research and talking to formulators and manufacturers, Kristina entered the field of beauty and skin care. She wanted to offer products that are non-toxic but also sustainable. Having products that has CBD, which always gets tied in marijuana and cannabis, Kristina opens up about her struggles with legalities and finances, among other things. Despite these, Kristina keeps on going as she believes that her story, her voice, her products, and her services is bound to resonate with and help someone.

Today’s Guest

With a strong business background as a senior executive, Kristina Shea has stepped out on her own into the entrepreneur space as the founder of BlueSkys Life™, a purpose-led, inclusive, holistic lifestyle wellness brand. 

Kristina has a life story of resilience — she has been widowed TWICE, experienced crushing personal & financial loss while raising her daughter as a single mother — and experiencing debilitating serious health conditions resulting from corporate burnout…

After 20 years of corporate America, she has turned focus to build an inclusive lifestyle wellness company ‘BlueSkys Life & Beauty™’—  a purpose-led brand which is focused on non-toxic products and non-toxic thinking. BlueSkys Life & Beauty offers natural skincare and wellness combined with education to support women to live their best life, and to build their WELLTH.

One would think that the starts aligned for Gayle Martz, our guest today, to have all the people she needed to succeed. This is one of the best lessons she has ever learned in life— surround yourself with the proper people. This is her formula to success, as the founder of the very successful Sherpa Pet Trading Company. Gayle’s company produced the very first soft sided pet carrier.

Gayle came from many walks of life. She is an advocate for pets. She was a flight attendant, a photographer, and a fashionista. And judging how far Gayle’s business has come, it turns out that she has a knack for entrepreneurship, too! As Gayle fondly recalled, her “fashion became passion.”

Gayle first thought of making pet carriers in the 1970’s due to a personal pain point: she couldn’t get her pet on the plane. Most hard pet carriers were not allowed by airlines, so Gayle thought of prototyping a soft, fashionable, pet carrier with her own dog Sherpa as the model. Combining her skills, passion, and advocacy, she carried out her business plan the most natural way—by determining the problem, making sure there’s no solution yet, and presenting the solution.

Even with no technology, only with the right people by her side including her wonderful mom who handles the finances, Gayle was able to talk to a manufacturer in Korea and make the first 1200 pieces of her carrier. She’s able to have her creation displayed in big stores such as Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, and many others. She also realized her advantage as she knows exactly what her market likes, having herself as her own market.

From copyright to permits all the way to marketing, Gayle, with the help of people she trusts, took care of everything  Fur parents and pet parents in New York and in the world knew of Gayle’s creation, the Sherpa Bag, which is now a household name for those who want something “safe, comfortable and stylish.”

Today, we’re happy to have Dr. Adi Diner on the show. Adi is a physicist who co-founded iFocus Health, a company that aims to help ADHD patients track their ADHD. Adi thought of doing this as she and her kid are persons diagnosed with ADHD themselves, and they have no way of knowing which medications work or not.

With this pain point, Adi started iFocus. Instead of coming up with an expensive instrument, Adi and her team use only a webcam and a Chrome extension to do eye tracking to the person diagnosed with ADHD. The data then gets recorded and becomes a becomes available for doctor’s interpretation. Ultimately, iFocus helps tell if the patient is getting better or not.

Adi worked with hundreds of persons from different fields to make her vision happen. She worked with clinicians, ADHD patients and parents, administrators, a data scientist (her sister), and many others. She did all the necessary tests to her friends and their kids with ADHD and got astounding results.

With iFocus, Adi dreams that people with ADHD would get the same care that people with other  medical conditions get. Luckily, Adi has been getting a lot of support from advisors and people in the community.

As Adi and her team in iFocus get ready for more to come, she left some words for others who would like also follow their passion and do something meaningful: you need to be resilient. Making mistakes is inevitable, so get ready. In the end, no one has it easy, so be ready to get comfortable outside your comfort zone.

Today’s Guest

Adi has a Ph.D. in Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Over the past 20 years, Adi has been leading the development of lasers, biotech, and medical devices. Adi’s expertise is finding original practical solutions for complex nearly impossible problems. A mother to a kid with ADHD and an ADHDier, Adi applies her passion for learning and out-of-the-box thinking to find ways to improve the treatment for individuals with ADHD.

On today’s episode, we’re speaking with Joya Dass, a successful news anchor who founded an academy whose mission is to empower women to become leaders. Through her very own platform, the Women's Leadership Academy, Joya teaches best practices around self-leadership, networking, and getting ahead career-wise. This rooted from her desire to become a mentor, someone she didn’t have when she was starting her career.

Joya talks about her dream of becoming a news anchor, something quite foreign to her parents, who are Indian immigrants. Joya pursued her dream, living a life of her own since she was 18. Joya dreams of changing the stereotype about Indian women, that Indian women are so much more than chattel wives.

As a passionate storyteller, Joya shared very important things about balancing professionalism and vulnerability. She shared how a good storyteller can tell stories from things she’s already healed from—and how this can invoke a “me too!” mindset from the audience. There’s no need to try so hard, personal stories can go a long way!

Does Joya miss being on TV? Not so much, for a very good reason. While Joya left the television to become a full-time entrepreneur, she never really left. Together with a friend, she also established a documentary production company to tell beautiful stories. Now she gets to manage an entire production, which she really loves.

Joya talks about confidence, as well as the ability to knit personal stories to an actionable item worthy for listeners. Most importantly, how mindset could make or break a person, especially an entrepreneur. Joya may have learned all these the hard way, but it’s totally worth it.

Today’s Guest

Joya Dass

Joya been a television anchor for major networks for 20 years. Her beat was financial news. Every day, she interviewed the CEOs ringing the opening or closing bell on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

What makes her a formidable speaker today is that she knows how to speak succinctly, powerfully and with story. She's a fierce moderator, leading with her natural curiosity. She follows that up with even more probing questions that allow you to arrive at your own conclusions.

She can draw out the shyest person in the room and have them take up space.

In today’s episode, a picture of faith and perseverance through failures will leave us leaping to our feet as we think of things we want to achieve. We will be featuring Chase Damiano, a management consultant, who teaches achievers to lead from within. He is passionate about coaching and helping entrepreneurs align themselves and their organizations to a common roadmap.

Chase served as Commonwealth Joe’s Chief Operating Officer and built the company into a seven-figure revenue enterprise over the period of five years. He built and layered processes and systems and the different hires in order to build the organization. There were failures along the way yet he realized that it was necessary for the right financial opportunity for the company.

Despite all of that business success and years of serving Commonwealth Joe, he remained disconnected, unfulfilled and disengaged. Chase decided to leave and it was not easy for him. He felt lost and empty. He took the chance for a three-month sabbatical and eventually got to the point where he felt recharged.

Chase felt a strong calling to help other entrepreneurs with the exact same challenge that he had wrestling with the sense of loneliness, disconnection and burnout. He seeks to support entrepreneurs solve their problems because he solved part of those pieces. His aim is to guide them as they achieve their wildest dreams without getting lost along the way.

Today’s Guest

Chase Damiano is a consultant, coach, and business advisor who specializes in assisting entrepreneurs, executives, and CEOs get out of the weeds. He focuses on helping company leaders better understand their goals, make better decisions, and achieve superior business results including revenue and profits.

He works with the organization through a combination of repeatable playbooks training, mentorship and coaching to build wealth and obtain personal freedom. He was the COO of Commonwealth Joe, where he assisted a family business in doubling its revenue from $0 to $5 million in five years and gained more than 500 B2B clients and 70 employees in just 5 years.

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Today’s podcast will leave you inspired and encouraged to do something good for others. Our guest on the show for today is Annie Henderson, a Certified Professional Life Coach specializing as a Coming Out Coach for the LGBTQIA community and helps people-pleasers to avoid conflict, over apologize, and struggle to say no, start living authentically and find peace they have been missing.

Annie Henderson has a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She loves everything about this field and has always wanted to be a psychologist but there were things that deter her from that career. She also has a master’s degree in education and used to teach first graders.

After going from an unfulfilled existence checking all the boxes of perceived success, to breaking into an intentional, abundant life, she now uses her experiences and professional background as a teacher, counselor, and life coach, to teach and mentor others. In working with her diverse clientele to discover unapologetic joy, including the LGBTQIA community and people-pleasers, her teachings focus on releasing self-doubt, embracing the power in setting boundaries and removing the habit of over apologizing.

Her expertise has helped countless individuals deal with the difficulties they may have been encountering. She states that aside from having an accountability partner, resources like books, listening to podcasts and even investing in coaching programs would be greatly beneficial in resetting a person’s mindset.

Today’s Guest

Annie Henderson is a Life Coach, Coming Out Coach for LGBTQ+ and families, counselor, consultant, educator, and mom. She has worked with clients and helped them overcome their fears and helped them gain a new perspective through her one-on-one coaching. She has helped people ages 6-65 years old.

She believes that although we cannot change difficult situations of the past, we can work together to better understand and resolve challenges in our lives. She believes that having people to support us on our journey is a huge help.

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Our special guest today is Kyle Moss, a joyful mindset coach and self-proclaimed purveyor of joy. She provides vibrant mindset coaching and consulting services for ambitious women and organizations looking to live with more bold clarity, firm confidence and daily contentment.

For about 10 years, Kyle developed programs, mostly with nonprofits and social enterprises that utilized technology for a greater good in some capacity. In 2008, she decided to quit her steady job and work for free. Every time she makes a pivotal change in her life and her career, she makes sure to align her decisions with her soul convictions.

It was not an easy journey for Kyle and having a second child with special needs has been a turning point for her. She did not stop pursuing what she felt she needed to do. As a coach, Kyle conducts group classes helping people to reconnect with their souls and experience something spiritual and beautiful which brings out joy.

Kyle is someone who believes that everything she experienced in the past has a great impact on where she is right now as a joyful mindset coach.She has mainly worked with people, having been exposed to different cultures and has dealt with different circumstances. All of those played a great part in where she is in her life.

Today’s Guest

Kyle Moss aims to infuse positive energy and enthusiasm everywhere she goes. She provides vibrant mindset coaching & consulting services for ambitious women and organizations looking to live with more bold clarity, firm confidence and daily contentment – no matter their circumstances.

She has more than two decades of global leadership and mentoring experience most notably at Qualcomm, Classy, & Invisible Children. While not coaching, Kyle can be found creating her signature “Joy in a Jar” body products, practicing at-home yoga and also adventuring gratefully through each day with her family.

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Today's episode of triumph will inspire you. Meet San Diego-based Diversity by Design's CEO Carrie Sawyer who uses design thinking to help organizations create business procedures that lead to equitable outcomes.

Carrie is also the founder of the inclusion first project, a safe space for allies to ask questions on anti-racism. Carrie plays at the intersection of design thinking, diversity, equity and inclusion. She's dedicating her time and talents to creating a more just world where we all can thrive.

As a user experience researcher and has worked for Qualcomm, she was able to work on her first project on diversity and inclusion in 2015. After 3 years, she decided to quit her job and worked for a smaller firm. Her journey led her to build her own company where she embodies her visions for a better workplace and anti-racism.

She did part-time consulting for a local firm that focuses on diversity and inclusion while also doing some projects as well. It was not easy to gain momentum for her business yet she preserved. She believes we can't solve the problems of the world with the same lens that created it

Today’s Guest

Carrie Sawyer works with organizations and leaders who are ready and willing to begin the systemic journey to true equity, inclusion, and diversity. Her company, Diversity by Design works to remove systemic barriers and help organizations and communities to leverage their collective talents, dreams, and skills to build a world where we all can thrive.

Carrie's latest project is the  Inclusion 1st™ Project, a collaborative study of inclusion through the questions and ideas of allies in the Anti-Racist Movement. Her objective is to support supporters who wish to reverse racism from the inside out and co-create societal norms that prioritize inclusion.

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In this episode, my guest is Alta Felix.

Alta is a Certified Money Coach and the CEO of R2E | Revitalize. Reinvent. Empower. Her coaching programs specifically serve the needs of women who have experienced abuse or trauma and are ready to begin living the life they desire.

Through money coaching and mentorship she empowers her clients to heal their relationship with themselves, others, and money.

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Today my guest is Malena DeMartini.

Malena is the leading expert on treating separation anxiety in dogs and has worked exclusively with the issue for 20 years. She has authored two books on the topic which have become the Bible in the dog industry.

When not working with clients, Malena oversees a team of top trainers and runs an internationally accessible certification program for dog professionals. She is a sought after speaker worldwide and contributes regularly to media publications.

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This episode, my guest is Eszter Matheson.

Eszter and her team at That Book, photograph scenes from your life and use them to create art. Their deluxe, heirloom worthy books incorporate stunning photography, art and design to illustrate your unique story, so it can be celebrated for generations to come.

Her recent book, Spider Lake, won Best Digitally Printed Book and Book of the Year at the British Book Design and Production Awards and last year, THAT BOOK was included in the ‘Awesome but Ridiculous’ section of the Goop Gift Guide.

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In this episode, my guest is Melissa Smith. She and her husband Chris are the founders of Family Brand.

Melissa is a wife and mother to 5 children. After over a decade of mostly being a stay at home mom, Melissa decided to reevaluate if she would actually want to go back to working as a nurse now that her kids were a little bit older. What she discovered was that a new path was before her that instead included a leap into entrepreneurship and real estate investing.

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On this episode, my guest is Keri Stanley.

Keri is the CEO of Keri Stanley Coaching and Inspirational Speaker. As a Top Female Life & Performance Coach, her passion is helping women leaders to create space to lead their lives fulfilled & on fire as they rise in their career. Facilitating global retreats, online masterminds, and executive leadership coaching; Keri works with leaders across the world to align their life to create the greatest impact.

My guest on this episode is Amy Schultz.

Amy is the CEO of SmartGirlMoney and Head Coach at Ready.Steady.Money. She began her financial career as an Actuarial Wealth Consultant but transitioned to personal Money Coaching after recognizing the need for a more emotional – and human – approach to good money management.

Today my guest is Alyson Caffrey.

Alyson is the founder and CEO of Operations Agency, where she and her team are responsible for streamlining the back end operations for a multitude of seven and eight-figure brands.

In this episode, I talk with Tina Medina.

Tina is the Founder and Lead Visionary of VIBE Movement, an organization dedicated to helping educators forge powerful relationships, prioritize self-care, and increase productivity so that they can become positive impact leaders for their students, schools and communities. She hosts a free monthly show called “What’s Color Got to Do With It?” where educators and parents can learn, listen and lend a voice to our movement and commitment to being active disruptors of racial injustice.

Today my guest is Chase Rosa.

Chase is the Host of the Driving Force Podcast, a podcast that unravels the stories of high performers across sports, business, and wellness and gets to the root of what drives them. His podcast guests have included Navy SEALs, CEOs of billion-dollar companies, and Ironman World Champions.

In this episode, I chat with Jennah Lear.

Jennah is the Owner behind Blue Loui Studio. As a Brand and Business Strategist, purpose driven entrepreneurs hire her to create + grow a powerful brand that positions them as the go-to expert, so they can attract dreamy clients to their business.

Today, my guest is Emma B-F.

Emma is a leadership and career coach for women in technology. Through coaching, speaking, and training, she inspires and empowers women to step into leadership and own their power.

In this episode, my guest is Nike Olabisi-Green.

Nike Olabisi-Green is the creator and Chief Movement Leader at Nola Movement. She helps busy women ignite the fire inside through physical movement, positive mindset practices and community connection.

In this episode, I interview Anthony Hall. Anthony helps small businesses and entrepreneurs systematize their sales process to improve conversions, establish clear performance metrics, and increase their customer lifetime value.

In this episode I interview Cody Burch, the founder of Red Anchor Marketing.