Take It Or Lead It

Meet Marwa, a remarkable HR Leader whose journey through both her career and life has been anything but conventional. Marwa proudly labels herself as a "fierce risk-taker," and her life story undoubtedly reflects this bold spirit. From bravely leaving home as a teenager to pursue her aspirations—a decision considered unconventional in her society—Marwa has navigated through various industries as an employee, a leader, and an entrepreneur. In our engaging conversation, we explore themes ranging from spiritual transformation to the challenges and joys of parenthood, culminating in insights into the role of HR professionals in shaping and strengthening leaders and organizations. Listen till the end, there is a powerful story in the closing minutes!

"I'd love to deliver a Yoga session for your community", said Vera the first time we met during a storytelling event at InSpiral, the community I founded in Budapest in 2016. I said "Yes, why not?", and she did.

At that time, I ignored that she had studied acting... I found that out a few months later through some of her social media posts in which she was terrific!

More recently, she was part of the production crew of a mini-series on Netflix called "All the light we cannot see".

I'm sure you'll find our conversation as interesting and cheerful as I did while we recorded it!

Derrick is a colleague and a very authentic example of someone who learned to "lead it" and make vulnerability a strength.

We already recorded episode 23 together... at that time we talked about the importance of prioritizing habits of self-care and "cleaning up your backyard" first.

In this episode, we are conversing about being intentional in the realms of taking a break, being grateful, and celebrating.

Listen in!

Derrick is a colleague and a very authentic example of someone who learned to "lead it" and make vulnerability a strength.

In this episode, Derrick will share how a number of "life storms" and the ensuing growth helped him strengthen his ability to cope with life challenges through his own recipe: a blend of analytical skills, faith, self-care, morning habits, and asking for help when in need. I love that Derrick stepped up in recent years to share his stories and what he learned about resilience with the sole purpose of contributing to other people's lives.

This is another very inspiring conversation I had the pleasure to host... looking forward to having Derrick again on the podcast to go deeper on some of the things we touched upon in this episode!

Episode recorded in Atlanta, Georgia, United States!  Meet Jenny Williams, HR by profession, mother, spiritual enthusiast, and much much more. In this episode, Jenny shares how she made significant changes in her life through a ‘layered’ approach. As our conversation flows and takes some tangents, we talk about spiritual life, being intentional on social media, transformational leadership, and the importance of having clarity of purpose. In the end, she also asks me a few (difficult!) questions, which I wasn’t really ready for. Loved recording this episode, and enjoyed it even more listening to it!

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals and do not represent any company's views, position, or opinions.

Take It or Lead It is back!

Once more, my guest is my dear friend Alitzel (Ali) Guerrero. Several months after we recorded our first episode together, a few things have changed in Ali's life, but most importantly she made a BIG decision recently, something that we'll discuss in the first half of the episode. We then go on talking about Ali's favorite topic: Mindfulness, mostly focusing on the power of a non-judgmental mindset and practices to cultivate mindfulness.

Listen in to find out more!

Here's the link to Ali's podcast on Mindfulness: https://open.spotify.com/show/2eAkk1byyfWxbbqs4fhUiV?si=4453ed56c6fe4bd2

Human Relationships are such beautiful, complex, and fluid creatures. Sometimes they grow but most of the time, they simply change, transform or evolve.

My relationship with Cris spans almost 25 years and started with a high-school crush, and since then has gone through half a dozen very different seasons. In this episode, Cris and I talk about how our connection has evolved over time and how we changed and matured in the last 25 years. We also discuss how during a personal crisis it's important to reach out for help, and where and how we can find support and inspiration.

It's a gracious, insightful, authentic, and (to me) inspiring conversation. I am positive you'll enjoy it, too.

Raffaella has a unique story: she went through a double lung transplant in 2010 and today she can lead a healthy and fulfilling life. In this episode, she shares her story with grace and depth while providing very meaningful insights and perspectives on what it means to deal with a life-threatening disease. During our conversation, we are covering many dimensions of Raffaella's experience: how to communicate difficult messages to children, her connection with Michael J. Fox (the actor of "Back To The Future"), her relationship with death, and how this challenge has changed her over time. It's been an incredible pleasure to have this dialogue with Raffaella, and I'm sure you'll find meaning and inspiration in our talk, too.

S2E3: Alitzel (Ali) is a coach and an entrepreneur from Mexico who lives in Budapest since 2016. Ali holds events and workshops specifically designed to empower women in their respective journeys to a more fulfilling and centered life. During this conversation, we begin with the challenges that she had to face as a woman in a society that had expectations and limitations as it relates to gender and ethnicity. As we spontaneously dance from topic to topic, we get to discuss the cultural subjectivity of beauty, the importance of authenticity, the limiting belief of “hard work”, the importance of fun at work, the value of communities, and we end up talking about feminine and masculine energies. It’s been super fun to hold this conversation with Ali and I’m sure you’ll experience the vibes as you listen!

Season 2, Episode 1: Waldek is a friend and a leader who spent a great deal of time coaching me early in my career and offered me the opportunity to grow and develop as a leader. In this dialogue, we’ll talk about the importance of developing ALL your team members, growing your successors, and creating an inclusive culture in the workplace. We'll both share stories from our respective journeys as leaders... but not just that. In fact, if you listen until the end of the episode, you'll hear about Waldek's skills in different sports, books recommendations, his leadership role model, and how I plan to increase the podcast's audience.

In this episode, we attempt to unpack Humility. How can we define it? What are the behaviors that it entails? How do we feel in the presence of deeply humble people? We also suggest a simple framework to analyze our life with an eye for humility, looking at three elements: nature, nurture, and circumstances.

Is being a "perfectionist" good or bad? Well... neither, because "Perfection is perception". What really matters is having an attitude towards outcomes that makes us feel empowered, harmonious, and effective. In this episode, we will explain why "high-achiever" is a probably a better verbiage to describe our need to be successful in what we do. We will also talk about the 3 types of perfectionism, the law of diminishing returns, Bianca's squeaky chair... and many other stories!

NOTE: during the episode, Bianca makes a reference to an article. Here's the link to the source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201801/is-the-perfectionism-plague-taking-psychological-toll

In this episode, we discuss a popular topic surrounding our own personality traits of introvert (Bianca) and extrovert (Vale). We also explore the power of partnerships between people with these contrasting traits. 

It takes courage to be authentic in a world that can be very judgmental and has a number of social norms, expectations, and standards that oftentimes don't resonate with us. In this episode, we try to unpack AUTHENTICITY, a topic we feel strongly about as we navigate our respective journeys and try to show up as our whole selves in every realm of life.  We also discuss how we can help others show up authentically in relationships, at work, and in society. All of this, spiced with a lot of stories, in the typical spirit of "Take It or Lead It"!

Without conscious effort, we automatically notice the differences between us and others first. In this episode, we are discussing ways to move toward seeing people's humanity before we see their differences.  

Why is Community so important to us as human beings? Today we talk about our experiences of belonging and psychological safety with groups of people that feel like "family". We also try to answer the question: "Where and how can we experience a sense of community and belonging in today's world?"

In this episode, we share what "The Power of Connection" means to us and why we think that a non-judgmental mindset, vulnerability, authenticity, and depth are the pillars to build meaningful and fulfilling relationships.

In this episode, we talk about Compassion and explore what this beautiful word means to both of us, its etymology, and its relationship with empathy. As usual, we share a bunch of personal stories and how we try to exercise our "compassion muscle" in our day-to-day life.

Meet Bianca and Vale! In the first episode of "Take It or Lead It" we're sharing our motivations, and how we came up with the idea of this podcast. We will share why we would do this even if only 3 people were ever to listen to it... and most importantly, we'll try to answer the difficult question: "Who am I?".