The Perfectly Imperfect Journey

Feet First with Ali Ingersoll

Ali Ingersoll had a somewhat charmed upbringing, attending boarding school abroad, going on amazing adventures and taking advantage of every opportunity that showed up.  Then a life-changing accident happened when Ali took a head-first dive into shallow water.  Feet First not only describes Ali’s plea for anyone jumping into shallow water, but also how she has lived her life, both before and after the accident.  While she is now restricted to a wheelchair, Ali continues to live life to the fullest  - wait until you hear her dating stories (sorry, guys, she is now happily married!) - we were both laughing hysterically.  This in no way means Ali hasn’t had ups and downs - indeed, she speaks very candidly about her challenges and dark days. However, in her toughest moments, she has developed an incredible resilience and a “radical acceptance” that we cannot help being inspired by.  

Ali reminded us of this quote which we think perfectly sums up how she lives her life: 

 

Disasters lead to the best stories - Ali Ingersoll

 

Ali Ingersoll is a day trader, consultant, disability advocate, writer, blogger, editor, and public speaker. She started her advocacy mission after being repeatedly denied medically necessary equipment by insurance companies over the last 10 years since becoming a C6 quadriplegic and full-time wheelchair user after a shallow water diving accident.

Ali’s passion lies in coaching people with disabilities on how to improve their quality of life by teaching them to self-advocate in order to live a life of independence, dignity, and grace.

Ali has a firm philosophy of paying it forward by giving back to the community through outreach, working together, and building each other up. She believes it’s important to band together as one in order to affect the greatest change on the national stage and in local communities.”

Links:

www.quirkyquad.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-ingersoll/

More Intentional with Mary Lin McBride

This week Mary Lin McBride, a mindfulness practitioner and teacher, joins us to talk about the power of meditation and how to be more intentional in your life.  Earlier in her career, Mary Lin found herself moving from city to city as her husband’s career would dictate.  While she enjoyed her work as a fundraiser, it was a serendipitous moment standing in front of a yoga studio that propelled Mary Lin to explore mindfulness and to start taking more intentional steps towards her own passions, and ultimately a completely different career.  Mary Lin takes us through a brief meditation practice during our discussion (and you are invited to join along with us!) and debunks some of the myths around what meditation is.  Being intentional is now her way of living, indeed she left us with this beautiful advice:

 

Don’t be a supporting actress in your own life

   ~Mary Lin

After 20 years as a nonprofit fundraiser, Mary Lin founded Mindful Resolution, a firm dedicated to bringing mindfulness skills to community organizations and workplaces. She trained to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) teacher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and is also a yoga instructor. She trusts in the grace that arises when approaching “the full catastrophe” of life with intention, gratitude, and a good deal of humor.

Article that Mary Lin mentions that highlights some of the many benefits of mindfulness, including information on the steep increase in mindfulness research studies that have appeared in journals since 1980: http://www.lifeinthebalancemindfulness.com/mindfulness-research.html

Mary Lin’s website: https://www.mindfulresolution.com/

Link to Mary Lin’s 8/10 - 8/15 mindfulness retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center: https://www.shambhalamountain.org/program/sb821-sitting-in-beauty-a-mindfulness-retreat-2/

Heart’s Journey with Bridgette Corridan

Join us this week as we welcome musician Bridgette Corridan to the podcast. While Bridgette has many titles in her life: recruiter, mom, wife, athlete, spiritual seeker, friend, sister etc, in our discussion we focused on Bridgette’s perfectly imperfect journey from fear to freedom as she releases her music into the world. Bridgette shares how she believes it is through tapping into her heart and listening for the wisdom that gave her the confidence to step into the spotlight of her life.

Listen all the way to the end to hear some of Bridgette’s beautiful music.

Bridgette Bio

 

Bridgette Corridan is an Inspirational Speaker, Mission Coach and Vocal Artist. She engages audiences through an authentic journey that opens them up and gives them the tools for heightened self-awareness.

 

For years, Bridgette’s story was focused on being the best. The best student, athlete, daughter, sister, employee – you name it, she would try to be the best at it.  External validation was the foundation for her sense of self. 

 

It was in the challenges of becoming a mom, that led her to start a mindfulness practice that supported her as she dove into deconstructing and rebuilding her self-awareness. She started a coaching practice where she inspired her clients to own their stories, create their personal missions and lean into the lives that light them up.  Through mindfulness, she was able to hear the music that lived inside of her and has released 2 albums since 2015 (https://bridgettecorridan.com/).

After 20 years in the corporate world building cultures in fast-growth organizations, Bridgette now marries this experience to her mindfulness practice and shares that with her audiences.  Whether speaking or singing, she aims to deeply and vulnerably connect with people.

The Privilege of a Lifetime

Carl Jung said: “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are”  and that’s what we’re talking about in today's episode.  Authenticity is a somewhat overused word today, but that doesn’t mean we are overachieving in being our authentic selves.  There’s so much that can get in our way - the suit and floppy tie dress code during Sherry’s early career, the imposter syndrome Anne experienced in her mid career, our own limiting beliefs, or those put on us by others- that we often end up playing small in this game called life.  Join us as we explore what it means to live an authentic life, how to start adding more authenticity in your life, and why it’s important to be mindful about the choices we make in our quests to be more authentic.

From Brene Brown’s work: (authenticity is)  “a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real.”

Just keep going with Nichelle Tramble Spellman

Nichelle Tramble Spellman joins us this week and shares her journey from being an aspiring writer as early as grade school, to published novelist,  to Hollywood writer, producer and showrunner. Join us as Nichelle shares her thoughts on the importance of lifelong friends, listening to mom and how being true to yourself is the key to success.   We hope you love this interview as much as we do.  Nichelle tells some fantastic stories  - we were laughing so hard during parts of the interview, we had to pause to catch our breath!

Nichelle Tramble Spellman is Showrunner/Executive Producer of the Apple drama series, Truth Be Told, starring Octavia Spencer and Kate Hudson. Nichelle won a NAACP Image Award for Best Writing in a Dramatic Series for the pilot episode of TRUTH BE TOLD called "Monster". Previous to that she spent three seasons on the critically-acclaimed CBS drama THE GOOD WIFE, FX's JUSTIFIED, and she recently served as a Consulting Producer on SNOWFALL Season Four. Nichelle is also the author of the novels THE DYING GROUND and THE LAST KING  published by Random House/Ballantine.

Freeing Ourselves from the Prisons of Our Own Making and the Enneagram with Susan Olesek

In this episode, we speak with Susan Olesek, Founder of the Enneagram Prison Project (EPP). Early in her journey of learning the Enneagram, Susan was invited into a prison in Texas to work with a group of incarcerated individuals. She was both inspired and blown away by the power of the work and the life-changing impact of the participants. She knew she’d found her purpose and she EPP was created to bring the Enneagram teachings into more prisons.  Susan shares how the Enneagram provides an opportunity to be more honest and kind with ourselves and to learn how to get out of our own way. We all come into the world with a divine spark, and a beautiful innocence that can get twisted and, at times, shut down.  The Enneagram highlights some of our unconscious habits and patterns and invites us to choose, with more consciousness, how we show up in the world.  Ultimately, the Enneagram “frees us from the prisons of our own making” and facilitates falling a bit more in love with ourselves.  Please join us to hear about Susan’s amazing journey - from the nonprofit she built to finding freedom from the prison of her own making. 

 

“Your definition of who you are is your prison. You can set yourself free at any time.” Cheri Huber

 

Susan Olesek is an unapologetic “Idealist” and the founder of the Enneagram Prison Project (EPP), a paradigm-shifting model of how to bring self-awareness education to those incarcerated, now scaling across the globe from California’s San Quentin State Prison to Belgium. Born outside of Boston and schooled in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and England, Susan is a “Human Potentialist” - a social entrepreneur in pursuit of what’s possible for people. She runs a consulting practice teaching the Enneagram to Fortune-500 leaders, but her heart is dedicated to helping all people - on both sides of the bars - to realize the “prison of our own making.” She lives in California with her three children, and Rick Olesek, her husband and Executive Director of EPP.

 

Links:

Enneagram Prison Project: https://enneagramprisonproject.org/

Susan’s website:  https://susanolesek.com/

One of the books Susan references, the Wisdom of the Enneagram:  https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Enneagram-Psychological-Spiritual-Personality/dp/0553378201

Our favorite tool to determine your type:  https://integrative9.com/enneagram/

Getting (more) comfortable with being uncomfortable

All of our recent guests have talked about times in their lives when change was either thrust upon them, or they consciously undertook some kind of transformation.  And, all of them shared that the work process was often  challenging and uncomfortable.  In today’s episode we talk about why choosing to get a bit more uncomfortable can actually be good practice for when those big waves of change are coming at us.  

Why is this important?  Often what sits between where we are now and where we’re trying to get, is a whole lot of discomfort. And like many things in life, it is easier to practice, and to start building our “discomfort muscle” when we’re not in the midst of major change.  Please join us to hear a bit about our own journeys with being uncomfortable and some practical tips to start building your own “discomfort” muscle.  

 

From this great Ted Talk by Luvvie Ajayi Jones: Fear has a very concrete power to keep us from doing and saying the things that are our purpose

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/luvvie_ajayi_jones_get_comfortable_with_being_uncomfortable#t-175831 

Sherry also wrote a great article about this topic:  www.flow-dynamix.com/get-discomfortable/

When Everything Changes, with Mike Robbins.

In his early 20’s, it looked like Mike Robbins’ lifelong dream of being a professional baseball player was set; a recent graduate of Stanford, Mike was drafted by the Kansas City Royals and started playing with one of their minor league teams. However, after a couple of seasons, Mike injured his elbow in a game against the Durham Bulls and his baseball career was suddenly over.  Everything Mike had been dreaming about suddenly changed.
Mike’s perfectly imperfect journey took a few twists and turns and he is now the author of 5 books and a globally sought out speaker.  We had such a great discussion about the power of meditation and taking care of yourself,  how it is often those darkest moments that lead to the brightest days and how a little persistence can lead to deep connections with those that inspire you.  

 

Mike Robbins is the author of five books, including his new title, WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: Creating a Team Culture of High Performance, Trust, and Belonging.  For the past 20 years, he’s been a sought-after speaker and consultant who delivers keynotes and seminars for some of the top organizations in the world.  His clients include Google, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, Genentech, eBay, Harvard University, Gap, LinkedIn, the Oakland A’s, and many others.   He and his work have been featured in the New York Times and the Harvard Business Review, as well as on NPR and ABC News.  He’s a regular contributor to Forbes, hosts his own podcast (called We’re All in This Together), and his books have been translated into 15 different languages. Links: WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER: Creating a Team Culture of High Performance, Trust: https://mike-robbins.com/together Website:  https://mike-robbins.com LinkedIn:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrobbins/ Twitter:      https://twitter.com/mikedrobbins Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikedrobbins/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikerobbinspage/

Strong Like Water with Laila Tarraf

Join us as we speak to author and HR executive, Laila Tarraf, to hear about her amazing journey of self discovery.  Through a series of  painful life experiences, Laila learned how important it is to let her whole self be seen, to allow for the vulnerability that she had pushed away her whole life, and to give herself time to pause and reflect.  One of the beautiful things about what Laila shares with us is that this was not only a personal journey, but it transformed the way she leads at work.  This podcast is full of insight and deeply moving reflection and fully embodies the flow between eastern and western philosophies.  

Laila’s growth and her modeling of a new way of being remind us of the Mariann Williamson quote:

“...And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Laila Tarraf is a senior human resource executive with over 25 years of professional experience.  After graduating with her MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, she became one of the founding team members at Walmart.com.  She then served as Chief People Officer at Peet’s Coffee and Tea, an iconic Bay Area premium coffee company. Currently, Laila is currently the Chief People Officer at Allbirds focused on leading through a global pandemic and broad social unrest. She is also a trusted advisor to entrepreneurs and investors and is a regular guest lecturer at Berkeley Law School.

 

Laila’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Strong-Like-Water-Lessons-Learned-ebook/dp/B08F2CC76F

Laila’s website:  https://www.lailatarraf.com/ 

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lailatarraf/

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/laila.tarraf/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lailatarrafauthor/  

Awareness, Choice and Mindset

We have had the huge pleasure and honor to welcome some amazing guests over the past few weeks.  While they sometimes used different words for it, each person has inspired us to think about awareness, choice, and mindset as it relates to the way we operate in the world.  In this episode, we share more of our own stories and how at different times, we need to deepen our awareness, expand our mindset, and recognize that we always have a choice (even if sometimes it doesn’t seem like awesome choices).  This happens in big ways that can seem obvious, but it is often the micro  - day by day, hour by hour, moments that add up to a fulfilled life and add richness to our perfectly imperfect journeys

As both Annie Dillard and Sherry’s newsletter remind us: “The way you live your day is the way you live your life.” Through this episode, we encourage you to consider all the ways you are living this one precious life.