The Power of the Pivot

Mark Ratfelders is a Success and Leadership Coach who believes that greatness is within all of us. He spent decades in Sales and Sales Leadership roles with global corporations. He discovered that Real Leadership is an “inside job” that begins with Awareness, Energy and Love. 

Mark’s passions have included distance running and a regular yoga and meditation practice. His passion for yoga has led him to become a certified yoga instructor. Mark’s favorite quote is from meditation leader, Sharon Salzberg, “We can always begin again.”

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Rob “YB” Youngblood is an author and the President/Chief Connecting Officer of YB Connects, LLC a Richmond, VA based professional training and coaching firm that empowers entrepreneurs and executives to enhance business relationships and communications skills.

As an engagement specialist, he teaches his clients how to establish and facilitate connections that lead to outstanding outcomes. He is known as “The LinkedIn Locksmith” because of his ability to unlock the power of LinkedIn for professionals who are responsible for attracting new clients and generating revenue. Since 2016, he has coached nearly 1,000 entrepreneurs and executives to leverage LinkedIn as a tool for increasing their visibility, credibility, and profitability.

We discuss his unique career path and why he believes that we must be comfortable with change.

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Angela V. Harris is a collaborative Leadership Coach, Technology Leader, and Philanthropist with over twenty years of business experience in Fortune 500 companies.  She is focused on female leadership and the advancement of Black women in the tech industry. In her coaching practice, Angela helps clients strategically navigate the corporate landscape so they can be seen, feel valued, and get promoted. Her intuitive approach brings clarity, direction, and positive support to her clients. We discuss her pivot from technology leader to leadership coach, the value of diversity and how she plans to change corporate America from the outside.

Mel McSherry (she/they) is an International Business & Life Guide, Speaker, Author, and Podcast Host. She works with inspired entrepreneurs who are exhausted and overwhelmed by what they think they need to do in order to be successful. She helps them to honor their lives and engineer success through Human Design, spiritual and traditional business development frameworks.
As an entrepreneur since 2010, Mel has launched two successful businesses, published two books, launched a successful podcast, and created a true life by design. We spoke about her numerous career pivots, how she managed change with a young son and her journey to trusting herself.

Dr. Constance Craig-Mason, MRFC® is the CEO of Concierge Financial Group Agency and the President of Money Concepts Wealth Management & Financial Planning. As a dedicated Financial Advisor, passionate international speaker, and an eight-time bestselling author, she teaches her clients to correctly manage their money so they can live the life they want without worry.

She has received numerous awards for community impact in her field including a medallion "In Recognition of Excellence, Service & Sacrifice" from the Comptroller of Maryland. Dr. Constance has also received an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy for her eminent contributions to financial literacy, financial advancement, and entrepreneurship empowerment. She is a 2022 honoree of the Association of African American Financial Advisors' 50 Under 50.

She talks through her journey of a childhood in poverty to helping people achieve financial independence.

Noelle Cellini is the owner and personal stylist of My Best Foot Forward and founder of Lifting the Veil, a site and podcast dedicated to helping people transition to a natural, harmonious lifestyle.  She is passionate about taking the confusion out of fashion and educating people on how to avoid matchy, matchy!  Noelle is a food-loving, makeup wearing, stylish modern woman who loves to help people learn how to eat clean and listen to their intuition for greater personal and professional abundance. We chat about her unconventional path from business school to personal styling and why she believes that sometimes you just have to trust the universe.

After witnessing the struggle and inconvenience he and many of his friends had to go through to get African foods, Boyede embarked on a journey to remedy this problem. This journey led to the creation of OjaExpress.  Boyede and the OjaExpress team seek to enhance the lives of immigrants and cultural food lovers by making cultural foods easily accessible through the OjaExpress digital marketplace.

Erica Holthausen is the founder of Catchline Communications and a strategic thought partner to consultants who wish to build their authority and increase their visibility by publishing articles in industry trade journals and business magazines like Inc., Entrepreneur, and Fast Company. A writer and freelance editor, Erica started her career as a litigation attorney in Boston. She credits her legal training at The University of Virginia School of Law with teaching her to use persuasive writing techniques, ask the right questions, and communicate complex ideas with power and clarity.

Dee Bowden is the creator and author of Collect the Cash. She works with small businesses who want to solve their cash flow problems. She is on a mission to keep businesses in business. After collecting $6 million dollars in 60 days while working for a small IT company, Dee recognized small businesses also can fall prey to revenue loss because they don’t collect the outstanding invoices. Her revenue recovery strategies have been featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, VIP Global, and Black Enterprise and Thrive Global Magazines. We chat about how she found her passion and purpose of helping small businesses stay in business and how she pivoted and turned it into a business.

Abbey Cannon moved to Nashville at the age of 18 to attend Belmont University. It was during her time there that she met her husband and now business partner, Tony Cannon. They were both working in the restaurant industry. She originally planned to be a professional singer, but after meeting her husband fell in love with food and cooking. Her career has taken many directions, she held several sales and management roles before partnering with her husband to build a company. A pandemic baby, Abbey and Tony's first company, That Rub, LLC began due to her furlough in the business travel industry. We discuss how she has managed multiple life pivots and how as someone who once couldn’t cook has successfully built a business in the food industry.

Diana Lowe, is the CEO of Blue Light Leadership, a leadership development company focused on educating, training and coaching emotional intelligence for remote leaders. Diana is an Executive Coach who works with Directors to C-Suite Executives in Fortune 500 companies to transform their team spirit and communication. Her company focuses on using evidence based research from Positive Psychology to combat the rising stress and anxiety in leaders during the Great Resignation. We chat about her journey from financial leader to stay at home mom and what ultimately led her to start her own coaching practice.

Clarene Mitchell is the owner of TCM Communications, a social media branding firm based in Wisconsin that focuses on helping success driven entrepreneurs and corporate leaders effectively leverage LinkedIn to generate results. Clarene is an accomplished print journalist, community activist and public relations professional. For more than 30 years she has worked to craft the image of community-based organizations and advance issues of importance. We discuss her love of LinkedIn and how she turned that passion into a new career.

Deborah Petropoulos is a transformational career and life coach and Founder of One True You, LLC. She inspires successful outcomes for professionals experiencing transition challenges in their careers, business, and life. Debbie is an accredited-coach and member of the International Coaching Federation. Leaders benefit from her thirty-three years of corporate experience in global pharmaceuticals coaching, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams and individuals.  We discuss her journey from pharmaceutical leader to trusted life and career coach and her definition of resilience.

Elle Forte is a boutique photographer. She is a Certified Professional Photographer (CPP) with Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and is an accredited Associate Portrait Master in Illinois. She worked for 12 years in the corporate world as a financial analyst. Although she enjoyed her job, she longed for something more. Her entrepreneurial business mind eventually merged with her creative spirit and love of photography, which led her to her ultimate career.

Claire Smith is the maker, baker & founder of Teffola. She was raised on a working crop farm in Southern Michigan—she is a part of the 7th generation. After turning away from a decade old dream of becoming a pediatric cardiologist, she started making granola from a high school cafeteria for local stores. Now, four years in, she's built a brand celebrating ancient grains that are known across the Midwest for creating high quality, low sugar granola.

We discuss how life growing up on a farm shaped her and why she is now so passionate about the food industry after her life-long love of science.

Benjamin Warsinske is a brand culture expert and certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator. His focus is on how purposeful play contributes to effective people strategies, particularly in the areas of employee engagement, wellbeing, high-performance leadership, and organizational culture change.

We discuss his journey from a career in urban planning to entrepreneurship, why he decided to make a change and what he thinks the future of work looks like.

If you ask Michelle Calcagni what she loves about her work, you'll get a quick answer: solving problems. Whether she's working with entrepreneurs, small to midsize businesses, or nonprofits, she combines wide-ranging experience and proven talents to drive growth, expand efficiency, and improve results. In 2016 Michelle created PhoneBox Group, a multi-discipline consultancy that works with organizations in North America, Europe, and Asia.

In this episode, we discuss what ultimately led her to starting her own business and why she decided to take the leap after a successful career with several large, well-known corporations.