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Every week, host Irina Kapetanakis captures strategies from incredibly successful women and shares these soundbites to help you decode challenges and map your own destiny.
Episodes
Wednesday Jul 07, 2021
Wednesday Jul 07, 2021
On today's episode of Decoding Destiny, Irina sits down with Kristen Carbone, a museum curator turned inventor, women's health advocate, writer, and public speaker. We will be discussing how she was able to successfully make a complete 180 in her career and find fulfillment and purpose while doing so. More on Kristen Carbone: After a decade-long career working in curatorial departments in museums across New York and New England, she founded Brilliantly, a platform dedicated to meeting the long-term, quality of life issues faced by women who’ve had an experience with breast cancer. Brilliantly helps women with the transition from confronting breast cancer to embracing life through innovative products, thoughtful content, and relevant services. So far we’ve started a portrait project, released a corrective exercise video series, hosted events, and featured interviews and blog posts on our online journal. Our flagship product, Brilliantly Warm, is an app-controlled warming wearable for the many women who experience a constant and distracting feeling of coldness from their breast implant reconstruction. A writer, public speaker, and solution finder, Kristen serves on the Advisory Council for the Breasties, and is a member of Dreamers & Doers, The Fourth Floor, Female Founders Community. In addition to her work at Brilliantly, Kristen is an avid jigsaw puzzler, gardener, and list maker. She currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island with her two children.
Learn more about Brilliantly:
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Wednesday Jun 16, 2021
Wednesday Jun 16, 2021
On today's episode of Decoding Destiny, Irina sits down with Linda González, a Life Coach, Author, and Facilitative Consultant, to discuss how to "act your age" and why our real age may be very different than our biological age.
Most of us think of ourselves as being our biological age. In fact, you are a multitude of ages in different areas of maturation, making it challenging to always “act your age”. How many times have you been in a situation where you acted or reacted in a way that made you think: “This really isn’t me.” And yet, you knew it was you, just a you that was not in sync with the rest of… you. My experience is that we have eight key elements to our maturation process and that we can be at different ages in all eight due to reasons I will unpack. I will give a short definition of each element, discuss how we might determine our age in a few, and suggest some ways to begin acting your age!
About Linda González:
Linda González (she/her) is a bilingual organizational consultant, coach, and writer/editor with many years of experience facilitating and training groups of diverse participants in many arenas.
Underlying all her work is a focus on equity grounded in systemic change to allow all people to thrive. She collaboratively designs and facilitates interactive processes that address dynamics of power, intersectionality, and different work approaches. Linda’s focus is to offer clients models and tools that can be used to transform structural inequities and internalized glass ceilings.
Linda has a thriving practice as a life coach, assisting clients to discover and reach their important goals while taking into account the impact of biases still present in society. She is on the roster of coaches used by LeaderSpring Women of Color LeadStrong Fellowship, RCF Embodied Leadership Coaching, and Windcall Residency Program. She recently published a book titled Breaking Through Your Own Glass Ceiling, based on her 20-year coaching practice with a focus on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color), women, immigrants, and other under-resourced, resilient communities. Linda’s coaching is based on the models of life coaching, equity & racial justice, spiritual principles, and life lessons.
Order her new book here: Breaking Through Your Own Glass Ceiling
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Wednesday Jun 09, 2021
Wednesday Jun 09, 2021
On today's episode of Decoding Destiny, Irina sits down with Ilene Landon, SVP of Global Professional Services and Delivery at HireVue, to discuss Imposter Syndrome and Confidence: Finding Your Swagger.
Imposter Syndrome is simply defined as doubting your own abilities and feeling like a fraud. It tends to disproportionately affect high achievers who find it difficult to accept their own accomplishments and are typically perfectionists. It also tends to affect women more so than men. Statistics show that, as compared to men, women underestimate their abilities and typically success is correlated to confidence versus competence. In many cases, women don't see a new challenge as something they can handle if they haven't done it before.
The way we are raised as women plays a big part in creating our imposter syndrome. Girls are taught to avoid risk and failure and to play it safe. Boys are taught to take risks, be brave, speak up, and they are rewarded for it. In cases where girls do the same thing, they are told that they are being bossy.
The confidence gap is a challenge to mid-career women. These women want to take the next step, but they also don't want to fail and only take assignments that are safe to set them up for success. But if you aren't taking the risks and moving outside of your comfort zone you aren't growing. Even if you fail, it may be the lesson that teaches you the most. As leaders, we need to embrace this and push our teams to grow and develop, even if it means they don't do it right the first time.
Irina and Ilene also discuss many tips for women to help them overcome imposter syndrome so that they can ultimately find their swagger in life.
About Ilene Landon:
Ilene Landon is SVP of Global Professional Services and Delivery at HireVue, the market leader in video interviewing and assessments, providing an end-to-end hiring experience platform that allows companies to build a faster, fairer, friendlier hiring process.
She has spent her career running large Professional Services organizations, helping to build, grow, and transform organizations to ensure customer success and delivery excellence. She is an empathetic leader, coach, and mentor who is passionate about helping other women find their swagger to succeed.
She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and dog and loves to travel, cook, eat, run, and do yoga.
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Wednesday Jun 02, 2021
Wednesday Jun 02, 2021
On today's episode of Decoding Destiny, Irina meets with Eugina Jordan, a Russian immigrant who started her career as a secretary and has gone on to become the VP of Marketing for one of the major telecom industry disruptors in the country.
Irina and Eugina discuss how to understand your cultural upbringing and how to "reprogram yourself" in the workplace while staying true to yourself. In a world where borders have been blurred and people are working together from all parts of the globe, it is so important to be aware of cultural norms that maybe don't align with the norms we might be used to. How do you adapt without losing your mojo?
About Eugina Jordan:
Eugina, a self-made immigrant woman, started her telecom career as a secretary and now has gone on to become VP of Marketing of the major telecom industry disruptor Parallel Wireless. She has over 20 years of strategic marketing experience, leading marketing and communications for small and large global technology companies.
She is also an inventor, holding 6 patents that include 5G and Open RAN.
Her passion is to help other women in telecom to realize their full potential through mentorships, communities engagement, and workshops. Her story is a positive example that if you work hard, play fair, continue to learn, and always believe in yourself, you can grow yourself, your career, and others.
Eugina resides in Massachusetts with her husband, teenage son, and three rescue dogs. She loves theater and museums. She volunteers for dog rescues and programs that help underprivileged children and women.
Eugina has a Masters of Teaching from Moscow Pedagogical University and studied computer undergrad at CDI College in Toronto, Canada.
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Wednesday May 26, 2021
Wednesday May 26, 2021
On today's episode of Decoding Destiny, Irina sits down with Delphine O'Rourke to debunk the myths surrounding a non-linear career path.
Irina and Delphine discuss how to extrapolate the skills you have developed over the years, how to rebrand yourself and create the narrative that tells your story. Women have a tendency to think they need to go from A to Z and anything short of that is a failure. We need to stop thinking of that as a failure but rather an opportunity to show our flexibility, resilience, grit, and willingness to take a chance. We are told we should have a linear career, work-life balance, and so many other concepts that keep bringing us down. Free yourself of what you "should" do and find the "why" in what you want to do.
Identify what you need from your life on a daily basis - what is life-giving versus life draining. Map your path and that is where you will perform your best. Look at the skills that someone with a linear career path has and ways that you can complement or highlight that with your own experiences. Use data to help back up the argument that you are bringing a different perspective and skillset to the table.
Build relationships. Find people who are doing something you're interested in, who have changed careers and transitioned, and see what their experiences were like. Identify people who will be your support system and provide you insight when you have decisions to make.
The fear of failure will be there. We need to accept it and find ways to deal with it. As women, we have dealt with a lot of things worse than being rejected. We can overcome that see our identity in multifaceted ways. This is where a strong support system can help!
About Delphine O'Rourke:
Delphine O’Rourke has tackled some of the most difficult problems in healthcare from the C-suite and board rooms of health companies. She is a partner in the firm’s Life Sciences group, a member of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Social Impact Investing groups, a health law subject matter expert, and provides strategic guidance, technical expertise and regulatory counsel to clients.
Ms. O’Rourke develops and executes regulatory solutions on behalf of entrepreneurs, growth companies, healthcare systems, public companies and investors, and works directly with leadership to leverage her clients’ innovative solutions. She focuses her healthcare regulatory practice on compliance with federal laws and regulations governing access, delivery and payment for medical care in the United States including compliance with the Anti-Kickback Statute, Stark Law, OIG civil monetary penalties law, state fraud and abuse provisions, change of ownership, corporate practice of medicine, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, laws relating to non-profit health systems. Additionally, Ms. O’Rourke is a fierce advocate for founders in women’s health and partners with them along their journey by providing them with critical strategic and legal advice.
In addition to being a trusted and invaluable advisor for companies transforming the health and wellness industry, Ms. O’Rourke is an experienced health system leader and in-house counsel. Ms. O’Rourke was Associate General Counsel of Ascension, one of the largest private healthcare systems in the U.S., and now bridges the traditional health system for her clients’ products, services and investments.
Ms. O’Rourke serves on the boards of the Columbia Law School Alumni Association, The Forum of Executive Women, and The Foundation of The Forum of Executive Women. She is Vice-Chair of the Women’s Leadership Council of the American Health Law Association, member of CHIEF (a private network focused on connecting and supporting women leaders), healthcare expert for Endeavor (the world’s leading community of high-impact entrepreneurs) and Fellows Mentor for Summit Impact (a community-powered approach to scaling global impact).
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To learn more about the host, Irina Kapetanakis, click here or follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Wednesday May 19, 2021
Wednesday May 19, 2021
On today's episode of Decoding Destiny, Irina sits down with Leigh Burgess to discuss how to raise the bar for yourself and take big swings of bold both personally and professionally. Leigh discusses the importance of taking risks and reveals her strategies on how to do this. Inaction leads you to the same place in which you started, so taking that chance may be scary, but also may make you feel brave and empowered.
Leigh developed a framework to help others take "big swings of bold" designed around the acronym "BOLD".
Believe: Believe in yourself and your expertise
Ownership: Own up to what you are responsible for; own your successes as much as your failures. Women tend to focus so much on their failures and are very hard on themselves, but we need to learn to own the successes and be proud of our accomplishments both personally and professionally.
Learn: There are so many things we can learn from both the good and the bad in life, but in so many instances we don't pause and reflect. We need to learn from the failures but also pause and look back on our wins to also dissect why and how that worked out for us.
Design: Once you've incorporated the first 3 letters of the acronym, it's time to design a life path for yourself and curate the journey you want to take. We want this path to be driven by what we want to accomplish and by doing this, we now have control over our world. This will ultimately lead to a more successful and fulfilled life.
About Leigh Burgess:
President & Chief Executive Officer, High Road Strategy
In her role, she and her colleagues work collaboratively together to effectively lead and forward Mission of High Road Strategy by providing guided expertise and curated experiences that assist in the creation of new opportunities for “big swings of bold” resulting in expedited positive change and outcomes.
She has vast experience across health care and research communities with experience in developing and implementing strategic initiatives across basic, translational and clinical research. She has led and directed large operational teams of clinical research and administration staff.
She has successfully led and created the strategic administration and operations of multiple academic medical centers wide including area within: Clinical Trials Office, Human Rights Protection Program, Office of Sponsored Projects, Quality & Safety, Education & Professional Development, Research Nursing, Office of Technology Transfer, Central Research Lab and Research Finance.
Leigh develops and implements plans for financial, operational and administrative priority setting and strategy deployment outlining needs, improvements, opportunities and relationship building. She strategizes and directs the improvement of operational areas of opportunity systemwide based on metrics data, internal audit reports, and input from faculty, functional group leaders, project leaders, research partners, CTSA, NCI and the NIH.
Her past leadership experiences include graduate medical education, cancer centers, oncology quality, patient centered care, patient education, compliance and institutional research operations. She is currently a doctoral student completing coursework towards her Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) and has completed all credits towards and is in the dissertation phase of her PhD in Organizational Development and Change.
Helping brave leaders find their bold path.
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Wednesday May 12, 2021
Wednesday May 12, 2021
On today's episode of Decoding Destiny, Irina sits down with Jillian Kaplan to discuss the importance of making adjustments to your career to reflect changes that occur in your life.
Jillian went through her life shift when she became a mom. She was determined to find balance and make the necessary changes that would allow her to both grow at work but also prioritize time for family. Whether it's motherhood, aging parents, relocation, divorce or really any life phase that might require you to shift around priorities, you can still have a fulfilling and successful career with some tweaks and adjustments.
Jillian truly believes in balance and that you CAN have it all. She actually calls it, "work-life happiness" when you can find the right combination that fits your life. You need to find jobs and companies that support you. When you feel supported in your career, you're going to work harder and work better. It doesn't mean you do less work - it just means you might need to shift WHEN you do your work. As important as the work you're doing, your work culture needs to match your values. Know your worth and don't compromise when looking for the right fit.
We discuss ways you can handle this when talking to your employer, making your own adjustments to your day, or even discussing with other colleagues who may be or have been in a similar situation.
Jillian believes that being a working mom is a superpower. The skills you need to master as a mom, like time management and multitasking, are also important for work as well.
More on Jillian Kaplan:
Jillian leads the 5G and Telecom Thought Leadership on the Telecom Service Providers team at Dell Technologies. She has a 17-year background in Engineering, Product Management and Marketing at a Telecom Fortune 15 company and at Dell. She currently is driving the go-to-market strategy at Dell to help Telco Service Providers be #5GReadyNow. She is an accomplished speaker and author, a big believer in giving back and putting humans first.
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