THE SUSTAINABLE AMBITION PODCAST
What if you could have more fulfillment, peace, and ease in your professional and personal life — while staying ambitious?
Learn to align your ambitions with what matters most, navigate transitions with adventure and ease, and create sustainable success — without sacrificing your wellbeing or losing yourself in the process.
We’re taught that ambitious careers come with a price: our time, our peace, maybe even our wellbeing. But what if that story is outdated? What if you could pursue meaningful work, advance your career, and still have energy for the life you want to live?
Join Kathy and her guests — experts, authors, and innovators — as they challenge traditional narratives about success and ambition and explore new ways of living and working. While life and work rarely go according to plan, it's never too late to create a life and career that truly work for you.
START HERE:
CAN AMBITION BE SUSTAINABLE?
Host Kathy Oneto talks with experts, authors, and friends with insight on her philosophy about life and work focused on three concepts: Right Ambition, Right Time, and Right Effort. Kathy shares ideas for navigating your career at different stages of life and work. You’ll learn to define your own success. You’ll embrace a consciously ambitious approach to better align life and work. And no matter what you choose to take on, you’ll have the resilience to tackle the challenge and the practices you need to sustain your energy.
Each new person who embraces Sustainable Ambition makes it easier for all of us to thrive in life and work.
4. On Clarifying, Claiming, and Communicating Your Why with Rebecca Williams
Overview
Rebecca Williams, Story Coach, Executive Communications Coach, and a Brand Storyteller, joins me to discuss the importance of clarifying your story, claiming it, and then speaking your why.
For me this conversation goes to the root of the first pillar of Sustainable Ambition, Right Success, and aligning to your own personal reward, defining success on your terms. In this conversation, Rebecca shares how painful it can be to not have clarity about your purpose, your why, and how it can be uncomfortable following a path that just isn’t you. As she says, “Trying to fit into someone else’s narrative doesn't work.” But then when you find that clarity—knowing your purpose, values, and your genius—everything starts to align.
She also shares the power of story and how being a good storyteller is important for all of us to connect with others in many situations. Most importantly, I love this insight Rebecca shares about how story can impact our own fulfillment: “We have to see a bigger story for ourselves if we want to live fulfilled, purpose-driven lives.”
It’s a great conversation. Appreciate your honest sharing and teaching, Rebecca. Thank you!
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3. On Curiosity, Learning, and Not Getting Locked In with Tim Galpin
Overview
In this episode, I’m joined by friend Tim Galpin who is currently Senior Lecturer of Strategy & Innovation and Academic Director of the MBA program at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He also consults with Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies in the areas of strategy formulation and execution, M&A due diligence and integration, business restructuring, and organizational culture change. Tim has spent the majority of his career both in strategy consulting and in academia as a business professor.
I was interested in talking to Tim about his career trajectory, knowing it hasn’t been one note and that he transitioned to a new phase later in his career having an early vision for what he would do. What shows up as a subtle but important lesson is how we aren’t defined by where we start out or our early successes, or lack thereof. Tim is the first of his family to go to college. He almost failed out after one year, yet today teaches at Oxford, just two generations after one side of his family left the U.K. for the United States. The luck of a professor who mentored him also gave him inspiration for where he could take his career. Tim has an amazing success story, one fueled by the love of learning.
Through the sharing of his own experiences, we learn the importance of being curious, continually learning, and not getting yourself locked in to a lifestyle that limits your flexibility and options.
Thanks for sharing your career story and wisdom with us, Tim!
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2. On Building Better Work-Life Integration with Heather Ainsworth
Overview
In this conversation, I'm joined by Heather Ainsworth, my friend and the CEO and Founder of Workable Concept. Heather is an expert in helping organizations, individuals, and leaders create circumstances for caregivers to thrive in work and life.
Heather is one of the best people I know who has for me modeled what I think of as Sustainable Ambition. And, what I LOVE about this conversation with Heather is not only how open and vulnerable she is in what she shares and the wisdom that comes from that openness, but also the insight that you can play BIG in your career and command what you need from work on your terms to have Sustainable Ambition.
If you're seeking Sustainable Ambition and better work-life integration at any stage in your career, this is a conversation worth a listen. If you're just starting out, listen and learn from Heather's sage advice.
So great to be in conversation with you, Heather!
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1. On Starting Your Second Life Now with Geoff Tanner
Overview
As one of my first interviews on the Sustainable Ambition Podcast, I was thrilled to be joined by a friend and former client, Geoff Tanner, who is currently Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer at the J.M. Smucker Company. Not only is Geoff a successful marketer and growth-minded business leader and innovator, he's a present and wonderful father to his two children.
In this conversation we cover a lot of ground from starting one's second career sooner than you think to ruthless prioritization to the fact that people want to be led by genuine, authentic leaders who bring their whole selves to work. And, yes, I do ask him how he balances work and raising two young children.
I hope you find the conversation as helpful and insightful as I did. Thank you for being on, Geoff!
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