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 But what if that story is outdated?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.
136. The Summer Books Series: Looking For Inspiration For Your Next Step
Overview
Over the months of June and July, I am sharing books that have really delighted me. Some of them have been written by past guests, while others are new books that have inspired me to think more deeply about sustainability.
My hope in sharing these books with you is that you will be inspired, as I was, and will want to think differently about how you operate this summer. Through this summer book series, perhaps you’ll start asking important questions, like, “What do I really want? What is enough? What is worth it? Where might I be settling? Where and when can I allow myself to choose sustainability?”
Today’s episode is for those who need inspiration to find inspiration.
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135. The Summer Books Series: Ask the Big Questions
Overview
Over the months of June and July, I will be sharing books that have really delighted me. Some of them have been written by past guests, while others are new books that have inspired me to think more deeply about sustainability.
My hope in sharing these books with you is that you will be inspired, as I was, and will want to think differently about how you operate this summer. Through this summer book series, perhaps you’ll start asking important questions, like, “What do I really want? What is enough? What is worth it? Where might I be settling? Where and when can I allow myself to choose sustainability?”
Today’s episode offers points for reflection to inspire you to think about what is worth your ambition and effort. What do you do to sustain yourself to support putting in the effort?
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134. The Summer Books Series: On Slowing Down and Simplification
Overview
This summer and over the four episodes in June and July, I will be sharing books that have really delighted me. Some of them have been written by past guests, while others are new books that have inspired me to think more deeply about sustainability.
My hope in sharing these books with you is that you will be inspired, as I was, and will want to think differently about how you operate this summer. Through this summer book series, perhaps you’ll start asking important questions, like, “What do I really want? What is enough? What is worth it? Where might I be settling? Where and when can I allow myself to choose sustainability?”
This episode is for those of us who may need permission to ease into summer and to play a little.
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133. How Art and Creativity Transform Our Well-Being with Tasha Golden, PhD
Overview
How can the arts support our ability to thrive and flourish in life and work?
Humans have been making, sharing, and interacting with art since time immemorial and modern research bears out its positive impacts on our wellbeing. Art helps us connect with ourselves and each other, it helps us make sense of our stories, and it helps us heal.
As part of my continuing conversations about creativity and how it intersects with Sustainable Ambition, I’m talking with Dr. Tasha Golden about the role of art in our evolution and its power to help us express ourselves more fully.
We explore the dangers of “robotic” behavioral norms to our physical and mental wellbeing and how reimagining identity as an evolving narrative rather than a fixed point can help us let go of (some of) our angst and uncertainty as we grow
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132. Prioritizing Joy and Creativity in Our Lives with Emily Shaw
Overview
If asked, most of us would likely say that we want to live with a sense of meaning and purpose. But how many of us truly put that intention front and center in how we make choices for ourselves?
In this episode, I’m continuing conversations that explore how creative practices can help us come to a deeper understanding of our ambitions and support us as we seek to live and work in meaningful ways.
Podcast executive producer and audio artist, Emily Shaw, joins me to talk about her pursuit of meaning and enjoyment in her life, following her curiosity, and finding her love of storytelling and a through-line around human connection. We also explore how Emily sustains her personal creative practices, the importance of “doable” goals, and the benefits of embracing discomfort.
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131. The Art of Visual Thinking with Doug Neill
Overview
Can engaging in creative practices help us on our journey of Sustainable Ambition?
Over the next several episodes, I will be exploring what and how creative practices can help us understand the goals we want to pursue, navigate the changes and evolution of our ambitions, and sustain us along the way. Can we apply creative practices to live and work in more fulfilling and satisfying ways?
To begin answering those questions, I am joined today by Doug Neill, founder of Verbal to Visual.
Doug and I discussed the impact of visual thinking and how it can unlock creativity and improve comprehension. Doug believes that even if you don’t consider yourself creative you can discover doodling and sketchnoting as a powerful thinking tool. We also talked about how visualization can help us better understand our commitments and aid in our pursuit of Sustainable Ambition.
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130. Embracing How Our Ambitions Shift and Evolve
Overview
Do you have a hard time allowing your ambitions to shift and change? Do you feel uncomfortable when at times you don’t feel as committed to your ambitions?
These are among the dominant narratives and conventions about success and ambition that I want to challenge, so that we can thrive in our lives and in our work.
Today I want to dig into why evolving ambitions are inevitable, and even desirable, and offer three alternative ways to reframe ambition so it is sustainable over the course of our lives.
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129. The Life Brief: The Creative Practice to Create the Life You Really Want with Bonnie Wan
Overview
Are you afraid to ask yourself what you really, really want?
It can be daunting, but getting clear about what you want is critical to creating the life you desire.
Today’s guest presents a compelling example of what it looks like to live boldly, with intention and imagination, from the inside out.
Bonnie Wan joins me to discuss the journey of developing The Life Brief and expanding it from her own personal practice to something she now teaches others and brought to life in her new book, why you have to get messy to get clarity, and how to courageously create the life you want.
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128. Creating Sustainable Support Structures with Arianna Taboada
Overview
Having support structures in place is vital to sustaining our life and work ambitions particularly as we transition through different life stages.
Support structures take many forms, large and small, internal and external, across work and life. Entrepreneurs and people who are self-employed have an acute need for strong support structures because they tend to wear all the hats and stretch themselves too thin.
Add in pregnancy and childbirth, and the need for strong support systems is even more intense for women entrepreneurs managing and running their businesses while also caring for new life and recovering from birth.
As part of my periodic series where I invite guests across disciplines and experiences to share their insights into shifting narratives of work and life, I spoke with Arianna Taboada. She shares her unique perspective on the need for support systems, particularly for expecting entrepreneurs.
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127. From Academia, to Diplomacy, to Bourbon: Ashley Donahey’s Journey to Entrepreneurship
Overview
We all have ambitions for both our personal and professional lives. The question is how do we pursue them sustainably and with resilience so we can get fulfillment and joy from both.
In this new post-pandemic environment, we need new ideas, narratives, and models to consider and to test for ourselves.
As part of a new periodic series, I’m speaking with people from a variety of disciplines about how they live and work. In the next two episodes, I’ll be speaking to entrepreneurs about their experiences with the ambition it takes to start a new business and the resilience required to make it sustainable.
In today’s conversation with Ashley Donahey, we’ll touch on how personal and professional dreams enrich our lives, how our ambitions evolve and take shape as we grow, and why it’s so important to find ways to enjoy ourselves along the journey.
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126. Building Resilience: Practical Strategies for Personal and Professional Well-Being with Marie-Helene Pelletier
Overview
If you’re feeling exhausted, overwhelmed or burned out, you’re not alone. But rather than push or grind through it as so many of us try to do, today’s guest offers a different approach: a resilience plan.
A resilience plan is a proactive strategy for managing our resilience, even as external factors impact us. Building resilience isn’t just for individuals either, it’s vital for the health of our teams.
In this conversation, Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier and I talk about consciously building resilience so that we can operate at our best and achieve our goals and ambitions without burning out.
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125. Strategies for Navigating Ambiguity and Finding Clarity in Life and Work
Overview
As we leave January behind, many of us are still in the process of figuring out what we want out of this year.
When we’re setting goals or ambition seeking, it’s not uncommon to be unsure of what we want, while at the same time longing to be clear on the path forward.
That desire for clarity can put us on a path of aiming for what we should be doing or pursuing. But if our ambitions are going to be sustainable, we have to make them our own.
Living with the ambiguity as we define our own ambitions can feel challenging. Today, I want to offer some ways of navigating the uncertainty with a bit more ease.
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124. Navigating the Fluid Future of Work with Connie Steele
Overview
The world of work is changing. And it’s not just about what industries are growing or shrinking. Attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and motivations around work are all shifting.
It’s more important than ever to be clear on who we are and what we want in order to navigate the evolving landscape.
Connie Steele joins me today to discuss the fluid future of work and what it will take to succeed at leading ourselves and others in 2024 and beyond.
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123. 2024: Think Differently
Overview
Welcome to 2024! As we look to a new year, I’m offering some ideas and reflections to set the tone as you craft the year ahead.
I’ll talk about what the James Webb Space Telescope can teach us about shifting our own paradigms and give you several prompts to help you dial in your Sustainable Ambitions for 2024.
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122. 2023 Year-End Reflections
Overview
As we end 2023, I’d like to offer a few prompts and reflections to help you stay grounded as you close out this year and head into 2024.
I truly believe that self-reflection is an important and powerful tool to help us learn about ourselves and craft a more positive and empowering narrative, with learning we can take forward into the future.
My hope is that these ideas and prompts will help you end your year with a little more peace and ease.
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121. The Practice of Sustainable Ambition: A Conversation with Sonya Thomas
Overview
In today’s special episode, my dear friend Sonya Thomas turns the tables and interviews me.
We explore how the concept of Sustainable Ambition has evolved for me through the conversations I’ve had with my guests on the show and my research. We discuss the importance of defining success on personal terms, aligning ambitions with personal motivations, and the necessity of taking breaks.
Sonya shares some of her own journey and experience with ambition and navigating career pivots, and I share updates on my book project.
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