What if you could have more fulfillment and ease in your professional and personal life and still be ambitious?
Join Kathy Oneto, founder of Sustainable Ambition, for conversations with experts, authors, and friends on what it means to live with Sustainable Ambition. Learn concepts, tips, and tools to find Right Success, Right Aspiration, and Right Effort to craft a fulfilling career, on your terms, while still being ambitious and avoiding burnout.
Learn more to help you craft your career to support your life from decade to decade.
And remember, it’s not about finding work-life balance. It’s about creating personal reward, cultivating a regenerative career, and building work-life resilience.
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Could you be a skateboarder? Host Kathy Oneto suggests that we all should get inspired by skateboarders’ tenacity and persistence. Talk about being willing to fail and fail again. Ambitions aren’t time bound, nor is success. You can land the trick if you’re consistent and persistent.
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Read MoreInspired by the ambition of astronauts, host Kathy Oneto invites you to consider what it might look like to dial in your ambitions. Do you have big ambitions? Small ambitions? Just right ambitions—just right for you? Explore what it might look like to play with dialing in your ambitions to be the right aspiration for you and aligned to the right effort.
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Read MoreIn this first episode of 2023, host Kathy Oneto talks about how you might want to start your year. Are you someone who wants to blast off 🚀 or would you rather push off 🛶? What will support you best as you step into the new year?
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Read MoreIn this episode, Kathy Oneto, founder of Sustainable Ambition, closes out the yearlong series on planning and living a more sustainable+ambitious year.
In this episode, it’s time for the 12-month review. How did your year go? How did you do with your ambitions and making your life+work more sustainable? Kathy offers prompts and shares her own experiences as she guides us to think about what we’ve learned and what’s next for the new year.
A reminder that these episodes are good ones to do while out on a walk or making time for quiet reflection. You’ll likely want to pause the episode, think, take notes, and then hit play again. Have your notes app ready or have a journal nearby!
Happy holidays everyone and have a beautiful new year! I look forward to being with you in 2023. Cheers!
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Read MoreToday I’m happy to be in conversation with one of my besties, Carol Best! Carol and I have known each other for almost 15 years, and I wanted to have an informative yet fun conversation about how Carol keeps herself engaged in her work, how she’s learned to both step into her ambitions and navigate them across both work and life, and why she prioritizing stepping into being an upbeat, passionate, and optimistic leader.
Carol is a champion of personal purpose and lives it. We hear about that in this episode and how she is someone who supports other women in the workplace. I can attest to that having benefited from her support.
Carol - Thank you for sharing your personal journey with us and all your sage counsel. I learn from you all the time and benefit from your positive energy and optimism. I’m so lucky we met so many years ago!
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Read MoreToday I’m joined again by Al Dea, the founder of Betterwork Labs, an organization focused on helping companies create cultures where their people can thrive. Al is an author, speaker, podcast host, and researcher on workplace trends and talent development.
I had Al back for a second episode so we could go deeper and get Al’s perspective on Sustainable Ambition. I love how Sustainable Ambition takes on different meanings for different people, and Al shares that for him it’s about having the autonomy and agency to define how and where one wants to be ambitious, defining one’s own success. This aligns with the long-term view of Sustainable Ambition that we talk about and managing one’s life and work from decade to decade aligned with their own desires and sense of fulfillment.
In this conversation, we also talk about how the work world historically hasn’t armed people with alternative ways to think about and manage their careers and define their own success, how some companies and thought leaders are innovating to create these new norms, and Al’s counsel for stepping into agency to proactively stay on top of one’s career.
Al - This was another great conversation! Thanks for coming back and sharing your career management wisdom with us.
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Read MoreIn this Sustainable Ambition (SA) Quick Tip, host Kathy Oneto talks about finding purpose in your work and in your life where you are, rather than looking for it externally outside of yourself. She also offers a more accessible definition of purpose and provides examples that can broaden our view of what it can mean and how we can achieve it. It just might be easier than we think.
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Read MoreToday I’m joined by Tara McMullin, a writer, podcaster, and producer, to discuss her new book, “What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting.” Tara has also studied small business owners for over 13 years. She’s been an inspiration to me, and her wisdom has helped tremendously on my own journey of self-employment, getting me to rethink and figure out what works for me.
Her book is for anyone looking for a new approach to goal-setting, one that you might find better aligned to who you are and more satisfying, while still producing results. In this conversation, we discuss what brought Tara to rethink her approach to goal setting, the importance of examining one’s life and making conscious choices, the power of reframing towards practice and commitments, and why she’s found the new approach much more satisfying while helping her create substantive results.
Tara - I absolutely loved being in conversation with you! And I loved the book and appreciate the perspectives and practices you are offering people to help them live a life and do work that is more in sync with who they are, what they want, and how they want to live in the world. So good!
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Read MoreToday I’m joined by Jennie Blumenthal, author of the new book, “Corporate Rehab: ditch the hustle culture and thrive again.” After 20 years as an executive in Corporate America, Jennie chose to leave during the pandemic pivot after realizing that she had lost herself and was no longer leading the life she wanted to live.
In this conversation, Jennie shares her career journey and what led her to make her pivot, why it’s easy to fall into hustle culture, how it’s important to step back and re-evaluate and align our values with our work, and how her REHAB methodology can help put people on a more fulfilling path. Where is Jennie on the other side? Having reached her goal of putting more life in her life.
Jennie - thank you so much for being on and sharing your experiences, insights, and REHAB method with us. We champion your personal purpose of helping to heal the C-suite across Corporate America to have a positive impact across all organizational ranks. We’ll be cheering you on as you take each step, one at a time.
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Read MoreToday I’m joined by Todd Cherches, CEO of BigBlueGumball, a NYC-based management consulting firm specializing in leadership development and executive coaching, and author of "VisuaLeadership: Leveraging the Power of Visual Thinking in Leadership and in Life."
In this conversation, we talk about Todd’s book, the power of visual thinking, and how visual thinking can be applied through visual images, mental models, metaphors, and stories to be more effective in your thinking, decision-making, and communication. Visual thinking can help us lead more powerfully both at work and in life.
Todd - You’ve packed so many useful tools into your book! And, you give more depth of insight in this conversation. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.
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Read MoreAre you a hybrid or remote worker? And, did you know that in today’s remote and hybrid work environments that many of us are feeling disconnected from each other?
72% of employees say they aren’t able to socialize enough when they’re remote (Workplace Intelligence)
60% of remote workers say WFH (working from home) makes them feel less connected to their colleagues (Pew Research)
That’s a problem. Why? Because having friends, relationships, and a community at work has huge benefits! That means each of us needs to be proactive in making connections and friendships at work.
In this Sustainable Ambition (SA) Quick Tip, host Kathy Oneto talks about all the benefits and offers tips on how to double down on building your work relationships.
The Takeaway: If we choose or have to work from home, over-invest in building relationships.
The Action: What’s one action you’ll take today to start or deepen a relationship at work?
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Read MoreToday I’m joined by Luis Velasquez, an expert in resilience. Luis is an Executive Coach, Stanford University facilitator, and an HBR Ascent contributor. He is also an avid endurance athlete and a brain tumor survivor.
In our conversation, we dig into the definition of and Luis’s equation for resilience, which = Commitment + Persistence x Optimism. We hear core themes of what resilience truly looks like through Luis sharing his own personal experiences from his childhood in Guatemala to surviving a brain tumor to completing endurance events. What comes through is that resilience isn’t a superpower. Sure, resilience might start as being about survival, but Luis notes that it is really about adapting and thriving. He also believes that we are all already resilient. We just need to unlock it and take the next step.
Luis - It was wonderful to have you on! I appreciated hearing your personal journey and lessons on resilience, as well as how you are shaping what Sustainable Ambition can really look like through your own life and work choices.
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Read MoreIn this episode, I’m happy to be joined by my business school classmate, Mike Trigg. Mike has worked for twenty-five years in Silicon Valley as a founder, executive, and investor in dozens of venture-funded technology start-ups. And now he’s turned his attention to creative pursuits, having just published his first novel, a corporate thriller called “Bit Flip.”
In this fun conversation where Mike and I talk about the book, we discuss what it’s like to have an entrepreneurial career in tech, the role of ambition in Silicon Valley and how it plays a central role in the book, the shifting view of the tech industry today, and how an unbridled and over-abundance of ambition is resulting in negative impacts in our world. The book is meant to be a cultural critique and to get people thinking. Mike wanted “Bit Flip” to “be a cautionary tale for people coming to Silicon Valley embarking on their careers to say, ‘I need to keep this in balance. I need to do this in a way that is sustainable, not just for two years of doing a startup but for the 40 years of my career.’”
I encourage you to pick up the book for a fun, energetic read that will make you reflect on your own ambitions.
Mike - I loved this conversation! Congratulations on the book and can’t wait to read the next one!
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Read MoreThis episode builds on the series that kicked off the year on planning and living a more sustainable+ambitious year. Kathy Oneto, founder of Sustainable Ambition, is back with Part 2 of the Q3 Review to now focus on Q4 planning.
Here she talks about dialing in your ambitions for the end of year, creating a sustaining plan to avoid the end of year crush, and has you focus, despite her own resistance, to looking ahead to 2023 to make initial plans for making it all more sustainable if you expect the fourth quarter to be demanding.
A reminder that E79 and this episode are good ones to do while out on a walk or making time for quiet reflection. You’ll likely want to pause the episode, think, take notes, and then hit play again. Have your notes app ready or have a journal nearby!
Here’s to an ambitious, sustainable, and joyful end to the year!
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Read MoreIn this episode, Kathy Oneto, founder of Sustainable Ambition, builds on the series that kicked off the year on planning and living a more sustainable+ambitious year. In this episode, we check in on your Q3 progress. Then in Part 2, we’ll look at planning for Q4 to avoid the end-of-year crush and make our end to the year more sustainable.
A reminder that these episodes are good ones to do while out on a walk or making time for quiet reflection. You’ll likely want to pause the episode, think, take notes, and then hit play again. Have your notes app ready or have a journal nearby!
As we look back to Q3, we want to think about: How have things gone? What worked? What didn’t work? Kathy shares her experiences and learning on working with discernment and when to operate from this or that or this and that around goal setting, free-thinking vs. directed attention, and thinking vs. doing times.
Now it’s your turn! What did you learn, and what do you want to practice next?
And be sure to listen in for Part 2 to plan a sustainable close to the year.
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Read MoreJoining me today is Stephanie Movahhed, a leadership coach based in my hometown of San Francisco. In this conversation, Stephanie talks us through her career journey and offers learning and tips from her personal and coaching experiences.
Stephanie has had an interesting career full of pivots that have kept her challenged and growing. Her experiences are a great illustration of staying engaged and in action to help identify one’s next career arc. What comes through is how Stephanie has always been guided by what was important to her and her values, interests, curiosities, and what was calling her next. She also shares how she has leaned into experimentation to de-risk career transitions.
We close with Stephanie offering thoughts on how to step into living and working aligned with one’s values, how to build supporting routines, and how one can coach themselves if they don’t have access to a resource.
Stephanie - thank you for sharing your journey and your tips for navigating pivots in one’s career! I truly believe your story is an inspiration for how others can navigate their career journeys with more joy, confidence, and ease.
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Read MoreToday I’m joined by Jeffrey Shaw, author of The Self Employed Life and host of the podcast of the same name. Jeffrey is a champion of self-employment and through his book, podcast, institute, and coaching guides people to lead a successful life of self-employment.
In this conversation, we hear what pulled Jeffrey into self-employment for his entire career and what’s given him the focus to support others choosing this courageous path. We cover a lot of ground discussing what calls people to self-employment, the importance of giving yourself a runway before making the leap, getting clear on who you are and your offer, accepting the integration between our businesses and our lives, and much more.
Jeffrey - Thank you so much for being on! I so appreciate all the work you do to champion self-employment and to guide those courageous souls choosing this path.
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Read MoreToday I’m joined by Al Dea, the founder of Betterwork Labs, an organization focused on helping companies create cultures where their people can thrive. Al is an author, speaker, podcast host, and researcher on workplace trends and talent development.
In this conversation, we talk about key aspects of building a sustainable career. Both Al and I believe in paying attention, following your curiosities, and the power of community. Al shares more on the importance of being self-reflective while also getting into action, building your career operating system, and fostering a mindset for career growth. Al offers a lot of great wisdom bombs in here!
Al - I love what you champion and appreciate your ambition to create better work for all. Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights with us!
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Read MoreToday I’m joined by Leanne Hughes, an Australian businesswoman, entrepreneur, and high-performance business consultant who helps organizations lift performance through people. Leanne is also the host of two podcasts: First Time Facilitator and Leanne Hughes’ Work and Live Large.
In this conversation, we hear about Leanne’s own career journey, what led her to find her zone of genius, and what took her out on her own leaving Corporate. We learn about one of Leanne’s core philosophies around treating life like an experiment. Leanne is a prime example of someone who leans into taking action and learning by doing. For her, a paradox is that it isn’t confidence that gets her into action, but rather knowing that being in action is what actually breeds confidence.
What I loved in this conversation was hearing how Leanne is continuously moving towards how she operates best in the world and leans into what’s possible for herself, just as she is championing with Work and Live Large, through which she helps you imagine what's possible is possible for you.
This was such an energizing conversation, Leanne! Thank you for being on and sharing your journey and wisdom with us all.
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Read MoreIn this episode, I’m joined by my friend, Wade Brill, who was on the podcast with me early on in Episode 5. Wade is a Mindfulness Coach, Podcaster and Speaker.
Wade and I got together to discuss Pace, a topic we’re passionate about as it shows up in the work that we both do. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know that I’ve talked about pace on a few other episodes in the past year: Episode 52: On Setting Your Own Pace and Episode 39 on Rethinking & Shaping Your Time.
We thought it would be interesting to explore this topic further and share our own experiences working with and experiencing pace.
This is the second episode where we talk about ambitions, goals, and pace. How does pace show up when we consider ambitions and where that intersects with life and work? We hope through these two episodes that we raise your awareness of the power of thinking about and being intentional with pace both in your daily experiences and how you manage your personal and professional ambitions.
It’s been a pleasure, Wade! What thought-provoking conversations, and I was even a part of them! These discussions have further deepened my own consideration of pace in my life and my decision-making.
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Read More