As always, Epic Career Tales aims to inspire and educate you with the real life chronicles of people who have overcome challenges, even adversity, to make huge changes in their career that have improved their quality of life and enhanced their sense of self-worth.
Subscribe to Epic Career Tales on iTunes!
2018
January
Listen to Michelle Dale’s Epic Career Tale
Michelle Dale has a life that many would dream of. She can work from anywhere, at any time as a digital nomad. She has managed to make a sustainable living out of her virtual assistant business while traveling the world with her family. A real dream! If you always wondered how you could leave your routine life, discover many incredible places in the world while earning great income, find out how Michelle’s story can get you to that nomadic way of life.
February
Listen to Kareen Walsh’s Epic Career Tale
Kareen Walsh is a Solutions Strategist, Career Coach, Author, and Personal Adviser. She has been running her own coaching and consulting practice, Revampologist, for the last 5 years servicing clients in Colorado, New York, Montana, and San Francisco. Kareen loves to focus on personal and professional development because she believes one can not thrive without it. Working with C-Suite leaders, individuals, and start-up founders, she has the ability to disarm anyone with her empathetic ear and get to the root of what is holding them back so she can help them propel forward.
Mars
Listen to Ellen Fisher’s Epic Career Tale
Ellen has a passion for volunteering and giving back as well as a great ability to network a room and make everyone in it feel important. She also shared with us the secret of actually go in, ask for what you want and get it. Her current mission is to offer young people the knowledge, skills and resources that are helping them bring their bright ideas into reality NOW so that they can continue to be creators and contributors in even bigger and better ways.
2017
January
Listen to Signe Wilkinson’s Epic Career Tale
While you can see from Wikipedia that Signe Wilkinson was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning, she measures her success more by her impact. Listen to our interview to find out more about the serendipitous events that led Signe to a career as an editorial cartoonist and learn what it takes to achieve success in her field. To see Signe’s excellent work visit her website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
February
Listen to Mike Burton’s Epic Career Tale
Mike Burton knew from a young age that making people laugh was his calling. According to him he had no other talents or interests. Sure, he had to “sling shots” for a while before he was bringing in an income, but he’s so glad that he never has to explain what is in a rum and coke again.
March
Listen to Darryn Zewalk’s Epic Career Tale
As a music minister and social media sensation, Darryn Zewalk has been using music, and now also the spoken word and books, to bring encouragement to the discouraged masses. Darryn knew from a young age that music was a God-given gift.
April
Listen to Patti Hunt’s Epic Career Tale
Patti Hunt retired from teaching high school science in Philadelphia expecting to work many, many more years, but not just because she has to sustain herself financially – because she found a better way to serve the mission that led her to teaching in the first place AND a better way to sustain herself financially by leading distribution for North America for USI-USA.
May
Listen to Patrick Macias’ Epic Career Tale
Patrick Macias’ story is inspiring because he decided at a young age he knew what he liked (Japanese cartoons), and dove in head first. This passion put him on a path to becoming published and paid as an early adult, and he profits and prospers from this passion. Now editor-in-chief at Otaku USA is just one of many prominent roles that Patrick fulfills.
June
Listen to David Brennan’s Epic Career Tale
David Brennan was CEO of AstraZeneca. He took a very unconventional path in comparison to his counterparts. He retired years ago, but was recently engaged to be an interim CEO for Alexion Pharmaceuticals, while also helping them find their “permanent” CEO. Once he did, he was asked to become Chairman of the Board.
July
Listen to Stefano Mini’s Epic Career Tale
Stefano Mini befuddled his family and countrymen and women by choosing to master eCommerce at a time when the internet wasn’t very prevalent in Italy. As with many success stories, this didn’t happen overnight, but within several years. Now Stefano has the freedom and flexibility he desires in his career. In our interview Stefano talked about must have books for entrepreneurs and budding entrepreneurs to read, here they are: Marketing Management by Philip Kotler, the hardcover edition and the paperback edition as a cheaper alternative, and Breakthrough Advertising by Eugene Schwartz– this book is rare, but there are PDF versions online.
August
Listen to Jordan Boyes’ Epic Career Tale
Jordan Boyes dove in full force after carefully planning, learning and networking. What he has achieved is Epic, and I know there are a lot of readers who will be inspired by his story, which could be similar to yours some day.
A strong independent, recognizable real estate brand was lacking in Saskatoon, so Jordan Boyes decided to create one and he broke records!
September
Listen to Nikki Goss’ Epic Career Tale
Nikki Goss, had a rock bottom of sorts, where the pain of going on as it was was scarier than committing to action. She got help, and that help along with her action transformed her self-image to new heights. Not only was she taking better care of herself, but she felt more capable of taking care of everyone else, and sought to be Mrs. Virginia to find new ways of caring for more people.
October
Listen to Alison Laesser-Keck’s Epic Career Tale
Alison Laesser-Keck and her husband Bryan are Event Designers who have now figured out how to balance creating huge masterpiece events and traveling the world to keep their inspiration keen and their spirits high. They also balance the design and creation of these huge hundred thousand dollar events while also running a multi-million dollar business.
November
Listen to Jessica Serran’s Epic Career Tale
Jessica Serran, a full time artist from a small farm in rural Ontario, managed to overcome the cliché struggle of the starving artist. She is now making art at an international level, traveling, lecturing, and doing the things that completely light her up. She is also working on helping other artists find their way to thrive in this potentially terrifying career.
December
Listen to Katherine Glass’ Epic Career Tale
Katherine Glass honed her craft as an energy healer for as many years as it would take to earn a PhD. Since she was a child, she also had psychic abilities. She and her husband, Jonathan Glass, help people holistically, physically and emotionally. Her next goals are to expand to teach bigger workshops and retreats outside of the Boston area, continue and expand her training of other aspiring psychics, and change even more people’s lives.
2016
January
Listen to Brian Quinn’s Epic Career Tale
When we are little, we all dream big. We start as blank slates with open minds and imagine grand futures. For most of us, somewhere along the way we learn limits disguised as realism. Our dreams evolve, and we often trade-in big dreams for seemingly more obtainable ones. Thankfully, Brian Quinn did not. In our first Epic Career Tale of 2016, Brian describes how it feels to be pulled to your destiny by your passion. In his case, his destiny was to be a rockstar, and is now touring and writing an album with Candlebox, a band that was very influential to him in his youth.
February
Listen to Jack’s Morrison’s Epic Career Tale
IT was Jack’s second career, and the change definitely paid off for him. 20+ years later, he has had a thriving career at SAP, a company that has given him opportunities to lead all around the world. Even in a large company like SAP, there’s no such thing as “job security.” Jack had to manufacture his own. Learn how Jack continued to thrive in one of the largest international technology companies, even amid tremendous change.
March
Listen to Mary Thomas Pickett’s Epic Career Tale
Mary Thomas Pickett was not unlike most wayward millennials, believing, “Success is a long shot, so I’m going to have my fun.” The thing that she thankfully realized was that her talent and her dreams were being squandered. It didn’t happen overnight, though there was that one dark night, with everything she owned in the world strewn across the road, that made her realize change was necessary.
April
Listen to Ariell Johnson’s Epic Career Tale
Ariell Johnson didn’t wait very long in her Bookkeeping role before realizing that “some day” doesn’t always happen. She designed her ideal future based on dynamic passions, interests and talents, and has created not only a brick and mortar happy place, but a community of people who previously had no place to be themselves together. Not only is Ariell the founder and owner of Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, she is also the first black woman to open a comic book store on the East Coast.
May
Listen to Dan Hunt’s Epic Career Tale
Is it possible that we can do anything we believe we can do?
After studying this for 8 years, I can say, unequivocally, YES. But then why aren’t we all eatingcake by the ocean? Ah. The answer is belief. Dan Hunt has always believed that he can do anything, and he has had not just one epic career as a Director, but almost was a pro athlete, enjoyed a successful career in broadcasting, and was an Adjunct Professor at Villanova and also had another top secret job.
June
Listen to Dr. Alan Zimmerman’s Epic Career Tale
Dr. Zimmerman knew from an early age that he wanted to help people, but how evolved over the years, and it would appear that he was very right about his calling. Students at Minnesota State University were so hungry for what Dr. Zimmerman was teaching that they were willingly waiting two years to take his course. Since leaving academia, his lessons have been highly demanded by Fortune 100 companies.
July
Listen to Angela Moseley’s Epic Career Tale
Angela is an employee of Epic Careering, but there is so much more to Angela’s story than just what she does to support the writing and social media outreach efforts our company. While the hype, both positive and negative, over this “gig economy” continues to explode, if you can embrace it like Angela, you will find that there is freedom in not being chained to a full-time job with benefits that enables you to pursue your passions and reach a level of fulfillment that can’t be reached by the security and stuff available through a regular paycheck.
August
Listen to Marji J. Sherman’s Epic Career Tale
Marji is a PR virtuoso turned Social Media master on Twitter. We’re just lucky enough to interview her, but so was Inc Magazine. If you have never faced adversity in your life, her story may not resonate with you, and vice versa. However, if you have ever lost someone dear, suffered from a chronic illness, been told that you would never achieve your dream, or completely faked a strength to make a job work, then Marji’s story will resonate with you.
September
Listen to Daylin Leach’s Epic Career Tale
Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach changed my mind about what being a politician means. I might have continued to believe that in order to become a politician, you had to be vanilla, tone down your EPICness, cohort with crooked people, or live in constant scrutiny. You may disagree with Senator Leach’s platform and his party, but I hope you will appreciate his candor, personality and his reasons for pursuing the EPIC career of a politician. We also have video of our interview on YouTube.
October
Listen to Chris Beveridge’s Epic Career Tale
Chris Beveridge took the leap to self-employment when his kids were 1 and 3 years old. Now he has teenagers with whom he enjoys a strong relationship. They are looking ahead at their futures hopeful that they, like their father, can find fulfillment applying their talents and pursuing their passion. Learn more about how Chris gradually built a passion-led business, which he eventually sold, and then started another.
November
Listen to Jennifer Leary’s Epic Career Tale
With her experience as a Philadelphia firefighter, Jennifer Leary was exposed to a need that tugged at her heart strings and pulled her to undertake a long journey to blazing a trail for the sake of pets, the family members who are also left homeless after a fire. No one has successfully launched such a non-profit effort as this, and she had to and continues to face questions of whether it’s really possible, and yet it’s happening through her work with Red Paw Emergency Relief Team.
December
Listen to Kristin Naigus’ Epic Career Tale
When we think of musicians, we often think of those who made it big, usually singer songwriters, or composers. What about the many instrumentalists who make the world of music so rich and varied? Kristin Naigus is one such instrumentalist. A love of music captured her so completely that she switched her potential career trajectory and now primarily plays the oboe.
2015
January
Listen to Jennifer Robinson, Esquire‘s Epic Career Tale
Jennifer had a near-death experience that changed her life, and her career. She was enjoying her career as a litigator, so this was not a change that would have probably occurred, had it not been for one fateful accident. Her story is very inspiring. We have included an additional interview with Jennifer in our January 2015 Newsletter. Please join our mailing list below and request this issue by e-mailing info@epiccareering.com if you are not already on our list and wish to receive it.
For find out more about how Jennifer now helps professionals and companies be more strategic about their networking endeavors, check out Purposeful Networking.
February
Listen to Neen James‘ Epic Career Tale
This Aussie productivity powerhouse shares with us how growing up in Sydney Harbor shaped her success, and what she believes are the keys to being Ah-mazing. We had a lot of fun talking about the value of challenges, such as her marathon, to success, as well as how a brand can make success easy. We have included an additional interview with Neen in our February 2015 Newsletter. Please join our mailing list below and request this issue by e-mailing info@epiccareering.com if you are not already on our list and wish to receive it.
March
Listen to John Hollinger‘s Epic Career Tale
John has had the privilege of working in the Philadelphia Phillies organization for 15 years since graduating from Ursinus College with a degree in Math and Computer Science. Now a Coordinator of Retail Merchandising, John has enjoyed the excitement of the industry and the organization, including being able to ride on a float in the World Series parade. John had to give up a few things to pursue this career, though. A lot of our clients have a love of sports and wonder if they could ever land a job in the industry. Let John’s Epic Career Tale inspire you and help you decide if you are willing to do what it takes to work in one of the most exciting industries for one of the most prestigious organizations.
Our 9th Anniversary issue!
Listen to Morgan Berman‘s Epic Career Tale
Morgan was very hopeful as a young girl. So, like most of us, the “real world” was a bit crushing. She made what most would consider valiant attempts to land a job that fulfilled her and enabled her to make the big contribution she’d always wanted to, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that, in those jobs, her growth and her contribution were ultimately stifled. She made big changes in her career, created a company that helps a huge movement toward sustainability progress, and rediscovered that young hopeful girl who thought if she believed hard enough, she could make what she wanted real.
June
Listen to Emily Allen‘s Epic Career Tale
Emily “fell into” recruiting and HR, as most people in it do. She had some traditional corporate jobs, but is now leading the people movement at one of the hottest digital marketing companies on the rise, Seer Interactive, as Director of Employee Development. Move over, tradition. Make way for innovation and progress. Emily gets to implement some of the newest, and even experimental, methodologies of people development, such as UNLIMITED PAID TIME OFF! Hear about Emily’s vision of how she and Seer Interactive are transforming the relationship between “Human Resources” and the people who make a company what it is.
July
Listen to Julie Hancher‘s Epic Career Tale
Julie was raised in an environmentally conscious home, and had a penchant for writing about how we can save the planet from as young as 4th grade. Like most graduates, she was uncertain which direction she should take her career, especially since had decided that a career in law was not for her. Julie is the first person to tell you that blogging isn’t necessarily the path to financial freedom that some gurus may proclaim, but had it not been for her decision to turn an angering situation into an awareness mission, she may have found herself careering aimlessly in pursuit of something that would spark her internal flame. Listen to our interview to learn more about how her passion evolved into a career she hadn’t planned and a successful business.
August
Listen to Berlinda Garnett‘s Epic Career Tale
Berlinda’s father must have known what he was doing when he encouraged Berlinda, now and Producer at Fox29 in Philadelphia, and her sister to read the newspaper and discuss how a story could be more positive. He planted a seed that became a calling. What does a calling feel like? I think Berlinda describes it accurately – a burden AND a blessing. What I love about Berlinda’s story is that with her optimistic, find-the-silver-lining viewpoint, she has changed my perspective of the media and the news. Listen to our interview to learn more about how this Philly girl grew into an Emmy award-winning producer and journalist who has the power and perspective to shift paradigms toward the positive.
September
Listen to Tim Pash‘s Epic Career Tale
Tim is Director at the Philadelphia Microsoft Technology Center and has enjoyed an 18-year bi-coastal career with Microsoft. He learned very early in his career what it took to rise to the occasion of opportunities and has been able to exploit a rare combination of skills to create a brand for himself that has led to amazing career opportunities. He shares the secrets of succeeding at Microsoft and talks about the opportunities available RIGHT NOW.
October
Listen to Jim Kerr‘s Epic Career Tale
Jim is Vice President of Corporate Communications at Unisys. Do you think as a young boy he aspired to be in corporate communications? No. He was just an avid reader and enthusiastic writer. Listen to our interview to hear what Jim would tell his young self about his dreams of being a writer and the corporate success he would eventually achieve. Learn what it takes to be successful in corporate communications and public relations. Get acquainted with who Jim is as a writer outside of the office, as well.
November
Listen to Melinda Emerson‘s Epic Career Tale
Melinda grew up, as many of us do, balancing the tightrope of wanting to be accepted and wanting to be exceptional. She chose exceptional, and is now accepted into an elite group – best selling authors. As the Small Biz Lady, America’s #1 Small Business Expert, inspired by Oprah (and who among us isn’t,) she has built a media empire. Up next, a television show. Keep Melinda Emerson on your radar, and check out succeedasyourownboss.com and her YouTube channel to gain boulder-sized nuggets of business wisdom and enter the 12 days of Giveaways.
December
Listen to Jennifer Ghazzouli’s Epic Career Tale
From working as a bench chemist for the Philadelphia Police Department to leading global hiring strategy for QVC, Jennifer has gained a lot of personal experience and offers insight about making a huge career shift. Learn how she knew it was time to change, how she went about exploring various opportunities, and what ultimately led her to a career that fulfills her, provides her with challenges that expand her horizons in ways that excite her while leveraging her natural talents, and enables her the opportunity to make a contribution that she finds meaningful.
Like our interviews? Sign-up for our monthly newsletter to read the written portions of our interviews and get the latest Epic Careering news!
2 responses to “Epic Career Tales”
[…] Epic Career Tales […]
[…] Epic Career Tales […]