Host Julie Harris Oliver welcomes executive coach and former CFO Heather Pomerantz to discuss living your authentic self through clarifying core values and purpose. Heather shares how her early love of listening and connection, a long achievement-driven finance career, and a Unilever purpose program led her to coaching when she realized she was in physical pain from misalignment. They outline steps: identify core values from a word list, narrow them, define what each means personally, translate them into "I am" statements, assess alignment, and decide what must shift to integrate joy now rather than waiting for "someday." They explore freedom as a sample value, signs of misalignment like anxiety and Sunday dread, authenticity in interviewing, and how leaders can improve results and retention by understanding employees' values and reshaping responsibilities.

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work

00:36 Meet Heather Pomerantz

02:23 Heather's Coaching Origin

03:32 Achievement to Purpose

06:20 CFO Misalignment Wakeup

08:17 Living Authentic Self

08:53 Find Your Core Values

11:36 Define Values and Freedom

13:47 Check Alignment and Shift

15:23 Why Wait Integrate

19:29 Lead Through Values

22:04 Strengths Versus Values

28:15 Values in Career Transitions

30:56 Somatic Signs of Alignment

34:19 Closing Takeaways and Links

Dr. Matt Kodsi's book: A Story Tale - ABC's of the stories we tell ourselves

Host Julie Harris Oliver welcomes leadership coach and experience designer Rishikesh Tirumalai to discuss how "disruption" can mean returning to harmony with natural cycles, the body, and authenticity. Rishi shares his path from tech and solo travel to teaching and coaching, including how getting sober and working with a coach changed his trajectory, and reflects on being a young Indian man in a coaching world that often undervalues asking for help. They explore leaders finding integrity and fun in their roles, the courage of slowing down amid urgency culture, and the relationship between authenticity and activism in a colonizing power. Rishi also speaks about grieving his father's death, discovering inner stability, seeking agenda-free connection, and holding a seasonal intention of non-striving while listening for when action is needed.

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work

01:17 Rishi's Coaching Journey

01:48 Panama and Leaving Tech

03:58 Discovering Coaching and Sobriety

05:16 Outlier in Coaching Culture

07:18 Disruption and Family Roots

09:09 Alignment With Natural Cycles

11:46 Authenticity as Activism

12:53 Leaders Finding Fun

14:47 Holding Possibility Through Grief

16:02 Dad's Passing and Adulting

21:20 Expansion Without Striving

24:12 Non Striving in a Harsh World

28:29 Slowing Down as Disruption

33:22 Support Without an Agenda

36:03 North Star Fun and Care

36:42 Closing and Call to Action

Host Julie Harris Oliver welcomes coach Marie Smith, founder of Golden Hour Coaching, who shares her path from teacher to personal trainer to life and health coach after hearing a clear spiritual prompting to become a life coach. Marie discusses the idea of "living off menu," inspired by Glennon Doyle's story about ordering beyond the menu, and connects it to agency, permission, and creating a life beyond inherited expectations. The conversation explores purpose as "being" rather than "doing," women's conditioning around worth tied to productivity, domestic labor and mental load, and learning to receive help. Marie offers practical steps to begin: journal desires, list the reasons you think you can't, challenge them as if advising a friend, choose one small experiment, and act. She shares where to find her and a Stress SOS guide via text.

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work

00:37 Meet Marie Smith

01:33 Her Coaching Origin Story

03:41 Hearing the Call

04:34 Living Off Menu

08:06 Permission and Agency

09:05 Purpose as Being

12:08 Worthy Just Because

16:15 Moms Dads and Bedtime

17:57 The Menu We Inherit

19:04 Double Standards Trap

20:04 My Life Is Mine

20:53 Quiet the Inner Critic

23:50 Small Off Menu Experiments

26:58 Learning to Receive Help

28:53 Asking for Help After Surgery

30:59 Journal Your Next Step

33:50 Find Marie and Wrap Up