Latest Careerrelaunch Podcast Episodes
Second Act Masterclass: 6 Key Takeaways From 100 Episodes
Second Act Stories - October 18, 2021 12:05 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsWe’re hitting a major milestone – the 100th episode of the Second Act Stories podcast. Over the past two-and-a-half years, we’ve met and profiled some amazing people. Many are pursuing not-for-profit work. Some have started a new business. And others have turned a hobby into a full-time pursui...
A Perfectly-Blended Second Act: Cop & Reporter Start A Winery
Second Act Stories - October 04, 2021 00:13 - 15 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsToday's episode comes from Woodinville, Washington and our interview with Jerry Riener and Jennifer Sullivan. Jerry is a sergeant for the Woodinville Police Department. Jennifer is a journalist having worked for both the Seattle Times and KOMO-TV, the ABC news affiliate in Seattle region. Like...
An Unusual Road To Celebrity Trainer
Second Act Stories - September 14, 2021 09:33 - 13 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsRobert Brace grew up in London -- the eldest son of a single mother who emigrated from Ghana. His family expected him to pursue a traditional career -- a lawyer, accountant or doctor. But at the age of 15, he fell in love with the world of dance earning scholarships to the London Contemporary Da...
Nasim's Second Act: This Overnight Success Took 7 Years
Second Act Stories - August 04, 2021 21:01 - 16 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsNasim Alikhani is the owner and executive chef of Sofreh, an amazing Persian restaurant in Brooklyn, New York. The restaurant opened in 2018 to rave reviews from The New York Times, Food & Wine, Saveur and The Food Network. The restaurant is consistently booked weeks in advance. Sofreh is Nasi...
Ballerina To Barrister: Melody's Surprising Second Act
Second Act Stories - July 06, 2021 11:31 - 19 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsMelody Lynch fell in love with the ballet. She started dancing at 3 and made it in the professional ranks by the age of 15. She continued ballet studies at Butler University and after graduation landed a position with the North Carolina Dance Theatre where she worked for several years. But her...
Next Move, Best Move...22 Minutes With Author Kimberly Cummings
Second Act Stories - June 08, 2021 11:13 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsWe sit down for a face-to-face interview with Kimberly B. Cummings. Her first book, "Next Move, Best Move: Transitioning Into A Career You’ll Love," debuts on June 9th 2021. Kimberly is a career and leadership expert who heads up her own consulting practice called “Manifest Yourself.” We revie...
Striking The Right Note: Cindy Returns To Music
Second Act Stories - May 22, 2021 21:31 - 16 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsCindy St. Clair made an unusual transition from the legal profession – working as a paralegal and then a legal administrator -- to the world of academia. As you’ll hear, she went back to school to get a bachelors, masters and doctorate in music in her 40s. And at the age of 50 she returned to ...
He Built A Global Company...Then He Rebuilt His Alma Mater
Second Act Stories - May 01, 2021 08:57 - 19 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsPete DeBusk is a true entrepreneur. He started from humble beginnings growing up in coal mining towns in the Appalachian Mountains. In his "Act 1," he founded DeRoyal Industries, a major manufacturer of medical products with 1,900 employees and facilities in a half-dozen countries around the wor...
Pain Turns To Purpose: A Suicide, A Mother's Grief & A Second Act
Second Act Stories - April 12, 2021 19:44 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsAnne Moss Rogers was at the pinnacle of a 20-year professional career. She opened her own digital marketing agency in 2010. The business grew quickly and by 2015 she and her partner had 9 employees and a growing roster of clients. While her professional life was going especially well, life at ...
Dave’s Gambit: A New Life Teaching Chess To Youth
Second Act Stories - March 29, 2021 10:22 - 13 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsDave Lazarus worked for 35 years in information technology. But at 60 years old he found himself unemployed. And the prospects of landing a new job in IT weren’t terribly encouraging. So on the advice of an old friend, he went back to an old passion: chess. And he started teaching chess to ele...
How An Overweight, Drug Dealer Became A SoulCycle Instructor
Second Act Stories - March 16, 2021 11:04 - 16 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsNoa Shaw has led a hard life. Drugs and alcohol took hold of him at an early age. And he has struggled as both a drug addict and drug dealer for most of his adult life. But eight years ago his life took a turn for the better when he wandered into a SoulCycle studio that was just opening up in ...
Marianne The Vaccine Hunter: New Gig For Lifelong, Springsteen Fan
Second Act Stories - March 02, 2021 11:50 - 11 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsMariane Sugrhue had a long career as an information technology manager with AT&T, Telecordia and NCS Technologies. She retired in 2018 at the age of 60 and has pursued an eclectic schedule of volunteer activities that includes judging ice skating competitions, helping to rescue dogs from "kill s...
Puppy Love: Tara & Jess Leave Big Pharma To Form DIG Labs
Second Act Stories - February 14, 2021 08:27 - 17 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsIn 2015, Tara Zedayko and Jessica Chu were both employed at Johnson & Johnson, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies with $82 billion in annual revenue. They bonded over their work launching new healthcare products for humans but also a mutual love of dogs. Four years later, Tara...
He Advised Major Companies...Now He Works With Aspiring Athletes
Second Act Stories - February 02, 2021 01:17 - 19 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsMike Huber had a 20-year career as a top consultant with Ernst & Young, Cushman Wakefield and KPMG. His focus was in the area of site selection consulting – helping major companies like Samsung, Time Warner and Bausch & Lomb find new business locations. He worked hard and made a very good living...
Single Mother & 16-Year-Old Daughter Launch "One Hot Cookie"
Second Act Stories - January 17, 2021 23:50 - 14 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsBergen Giordani was a single mother working a full-time job during the day and bartending at night in her hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. It was tough road. So back in 2013 and with the help of her then 16-year-old daughter Morgen, she opened a retail dessert shop called “One Hot Cookie.” She pu...
Best Of 2020: Fraidy Reiss' Unorthodox Second Act Story
Second Act Stories - January 02, 2021 22:36 - 25 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsAs we start the new year, we’re pleased to share the episode named by Second Act Stories listeners as the “Best of 2020.” Fraidy Reiss’ story is among the most inspiring tales we’ve profiled on the Second Act Stories podcast. Part of the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, Fraidy ...
A Navy Veteran Launches A Winery (And Yes, It's In Cleveland)!
Second Act Stories - December 23, 2020 00:57 - 17 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsRight after high school, Destiny Burns enlisted in the armed forces as a cryptologic officer. She had an exciting, 20-year career traveling the globe with the Navy. And when she retired from active service, she settled down in Northern Virginia and worked for a range of defense contractors. Bu...
Goodbye Executive Recruiting... Hello Furniture Making
Second Act Stories - December 05, 2020 22:04 - 19 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsSheldon Myeroff is a true entrepreneur. He launched Direct Recruiters, Inc. at the age of 31. And over the next 37 years, he successfully grew the business into major executive recruiting company. In 2011, he began an exit plan from Direct Recruiters – turning over the management of the compan...
A Magazine Writer Finds New Life As A Funeral Director
Second Act Stories - November 22, 2020 03:06 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsFor more than 30 years, Amy worked as a writer, both on staff and on a freelance basis, for a wide range of top magazines. But when her father passed away in 2009, his funeral had a profound impact on her. And in relatively short order, Amy enrolled in mortuary school to become a licensed funera...
Leaving Advertising Sales To Become A Hypnotist
Second Act Stories - November 09, 2020 11:40 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsWhat most of us know about hypnotism comes straight from Hollywood and involves swinging pocket watches and devious characters reciting the words “you are getting sleepy.” But Lisa Ludovici operates very differently. She is a certified medical support hypnotist and is almost always brought in by...
Sweet Story: Like A Nurse & Pilot In A Candy Store
Second Act Stories - October 25, 2020 23:18 - 17 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsRobin and Carl Mennie opened River Street Sweets-Savannah's Candy Kitchen in Asbury Park, NJ on July 2, 2020. It’s an amazing shop filled with freshly-made pralines, rice krispie treats, loggerheads, chocolate covered pretzels and more – basically any sweet item you could ever want. This franc...
She Escaped A Forced Marriage & Now Helps Others Do The Same
Second Act Stories - October 10, 2020 13:45 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsFraidy Reiss' story is among the most inspiring tales we’ve ever profiled on the Second Act Stories podcast. Part of the Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, Fraidy was married at the age of 19. It was an arranged marriage to a man she barely knew. He demonstrated a violent streak ...
Lifequakes & Life Transitions: 27 Minutes With Author Bruce Feiler
Second Act Stories - September 28, 2020 14:07 - 27 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsBruce Feiler is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers (including Walking The Bible, The Secrets of Happy Families and Abraham), the presenter of two prime-time series on PBS and the inspiration for the NBC drama series “Council of Dads.” He’s also presented two TED Talks viewed by more ...
After A 50-Year Hiatus, A Return To The Courtroom
Second Act Stories - September 12, 2020 09:56 - 18 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsKiku Mehta was born in 1937 and grew up in the Gujarat Province on India. He was trained as a lawyer there but emigrated to the United States in 1964. When he arrived here in the US, he set aside his work as a lawyer and went to work as a social worker for Children's Services Inc. in Philadelp...
A Revolutionary Change: How A Financial Planner Became Benjamin Franklin
Second Act Stories - August 30, 2020 17:34 - 21 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsWe first read about Terry Kutz in a terrific article in The Wall Street Journal. Terry had a long career as a financial planner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But as a hobby he had become involved in revolutionary war reenactments with a group called the Northwest Territory Alliance (NWTA). And one d...
Out of Africa: An Executive Recruiter Launches "American Rhino" Clothing
Second Act Stories - August 15, 2020 09:30 - 22 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsChris Welles was a 46-year-old executive recruiter in Boston, Massachusetts. He was happy in his job and he had no plans for a change. But in 2008 he took a summer vacation with his wife, four kids and two other families to Kenya. And the trip completely changed his life. Today he manages “Ame...
Conversation With A Contact Tracer: A Look At America's Fastest Growing Job
Second Act Stories - August 03, 2020 12:09 - 20 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsWe depart from our traditional format with this episode to offer a glimpse inside the world of contact tracing. This is the fastest growing job in America, with the need for an estimated 200,000 contact tracers to track infections and protect the U.S. population against the advance of the COVID-...
Everybody Loves A Second Act ... 24 Minutes With Actress Patricia Heaton
Second Act Stories - July 21, 2020 09:18 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsPatricia Heaton starred in two wildly successful television series: Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle. But it was the not-so-successful series Carol’s Second Act that led Patricia (or Patty she likes to be called) to author a new book called “Your Second Act.” It shares her own story and ...
Everybody Loves A Second Act: 24 Minutes With Actress Patricia Heaton
Second Act Stories - July 21, 2020 09:18 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsPatricia Heaton starred in two wildly successful television series: Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle. But it was the not-so-successful series Carol’s Second Act that led Patricia (or Patty she likes to be called) to author a new book called “Your Second Act.” It shares her own story and ...
Humor Me: A Speech Pathologist Finds A New Voice
Second Act Stories - July 13, 2020 09:49 - 21 minutes ★★★★★ - 73 ratingsSusan Goldfein is 79 years old, in great shape and splits her time between Florida and Connecticut. For most of her professional career, she served as a speech pathologist in a range of different settings. She worked with elementary school students, provided home care for stroke patients and she...
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