Her Step Forward Amanda & April

Lauren Popish is founder of The Wave Podcasting, which aims to help womxn tell their unique stories through podcasting. The Wave offers education resources, event-based community, and recording studio space exclusively for womxn. Their first womxn-only recording studio opened in Los Angeles in February 2020. Lauren's passion for creating spaces that inspire comfort and confidence comes from her 10 year career in commercial interior design and real estate. When she isn't helping other womxn create podcasts, she hosts her own podcast, Book Wine Club.

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Four years ago, in the middle of a routine presentation at work, Lauren Popish had a panic attack. As someone who had always been very comfortable speaking, and even being on stage, the experience was eye opening for her, because it showed her first-hand just how scary public speaking can be for so many people.

While working to overcome her new fear, Lauren discovered that podcasting was one of the few things that helped her build her voice back, and she wanted to create a safe space to help other womxn exercise their voice in speaking, as well as diversify the podcasting landscape. After much research into the barriers that hold womxn back from podcasting, Lauren founded The Wave Podcasting - a studio in LA built by and for womxn; but within weeks of opening, Covid-19 shuttered their doors, and Lauren found herself needing to immediately pivot her brand new business into one that could support womxn digitally as they embark on their podcast journey.

Joining us to share her story, Lauren opens up about her battle with imposter syndrome, and how her own experience helps her encourage clients who face the same feelings; why it’s critical to normalize the fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and other emotional barriers many womxn face when considering a podcast; and why purpose is the most important indicator that she’s now doing what she’s supposed to with her life.

Dawn King is an attorney in Massachusetts.  She graduated from Northeastern University in Boston with a degree in Political Science and a minor in Business and holds her juris doctor from New England School of Law.  Dawn worked as an attorney at the City of Boston Law Department for 12 years until recently taking a position with a court in Worcester, Massachusetts.  Dawn has focused her legal career in the public sector, working as a state and municipal attorney.  Dawn has also been a fitness instructor for over 20 years teaching all styles of classes, including Zumba, Indoor Cycling, HIIT and Bootcamp classes.  In her "spare" time she also runs with her dog and does Half Marathons. Dawn and her husband love to be outside with their dog and travel, including visiting National Parks around the country.

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We like to joke that Dawn King is an attorney by day, aerobics instructor by night, but as she explains, she’s been into fitness longer than anything else in her life, and having a fitness community over the years to lean on and learn from has proven to be an incredible stress reliever.

Most recently, Dawn found herself at a crossroads: continue her life in Boston, in a job she loved for 12 years, but one that limited the options she and her husband would have for buying a home in the congested city with a very high cost of living. Or, consider other career options that would provide more flexible housing options, and give her husband a chance to reduce his lengthy commute. As Dawn explains, it took a while to process the choices, and the job search quickly required a self-check, when the interview calls took longer than she would have guessed, based on her lengthy law career. Reflecting on the lessons learned in her career, and realizing that she needed to stay in the governmental law sector, instead of private, Dawn recently decided to take a leap of faith and leave the world of civil litigation for a new chapter in her law career.

Joining us to share her story, Dawn addresses the stereotype of the “good old boys’ club” in the legal industry, the lessons she learned from being fired early in her career, and the joys of being a fur mom and running partner for her adopted Dachshund-Jack Russell mix, Griffin.

Darcey Hull will soon be starting her residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation after slowly winding her way to this point. The arts, cultures, languages, and helping people have always been huge interests of Darcey’s. She has always loved traveling and outdoor adventures, and was always encouraged to explore and express herself by her parents. They took her and her brother hiking in the Rocky Mountains every summer growing up, had exchange students, and extensively traveled and lived abroad before starting a family. Darcey has always believed in and been interested in self-expression, and the positive transformation which it can bring, as a healing modality for all people. This is what kept Darcey interested in the Arts, and then pulled her into teaching yoga, studying Speech Language Pathology, and now into Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

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So many of us pursue a college degree that turns out to be quite different than the career path we ultimately choose. Darcey Hull knows this story well; in her mid-thirties, she’s about to start a new chapter as a resident, focused on physical medicine and rehabilitation. As Darcey explains, 17 years ago she started her education journey focused on that arts; but a chance conversation with classmates would change her path forever when she decided to take a neuroscience class.

Falling in love with the class was easy: it gave an opportunity to use her art skills as she drew and studied her work, and the subject matter was fascinating. After changing her major and finishing classes, Darcey had to decide: what would she do with a neuroscience degree?

Joining us to share her story, Darcey explains her journey from arts to physical medicine, the benefit of social interaction for patients and how she hopes to address that need one day, and the importance of travel, yoga, and meditation when it comes to staying balanced and pursuing the things that bring her joy.

Steph Cartwright is a Certified Resume Writer and the Founder of Off The Clock Resumes LLC. Since 2014, Steph has helped career-focused job seekers present themselves as the best fit for the job they want. She specializes in getting her clients through Applicant Tracking software, maximizing their networks and referral potential using LinkedIn, and eliminating the overwhelm from job searching with actionable job search plans. Steph completed her undergraduate degree in Human Resource Management online at Western Governors University while growing her online business. She's certified by the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches and an active member of the National Resume Writers' Association. When she's not working, you'll either catch her lounging lakeside or cuddling her three dogs while watching Disney movies or something a bit nerdy like Harry Potter or Game of Thrones for the hundredth time.

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Steph Cartwright loves her work. That’s a good thing for many of us, who feel intimidated, stressed out, or just plain frazzled as we sit down and try to make ourselves sound like the best candidate for the job.

As Steph explains it, she never saw resumes as a career path. She just wanted to pick a career that would support her lifelong love of writing - yet she knew that the options of journalism or teaching weren’t in the cards. Over the years, she experimented with all kinds of writing: marketing copy, social media planning, helping professors, and the list goes on. But it was an ad that she found by chance on a job board that would change her career path forever. After completing a very brief training session, she realized that she wanted to learn more about the art of writing great resumes: and the more she learned, the more interested she became in the work that calls for a focus on strategy, creativity, and personal branding.

Joining us to share her story, Steph opens up about the scam job that drove her to become an entrepreneur, growing her business as the job search and application process continually changes, and why it was so important to take a step back from it all and focus on her health.

Amber Marie has been working as a private chef and nutrition educator for about a decade in both South Florida and the Savannah/Hilton Head area where she currently resides. She holds a culinary degree from Johnson & Wales University, an education degree from New York University, and a law degree from CUNY School of Law. Prior to entering the culinary field, she was an attorney for the government in New York City - but her lifelong passion for cooking and a series of health challenges led her to reconsider her priorities. She has studied nutrition extensively to not only regain her own health but to better support her clients, and she seeks to inspire others with her shift from the "employee" mindset to the more creative lifestyle of the entrepreneur - which required her to face her lifelong struggles around vagueness with time and money as well as compulsive busyness.  In her free time, she enjoys writing poetry, yoga, nature photography, music, sailing, travel, pondering the spiritual dimensions of existence...and cats.

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Being an attorney is often thought of as prestigious work, but as Amber Marie explains, the pressure and stress of the role led her to reconsider. Facing personal health challenges, and seeing how her health improved as she changed her diet, Amber realized that perhaps her true calling was to pursue a culinary and nutrition-focused career.

Of course, the change would also contradict her mentality to help people and make a difference in the world - or so, she initially thought. As Amber explains, given time to reflect upon her career options, she recognized that our days are made of the seemingly ‘little things’ - like catching a beautiful sunrise, or enjoying a delicious meal - and her goal became clear. She’d focus her energy on making meals that would be a highlight in the day of her clients, while also being nutritious.

Joining us to share her story, Amber opens up about the role her spirituality played during her career transition; the importance of keeping your eyes on your own paper; speaking up about your needs at work; and trying new things instead of later regretting the choice to not try at all.

Shannon Russell has been a sports reporter for 20 years, with stops at The Athletic and The Cincinnati Enquirer. She has been honored with multiple national awards while covering everything from the NFL and Major League Baseball to professional tennis and high school sports. She has spent the last decade covering college basketball.

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Shannon Russell had recently graduated college (where she majored in creative writing and journalism) and was having trouble finding many job options, until she discovered an opening at a small, local newspaper that was advertising an opening for a news reporter. Excited to have an opportunity, she applied for the job and got the interview - but, imagine her surprise when she learned that the job opening was actually for a sports reporter.

She had played some sports in her youth, but as Shannon explains, playing sports and writing about them are two different things! It would be especially hard for sports she’d never participated in, like football or wrestling. Instead of turning down the job, Shannon accepted the position: as she explains today, it wasn’t always comfortable at first, or even something that she looked forward to doing, but being able to grow into the position and feel confident doing it, led to a career that she would’ve never imagined.

Joining us to share her story, Shannon talks about the connection between her background in creative writing and being able to tell a story about sports and the athletes who play them, earning respect in the sports industry before female reporters were common, how her hard work led to a top reporting spot covering Xavier University athletics, and how industry changes snowballed due to COVID-19.