Design Review - podcast for Engineering Your Life

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Welcome to "Design Review"! With host, Robert Haines, this is the podcast for Engineering Your Life.  Robert interviews people who have an active or planned project that contributes to others.  The style is casual, engaging and enthusiastic. Following the format of an engineering design review, Robert chats with guests about their project or objective, what led them to pursue it, how it's going, future plans and any connections they are seeking to support their efforts. Along the way, there is always animated discussion about life, philosophy, boundaries, and always a discussion about uplifting others. Come watch an episode - or more - and be uplifted by Robert's amazing, inspired, and inspiring guests from all over the world!

  1. Sep 25

    What If There Is No Problem? A Conversation with 2 Jungian Coaches

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 12 - with Joanna Bakowska - 08/25/2026 Joanna Bakowska has walked beside me, through some of my most meaningful inner work I've done in the last year. Joanna is my current Jungian life coach, and I met her in my cohort at CreativeMind University.  She is a holistic wellness coach, helping people navigate major life transitions.  I've found her to be wise and gentle in her practice - she provides a safe space for me. In this conversation, we talk about what it means to realize that the thing we see as a problem might actually become our purpose. Joanna shares the personal journey that brought her to Jungian coaching, beginning with chronic illness, pain and a determination to find answers. We explore the “wounded healer,” ego resistance, and what happens when we stop fighting the parts of ourselves that are trying to protect us. We also talk about active imagination, the unconscious, and the interesting ways our inner landscape can reveal what we need to see. I share some details of my own work and inner journey while working with Joanna, including a thorn barrier that transformed into a hedge maze. What began as something I needed to fight my way through became something I could simply navigate, witness, and learn from. We also talk about what it is like to hold space as a coach without giving people answers, and why the real work often continues long after the coaching session ends. Ultimately, this is a conversation about curiosity, compassion, transformation, and the beautiful, sometimes unexpected journey of getting to know yourself. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Joanna as much as I did. Joanna's Website: https://www.joannabakowska.com/ Robert's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-haines-eyl/ Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.net/

  2. Sep 15

    Where Were You When I Needed You - A Conversation With Lex Molenaar

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 11 - with Lex Molenaar - 08/18/2026 Lex Molenaar came onto the podcast because one of my assistants put his name on a list of people I should know. Within minutes of our first conversation I realized she had truly found me a kindred spirit. Lex spent more than 30 years leading engineering, R&D, and technology organizations, including serving as CTO in the semiconductor industry. He rebuilt his own motorcycle by hand. He hikes 60 kilometers in a weekend through the Netherlands with everything he needs on his back. And he coaches engineers and technical leaders who are stuck and ready to get into motion. In this conversation we talk about what it means to be a deeply technical person learning to connect to your feelings. About "bang-bang control," PID loops, and how emotional regulation is really a feedback system using feelings as signals. We dive deep into what it was like growing up in a family that didn't talk about emotions and finding your way to self-awareness without the "benefit" of a crash. We also explore the transition from engineer to leader, the loneliness that can come with greater responsibility, and why having an objective thinking partner can make all the difference. And what it means to finally have a sparring partner who has no stake in your life except your own. Along the way we talk about nature, hiking, and off-grid adventures, which led to one of my favorite insights from the entire conversation. In Lex's words, "I'm not gonna work and have a life afterwards. I'm gonna have a life and a job." Hear hear, Lex. This conversation ran away with its own energy from the very first minute and I did not mind at all. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Lex's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexmolenaar/ Lex's Website: https://promotio.org/ Robert's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-haines-eyl/ Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.net/

  3. Aug 21

    Good Grief! What If Grief Wasn't Something To Fix?

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 10 - with Kelly Saindon and Paula Emeigh - 08/10/2026 Kelly Saindon and Paula Emeigh are two people who have arrived at grief work through very different paths and remarkably similar callings. Kelly is a licensed spiritual practitioner, master clinical social worker, death doula, grief facilitator, and artist. For the past several years she has been helping people navigate loss through grief groups, Death Cafés, retreats, and creative healing experiences. Paula is a licensed spiritual practitioner whose own lifelong experiences with grief inspired her to become a compassionate companion, listener, prayer partner, and source of support for others moving through difficult seasons of life. What brings them together is a shared belief that grief is far bigger than most people realize. In this conversation, we explore the misconceptions many of us have about grief, including the myth that it follows neat "stages" or that people should simply "get over it." Kelly and Paula explain how grief affects not only our emotions, but also our bodies, minds, relationships, identities, and spiritual lives. We discuss grief that comes from losing loved ones, but also grief connected to retirement, caregiving, divorce, illness, disability, career changes, pets, community, and any significant life transition. At the center of our conversation is the Art Grief Group they have created together at New Vision Center for Spiritual Living. The group combines education, creative expression, compassionate listening, and community support into a safe environment where people can explore loss without being judged, fixed, advised, or rushed through their process. Their work is built around a simple but powerful idea: grief is not something we get over. It is something we learn to companion throughout our lives. Along the way, we discuss healing, spiritual practice, support groups, caregiving, unresolved grief, anticipatory grief, the importance of being witnessed by others who understand, and why creativity can open doors that conversation alone sometimes cannot. If you've ever experienced loss, supported someone who has, or found yourself struggling with a life transition that seemed harder than it "should" have been, this conversation offers a compassionate and deeply human perspective on what grief actually is and how healing happens. New Vision Center for Spiritual Living: https://newvisioncsl.org/ Event link: https://newvisioncsl.org/events/nvc-art-grief-group/2026-09-12 Registration link: https://nvc.breezechms.com/form/NVCArtGriefGroup13 Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.net/

  4. Aug 15

    Peace, Prosperity, and Beingness - A Conversation with Jocelyn Nowak

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 9 - with Jocelyn Nowak - 07/27/2026 Jocelyn Nowak is one of those people who seems to live at the intersection of worlds. With nearly two decades in healthcare and health technology, she helps organizations bring more humanity into the systems that shape people's lives. At the same time, through Peaceful Prosperity Studio, she teaches and practices Reiki, yoga, herbalism, and other approaches to healing, self-awareness, and personal transformation. Whether she's helping build healthcare technology, supporting a client, leading a retreat, or facilitating a conversation around consciousness, her work is ultimately about the same thing: helping people reconnect with themselves. Jocelyn is also one of my coaching clients. That makes this conversation a little different. When we started working together, Jocelyn described herself as energetic, driven, and often bouncing off the walls. What I've had the privilege of witnessing since then is a transformation into a level of groundedness, presence, patience, and self-trust that she now carries into every area of her life. As she says during this conversation, she feels more connected to her authentic self, more emotionally regulated, and more at peace with whatever life brings than at any previous point in her journey. In this episode, we talk about helping people without depleting yourself, building a life around peace and prosperity, healthcare innovation, Reiki, consciousness, Jungian psychology, dreams, archetypes, presence, freedom, and what happens when you learn to stop fighting reality and start working with it. We also pull back the curtain on the coaching process itself, offering an unusually candid look at what coaching can be, what it is not, and how inner work creates visible changes in the real world. If you've ever wondered what it looks like when an already gifted helper becomes more fully themselves, you're about to meet Jocelyn. Jocelyn's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelynnowak/ Jocelyn's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jocelynno/ Jocelyn's Website: https://jocelynnowak.com/ Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.net/

  5. Jul 31

    Not Unhinged - Liberated | A Conversation with Cat O'Shaughnessy-Coffrin

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 8 - with Cat O'Shaughnessy-Coffrin - 07/23/2026 I met Cat O'Shaughnessy-Coffrin on LinkedIn and have been reading her writing ever since. About work, grief, parenting, therapy, divorce, dating, and the beautifully messy realities of being human. She is the founder of Captivating Consulting and one of the most unapologetically authentic people I've encountered online. We started out talking about leadership, branding, and communication. That lasted about five minutes. Instead, we talked about what happens when people stop performing and start telling the truth. We explored grief, inherited family patterns, raising children without teaching them to shrink themselves, and the surprising freedom that can emerge from life's biggest disruptions. Cat shared stories about navigating divorce in a small Vermont town, dating in midlife, and learning to approach people with curiosity rather than judgment. Somewhere between a screwdriver handed across the front row of a school concert, dating-app adventures, and honest conversations about family and healing, the deeper theme became clear. This episode is ultimately about liberation: the freedom that becomes available when we stop trying to look perfect and allow ourselves to be fully seen. Or, as one of Cat's former colleagues told her, maybe she's not unhinged. Maybe she's liberated. Life is short. Be captivating. Connect with Cat: https://captivatingco.com Cat's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catlino/ Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.com

  6. Jul 9

    The Book Was Never The Point - A Conversation With Melanie Bates

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 7 - with Melanie Bates - 06/30/2026 Melanie Bates came onto the podcast to talk about writing.  That was our plan. Instead, we ended up talking about grief, belonging, shadow work, recovery, criticism, creativity, and what happens when life finally becomes too painful to keep living from the outside in. For more than a decade, Melanie helped authors write bestselling books. What she eventually realized was that the book itself was rarely the most important thing. The transformation was. This conversation felt less like an interview and more like two people comparing notes on the long journey of becoming themselves. We explored Jung's idea that creativity emerges from somewhere deeper than conscious effort - and what transforms when we learn to listen - and trust. We talked about the fear of being seen, the pressure to belong, the wounds that shape us, and the surprising freedom that comes when we stop trying to force the river and simply learn to work with its flow. By the end, I wasn't thinking about books at all. I was thinking about the people writing them - including Melanie and me. And perhaps that's exactly the point. Connect with Melanie: https://melaniebates.com/ Melanie's Substack: https://melaniembates.substack.com/?r=525vww&utm_campaign=subscribe-page-share-screen&utm_medium=web Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.net/

  7. Jun 11

    Nice Doesn't Win - On Boundaries, Big Systems, and Being Yourself

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 6 - with Kelli Boyden - 06/7/2026 I met Kelli Boyden in the weird corner of LinkedIn and knew within five minutes I needed to have her on the show. Kelli spent 25 years as an attorney fighting for people being pushed out of their homes and denied insurance coverage by systems that were never designed to let them in. Then she walked away, went to Cornell, got an MS in pharmaceutical science, and built something entirely new. In this conversation we talk about fighting big systems, the cost of being nice for too long, and finding your people by simply being yourself. And somewhere in the middle of it all, Kelli asks me if I know anyone who teaches a workshop on boundaries. I might have mentioned one - join us June 19 and 26.  Here is the link to register: http://www.engineeringyourlife.net/boundaries-workshop  Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.com Connect with Kelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelliboyden/ Kelli's website: https://kelliboyden.com

  8. Apr 21

    I Care About People That Care About People

    Podcast Season 2, Episode 5 - with Amber Hubert - 4/14/2026 I met Ambra Hubert because she put out an idea in the Weird LinkedIn community. A spontaneous, creative, truly wonderful idea to publish a Zine for and about and BY the community. I had no idea what a "Zine" was - I had never even seen one! But Ambra was so warm and generous and enthusiastic, and the contributions poured in. At the last minute, I felt the call of inspiration and submitted a hand drawn sketch drawn on Engineering Computation pad. And now I can call myself a published artist. That experience introduced me to Ambra, and, in doing so, made it clear to me that I wanted to meet her, so I instigated a coffee chat. (This is often how I end up meeting podcast guests!) 5 minutes into our chat about life, survived trauma, and creativity I knew I was not going to accept "No" to my podcast invitation. Luckily, she didn't put up a fight! Ambra is a lifelong creative who made a sharp turn into business - working in corporate communications, heading up community at a startup, co-founded a poetry press, started and edited a zine, and is now running a weekly newsletter that helps people tell the stories of personal transformation and taking their own sharp turns. She has lived in five countries, speaks three languages, and brings all of herself into everything she does. In this conversation, we talk about what it means to show up as yourself in a space that was never designed for that. We talk about Weird LinkedIn - not as a hashtag, but as a genuine act of rebellion against performative connection. We talk about the Weird Professional Zine, and Permission Slips newsletter and how community became Ambra’s drug of choice. We talk about the things that just pop into your head. About the side quests that felt like detours but turned out to be preparation. About why people don’t answer the hard questions about themselves - and what community has to do with finally being willing to show up authentically. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, we both realized that what we’re each doing - in our own ways - is very much related at its core: Helping people feel safe enough to be real. Connect with Ambra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ambra-hubert/ Permission Slips: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/permission-slips-7419778664252338176/ Weird Professional : https://lnkd.in/g6a34bJF Engineering Your Life: https://www.engineeringyourlife.net

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About

Welcome to "Design Review"! With host, Robert Haines, this is the podcast for Engineering Your Life.  Robert interviews people who have an active or planned project that contributes to others.  The style is casual, engaging and enthusiastic. Following the format of an engineering design review, Robert chats with guests about their project or objective, what led them to pursue it, how it's going, future plans and any connections they are seeking to support their efforts. Along the way, there is always animated discussion about life, philosophy, boundaries, and always a discussion about uplifting others. Come watch an episode - or more - and be uplifted by Robert's amazing, inspired, and inspiring guests from all over the world!

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