Path Found

Monica Argandoña

Path Found is the podcast for anyone who’s ever asked, “What now?” This show explores the real, messy, and inspiring journeys people take to find fulfilling work—and themselves. From pivots and side hustles to mentorship and major career changes, Path Found reveals what college never taught and counselors never said.

  1. Kitchen to Capitol: On Being First, Finding Your Way, and the Jobs Nobody Tells You About

    1D AGO

    Kitchen to Capitol: On Being First, Finding Your Way, and the Jobs Nobody Tells You About

    Send us Fan Mail Alex Mitchell didn’t have a plan when he graduated from high school. No one in his family had gone to college, and he didn’t apply to a single university. He started at community college, changed his major five times, and it wasn’t until a political science professor connected history to present-day policymaking that something finally clicked.   Then the pandemic hit. Alex decided virtual learning wasn’t for him, so he packed up and moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he spent a year cooking in his godfather's restaurant kitchen. He learned kitchen Spanish, fell in love with the craft of feeding people, and had one of the best experiences of his life.   When in-person school returned, so did Alex’s sense of purpose. He completed his political science degree and landed an internship in the office of a California Assembly member. He never planned to stay, but ended up staying three years as a legislative aide, staffing committees on transportation, criminal justice reform, and more issues than he ever anticipated caring about.   Now he’s back in Southern California doing government relations for the Port of Long Beach, building on the policy and transportation expertise he developed in Sacramento, and surfing again.   In this conversation, Alex talks about what it means to be the first in your family to go to college, why he’s glad he took the long route, and why grace - for yourself and your process - might be the most important thing he’d tell his younger self. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    22 min
  2. Relationships Are the Resume: Career Pivots, Tech Ethics, and Finding Your Place in Policy

    APR 30

    Relationships Are the Resume: Career Pivots, Tech Ethics, and Finding Your Place in Policy

    Send us Fan Mail Virginia Ross has one of those careers that sounds impossible until she explains exactly how each step led to the next — and even then, it barely seems planned. Because it wasn't.   After getting kicked out of college twice, pivoting from government consulting to culinary school to a startup acquired by a Utah telecom company, Virginia landed at Amazon's Ring, and accidentally became one of the rare voices inside Big Tech asking hard questions about what their products were doing to the world outside the app.   Today, Virginia leads Amazon's state and local AI policy portfolio. She analyzes proposed legislation, engages civil society and advocacy organizations, and translates between the engineers building the technology and the lawmakers trying to regulate it. She loves it more than any job she's ever had.   In this conversation, Virginia talks about growing up as one of only three Asian kids in a Northern Virginia suburb, what it really means to build a career through relationships, why she's still convinced that curiosity and a willingness to pick up the phone matter more than credentials, and what she'd tell her daughters about the future of work. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    44 min
  3. The Hidden Curriculum: How to Build a Career that College Never Taught You

    APR 23

    The Hidden Curriculum: How to Build a Career that College Never Taught You

    Send us Fan Mail What does it actually mean to go to college? If your honest answer is “get a degree so I can get a job,” Ned Johnson and Scott Carlson want to complicate that, in the best possible way. In this conversation, the authors of Hacking College: Why the Major Doesn't Matter - and What Really Does, break down why the major is far less important than the experience students build around it, and why so many students graduate with what they call “empty degrees” - credentials that check boxes but don’t connect to anything real. Ned and Scott introduce the idea of “hidden intellectualism”, the genuine interests students bring with them that the academic system rarely surfaces, and they walk us through the “field of study” framework that help students turn those interests into an integrated, intentional college experience. We also talk about the hidden job market (it’s bigger than you think), why first-generation students have more cultural capital than they realize, and why the skills in this book aren’t just for 18-year-olds. They’re tools for navigating change at any stage of life.   In this episode: •       Why “declaring a major” rarely means what students think it does •       The “permission zone”: how to help students take their own interests seriously •       The research investigative interview, and how to start one •       The translation chasm: connecting hidden passion to a visible career path •       Why cultural capital is the fuel for real social capital •       The advice they’d give every young person starting their college journey 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    47 min
  4. The Interview Answer That Lost Her the Job (and Set Her Up for 30 Years)

    APR 16

    The Interview Answer That Lost Her the Job (and Set Her Up for 30 Years)

    Send us Fan Mail In her first round interview, Alicia Rose was asked about her dream job. She told the truth: she wanted to be an ambassador. The interviewer told her on the spot she wasn't getting the position, and explained exactly why that was the right call.  What followed was a 30-plus-year career at a single global professional services firm, not because Alicia stayed in one lane, but because she didn't. She rotated through roles in risk management, training, mentorship, and client leadership. She worked in Prague, London, and back again. She built a reputation as a strategic, collaborative problem-solver, someone she describes memorably as "Mother Teresa meets MacGyver."  In this conversation, Alicia and Monica explore what it actually looks like to build a meaningful career inside a large organization: how to know when to stay and when to stretch, what it means to define your personal brand, how to balance the demands of work and family without judgment, and why the question she asked in her second-round interview, "Where would I park my car?", turned out to be exactly the right thing to say.  This is an episode about playing the long game, chasing the feeling behind the dream job rather than the title, and what it means to find your purpose somewhere between helping people and solving hard problems. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    52 min
  5. Steve Sewell on Grief, Chaplaincy, and Why Life Really Happens in the Transitions

    APR 9

    Steve Sewell on Grief, Chaplaincy, and Why Life Really Happens in the Transitions

    Send us Fan Mail Steven Sewell didn’t plan on becoming a chaplain in corporate America. He thought he’d spend his life as a pastor. But after almost 30 years in ministry, he discovered something: the break room at a car dealership needs the same thing as a Sunday morning congregation. Someone who will actually listen.  Steve and I talked about grief, starting over in your 50s, finding love again at 58, and why he stopped handing invoices to people in crisis.  This episode has me thinking about the three relationships Steve says everyone needs — especially when things fall apart. Listen for the full quote. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    33 min
  6. From Zimbabwe to Cape Town to the World: Building a Life on Curiosity, Risk, and Reinvention

    APR 4

    From Zimbabwe to Cape Town to the World: Building a Life on Curiosity, Risk, and Reinvention

    Send us Fan Mail What does it look like to stumble, pivot, fail, travel, and eventually find your calling, not once, but many times? Sean Walpole's story is a master class in entrepreneurial resilience: from founding an IT company as a teenager in Zimbabwe, to dropping out of university, to launching a scuba diving business, a microbrewery, and ultimately a venture that has sent thousands of students on transformative international experiences.   Sean brings warmth, self-deprecating humor, and hard-won wisdom about what it means to chart your own path, even when that path takes several unexpected detours first. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    37 min
  7. Ordering Off the Menu: Eric Adams on Disability, Discovery, and Designing a Life on Your Own Terms

    MAR 26

    Ordering Off the Menu: Eric Adams on Disability, Discovery, and Designing a Life on Your Own Terms

    Send us Fan Mail Eric Adams spent his childhood mute in the classroom and decades as the loudest, most electric presence in Los Angeles nightlife. In between: a path that refuses every conventional menu option. In this conversation, Eric traces the through-line from a traumatic childhood marked by PTSD and depression, to a 12-year-old's decision to use Disneyland as a North Star out of the dark, to producing Dapper Day for 40,000 guests, to a debilitating disability that became—unexpectedly—an upgrade.  This episode is for anyone who has ever felt like the offerings on the table weren't built for them. Eric is living proof that 'ordering off the menu' isn't just a personality quirk—it's a survival strategy, a creative philosophy, and ultimately the reason his path found him. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    45 min
  8. Making Business Better with Holly Hill

    MAR 19

    Making Business Better with Holly Hill

    Send us Fan Mail Holly Hill didn't wait for the world to catch up with her vision — she designed her own path. In this episode, Holly shares her remarkable career journey from environmental compliance at IBM in the 1990s, to sustainable design at an architecture firm, to her current role as Head of Sustainability at Zoom. Long before corporate sustainability was mainstream, Holly was marrying business strategy with environmental purpose, even building her own graduate program to make it happen. She talks candidly about navigating career pivots, writing her own job descriptions, the real talk on AI in her field, and what she tells her own sons about finding work that brings them joy. Whether you're a student figuring out your direction, a professional eyeing a pivot, or just someone who wants business to do better — this one's for you. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

    30 min
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Trailer

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

Path Found is the podcast for anyone who’s ever asked, “What now?” This show explores the real, messy, and inspiring journeys people take to find fulfilling work—and themselves. From pivots and side hustles to mentorship and major career changes, Path Found reveals what college never taught and counselors never said.

Information

  • Creator
    Monica Argandoña
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Path Found
  • Show Website
    Path Found