This Will Get Loud Podcast

This Will Get Loud

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This Will Get Loud talks about parenting, spirituality and dogs (sometimes all at once. It's about presence, nervous system regulation, meaning-making, and what dogs understand instinctively but humans tend to forget, through contemplation, gentle humor, and lived experience. thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com

Jun 8

Be Someone They Want to Hire

Be Someone People Want to Build With I was interviewing candidates recently, and it reminded me of something I think we get wrong about hiring. We tend to believe hiring is a meritocracy of credentials. The best resume wins. The most experience wins. The person who’s done the exact thing before wins. Sometimes that’s true. A lot of times, it isn’t. In my most recent hiring process, I interviewed a candidate who looked fantastic on paper. Great experience. Polished. Confident. Strong interview. There was no doubt in my mind she could do the job. And yet, as the conversation went on, something felt absent. Not wrong. Not concerning. Just...missing. She didn’t ask many questions. She wasn’t particularly curious about the company, the team, or how we approached our work. She wasn’t exploring what success looked like in the role or trying to understand the problems she’d be helping solve. Now, before we go any further, I want to acknowledge something important. Hiring decisions are made by humans. Humans are wonderfully imperfect signal-processing machines. Maybe she was curious and simply didn’t show it. Maybe she was nervous. Maybe she’d done so many interviews she knew exactly what she wanted to communicate and didn’t want to get off script. All of those things are possible. But that’s exactly what makes hiring so fascinating. Most people think hiring is about qualifications. In reality, hiring is also about perception. It’s about the story another human starts telling themselves about what it might be like to work with you. And that story begins forming long before anyone finishes reviewing your resume. The Candidate Who Surprised Me The person I ultimately hired was younger. Less experienced. If you lined up the resumes side by side, many people would probably have chosen the other candidate. But she did something that immediately caught my attention. She asked thoughtful questions. Not performative questions. Not questions she pulled from a LinkedIn carousel titled “Twenty-Five Questions to Ask in Every Interview.” Real questions. Questions that demonstrated she had done her research. Questions that showed she was trying to understand how the team operated. Questions that helped her imagine how she could contribute. As we talked, I could see her learning in real time. Connecting dots. Testing ideas. Following her curiosity. And perhaps most importantly, I could see coachability. That word doesn’t appear on many resumes. You can’t earn a certification in it. Yet it’s one of the most valuable traits I’ve seen in high performers throughout my career. Because eventually everyone encounters something they haven’t seen before. Markets change. Technology changes. Customers change. Teams change. The people who thrive aren’t always the people who know the most. They’re often the people who learn the fastest. What Hiring Managers Are Really Evaluating Psychologists have long studied decision-making and found something both fascinating and slightly uncomfortable: Humans often make decisions emotionally before they justify them logically. We like to imagine hiring managers sitting behind spreadsheets assigning weighted scores to qualifications. Reality is messier. Underneath the surface, people are often asking questions like: Can I trust this person? Will they take feedback? Can they adapt? Will they strengthen the team? Would I want to solve difficult problems with them? Would I enjoy spending forty hours a week working alongside them? Those questions aren’t irrational. They’re deeply human. Most work is collaborative. Most jobs involve ambiguity. Most success requires communication, adaptation, and problem-solving with other people. When a hiring manager interviews you, they’re not only evaluating whether you can do the job. They’re imagining what it might feel like to work with you. Curiosity Is an Underrated Career Superpower One of the strongest signals a candidate can send is curiosity. Curiosity tells me you’re paying attention. Curiosity tells me you’re still growing. Curiosity tells me you’re willing to learn before assuming. Curiosity tells me you don’t believe you already have all the answers. Ironically, the most confident people I’ve met often ask the best questions. They aren’t trying to prove they’re the smartest person in the room. They’re trying to understand the room. That’s a very different energy. And frankly, it’s one that makes people want to work with you. The Bias We Don’t Always See There’s another layer worth acknowledging. Humans naturally gravitate toward familiarity. Psychologists call this affinity bias. We tend to like people who remind us of ourselves. People who communicate the way we communicate. People who think the way we think. That’s why structured hiring processes matter. It’s why diversity matters. It’s why self-awareness matters. Even as I reflect on my own hiring decision, I have to admit I could be wrong about some of the signals I interpreted. Maybe the more experienced candidate would have been incredibly coachable. Maybe her confidence reflected competence rather than rigidity. Maybe I was reading too much into a lack of questions. That’s possible. Good hiring requires humility, too. Because hiring is rarely about certainty. It’s about probability. It’s about making the best decision you can with incomplete information. The Question That Changed Everything When I compared both candidates, I found myself asking a surprisingly simple question: Who am I more excited to help develop? Who am I more excited to build with? Not who is finished. Not who knows everything. Who is still growing? Who is still curious? Who has the potential to become even better a year from now? The answer became clear. Stop Performing. Start Connecting. One thing I’ve noticed over and over again is that interviews can make people disappear. Someone walks into an interview determined to say all the right things. The perfect answers. The perfect stories. The perfect version of themselves. And somewhere along the way, their personality vanishes. Their curiosity vanishes. Their thought process vanishes. Their humanity vanishes. The conversation becomes a performance. The candidates who stand out are often the ones who manage to stay human. Not overly casual. Not unprofessional. Just authentic. Comfortable enough to ask questions. Comfortable enough to think out loud. Comfortable enough to admit what they don’t know. Comfortable enough to let their natural strengths show up. And here’s the funny thing: That level of comfort usually doesn’t come from talent. It comes from practice. Athletes practice. Actors rehearse. Pilots use simulators. Yet job seekers are expected to walk into one of the most important conversations of their lives and somehow perform perfectly on the first attempt. That’s not how humans work. Practice doesn’t make you robotic. Good practice does the opposite. It reduces anxiety. It builds confidence. And confidence creates space for the real you to show up. The thoughtful you. The curious you. The version of you that asks great questions. The version of you people can actually imagine working with. The Thing People Remember At the end of the day, most hiring managers aren’t looking for a script. They’re looking for a person. A person they can trust. A person they can teach. A person they can learn from. A person they can build something with. If you’re early in your career, stop worrying about being the most experienced person in the room. That goal is impossible for most of us anyway. There will always be someone older. Someone more accomplished. Someone with a longer resume. Instead, focus on becoming someone people want to build with. Be prepared. Do your research. Ask thoughtful questions. Show people how you think. Show them how you learn. Show them you’re capable of growth. Because the best hiring managers aren’t only evaluating who you are today. They’re trying to imagine who you’ll become tomorrow. And sometimes the most compelling candidate isn’t the one who knows everything. It’s the one who still wants to learn. Get full access to This Will Get Loud Substack at thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com/subscribe
Mar 10

Lovingkindness Meditation

May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering. Get full access to This Will Get Loud Substack at thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com/subscribe
Mar 5

What Spiritual Traditions Know About Joy

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to manage our joy. To soften it.To make it more appropriate.Less obvious.Less… enthusiastic. But dogs never got that memo. Pick up a leash and a dog will celebrate like you just announced the arrival of spring. Tail wagging, spinning, full-body delight. No hesitation. No self-editing. Just pure, embodied joy. In this episode of This Will Get Loud, we explore what dogs instinctively understand about enthusiasm and why so many spiritual traditions quietly agree with them. From the Psalms calling people to praise through dancing, to Jewish teachings about simcha (joy) as a spiritual responsibility, to Islamic traditions of embodied gratitude, to Zen’s invitation to experience a moment fully without commentary—these paths point to something surprisingly unified. Joy isn’t frivolous.Joy is a form of attention.Joy is participation in the sacredness of the moment. And yet many of us - especially as adults, especially as parents - learn to brace ourselves even when something good happens. We mute our excitement as a way of protecting ourselves from disappointment. Dogs don’t do that. They don’t dilute joy just because it might not last.They don’t edit their delight to appear composed. They simply let the moment be good. This episode is an invitation to notice how deeply interconnected our spiritual traditions actually are—and how often the wisdom they offer shows up in the most ordinary places. Sometimes in prayer.Sometimes in scripture. And sometimes in a dog losing their mind because you picked up a leash. Get full access to This Will Get Loud Substack at thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com/subscribe
Feb 25

Lyndsay Dowd & Becoming the Leader You Wish You Had

I interviewed Lyndsay Dowd this week on This Will Get Loud, and she said something that lodged itself in my chest: “Trust is your currency.” I lead inside a high-volume fertility clinic. We live in numbers. Consult targets.Cycle starts.Cancellation rates.Conversion.Performance. There is nothing abstract about our KPIs. Families are waiting on the other side of them. So when someone says “lead with heart,” I feel a reflex rise in me. Yes, but. Yes, but we have quotas.Yes, but patients are counting on us.Yes, but this is medicine. This is serious. And yet. I have also worked in environments where you wake up at 2am wondering if you sent the right email.Where your shoulders live somewhere near your ears.Where performance is driven by fear instead of belief. Those places don’t outperform. They exhaust. Lyndsay talks about the difference between a leader who walks in like the new sheriff in town and one who goes on a listening tour. One demands loyalty.The other earns trust. The irony? The second one wins. Every time. Performance vs. Heartbeat In healthcare, especially fertility, we talk constantly about performance culture. But here’s what I’m noticing: When someone feels psychologically safe…When they feel seen…When they are celebrated publicly for doing something well… They don’t slack. They lean in. One of Lyndsay’s stories stuck with me: a leader who left Post-it notes on desks after great calls. Not a bonus.Not a policy change.A Post-it. And it changed the room. Because people want to be seen. I think about that a lot lately. Not just as a manager. As a woman. As someone approaching 50. As someone who has worn a lot of identities over the years and is asking quietly, What’s mine now? Reinvention Is Not Reckless Lyndsay was fired at 50. She thought her career was over. Instead, she built Heartbeat for Hire. She talks about career security vs. job security.You don’t own your job.You can own your voice. That one hit. Because I think many of us — especially women — were taught to be grateful, steady, responsible. Do the job well.Don’t rattle the cage.Keep the peace. But there comes a point where you realize:You can do that… and still shrink. Reinvention isn’t blowing up your life. It’s remembering yourself inside it. The Dinner Table Test Here’s the line that might haunt me most: “When you become a leader, you become the topic of someone’s dinner conversation.” Oof. What are they saying? * Do they feel respected? * Micromanaged? * Ignored? * Inspired? At home, my kids talk about teachers this way. At work, our staff talk about physicians this way. In corporate life, employees talk about executives this way. Leadership is not theoretical. It echoes. The Shift This year, I’ve been letting the Ohio part of me back out. Talking to the barista.Complimenting the grocery clerk.Celebrating someone’s LinkedIn win without irony. It feels small. It is not small. Culture is not built in keynote speeches. It is built in tone.In micro-behaviors.In whether someone feels like headcount or heartbeat. We still need performance. We still need metrics. We still need discipline. But fear is not a growth strategy. Trust is. And trust, apparently, is earned one Post-it at a time. If you’ve worked for a leader who changed your trajectory - what did they do? And if you’re leading right now… What would your team say about you at dinner tonight? To learn more about Lyndsay or to work with her, you can book a call with her here. Get full access to This Will Get Loud Substack at thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com/subscribe
Feb 10

The Career Trap No One Warned Us About

What if the problem isn’t you… but the career you built to survive instead of to belong? In this episode of This Will Get Loud, Sara sits down with author and career guide Kendra Court to talk about the quiet panic many mid-career women feel but rarely say out loud: Is this really it? Together, they unpack the idea of the “career trap” how so many of us followed the rules, climbed the ladder, did everything right… only to wake up decades later feeling stuck, misaligned, or burned out by work that no longer fits who we are now. Kendra shares her clarity-to-change approach, blending practical strategy with inner wisdom, values, and yes, a little woo. They talk about: * Why fulfillment changes as we move through motherhood, midlife, and identity shifts * The difference between prestige and alignment * How saying no can actually create space for the right opportunity * Why chasing jobs to be “chosen” drains us, and what it looks like to reclaim agency instead * How to think about bridge jobs, values, and sustainable work without abandoning yourself This conversation is for anyone who has ever thought:“I should be grateful… so why does this feel wrong?”“I’ve invested too much time and money to change now.”“I want work that fits the life I actually have.” If your career feels like a rock in your shoe and you’ve been trying to ignore it, this episode offers language, permission, and a softer, braver way forward. 🎧 Listen in if you’re ready to stop forcing what no longer fits and start listening to what’s asking for your attention. ***If you’re interested in learning more about the work Kendra does or you would like to hire her to help find the work you were meant to do, you can visit her website here. Get full access to This Will Get Loud Substack at thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com/subscribe
Feb 3

What Dogs Teach Us About Mornings

Burnout, parenting, and the quiet grace of starting over. After approaching the holidays burned out and getting sick, I reflect on morning as a spiritual reset, motherhood, and what it means to begin again without apology. Get full access to This Will Get Loud Substack at thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com/subscribe
Jan 13

Begin Where You Are

Begin Where You Are Dogs don’t wake up wondering if they’re behind. They don’t replay yesterday.They don’t pre-audit their worth.They don’t delay peace until they’re “ready.” They open their eyes.They accept the day.They begin. This episode isn’t about fixing yourself.It’s about noticing where you already are and letting that be enough to start from. We talk about:• why urgency is not the same as movement• how presence works before clarity arrives• what dogs understand instinctively that we keep talking ourselves out of• releasing the fantasy of a better starting point You don’t need a cleaner past.You don’t need a more organized future.You don’t need permission. You’re already standing at the door. 🎧 Begin Where You Are is an episode of This Might Get Loud.Listen when your nervous system needs fewer instructions and more truth. Get full access to This Will Get Loud Substack at thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com/subscribe

7 Episodes

This Will Get Loud talks about parenting, spirituality and dogs (sometimes all at once. It's about presence, nervous system regulation, meaning-making, and what dogs understand instinctively but humans tend to forget, through contemplation, gentle humor, and lived experience. thiswillgetloudmag.substack.com

Creator

This Will Get Loud
Years Active

2026
Episodes

7
Rating

Clean
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© This Will Get Loud
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This Will Get Loud Podcast