The Scenic Route with Victoria Steward

Victoria Steward
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What if the detour was never a wrong turn? We get handed one map early on: the superhighway. Pick the career, hit the milestones, stay in the fast lane somebody else drew for us. And one day a lot of us look up and realize it's been heading somewhere we never actually chose. This is a show about the people who got off it. I'm Victoria Steward. I spent 20 years as a federal civilian engineer/project manager before I left on a gut feeling and started taking my own scenic route. Every week I sit down with interesting people who made a change, sometimes sudden, sometimes so gradual they almost missed it, that sent their life somewhere they never saw coming. The kind of stories that inspire you to start dreaming into your own. If you've started to wonder whether there's a different road available to you, you're in exactly the right place. ✨ New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

  1. 6d ago

    Deemed Ready to Lead: Heather Quigley on the Invisible Rules of STEM Leadership

    Heather Quigley found out she had been selected for sponsorship to move further up the leadership ladder. It should have felt validating. What came up instead was no. She had a PhD in chemical engineering, a postdoctoral fellowship at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, and more than a decade at a Fortune 500 chemical company, the last stretch of it leading people. From the outside the path ran perfectly straight. From the inside, things had been shifting for years. She left in May. She now coaches women in STEM through the move from individual contributor into leading people, teaching the unwritten rules nobody hands you on the way in. We talk about the week her brand new team lost all of its funding, what she means when she says the job changed but nobody explained that the rules had changed, the months she spent building the wrong idea and why she refuses to call that wasted time, and the one rule she would give any woman about to lead for the first time. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to The Scenic Route with Victoria Steward 00:47 From PhD Chemical Engineer to NASA Kennedy Space Center 04:31 Always on the Technical Path: Making the Next Right Choice 06:40 Choosing the Career That Fit the Life She Actually Wanted 09:31 The Super Highway: Optimizing Every Part of Your Life at Once 12:17 First Leadership Role: Nobody Said the Rules Had Changed 14:04 Technical Track vs Leadership: Two Completely Different Jobs 15:07 Chronically Tired: When Your Body Starts Sending the Signal 16:05 The Side Business That Showed Her Another Life Was Possible 17:51 The 2025 Turning Point: A New Team Loses All Its Funding 20:00 Offered a Path Further Up the Ladder and Saying No 22:07 Separating Self Worth From Your Title and Financial Security 26:12 Building the Wrong Idea First and Why It Was Not Wasted Time 29:46 The Broken Rung: Why Women Disappear as You Move Up in STEM 38:46 Rule One of STEM Leadership: Ambiguity Is the Job ABOUT HEATHER QUIGLEY Heather Quigley is a PhD chemical engineer and former R&D leader who founded Signal + Flow, a coaching practice for women in STEM leadership. She helps women navigate the transition from individual contributor to leader by teaching the unspoken rules no one else tells them. Website Get Your The 6 Real Rules of STEM Leadership Free Resource Follow On LinkedIn ABOUT VICTORIA Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the 'one-more-year' loop build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call. Follow On LinkedIn On Instagram Resources The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The Engineer's Exit Decision Toolkit The 5-Minute Grounding Reset Website

    Deemed Ready to Lead: Heather Quigley on the Invisible Rules of STEM Leadership

  2. Sep 2

    What Matters to You Now: Laura Shepherd on the Question That Starts Every Career Change

    Laura Shepherd's mother sat her in front of the moon landing when she was four years old. She wanted to be an astronaut. Laura was not good at science, so that dream fell away. But the the explorer did not. It is still the strongest driving force at 61. It is why mid-career she left a six figure marketing job to make forty bucks a day plus tips teaching scuba in the Caribbean. Why she left that too when it had given her what it had to give. She is a leadership and transitions coach now, running her own practice, with a Kilimanjaro climb booked for October. What moved her from one of those lives to the next was never a plan for the whole path. It was one question, asked again every few years: what matters to you NOW. Not what mattered five years ago, or even imagining what will matter if a few months or years. We talk about the pivot everybody in her life called crazy, why she says the leap only looked like a leap from the outside, and the difference between the discomfort you can live with and the discomfort that actually grows you. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to The Scenic Route: Meet Leadership and Transitions Coach Laura Shepherd 02:21 Astronaut Dreams and the Life Script She Did Not Follow 04:36 Leaving a Six Figure Corporate Job to Teach Scuba in the Caribbean 06:17 Goals Give Direction: The Cost of Chasing Them With Blinders On 10:24 How She Decided: Five Job Offers From Four Days at a Trade Show 18:31 Hiring a Coach: When Asking for Help Felt Like Weakness 19:01 What Matters to You Now: The Core Values Check 25:50 Two Years In: The Toddler Stage of Building Her Own Business 30:00 Pink Elephants and Red Cars: Training Your Brain to Notice 34:48 Avoidance Is a Choice: The Two Kinds of Discomfort 37:48 Laura's Best Advice: Find the Gap in Your Core Values 41:13 Kilimanjaro in October: Mind, Body, Soul Connection ABOUT LAURA SHEPHERD Laura Shepherd is a leadership and transitions coach helping high achievers who are stretched thin figure out the next path and supporting them along the way. She spent 25 plus years in corporate marketing before pivoting into coaching. Her company is North by Northwest Coaching and Consulting: be your own compass. Website Laura is climbing Kilimanjaro in October and documenting her training on Substack. Follow: On LinkedIn On Instagram ABOUT VICTORIA Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the 'one-more-year' loop build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call. Follow On LinkedIn On Instagram Resources The Engineer's Exit Decision Toolkit The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap Website

    What Matters to You Now: Laura Shepherd on the Question That Starts Every Career Change

  3. Aug 27

    Why "Pick a Lane" Is Terrible Advice for Multi-Passionate Founders: Angela Gerber

    Angela Gerber was the kid who was going to be a shark biologist, then a fashion designer, then an anesthesiologist. She started college pre-med and was in art school one semester later. Today she runs The Marketing Apothecary, where she goes by Chief Chemist and builds systems for founders who are good at too many things to fit in anybody’s box. Here is the part I did not expect: leaving corporate did not fix it. She walked out of one box and landed straight in shinier ones, wearing other people’s frameworks and titles until she hit a wall last year and started wondering whether to give up and go get a job. We talk about the moment someone else’s boundaries turn into your ceiling, what it costs to be the person who does lots of things, and why the standard advice to pick a lane sets off an allergic reaction in some of us. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to The Scenic Route: meet Angela Gerber 01:04 What Multi-Passionate Actually Means, and Why It Reads as Chaos 02:43 Why "Pick a Lane" Advice Keeps Founders Small 05:25 Shark Biologist, Fashion Designer, Anesthesiologist: Too Many Answers 06:39 Pre-Med to Art School to Biology: The College Zigzag 08:27 Australia, BP, and Landing Somewhere You Did Not Plan 10:26 What the Pandemic Unlocked at Work, and What Went Back in the Box 12:11 When Someone Else’s Boundaries Become Your Ceiling 12:35 Leaving Corporate and Falling Straight Into Shinier Boxes 16:32 Why Sounding Like Every Other Marketer Stalled Her Business 18:51 The Identity Crisis: Where Is Me in My Business? 19:42 Finding a Coach Who Held Up a Mirror 20:37 Do the Work on Yourself As You Build the Business 25:50 Inside the In Your Element Circle: Positioning, Visibility, Rhythm ABOUT ANGELA GERBER Angela Gerber is the founder, Chief Chemist and System Builder of The Marketing Apothecary, where she builds systems that organize multi-passionate founders’ expertise into one clear story. Her In Your Element Circle opens in September, check out the details. FOLLOW On LinkedIn On Instagram ABOUT VICTORIA Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the 'one-more-year' loop build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call. Follow On LinkedIn On Instagram Resources The Engineer's Exit Decision Toolkit The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The 5-Minute Grounding Reset Website 🎙️ This show is recorded with Riverside, the easiest way to run a professional podcast and livestream simultaneously.

    Why "Pick a Lane" Is Terrible Advice for Multi-Passionate Founders: Angela Gerber

  4. Aug 24

    Ali Reznikoff on the Question That Changed Her Career: How Did I Get Here?

    Ali Reznikoff was offered a promotion. A good one, steady, the kind you take. She freaked out and went to woodworking school in Maine instead. What followed was not a plan. It was a chain of things she said yes to: convincing day laborers to pick up litter at a racetrack, which turned into a staff of over two hundred and eighteen hour days. Running cleaning departments across seven hospitals. Building an industrial machinery company from a guy in a car into an actual operation. A jewelry business running underneath all of it. Then she turned thirty, sat down in her living room, and asked herself how she had gotten there. What came back was not regret. It was one sentence that reorganised everything, and it is the reason she now coaches executives and founders as The Solution Sherpa. We talk about managing people with no training and no idea what she was doing, why so many capable people get thrown to the wolves the same way, the difference between a coach and a consultant, and the answer she found on her couch at thirty. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to The Scenic Route with Victoria Steward 01:43 She Was Going to Move to New York City and Climb the Ladder 02:11 Offered a Promotion, She Freaked Out and Went to Woodworking School 03:42 No Management Experience and a Crew of Day Laborers to Lead 04:48 A Staff of Over 200 and an Eight Hour Day Counted as a Day Off 06:45 Horses Are Easy, Humans Are Not: Learning How People Actually Work 07:57 Moving to Asheville: The One Part of the Path That Was by Design 09:03 Seven Hospitals and Her First Ever Management Training 11:35 Talking Her Boss Into Teaching Her Bookkeeping to Justify a Raise 13:58 From a Guy in a Car to a Real Company With Systems Behind It 16:23 Moderation Is Not a Strong Suit: Running Several Businesses at Once 19:40 Cutting the Five Year Plan and Going Straight to Coaching 22:38 Where the Name The Solution Sherpa Came From 30:09 Turning Thirty and Asking How Did I Get Here 30:54 The Epiphany: Every Decision That Got Her There Could Take Her Elsewhere ABOUT ALI REZNIKOFF Ali Reznikoff is the founder of The Solution Sherpa, coaching executives and founders who think differently. A former COO, self-taught jeweler and woodworker, she helps leaders find the right path rather than handing them someone else's map. If you're in the Ashville, NC area join Ali's Live workshop, 3 September 2026. Website Follow On LinkedIn On Instagram About Victoria Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the 'one-more-year' loop build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call. Follow On LinkedIn On Instagram Resources The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The 5-Minute Grounding Reset

    Ali Reznikoff on the Question That Changed Her Career: How Did I Get Here?

  5. Aug 21

    Aerospace to Neuroscience: Giuseppina Derudas Is Building on Her Own Timeline

    At nineteen, Giuseppina Derudas left Sardinia for London with an acceptance letter and English good enough to pass a test but not good enough to follow an aerospace engineering lecture. She had wanted to be an astronaut. Fifteen years later she is formulating a sleep supplement. The route between those two points runs through Lockheed Martin, a merger that dissolved the plan she had built her future on, and a question at thirty that has no engineering answer. It also runs through her mother, who could not sleep. She is still consulting full time, and that is deliberate. She is funding all her startup costs herself and refuses to ask a brand-new business to keep her financially afloat while it is still in its infancy. We talk about the years she spent stuck, the trip that unstuck everything, and why she will tell you plainly that there is no rush. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to The Scenic Route: meet Giuseppina Derudas 01:18 From Sardinia to London at Nineteen 07:55 When a Merger Dissolves Your Career Plan 12:00 The Identity Crisis at 30 13:17 Depression, a Breakup, and the Meditation That Helped 20:06 Going Back to University for Neuroscience 24:18 Her Mother, Xanax, and the Problem With Benzodiazepines 27:00 She Dreamt Again: the first sign it worked 32:36 Stuck in European Red Tape 33:45 The Miami Decision: launching in the US instead 34:59 How to Build a Company While Working Full Time 37:53 Why She Will Not Let the Business Pay Her Bills Yet 43:36 There Is No Right Path 45:01 Planting Seeds and Letting Them Grow DISCLAIMER: This episode is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult a healthcare provider before starting any supplement, especially if currently taking prescription medication. Statements about dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. ABOUT GIUSEPPINA DERUDAS Giuseppina Derudas is a systems engineering and project management consultant with a postgraduate degree in applied neuroscience from King’s College London. She is the founder of Amreeta Health and the formulator of Sleep Magic, a sleep supplement launching in the US market in fall 2026. Keep up to date on Amreeta and Sleep Magic: On Instagram Join the Waitlist! ABOUT VICTORIA Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the "one-more-year" loop, build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call. RESOURCES The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The Engineer’s Exit Decision Toolkit The 5-Minute Grounding Reset Website FOLLOW On LinkedIn On Instagram

    Aerospace to Neuroscience: Giuseppina Derudas Is Building on Her Own Timeline

  6. Aug 17

    Stephanie Jones on the Self-Care Trap: It’s Not You, It’s the System Making You Sick

    One of Stephanie's first clients was a fifteen year old who had just picked up a stack of legal charges. It was her first week out of grad school, and nobody had finished training her. She figured it out, but there were consequences. Twenty years later she is a licensed clinical social worker and a clinical consultant, and when people ask her who her client is, her answer is unexpected: her client isn't a person, it's a system. Which sounds abstract right up until someone hands you a bubble bath and calls it a solution to what is happening day after day, month after month. We talk about what happens when a group practice scales and starts to feel like profit first instead of team, why an outside consultant gets heard saying the same things staff have been saying for years, what a trauma-informed workplace looks like in actual policy rather than in a values statement, and the thing Stephanie calls a trap that almost every exhausted professional has been told will help. Chapters 00:00 Meet Stephanie Jones, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Clinical Consultant 01:34 She Thought She Would Be a Lawyer: How She Found Social Work Instead 02:44 First Job Out of Undergrad: Inside a Residential Group Home for At-Risk Youth 05:23 The Supervisor Who Changed Everything and the Gift of Being Told You Are Doing Fine 06:33 What High Acuity Means, and Why New Social Workers Get the Hardest Cases 09:05 Why an Outside Consultant Gets Heard When the Staff Never Did 11:36 When a Group Practice Scales: How Profit First Replaces Team 13:57 My Client Isn't a Person, It's a System 17:12 Trauma-Informed Workplace Design 18:30 Secondary Trauma, Transparency, and Water Cooler Anxiety 21:11 Layoffs, Moral Injury, and Why Baseline Anxiety Is Everywhere Now 24:06 Maslow at Work: Why Collaboration Is What Makes People Stay 28:06 How Practice Owners Rebuild the Hierarchy They Left 31:23 Staying in Your Values and Still Making Money 37:54 The Self-Care Trap: What New Social Workers Are Never Told About Stephanie Stephanie Jones is a licensed clinical social worker and clinical consultant with more than 20 years of micro and macro social work experience, helping agencies and group practices build trauma-informed workplaces. Website Follow On LinkedIn Follow On Instagram Mentioned: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman You Need A Budget, YNAB.com Profit for Keeps® is registered trademarks of Amber Dugger LLC. ABOUT VICTORIA Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the "one-more-year" loop, build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call RESOURCES The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The 5-Minute Grounding Reset FOLLOW On LinkedIn On Instagram

    Stephanie Jones on the Self-Care Trap: It’s Not You, It’s the System Making You Sick

  7. Aug 12

    Magnolia Cloyd Is Building a Life First Business in the Margins of Her Day

    Magnolia Cloyd wanted to be a chef. Then she heard that only one in four restaurants makes it, decided she would be one of the three that fail, and went to study marketing and entrepreneurship instead because it felt safer. Fifteen years later she runs her own design studio. She is building it in the margins of her day, around homeschooling two children and a husband who works ten to fourteen hour days. Which sounds like a limitation, right up until she does the arithmetic out loud. We talk about the planner she made for herself in the middle of young motherhood, the three words she built her whole studio around, why she spent years afraid to name the clients she actually wanted, and what it takes to keep going when growth is slow and gradual. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to The Scenic Route: meet Magnolia Cloyd 03:14 She Wanted to Be a Chef: the plan before design 04:08 The Statistic That Changed Her Mind About Restaurants 05:04 Teaching Herself Graphic Design on the Job 06:26 Coming Home in 2020 06:55 The Planner She Made for Herself 09:41 Where Beauty, Strategy, and Ease Came From 14:40 Catching Yourself Forcing It 20:41 Why She Was Afraid to Name the Clients She Wanted 24:57 Regret, and Every Earlier Version of Herself 29:29 Building in the Margins 36:14 Building in the Quiet Before Anyone Is Watching 42:43 Be, Do, Have 44:41 How an Hour a Day Compounds 46:29 Building a Life First Business LEARN MORE ABOUT MAGNOLIA Her two signature services: The Grace Edit, for books, devotionals, journals, and planners, and The Strength Edit, for brand design for founders and nonprofits. Get Magnolia's Freebie Here!! Website In the Margins with Magnolia on YouTube On Instagram On LinkedIn ABOUT VICTORIA Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the "one-more-year" loop, build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call. RESOURCES The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The Engineer’s Exit Decision Toolkit The 5-Minute Grounding Reset Website FOLLOW On LinkedIn On Instagram 🎙️ This show is recorded with Riverside, the easiest way to run a professional podcast and livestream simultaneously. Thinking about starting your own show? Try Now!

    Magnolia Cloyd Is Building a Life First Business in the Margins of Her Day

  8. Aug 7

    Justin Anderson on the Fantasy World Where Mental Health Is the Magic, Not the Villain

    Justin Anderson knows that trade or setting aside a part yourself, especially the creative side. He spent years as a network engineer, keeping systems running to precision, while the writer in him sat in a drawer next to grief he had been taught to keep silent. When he finally started writing again, something he expected to be a little side income, it cracked that drawer open. Sixteen years of suppressed grief came up through his characters. And instead of choosing between the engineer and the writer, the logic and the imagination, he built a world big enough to hold both. That world is the VaelorinVerse: a dark fantasy universe where mental health is the magic system, not the villain. Justin built it for everyone carrying an invisible weight nobody else can see. The caregiver grieving someone who is still alive. The first responder who cannot show a crack. He did not build it to fix them. He built it to provide a place where they feel seen. In this conversation Justin and I get into why so much of what we are shown about mental illness is wrong, the two doors of grief, and why building something real takes longer and looks less dramatic than the quit-your-job-and-go-all-in story we keep getting sold. CHAPTERS 00:00 Meet Justin Anderson and the VaelorinVerse 03:48 The Kid Who Dreamed of Being a Psychologist and a Writer 06:20 Why Algebra Ended the Psychology Dream and Engineering Won 11:24 Coming Full Circle Back to the Mind and Writing 13:50 Why Movies and Books Get Mental Illness Wrong 15:24 How Writing Surfaced 16 Years of Suppressed Grief 24:40 The Toxic Writing Group That Sent Him Back to Therapy 28:32 Building a Fantasy World Where No One Feels Alone 32:41 The Invisible Weight First Responders and Caregivers Carry 34:33 Grieving Someone Who Is Still Alive 43:32 Four Doors Into the Same House: Making Help Accessible 47:53 Why You Do Not Have to Quit Your Job to Build Something Real 54:51 Therapy Is Not One Size Fits All 58:54 The Two Doors of Grief and Why Externalizing Works EXPLORE THE VAELORINVERSE The VaelorinVerse (novel, audio, folklore, memorial wall, shop) On LinkedIn On Instagram On YouTube ABOUT VICTORIA Victoria Steward is a Corporate Exit and Financial Empowerment Coach and Certified Profit for Keeps® Coach, helping senior corporate women stuck in the "one-more-year" loop, build the self-trust and financial clarity to leave corporate on their own terms, their own timing, their own scenic route. Curious? Book a Pivot Clarity Call RESOURCES The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The 5-Minute Grounding Reset FOLLOW On LinkedIn On Instagram Website

    Justin Anderson on the Fantasy World Where Mental Health Is the Magic, Not the Villain
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

What if the detour was never a wrong turn? We get handed one map early on: the superhighway. Pick the career, hit the milestones, stay in the fast lane somebody else drew for us. And one day a lot of us look up and realize it's been heading somewhere we never actually chose. This is a show about the people who got off it. I'm Victoria Steward. I spent 20 years as a federal civilian engineer/project manager before I left on a gut feeling and started taking my own scenic route. Every week I sit down with interesting people who made a change, sometimes sudden, sometimes so gradual they almost missed it, that sent their life somewhere they never saw coming. The kind of stories that inspire you to start dreaming into your own. If you've started to wonder whether there's a different road available to you, you're in exactly the right place. ✨ New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

Information

  • Creator
    Victoria Steward
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    29
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Victoria Steward