The Scenic Route with Victoria Steward

Victoria Steward
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Careers

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. 5d ago

    Falling Apart or Falling Together? Amanda Pieraldi on Grief, Reinvention, and Resilience

    Amanda Pieraldi is the host of the Spiritual Gangster Podcast, co-host of Bees on a Mission, and the author of three books! None of this was the original plan. Amanda's identity was built around being a wife and a mother, and when her marriage ended in 2017 she went back to school full time as a single mom. Then came a run of loss that would flatten most people: her mom passed away on Christmas morning in 2019, her grandmother 13 months later, and then she lost the job she thought was the one. While she kept looking for work, she started writing. All three books followed, and in February 2025 she launched her podcast without knowing how, spending a year and a half on solo episodes before she started interviewing guests. We talk about how affirmations carried her through the hardest stretches, why she chose purpose over the job she thought she should want, and what she means when she says that when life feels like it is falling apart, it is likely falling together. CHAPTERS 00:00 Meet Amanda Pieraldi: Host of the Spiritual Gangster Podcast and Three-Time Author 03:04 From Education to Author: A Life Built Around Helping People 03:51 When Your Identity Is Wife and Mother: Starting Over After Divorce 04:16 Going Back to School Full Time as a Single Parent 05:14 Losing Her Mom on Christmas Morning 06:19 Grief and Losing the Job: When Everything Hits at Once 07:35 Choosing to Write: Three Books Born From Hard Times 08:12 Starting a Podcast Without Knowing How 09:54 Why Writing, and Why Affirmations Helped Her Through 11:42 From Affirmations to a Prompted Journal to a Children's Book 13:54 Perspective Is Everything: Glimmers and Where Your Attention Goes 14:51 A Year and a Half of Solo Episodes: Building a Soulful and Strong Community 16:39 When the Job Search Isn't Working: Choosing Purpose Over What You Should Do 19:30 New Opportunities: Co-Hosting Bees on a Mission 22:24 When It Feels Like It's Falling Apart, It's Falling Together ABOUT AMANDA PIERALDI Amanda Pieraldi is an author, speaker, and the host of the Spiritual Gangster Podcast, a vibe-driven space for the soulful and strong, and co-host of Bees on a Mission. Follow On Instagram Facebook TikTok The Spiritual Gangster Podcast Spotify Apple Bs on a Mission YouTube Spotify Find Amanda's Books on Amazon 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 Website

    Falling Apart or Falling Together? Amanda Pieraldi on Grief, Reinvention, and Resilience

  2. Oct 14

    Why Do I Care So Much What Everyone Thinks? Valerie Marston on Learning to Trust Yourself

    Valerie Marston is a mental health and mindset coach and a full-time HR professional. She helps women worry less about what other people think, stop letting other people's opinions and moods decide their self-worth, and start trusting their own internal voice. She does this work because she was that woman for most of her life. Val first saw what coaching could do when a colleague offered to coach her while earning her own certification hours. Her own intensive life coach certification became the turning point, and she has been coaching for over seven years since, letting the practice grow at its own pace through years of wondering whether she should become a therapist, go back to school for social work, or become a registered dietitian instead. We talk about living as a people pleaser and perfectionist without realizing it, the signals that you might be living for everyone else's approval, and the iceberg of worry sitting underneath "I'm fine." Val also shares her own story, from scoliosis surgery at 13 to the perfectionism that peaked in college and became a severe eating disorder, and how she found her way to a healthy relationship with food and her body. Val has a free quiz to help you see where you are in your own journey, and a free masterclass on learning to trust yourself. Chapters 00:00 Meet Valerie Marston: Mental Health and Mindset Coach 02:48 From HR to Coaching: A Lifelong Desire to Help 06:29 Coaching on the Side for Seven Years: The Certification That Changed Everything 09:36 Therapist, Dietitian, or Coach? Getting Comfortable With Not Knowing 11:23 Living as a People Pleaser Without Knowing It 13:23 Am I Doing This for Me or for Someone Else? 15:43 Signs You're Living for Other People's Approval 18:58 You Can't Unsee It: Breadcrumbs, Synchronicity, and Self-Awareness 21:04 Where Are You in Your Journey? The Self-Trust Quiz 23:31 The People Pleasing Iceberg: What's Under "I'm Fine" 25:11 Val's Story: Scoliosis, Perfectionism, and Recovering From an Eating Disorder 34:38 What Is Lighting Her Up: An Upcoming Masterclass on Self-Trust 37:07 You Don't Have to Do It Alone: Permission to Rest and Put Yourself First 39:48 Where to Find Valerie ABOUT VALERIE MARSTON Valerie Marston is a mental health and mindset coach, an ICF-certified Life Coach and National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach. Through VM Clarity Coaching, she helps high-achieving women stop letting other people's opinions decide their worth and start trusting, and prioritizing, their own voice. Take her free quiz OR join her FREE masterclass! Website Follow 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. Follow On LinkedIn On Instagram Resources 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. Thinking about starting your own show?

    Why Do I Care So Much What Everyone Thinks? Valerie Marston on Learning to Trust Yourself

  3. Oct 7

    The Warrior of Balance: Sasha Larkin on Strength, Service, and Self-Discovery

    Sasha Larkin knew she wanted to be a police officer from the time she was a kid watching CHiPs, and she never wanted anything else. She spent 26 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and retired as Assistant Sheriff. She is also a yoga teacher, a third degree black belt, and a mom of three teenagers. At year twenty-five, with the sheriff running for a second term and her pension topped out, she sat in meditation and asked for a sign. The next day LinkedIn suggested a job: Director of Intelligence for the FIFA World Cup 2026. She spent the next two years in Miami building an intelligence team and a communications network linking police departments across the US, Mexico, and Canada. We talk about why leaving a career you love can bring you to your knees even when every sign says go, why she thinks resilience is not armor but metabolism, and how yoga kept her steady through decades in law enforcement, including the program she built to teach it at the police academy. Sasha shares why change leadership is really grief leadership, why balance is something you fight for rather than find, and what it is like to finally do school drop-off and make dinner every night. Sasha is now building her speaking and consulting work on resilience, change leadership, and what she calls being a warrior of balance. Chapters 00:00 Meet Sasha Larkin: From Assistant Sheriff to FIFA World Cup Director of Intelligence 01:55 The Only Job She Ever Wanted: CHiPs, Camaraderie, and Community, Identity, Purpose 04:59 Year 25: When You Cannot Change the Culture From Where You Sit 06:29 Asking for a Sign: The LinkedIn Job Post That Changed Everything 09:36 Leaving a Career You Love: Fear, Heartbreak, and Trusting the Push 12:05 Resilience Is Not Armor, It Is Metabolism 13:39 From Ballet to Karate to Yoga: How a Back Injury Changed Her Practice 16:51 Warrior of Balance: Yoga Class, Then the Gun Belt, and Yoga at the Police Academy 20:02 Swimming Upstream: Learning to Hear the Answer You Asked For 22:55 Director of Intelligence: Building a Team for the FIFA World Cup 2026 32:05 Change Leadership Is Grief Leadership 35:48 Life After the World Cup: School Runs, Family Dinners, and a Speaking Career 44:36 The Sleep Gap: Why First Responders Need to Sleep Train Themselves 47:26 Knowing When to Take the Armor Off ABOUT SASHA LARKIN Sasha Larkin is a leadership keynote speaker and consultant, the retired Director of Intelligence for the FIFA World Cup 2026, and a former Assistant Sheriff who served 26 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. A longtime yoga teacher, she helps leaders and organizations build resilience, navigate change, and lead with both strength and humanity. Website LinkedIn 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. Follow LinkedIn Instagram Resources The Can I Pivot Yet? Exit Roadmap The 5-Minute Grounding Reset Website

  4. Sep 30

    Manisha Sahni on Why Your Biggest Growth Comes From Being Uncomfortable

    Manisha Sahni was convinced her career had been a straight line. Predictable. One sensible step after another. She grew up in India with two career options, doctor or engineer, and chose computer science without ever having watched anyone do it. Out of college she landed in a startup instead of a big company like everyone else in her cohort. She moved to the US in 2008, which she calls the worst possible time to arrive, and every year of experience she had built was erased. She volunteered to build a website for a neighborhood plumbing company whose owner wanted to post DIY videos before YouTube existed. That is the thing that got her into Google. Then LinkedIn. Then back to startups, because the large organizations were not where she enjoyed herself. Then management, which she stumbled into because other people saw it in her before she did. There is no college you go to for being a leader, she says. You just do it. And then last year, a company-wide reduction in force. Twenty years on the hamster wheel and suddenly no wheel. She started a podcast with friends. She set up a fractional practice and discovered she had entrepreneurship in her, which she had never suspected. Then she pivoted again into a domain she never imagined working in. Every single one of those jumps happened while she was uncomfortable. She knows that now, and she says the growth came from exactly those moments. Looking back, she told me, not having a plan has done wonders for her journey. Chapters 00:00 Meet Manisha Sahni: Twenty Years From Engineer to Engineering Leader 01:39 Growing Up in India With Two Career Options: Doctor or Engineer 03:41 Landing in a Startup Out of College and Getting Handed Python 08:18 Moving to the US in 2008 and Watching Your Experience Get Washed Out 09:17 The Volunteer Website for a Plumbing Company That Led to Google 11:34 What She Would Tell Her Younger Self: Pause and Enjoy It 14:32 Becoming an Engineering Manager Without Ever Wanting To 16:07 What Makes Engineering Leadership Different: Being the Translator 18:54 The Communication Gap Between Product and Engineering Teams 24:21 The Layoff That Took Her Off the Hamster Wheel After 20 Years 28:20 Why Your Biggest Growth Comes From Being Uncomfortable 36:09 AI as an Extension of You, Not a Replacement 39:36 I Thought My Career Was a Straight Line ABOUT MANISHA SAHNI Manisha Sahni is an engineering leader who has spent twenty years going from hands-on individual contributor to executive, at Google, LinkedIn, and a run of startups. She works with growth stage companies at the point where the systems, priorities, and execution have stopped keeping pace with the business. Follow On LinkedIn Website 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 Website

    Manisha Sahni on Why Your Biggest Growth Comes From Being Uncomfortable

  5. Sep 23

    Danielle Boone on Emotional Reset: Why Grief Is Not a Straight Line

    Danielle "Bird" Boone has been writing since she was four, when her mom taught her that words on paper could say what she could not say out loud. She spent her career behind the scenes in Chicago television and live production, happiest producing while somebody else took the stage. Then a writing partner challenged her to write for thirty days with no structure, and what came out was the grief she had never processed: her mom, who had passed the year before, and her dad, gone seven years earlier. That writing became her book, (In) The Absence Of..., and the method she now teaches as an emotional reset strategist and founder of The Resurgence Experience. We get into why the five stages of grief fall short when a trigger arrives years later, and why every loss, a parent, a relationship, a twenty year job, is also a loss of identity: the "who am I now" nobody makes room for. Danielle shares her tools: letting yourself emotionally throw up before you reset, mind size drills for emotional muscles that have gone weak, anchor statements for trigger moments, and the reflectors who see your situation from a window you cannot. Danielle co-hosts The Throne on the Fishbowl Radio Network and just released REPOSITION, a chess themed playbook for moving out of survival mode. CHAPTERS 00:00 Meet Danielle Boone: Word Playologist and Emotional Reset Strategist 01:18 The Throne: A Radio Show for the Questions People Are Afraid to Ask 04:05 Writing Since Age Four: A Career Behind the Scenes in TV and Live Production 06:05 Saying Yes to Your Next: The Coaching Program and the Podcast Seat 10:51 The 30 Day Writing Challenge That Uncovered Unprocessed Grief 15:07 Why the Five Stages of Grief Fall Short When Triggers Return 16:09 Every Loss Is a Loss of Identity: Jobs, Relationships, Parents 17:16 Emotionally Throw Up: Releasing the Emotion Before You Reset 18:32 The Reset Toolkit: Mind Size Drills and Anchor Statements 21:54 Grief Is Reps, Not a Finish Line 26:42 Your Life Is Your Story: Plot Points, Perspective, and Reflectors 31:03 The Anchor Is Lifted: Danielle Reads From Her Book 38:37 Guidelines, Not Rules: You Do Not Have to Fit In 45:59 Seven Years of Loss and Finding Confidence in the Quiet Spaces of Noise ABOUT DANIELLE BOONE Danielle "Bird" Boone is a writer, speaker, and emotional reset strategist, and the founder of The Resurgence Experience, helping people navigate grief, identity shifts, and the life transitions nobody prepares you for. She is the author of (In) The Absence Of... and co-hosts The Throne on the Fishbowl Radio Network. Website REPOSITION Playbook 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 Website

    Danielle Boone on Emotional Reset: Why Grief Is Not a Straight Line

  6. Sep 16

    Shalini Patel on Why It Doesn't Have to Be Miserable to Be Effective

    Christmas vacation, about eight years ago. Shalini Patel’s youngest had fallen asleep on her shoulder, so she took a selfie to show her husband. Then she looked at the picture and thought: whoa, what happened to me? She had spent twenty plus years in corporate operations, taking care of everything except herself. She started with a vague New Year’s resolution and took the long way around, through fasting, detoxes, and a lot of weight lost the hard way, before landing on the approach she now coaches busy professional women through. Here is the part that stuck with me: she thinks the deprivation was never the price of results. It was the trap. We learned to feel rewarded by it. We talk about why intermittent fasting carries shades of the cabbage soup diet, what a coach does as the scientist outside the experiment, what a realistic pace looks like after 40, and why she measures success by how well her clients leave her. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome and Meet Shalini Patel 01:21 The Selfie Wake-Up Call: From Corporate Operations to Nutrition Coaching 05:31 Wellness Hacks, Detoxes, and Cleanses: Why the Basics Still Win 08:17 The Cabbage Soup Generation: Why Deprivation Feels Like Progress 10:14 Muscle vs Fat Loss: The Body Recomposition Misconception 12:02 Weekly Progress Photos, Hormone Cycles, and Skewed Memory 14:43 Why Coaching Works: The Scientist Outside the Experiment 16:50 Meal Plans Built Around Your Real Life, Not a Template 21:14 The Two Rules of Thumb: High Protein and More Fiber 23:59 Weight Loss After 40: Setting a Realistic Pace 26:12 Tough Love on Deadline Goals: The Uncomfortable Feelings Are the Work 29:51 Why Her Goal Is Getting Clients Off the Plan 31:33 Ice Cream With Your Kids vs Ice Cream After a Bad Day 35:17 Daily Weigh-Ins: Taking the Power Away From the Scale 40:29 It Does Not Have to Be Miserable to Be Effective ABOUT SHALINI PATEL Shalini Patel is a Certified Nutrition Coach, Certified Personal Trainer, and Certified Wellness Coach, and the founder of RepEAT Wellness. After twenty plus years in corporate operations, she now helps busy professionals reach their health goals with realistic, customized nutrition built around the life they actually have. Curious? Book a Free Discovery Call. Website Follow On LinkedIn Follow 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 Website

    Shalini Patel on Why It Doesn't Have to Be Miserable to Be Effective

  7. Sep 9

    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

  8. 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
See All (35)

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
    35
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Victoria Steward