Recalculating: Your M.A.P. to Joy

Marie Clark
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The show about how career zigzags help us find joy in every season of life. Career zigzags aren't wrong turns — they're your path to joyful work. I'm Marie Clark, career transition coach, helping women move from soul-draining jobs to careers that light them up. Each episode features real people who took the leap: the fear, the finances, the first scary step. No fluff — just honest conversations about what it actually took. Because your career GPS isn't broken just because it says "recalculating." That's not failure. That's your path finding you.

  1. 1d ago

    Sarah J. Pitts: She Helps People Create Plans. She Didn't Have One For Herself.

    Sarah J. Pitts started coaching at 13. She spent the next 35 years in the fitness industry, building a career, reinventing it, then rebuilding it again when other trainers turned openly hostile toward her methods. (One of them went on a rant so long that it took Sarah 20 minutes to find a pause and say she needed the bathroom.) Then COVID hit. Her business, and her clients' businesses, disappeared overnight. She woke up one morning and thought: who the hell am I? Why am I here? What do I want to do with my life? Sarah is now an international bestselling author and business strategist. Her whole job is helping people stop catastrophizing a problem and find the real one underneath it. But when her own life fell apart, she couldn't do that for herself. "I didn't need therapy," she says. "I needed a plan." In this episode, Sarah talks about what it actually took to rebuild: the fear of starting over, forcing herself to do things she hated, and the four-step process she eventually built to get herself out, the same one that became the backbone of her book, Stop Doing It All. If the ground has ever given out from under your career, Sarah's been exactly there. And she made it to the other side. Connect with Sarah:🌐 Website: https://sjpbusinessdevelopment.com 📖Book: https://stopdoingitallbook.com 📧Email: mailto:sarah@sarahjpitts.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjpitts/ FB Messenger: SJP Business Development

  2. 1d ago

    Alexis Gosik: The Youngest Woman in Every Room She Walked Into

    Alexis Gosik's first job was lead store accountant at Giant Foods. Ten years, all through high school and college. She learned exactly one thing from it: she never wanted to do numbers again. So she went back to school for social work, then spent the next several years in drug and alcohol treatment and criminal justice work in the nonprofit sector, before moving to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, helping people rebuild their lives after incarceration. She was there seven and a half years, until a detached-duty assignment landed her in the Bureau of Information Technology, and something clicked that a social worker with an accounting background never expected. Somewhere in there, she also managed a scuba shop. That's actually where she and Marie met. Marie walked in as a total beginner, and Alexis was the one who knew what to do. Every one of those moves, Alexis says, followed the same pattern. She was underqualified on paper. The youngest person in the room. Often the only woman. In corrections and in tech, both male-dominated fields, she carried the same question into every interview: will they believe I belong here? Her answer wasn't to get more credentials. It was to stop hiding behind other people's success and own that the skill in the room was hers. Today, Alexis is President & CEO of the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania. If you've ever sat in a meeting wondering if you're the only one who doesn't quite fit, this episode is proof that not fitting yet doesn't mean you don't belong. Connect with Alexis: Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania, President & CEO 🌐 Website: https://www.tccp.org 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-gosik/ 📧 Email: alexis@tccp.org

  3. 3d ago

    Johanna Danaher: Her Dream Job, But She Never Hit Submit

    Johanna Danaher spent 25 years in corporate talent — recruiting, career development, culture work — inside a pharmaceutical company. Then the role was eliminated. Not her choice. What came next wasn't just a job search. It was grief. "I don't know who I am anymore," she remembers thinking. Unmoored. Untethered. Asking herself, in her mid-50s, who she wanted to be when she grew up. Two years into building her own coaching practice, a role opened up at a company she'd always admired. So she rewrote her resume. Three times. She reached out for referrals. She practiced what she'd say. Then she never hit submit. She sat with herself and asked one question: will this bring me joy? The honest answer was no. It was fear talking, not purpose. The second she said no to the job, she felt relief. That's the moment this episode is built around. If you've ever caught yourself chasing the safe choice instead of the right one, this conversation is for you. Johanna is a life and leadership coach who helps people through moments exactly like this one. She's also built two free quizzes — on self-sabotage and imposter syndrome — to help you spot your own patterns before they cost you another year. Connect with Johanna: 🌐 anchortoaspire.com 📧 johanna@anchortoaspire.com 💼 https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannadanaher/

  4. Sep 2

    Tracy Buikema: "I Would Pay Double for This"

    This is the last episode of Season 1. And it felt right to close it out with a story about not having to blow up your whole life to build something new. Tracy Buikema spent over 20 years as a massage therapist, expert enough that she went on to teach it at the college level for over a decade. But somewhere along the way, her sessions started turning into something more. Clients weren't just talking about sore shoulders. They were talking about their stress, their lives, what was keeping them stuck. Then one client — someone she'd seen for over a decade — said something that stuck with her: "I would pay double for this session, because I feel like I got so much more out of it." That was the moment Tracy realized coaching wasn't a departure from what she'd built. It was already happening. So she went back to school. And found out that starting over, even when you're bringing 20-plus years of expertise with you, is still hard. "It was going from being considered an expert in my field... to then, okay, now I'm going to switch into this coaching aspect," she told me. Even when something comes naturally, learning to be a beginner again is its own kind of hard. What I love about Tracy's story is what she didn't do. She didn't walk away from massage therapy to become a coach. She built something that holds both — coaching and somatic bodywork, together. She gets to keep what she's always loved, and expand it into something bigger. If you're sitting with the fear that changing careers means giving up everything you've already built, I want you to hear this one. Tracy is the owner of Heal(thy) Self Wellness LLC. She's offering a free 30-minute Transition Clarity Session — uncovering what's keeping you stuck, reconnecting with what matters most, and identifying one meaningful next step. She's also offering 20% off a first session for new clients through the end of September 2026 — just mention this podcast. Website: healthyself-wellness.com Text: (717) 756-4950 Instagram: @healthy_self_wellness LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-buikema/

  5. Aug 27

    Cathy Derksen: She Blew Up Her Marriage and Her Career at the Same Time

    Cathy Derksen spent 25 years in medical genetics, in hospital labs and toxic environments. Twenty-five years of trusting the data over her gut. Then, in one stretch of her life, she blew up almost everything at once: she left that 25-year career and her 23-year marriage, together, with two teenagers watching. She'd told herself she was staying — in the marriage, in the safety of routine — for her kids. Then she saw what it was actually doing to them. That's what finally moved her. "I describe it like throwing my life up in the air and reinventing it on the way back down," she says. She landed in financial planning next, working with numbers and data, but now focused on helping women. A decade of commission-only paychecks in a male-dominated industry, learning as she went. It wasn't wrong. It just wasn't it. Then, almost by accident, Cathy stumbled into multi-author books — and the scientist who'd spent decades trusting data started trusting stories instead. Today she's the founder of Inspired Tenacity, helping midlife women get published, one chapter at a time. If you've ever wondered how someone goes from spreadsheets and lab reports to publishing other women's stories, this is that episode. Connect with Cathy: 🌐 InspiredTenacity.com (free PDF downloads of many of her books + a Zoom accelerator session) 📧 cathy@inspiredtenacity.com 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/cathyderkseninspiredtenacity 📘 Facebook: facebook.com/cathy.derksen.3 📸 Instagram: instagram.com/inspired_tenacity ▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/@inspiredtenacitypublishing

  6. Aug 20

    Marie Clark: Do Not Let Work Kill You

    For once, I'm the one answering the questions. This is episode 10 of Recalculating: Your M.A.P. to Joy, and guest host Johanna Danaher flipped the mic on me to dig into my own career zigzag — the one I usually ask other people about. I spent 20 years building an IT career. A good one, actually. Started in special education, pivoted to IT help desk because it made logical sense at the time, climbed the ladder into project management. About 18 years in, it was killing me. And not metaphorically, but actually killing me. The moment I couldn't unsee it: ten minutes into day 2 of a go-live that was falling apart, after sending hourly updates up the entire chain of command, my boss messages me — "How's it going?" Then, immediately after: "Why didn't you do the server evaluation 6 months ago?" It wasn't even my project 6 months ago.. That was it. I couldn't do it anymore. I talk about the fear that kept me stuck for years before that moment — the belief that you could either have a financially stable career or work you loved, but not both. I talk about getting sick for six weeks after that go-live and almost missing a dream vacation because of it. And I talk about what it actually took, financially and emotionally, to make the leap — and why it took six to eight weeks after I did before I finally felt free again. If you're sitting in a job that pays the bills but is quietly wearing you down, this one is for you. You can have joy in your career and cash in your pocket. They don't have to be mutually exclusive. But please — don't let work kill you. Find me at MoveToJoyCoaching.com, where you can sign up for the newsletter to hear about upcoming events and more stories like this one. Website: movetojoycoaching.com Clarity Conversation: movetojoycoaching.com/claritycall LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mariemclark

  7. Aug 12

    Susan Bianchi: The Business Changed. The Purpose Never Did.

    Susan Bianchi has run three different businesses. A restaurant. A performance and wellness practice that's worked with NFL teams and Wimbledon players. Women's workshops and open water swim retreats. On paper, none of them look alike. Underneath, they're the same business. Human potential — helping people be all of who they can be — is the thread Susan keeps pulling, no matter what she's calling the work that year. It didn't start that way. Susan graduated ready to climb the corporate ladder, landed in food manufacturing, and within a year knew it wasn't right. The restrictions. The glass ceiling. Watching her father tolerate a job he didn't love, year after year, and knowing she didn't want that same life decades from now. So she jumped — first into a restaurant she co-owned for a decade, then into wellness coaching and Intrinsic Health Systems when the restaurant stopped growing her the way she needed. Each leap distilled her down closer to the core of who she actually is. In this episode, Susan talks about the confidence it took to run a business at 25, the people who assumed a man must be in charge, and the necklace she still touches when she needs to find her way back to why she started. If you've ever changed jobs and still felt like something was missing, this one's for you. Sometimes it's not the job that needs to change. It's getting honest about what you're actually building toward. Connect with Susan: Website: https://www.intrinsichealthsystems.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intrinsichealth/?hl=en  Email: susan@intrinsichealthsystems.com Learn more about Move to Joy Coaching: MoveToJoyCoaching.com

  8. Aug 5

    Kristy Darby: What Her Body Knew Before She Did

    Kristy Darby spent almost twenty years in the legal field — the DA's office, private practice, and three attempts at the bar exam that never worked out. She stayed anyway, holding onto a reason bigger than the job: her brother was killed by a drunk driver when she was a baby, and prosecuting cases like his was supposed to be her way of making that mean something. Then her body started keeping a different kind of record. Hives, all over her body. Every test came back normal. Meanwhile her mom got a third cancer diagnosis, her husband cut three fingers on a table saw, her uncle died without warning, and two of their senior dogs passed within that same short stretch of time. Her boss asked for consistency at the office. She didn't have it in her to give. So she quit that 20 year career. Within two weeks, the hives were gone. What came next was a year of not knowing — meditation, Reiki, a strange recurring pull toward "the spine" she couldn't explain. Then a Facebook ad for something called SpinalFlow stopped her cold: "This is exactly what I've been meant to do." She signed a three-year lease on a building before she'd even finished the training, flew to Barcelona for the immersive, and came home to open The Sacred Center of Healing, where she now helps high-achieving women get their nervous systems out of survival mode. If you're sitting in a job that's making you sick, maybe giving you hives, and telling yourself it's just stress so you should just push through it, this episode is for you. Connect with Kristy: Email: kristy@thesacredcenterofhealing.com  Website: https://www.thesacredcenterofhealing.com  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredcenterofhealingyorkpa Kristy’s “Wake Up Rested Tomorrow” free guide: https://thesacredcenterofhealing.com/page/wake-up-rested-tomorrow

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About

The show about how career zigzags help us find joy in every season of life. Career zigzags aren't wrong turns — they're your path to joyful work. I'm Marie Clark, career transition coach, helping women move from soul-draining jobs to careers that light them up. Each episode features real people who took the leap: the fear, the finances, the first scary step. No fluff — just honest conversations about what it actually took. Because your career GPS isn't broken just because it says "recalculating." That's not failure. That's your path finding you.

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