Motivation N'at

NC Bulger Solutions

Motivation N’at is hosted by Natalie Bulger and features guests from all walks of life — each bringing their own stories, experiences, and insights to the table. Together, we dive into everything from relationships and sobriety to mental health challenges and the lasting impact of growing up too soon. On Motivation N’at, we take on life’s tougher conversations and explore how the lessons we’ve learned can shape what comes next — all in the spirit of turning life’s hot mess moments into high potential.

  1. 12h ago

    Escaping a Cult: Faith After Spiritual Abuse and Isolation

    Peter Young spent almost twenty years surviving a cult inside his own family, and he didn't know it was happening until it was almost too late. Peter Young is the author of Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger, and he joins the pod to talk about the man his family called Uncle Robert, and how one person slowly took control of a marriage, a family, and twenty years of his life. We get into: 🔹 How a family gets pulled into a cult without ever "joining" one🔹 The guilt and shame cult leaders use to keep control🔹 What it actually took to get out🔹 Rebuilding faith and reclaiming a family afterward If you've ever wondered how something like this could happen to someone without them realizing, or you're trying to make sense of something similar in your own life, this conversation might give you a starting point, and, more importantly, hope. MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential® The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday. RESOURCES 📖 Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger: https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Tall-Man-Save-Tiger/dp/B0BW384Q2W/📩 Connect with Peter Young: authorpeteryoung@gmail.com🌐 Peter's website: https://www.authorpeteryoung.com/ 📲 Follow Peter:Instagram: @peterbyoungYouTube: @authorpeteryoung 📲 Follow Natalie:Instagram: @Sincerely__NatalieYouTube: @motivation-nat-pod

    Escaping a Cult: Faith After Spiritual Abuse and Isolation

  2. Jul 26

    Members of the Dead Dads Club - Reflecting on 20 Years of Grief | Guest - Caroline Degnan

    Grief after losing a parent doesn't follow a timeline, and it definitely doesn't come with a manual. Caroline Degnan is a licensed professional counselor in the Pittsburgh area specializing in grief and bereavement, and she lost her own father at eighteen, the exact same age I lost mine. This conversation is a reflection on what that loss taught us both, and how Caroline turned hers into the career and calling she has today. We get into: What it means to lose a parent at eighteen and rebuild a life around itWhy the five stages of grief aren't actually meant for the grievingWhat intentional grief looks like in practice, and how to build itGrief camps for kids who've lost a parent or siblingStaying connected to someone after death through signs and memory If you've been carrying grief quietly because you don't know how to talk about it, this conversation might be the permission you didn't know you needed. RESOURCES 📖 Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe by Laura Lynn Jackson 📖 The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk 📩 Connect with Caroline: caroline.iamasiam@gmail.com 🌐 I Am As I Am Counseling: https://www.iamasiamcounseling.com/counselors 🌐 Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us 🌐 Experience Camps: https://experiencecamps.org 🌐 Hospice Nurse Julie: https://www.hospicenursejulie.com 📲 Follow Natalie: Instagram: @Sincerely__Natalie YouTube: @motivation-nat-pod MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential® The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday.

    Members of the Dead Dads Club - Reflecting on 20 Years of Grief | Guest - Caroline Degnan

  3. Jul 19

    Suicide Prevention: Peer-Led Support After a Suicide Attempt | Guest - Jeremy Carter

    This episode contains an open conversation about suicide and self-harm. If you're currently navigating this, it's okay to pause, skip, or come back when you're ready. If you need support, call or text 988. Free, confidential support is available 24/7. Surviving a suicide attempt is isolating. Add a stigma that keeps people silent and a system too overwhelmed to support them, and you're left with a gap that many survivors fall through. Jeremy Carter is a social worker who fell through that exact gap after his own attempt, and built Still Here PGH, a peer-led support group for people who have attempted suicide or struggle with suicidal thoughts, because nothing like it existed yet. Topics we cover: Surviving a suicide attempt and what came after Why peer-led support for suicidal thoughts didn't exist in Allegheny County until he built it What to say to someone suicidal, and what not to say Recognizing numbness as a warning sign, not an absence of feeling Why the system failed him even as a social worker who knew how it was supposed to work If you've ever wondered what to say to someone who's struggling or what to seek if you’re feeling this way yourself, this conversation gives you a place to start. MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential™ The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday. 🌐 Still Here PGH: stillherepgh.org 📲 Follow Natalie: Instagram: @Sincerely__Natalie YouTube: @motivation-nat-pod

    Suicide Prevention: Peer-Led Support After a Suicide Attempt | Guest - Jeremy Carter

  4. Jul 12

    The Real Work of Enterprise Risk Management | Guest - Charles Tapp II

    During his time as CFO, Charles Tapp II spun up the Enterprise Risk Management program at Veterans Benefits Administration which paved the way for me to do the same in Veterans Health Administration a year or two later. The dual effort was making its way to major impact when Charles and I both decided to step away, leaving the programs in the hands of our amazingly talented staff. Now we can talk candidly about what it actually takes to embed risk management into a multi-layered and complex corporate system. Charles walks through how his team turned risk registers into real budget decisions, including how a risk-informed approach helped VBA secure millions in PACT Act startup funding by identifying HR as a critical risk area before the legislation even passed. We also cover the difference between risk in the Department of Defense, federal civil service, and private industry; how black swan events like COVID reshaped risk appetite across government; and why it took a full year just to establish a shared risk vocabulary before any real progress could happen. This conversation is for anyone trying to wrap their head around instituting a risk-informed culture inside an organization that's resistant to change, whether that's a federal agency, a nonprofit board, or other institution. In this episode: The critical components of a starter enterprise risk management programTurning overwhelming risk registers into risk-informed budget decisionsThe PACT Act, VBA's HR pipeline, and $302 million in startup fundingBlack swan risk: what COVID taught federal agencies about risk appetiteRisk management differences across DoD, federal civil service, and private industryWhy things like shared language and escalation channels have to come first Connect with Charles Tapp:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlestapp2/ Further reading: Federal News Network: VBA Steps Up Veteran Outreach to Complete 300,000 Pending PACT Act Benefits Claims — https://federalnewsnetwork.com/veterans-affairs/2024/05/vba-steps-up-veteran-outreach-to-complete-300000-pending-pact-act-benefits-claims/VA News: World-Class Veterans Benefits Banking Program — https://news.va.gov/110704/world-class-veterans-benefits-banking-program/ MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential™ The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday. 📲 Follow Natalie: Instagram: instagram.com/@Sincerely__Natalie YouTube: youtube.com/@motivation-nat-pod

    The Real Work of Enterprise Risk Management | Guest - Charles Tapp II

  5. Jul 5

    What I've Learned In the Year Since I Left My Job

    A year ago, I left a job that had shaped seven years of who I was, and I thought the hardest part was already behind me. It wasn't. This is what a year of hosting more than 50 conversations with over 40 guests on the Motivation N'at Podcast has taught me about myself. Josh, my husband, was the very first guest on Motivation N'at when this show launched. A year later, he's back to interview me for the season two premiere. We get into: What actually changed in the year since I left federal governmentHow hosting a podcast pushed me outside my comfort zone in ways I didn't expectWhat I learned about my own healing by listening to other people's storiesAll of the other things I'm building beyond this podcast because.... bills If you've ever wondered whether leaving something familiar actually leads anywhere, this conversation won't hand you an answer. But it might help you ask the question more honestly. MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential™ The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday. 📲 Follow Natalie:Instagram: @Sincerely__NatalieYouTube: @motivation-nat-pod

    What I've Learned In the Year Since I Left My Job

  6. Jun 28

    You Can't Automate Your Way Out of a Bad Process | Guest - Shannon Gregg, PhD

    If one more person tells you the answer is a new system, a new tool, or a new platform, you might lose your mind. Because you've watched the stack grow and the problems stay, and nobody seems to want to talk about what's actually broken underneath it. Dr. Shannon Gregg is the president of Cloud Adoption Solutions and holds a PhD in CRM user adoption. She has spent her career inside the gap between what technology promises and what organizations actually need, and she doesn't let either side off the hook. We get into: — Why simplifying your tech stack is harder than building it out, and why it matters more — The difference between waterfall and agile development, and what actually happens when you skip the human in the middle — Where AI gives buyers false confidence and what a responsible seller does about it — How over-customization quietly breaks the systems you paid to fix — Why the process has to come before the platform, every time If you've been handed another solution before anyone finished diagnosing the problem, this conversation might make you feel a little less alone when it comes to what to do next. MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential® The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday. 📩 Connect with Shannon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shannonjgregg/ 🌐 Cloud Adoption Solutions: https://cloudadoption.solutions/ 📖 It's About Time: How to Do More of What Matters in the Time You Have - https://www.amazon.com/Its-About-Time-More-Matters/dp/1945605014 📖 Sales Ops Design Shop: Grow Revenue without Adding Sales Headcount - https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Ops-Design-Shop-Headcount-ebook/dp/B0D8KC3GZZ?ref_=ast_author_mpb Life Sciences Sales Lab Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/life-sciences-sales-lab/id1853940547 📲 Follow Natalie:Instagram: @Sincerely__NatalieYouTube: @motivation-nat-pod

    You Can't Automate Your Way Out of a Bad Process | Guest - Shannon Gregg, PhD

  7. Jun 21

    Motherhood Doesn't Kill Careers. It Changes Them. | Guest - Samantha Swan

    Motherhood didn't break Samantha's career, but instead, it taught her everything the rulebook missed. It's something all of us, parents or not, should take some time to think about.This week I sat down with Samantha Swan, a senior manager in healthcare strategic planning and a mom of two, who has lived the tension between ambition and motherhood in real time and brought her insights and honesty to this conversation.We get into:— Why the old career rules stop working the moment life changes— The working mom identity crisis nobody prepares you for— What it actually looks like to return to work after maternity leave— How to stop juggling everything equally and start knowing which balls are glass— Why "you can have it all" is true — just not all at once— What parenthood actually adds to your leadership skills that hiring managers keep missingParent, non-parent, early career, mid-career... if you've ever felt like the rules stopped fitting, pull up a chair and take a listen.___________________________________MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential®The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday.___________________________________Connect with Samantha Swan on LinkedInFollow Natalie:Instagram: @sincerely__natalieYouTube: @motivation-nat-pod

    Motherhood Doesn't Kill Careers. It Changes Them. | Guest - Samantha Swan

  8. Jun 14

    Music That Means Something | Guest - Sean Martin of The Quarantined

    "I hear chains rattling above me when I sleep." That's how Sean Martin described the psych ward he ended up in after his Humvee exploded overseas. Survival can look like a lot of different things. So can the road back. Sean's road back was a journey back into his love of music and combining it with renewed intent. The Quarantined is his grunge/punk/metal project, and it tackles addiction, trauma, and what he calls the illusion of normalcy. Things we touch on in our conversation:🔹 The transition out of the military, the inpatient psych ward, and the years before he got real help🔹 How music became the way Sean processes trauma and PTSD, not just a creative outlet🔹 The cannabinoid system, and why Sean is so vocal about alternative treatments for veterans with PTSD🔹 Aversion to Normalcy, his 2025 album with over a million streams, and what it means to build an identity around not fitting in🔹 Perspective and gratitude... the two things he says got him through the worst moments of his life This episode touches on suicide, trauma, and mental health. The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text at 988. ___________________________________ MOTIVATION N'AT — Hot Mess to High Potential® The podcast where real life gets talked about, hosted by Natalie Bulger. New episodes every Sunday. ___________________________________ 🎵 Stream Aversion to Normalcy everywhere: https://too.fm/kdmjayj 🛒 Buy The Quarantined's full discography: https://thequarantined.bandcamp.com 🌐 Website: https://www.thequarantined.com 📩 Connect with Sean: TheQuarantinedtv@gmail.com 📲 Follow me: Instagram: @Sincerely__Natalie YouTube: @motivation-nat-pod

    Music That Means Something | Guest - Sean Martin of The Quarantined
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About

Motivation N’at is hosted by Natalie Bulger and features guests from all walks of life — each bringing their own stories, experiences, and insights to the table. Together, we dive into everything from relationships and sobriety to mental health challenges and the lasting impact of growing up too soon. On Motivation N’at, we take on life’s tougher conversations and explore how the lessons we’ve learned can shape what comes next — all in the spirit of turning life’s hot mess moments into high potential.

Information

  • Creator
    NC Bulger Solutions
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    58
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © NC Bulger Solutions
  • Show Website
    Motivation N'at