Ronderings

Ron Rapatalo
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RONderings is where meaningful conversations meet practical leadership. Ron Rapatalo talks with leaders, changemakers, and everyday people about purpose, career growth, wellness, relationships, identity, and the moments that shape who we become. Ron is a business development leader, executive and career coach, author of Leverage the People Who Love and Care About You, and host of RONderings. Drawing on nearly three decades of experience across corporate, nonprofit, higher education, government, and mission-driven organizations, he believes the best leadership starts with self-awareness, authentic relationships, and the courage to keep growing - for ourselves and for those we serve.

  1. 3d ago

    Pausing Unlocks Possibility: Sabbaticals, Burnout, and Rest as Organizational Resilience with Elandria Jackson Charles

    Executive coach and sabbatical guide Elandria Jackson Charles makes the case that a leader stepping away for three months is not a perk. It is an investment in organizational resilience. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Elandria, founder of Ayoka Partners, to talk about sabbatical care and what changes when rest is built into the structure instead of left to the individual. Elandria grew up an only child outside Atlanta, raised by parents from Macon whose sacrifices never added up on paper. She was a junior Olympic champion at 12, running the 200 and the 400, and she was also throwing up before races. She quit track before college and lost the identity that came with it. Perfectionism carried her for years after that, until burnout and her second child arrived together. That is when she bet on herself and built Ayoka Partners. Ayoka is Yoruba for one who causes joy, and it was her original middle name. Ron brings a sports analogy. When a paid athlete goes down, the organization rehabs them, because getting that player back on the court matters to the team. The social impact sector calls itself a team sport and structurally plays an individual one. Elandria asks how we perceive injury when there is no limp, when a leader is answering every email and going home a shell of herself. A sabbatical, she says, shows you your leadership bench fast, and funders have a role in making one possible. Tune in to hear why Elandria says slowing down actually accelerates you, and what a yellow smiley face sticker in the shower drain has to do with joy.   Chapters: 🌿 02:40 Elandria Jackson Charles checked every box and still lost herself 🏃 07:40 A junior Olympic title at 12 and vomiting before races 🌅 24:27 Rest hygiene, and asking what fuel supports her dreams today 🪑 34:32 A sabbatical shows you who is actually on your leadership bench 🎾 36:34 Social impact says team sport and structurally plays an individual one 🩹 38:34 The injured leader with no limp, still answering every email 😊 40:32 Joy is micro: a smiley face sticker in the shower drain ⏸️ 44:39 The Rondering: pausing unlocks possibility, and slowing down accelerates you Links: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elandriajacksoncharles The Sabbatical Moment newsletter: sabbaticalmoment.myflodesk.com Instagram: @restclarityjoy Connect with Elandria Jackson Charles on LinkedIn to learn more about sabbatical care and her work supporting leaders, especially Black women leaders, to pause and come back with clarity. Her free newsletter, The Sabbatical Moment, is where she writes about the smaller sabbatical moments you can build into an ordinary Thursday. Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Pausing Unlocks Possibility: Sabbaticals, Burnout, and Rest as Organizational Resilience with Elandria Jackson Charles

  2. Sep 9

    Whistleblowing With Rhythm: Coast Guard Reform, Carnival Energy, and Practicing the Future with Dr. Kim McLear

    Civic designer and movement strategist Dr. Kim McLear spent twenty years in the Coast Guard, and ten of them running a whistleblowing campaign built on carnival rhythm instead of the lone hero. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Kim, a systems engineer turned artist and movement builder, to talk about how she reimagined whistleblowing as a collective practice with rhythm and discipline. Kim is a first generation American raised by Trinidad and Tobago immigrant parents who each served nearly thirty years in the military. She started school in Okinawa and finished high school in Germany, with 18 cities behind her before she could vote. She still has a scar on one finger from opening a reinforced steel door during a cyclone to get a better look at the trees dancing. Hours under the hood of cars with her father taught her that changing one part changes the whole system, which is the thread that runs to her PhD in systems engineering. She picked the Coast Guard because it was the furthest thing from anything she knew, water included. When she spoke up, she refused the single hero version and built a survivor led coalition of thousands while continuing to serve as an officer and teach as a professor. She stayed disciplined about describing behavior rather than calling people names, and over a ten year arc that work helped surface a CNN investigation and new federal laws. Tune in to hear why Kim calls despair a design feature of oppressive systems, and what practicing the future looks like when it starts with a paint bucket and a couple of friends.   Chapters: 🧵 02:39 Dr. Kim McLear: engineer, professor, and Coast Guard whistleblower 🌍 07:47 Dignity for all living systems, not just the human ones 🌀 11:55 Cyclones and car engines: the making of a systems engineer ⚓ 25:45 Why she joined the branch furthest from her comfort zone 🥁 30:18 Whistleblowing with carnival rhythm: no one whistles a symphony alone 📰 38:36 The ten year arc behind the CNN investigation and new federal laws 🚫 49:59 Never call people names: describe the behavior instead 🎷 01:01:42 Practice the future: grab a paint bucket and a couple of friends 🎭 01:04:11 Despair is a design feature of oppressive systems Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justdrkim/ Connect with Dr. Kim McLear on LinkedIn to follow her work as a civic designer and movement strategist building education ecosystems for movement builders. Her practice draws on music and rhythm to help communities move from fragmentation toward coherence, which is the same practice she walks through on this episode.  Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Whistleblowing With Rhythm: Coast Guard Reform, Carnival Energy, and Practicing the Future with Dr. Kim McLear

  3. Sep 2

    Create the Conditions: Authentic Leadership, Code Switching, and Being the Only One with Gold Chhim

    Gold Chhim leads national partnerships at Education Pioneers. For years he kept his identity and his leadership in two separate lanes, and closing that gap is what he now means by authentic leadership. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Gold, Managing Director of Partnerships at Education Pioneers, to talk about what it costs to be the only one in the room and what changes when you stop paying it. Gold grew up on the east side of Compton, the son of a Cambodian refugee mother who told him his job was education. His schools were roughly 65% Latino and 34% Black. The remaining 1% was him. He got into UCLA and finished year one on academic probation, wondering whether he was smart enough to be there. Two days after graduating, he flew to Detroit with two suitcases and started teaching high school math. He founded the basketball team too, which made him the winningest coach in school history by default. Ron and Gold get into the part that does not fit on a resume. Gold's students in Detroit had never met an Asian person, and their only reference point was Jeremy Lin. The two of them compare notes on being judged by other Asian Americans for how they talk, and on why code switching eventually stopped being worth it. Tune in to hear the question Gold uses as a north star: is he living as someone 15 year old Gold would look up to?   Chapters: 🌏 01:53 Gold Chhim and the short list of Southeast Asian leaders in education 🧭 08:31 The hustle his mother taught him: education was the job 🎓 10:38 Academic probation at UCLA and the fear of not belonging 🧳 12:23 Two suitcases to Detroit two days after graduating 🔢 14:49 Growing up as the 1% on the east side of Compton 🏀 21:23 His Detroit students had never met an Asian person before 🏙️ 27:23 Teaching in a city that woke up bankrupt 💿 37:54 Music as a better entry point than what do you do 🚦 39:32 Why he stopped keeping identity and work in separate lanes 💬 49:57 The Ronderings question: create the conditions for authentic leadership Links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gold-chhim-94b59a9a/ Connect with Gold Chhim on LinkedIn to learn more about his partnership work across the education sector at Education Pioneers. He asked for it directly on the episode: message him, and he will look for a way to partner.  Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Create the Conditions: Authentic Leadership, Code Switching, and Being the Only One with Gold Chhim

  4. Aug 26

    Philanthropy Needs Courage, Not a Fancy Pitch Deck: Funding Bravely, the Great Wealth Transfer, and Refusing to Shrink with Marvin L. Smith

    Philanthropy does not fail for lack of money. It fails when nobody in the room has the courage to put the issue on the table. Marvin L. Smith has spent twenty years watching that happen from the inside. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Marvin, founder of the advisory practice and podcast Funding Bravely, for a conversation about what it costs to keep your voice inside systems that were never built for you. Marvin grew up outside Boston, a Black and brown kid in a predominantly white, upper income town, with a hoarse voice that made read alouds something to survive. Tennis is where he found leadership before he found words. In third grade a teacher had him beating sixth graders in a math contest and feeling invincible. In eighth grade, an algebra teacher pulled him out of history class and threatened his place at the school for letting a friend copy his homework. He bombed the state test that year and did not get his confidence back for decades. He and Ron get into philanthropy from close range. Funders who quietly bankroll advocacy but will not attach their names to it. Rooms convened to solve a problem with nobody present who has lived it. Marvin's read: the deciding factor was rarely the size of the check or the polish of the pitch deck. It was whether courage showed up. They also talk about what comes after a role elimination, and why Marvin will not shrink to fit somebody else's job description.  Chapters: 🎾 04:05 Meet Marvin L. Smith: a hoarse voice and a tennis court ➗ 05:54 Feeling invincible in math, then threatened over a shared homework 📉 08:28 The state test never made for him and the repair nobody offered 🎒 09:58 The kids were never the problem, so he asked what they wanted 🏆 18:19 Learning tennis etiquette, then deciding to play his own way 💸 26:23 What twenty years close to donors actually showed him 🔑 28:26 Courage was the variable, not the money or the pitch deck 🌊 30:56 The great wealth transfer and the advisory practice built for it 🛡️ 32:58 What makes people act bravely, and why nobody wants to go first 🎯 35:40 The tennis coach question that became his advising model 💼 41:45 A role elimination, and refusing to let the market set his value ✊ 45:10 I cannot shrink myself to fit someone else's job description 🔁 53:41 Reparative philanthropy and why no donor should do this alone Links: Website: fundingbravely.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marvin-smith-a2672012 Substack: open.substack.com/pub/fundingbravely Funding Bravely podcast: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts Connect with Marvin on LinkedIn or follow Funding Bravely to hear the conversations he is having with grant makers and fundraisers about where courage actually shows up in philanthropy, including a coming miniseries on donor advised funds. He also works directly with wealth holders and nonprofit leaders on philanthropic advising and storytelling. Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Philanthropy Needs Courage, Not a Fancy Pitch Deck: Funding Bravely, the Great Wealth Transfer, and Refusing to Shrink with Marvin L. Smith

  5. Aug 19

    Invest in Your Energy: Liberation, Burnout, and Leading Without Shrinking with Shayna Renee Hammond

    Executive coach and Lead For Liberation founder Shayna Renee Hammond has spent two decades coaching Black leaders through burnout, and she says the work starts with energy, not strategy. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Shayna, founder of Lead For Liberation and Indigo Unbound, for a conversation about what it costs to lead inside systems that were never built for you. Her first day of school was in Pinckney, Michigan, a rural town known for the Ku Klux Klan. She was five, the only Black child, and no one on the bus would let her sit down. She got an assigned seat behind the driver and rode alone for the rest of the year. The emotion she remembers is not shame. It is curiosity. What she took from it was a sentence she still uses: it ain't me. Fifth grade in Washington DC brought her first Black teacher, who pulled her aside and told her she was a leader. She went from the bottom reading group to the top of her class, and became a principal at 25, leading the highest performing middle school in Baltimore at the time. Ron and Shayna get into the raw deal school leaders are handed. LeBron has a trainer and a physical therapist behind him. Principals are told to put up all star numbers and hand themselves an ice pack. Shayna calls the thing underneath it a sick collective consciousness, built on scarcity and false urgency, and she is not waiting for the system to fix itself. Tune in to hear what spirit told her when she felt stuck at 45, and why she calls the CrossFit Open a diagnostic.  Chapters: 🎙️ 00:11 Welcome to Ronderings, and meeting Shayna Renee Hammond 🚌 03:28 Kindergarten in Pinckney, and the bus where no one let her sit ✏️ 07:35 The fifth grade teacher who told her she was a leader 🪞 14:20 It ain't me, and presence alone is revolutionary 📹 16:29 The talk she gave that found her fifth grade teacher again ⏰ 20:25 The Teach for America application she filed at 2:53 in the morning 🗺️ 22:00 Dr. Alonso opened an org chart and let her choose 🤰 26:46 Recruited back by KIPP at eight months pregnant 🌱 31:11 Leaving to be a present mom, and the first contract 💜 36:20 IndigoWomen becomes Indigo Unbound, and a room of 100 Black men 🏀 40:06 LeBron has a whole team, school leaders get an ice pack 🏋️ 43:17 The CrossFit Open and what spirit said about being stuck ⚡ 48:51 The Ronderings question: invest in your energy Links: Website: www.leadforliberation.com Website: www.indigounbound.com Instagram: @indigounbound Reach out to Shayna Renee Hammond through Lead For Liberation for executive coaching and organizational culture work, or through Indigo Unbound, the space she built for Black leaders and entrepreneurs to do the inner work that sustains the outer impact. Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Invest in Your Energy: Liberation, Burnout, and Leading Without Shrinking with Shayna Renee Hammond

  6. Aug 12

    Make the Ask: Social Capital, Trust, and Why Slow Does Not Mean No with Dr. LaShawnna Harris

    Founding principal turned entrepreneur Dr. LaShawnna Harris opened a New York City public school with 220 kindergartners and ran the operations flawlessly. Her appointment still stalled, because systems were never the part she needed to master. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with LaShawnna, founder of sharEDtalent, to talk about the gap between technical excellence and the relationships that decide whether you get to stay in the room. LaShawnna is a Queens girl who took the bus across the bridge to Monsignor Scanlan in the Bronx and landed at RPI planning to be an engineer. She switched to management and had her daughter as a sophomore. She graduated into a job market that closed on 9/11, with an interview at the World Trade Center scheduled for the week after. An ad for the New York City Teaching Fellows put her in a Bronx classroom by September. By 2010 she was a founding principal in Corona with no grievances and a school she describes as rocking and rolling. Her appointment was held up anyway. A network leader told her to work on the people things. A superintendent suggested she bring donuts. Six months before her defense, she threw out her dissertation and wrote a new one on race socialization, trust, and how Black entrepreneurs mobilize social capital. That research is the foundation of her work now, designing Impact Labs where leaders and entrepreneurs solve problems together instead of trading business cards. Tune in to hear why LaShawnna says the answer is already in your network, and what it costs to never make the ask.   Chapters: 🗽 03:10 Dr. LaShawnna Harris from a Queens block to engineering at RPI 🎓 08:38 Switching to management so she would not fail out of RPI ✂️ 10:57 A police officer with a barbershop and a mother who sewed 😢 13:48 Crying in a closet as a first year teacher 🏫 18:13 Opening a school with 220 kindergartners in Corona 🍩 20:28 The appointment that stalled, and the advice to bring donuts 🤝 22:50 Social capital was not a thing to her in 2010 🧭 25:32 Founding sharEDtalent to connect schools with the help they need 📚 33:32 Rewriting her whole dissertation six months before the defense 🎤 38:19 Redesigning the ed conference so people actually solve problems together 🙌 49:11 The Ronderings question: make the ask, slow does not mean no Links: Website: www.sharedtalent.org LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lashawnnaharris Substack: substack.com/@sharedtalent Impact Labs: www.sharedtalent.org/impact-lab Reach out to Dr. LaShawnna Harris to learn more about sharEDtalent and the Impact Labs she runs for leaders and entrepreneurs who want to get clear, test ideas, and build the relationships their work depends on.   Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Make the Ask: Social Capital, Trust, and Why Slow Does Not Mean No with Dr. LaShawnna Harris

  7. Aug 5

    Leadership Is a Creative Practice: Nonprofit Boards, Trust, and Saying Yes to Possibility with Gary Bagley

    Nonprofit leadership is a creative practice, not a title you master. Executive coach Gary Bagley led New York Cares and now works with the executives and boards holding organizations together. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Gary, board adviser and adjunct professor at Columbia and Baruch, to talk about what nonprofit leadership asks of people when the ground keeps moving. Gary trained as a musician. A friend asked him to play piano for a kids' musical theater class, and inside he thought no. He said yes anyway and fell in love with it. That yes led to teaching arts in New York City classrooms and eventually to the top job at New York Cares. A seventh grade aptitude test had told him to be a teacher, be a preacher, or be a social worker. He did not know what a social worker was. He and Ron dig into the gap between the power people assign a nonprofit CEO and the power the job carries. Gary's view is that the most important decisions do not belong to the CEO, and that real preparation means sitting in rooms where people disagree. They also get into boards. A board governs an entire organization on roughly ten to twelve hours of meeting time a year, and going virtual gave Gary the best attendance he had ever seen without the engagement to match. And the people absorbing the most pressure right now are not CEOs. They are the senior leadership teams one level down. Tune in to hear why Gary defines trust as the sum of expectations met, and what saying yes to possibility looks like when the moment feels closed.   Chapters: 🎭 02:48 Gary Bagley: from teaching arts in classrooms to running New York Cares 🎹 08:29 The piano favor he almost turned down 💡 12:05 Making one and one equal three, and why leaders have to fail ⚖️ 17:48 The biggest decisions in a nonprofit do not belong to the CEO 🚦 25:48 Somebody put a foot on the gas pedal and never let up 🪑 32:58 The time boards need most is the time they have least 🤝 40:18 Trust is the sum of expectations met 🛟 44:37 Senior leadership teams are getting hit the hardest 🎨 47:17 The Ronderings question: say yes to possibility Links: Website: garybagley.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/garybagley Reach out to Gary Bagley to talk executive coaching, board governance, and succession planning, and follow his biweekly LinkedIn newsletter Bagleyisms for his running notes on leading and managing nonprofits. Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Leadership Is a Creative Practice: Nonprofit Boards, Trust, and Saying Yes to Possibility with Gary Bagley

  8. Jul 29

    Equity Over Equality: Failing the Gifted Test, Parent Advocacy, and Asking Families What They Actually Want with Punam V. Saxena

    Parent engagement advocate Punam V. Saxena failed the gifted test in second grade, and spent the next twenty five years believing she was not smart. In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Punam, a TEDx and SXSW EDU speaker who started out teaching special education, for a conversation about what schools miss when nobody asks families what they actually want. Punam grew up outside Atlanta in the 1970s, the only Indian family in the community. Neighbors asked what tribe they belonged to and how the bindi stayed on her mother's forehead. Her father, the first agricultural engineer of Indian descent hired in this country, once answered that they were Cherokee just to end the conversation. When a second Indian family moved in and their son was also kept out of gifted, Punam's parents told them to go advocate. He got in. He went to MIT. At 22, with no training, she was put in a self contained classroom of students with autism. Later, teaching students with severe emotional disturbances in Florida, she noticed that not one parent came to her door. The turn came in an IEP meeting, where a mother who had taken two buses and unpaid hours off work sat silent while the professionals wrote goals. Punam stopped and asked what she wanted. The answer was life skills, because her son would graduate in seven years. She and Ron get into the Puritan foundations still sitting under American schooling, and her dissertation on how second generation Indian American women build a hybrid cultural identity in college. Tune in to hear why Punam's Ronderings is equity over equality, 100% of the time.   Chapters: 🎙️ 00:11 Welcome to Ronderings, and meeting Punam V. Saxena 🏡 05:14 One Indian family in rural Georgia, and the question about what tribe 📉 10:18 How failing the gifted test made her believe she was not smart 🧩 14:24 At 22, handed a classroom of students with autism and no training 💬 16:36 The parent who took two buses and was never asked anything 🏅 19:22 The next Indian family advocated, and their son got into MIT 🤝 23:21 Why showing up only when there is a problem makes teachers defensive ⛪ 32:32 An education system still built on Puritan ideals 📖 43:25 Her dissertation on being Indian at home and American at school ❤️ 52:37 The Ronderings question: equity over equality, 100% of the time Links: Website: punamvsaxena.com LinkedIn: Punam Saxena Email: PunamV.Saxena@gmail.com Reach out to Punam V. Saxena for coaching, consulting, and workshops on parent engagement, or to bring her in to speak on what multicultural families need from the schools their children attend. Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473  Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Equity Over Equality: Failing the Gifted Test, Parent Advocacy, and Asking Families What They Actually Want with Punam V. Saxena
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

RONderings is where meaningful conversations meet practical leadership. Ron Rapatalo talks with leaders, changemakers, and everyday people about purpose, career growth, wellness, relationships, identity, and the moments that shape who we become. Ron is a business development leader, executive and career coach, author of Leverage the People Who Love and Care About You, and host of RONderings. Drawing on nearly three decades of experience across corporate, nonprofit, higher education, government, and mission-driven organizations, he believes the best leadership starts with self-awareness, authentic relationships, and the courage to keep growing - for ourselves and for those we serve.

Information

  • Creator
    Ron Rapatalo
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    111
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2023-2026 Ron Rapatalo
  • Show Website
    Ronderings

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