What do you do when the organization you've given everything to - the one you helped build from the inside out - is suddenly gone?

Nurit Siegel Smith spent 25 years building a career at the intersection of arts, culture, and social impact. As Executive Director of Music Forward Foundation, she helped 20,000 young people across the country find pathways into the music industry, including building the first federally recognized apprenticeships in music and live entertainment in the United States.

Then, in early 2025, the organization was sunset. And Nurit was the one who had to see it through.

What followed was a year she'll tell you herself took six months just to breathe through. We talk about what it looks like to grieve meaningful work, how to stop chasing the next goal and start building the context of the life you want, and why being an artist and being an entrepreneur might be the same act - just with different tools.

You'll Learn

⭐ What it looks like to stop goal-chasing and start context-building

⭐ How to rebuild your sense of purpose when your identity was tied to your work

⭐ Why presence and joy don't actually require financial security

Key Insights

Either You Take the Pause, Or It's Taken from You Nurit didn't choose to stop. The work she loved was taken away. But what she found in the stillness changed everything.

Stop Chasing the Goal. Instead of asking "what's my next role?", Nurit flipped the question: what does the life I want to be living actually look like?

Purpose and Paycheck Don't Have to Be the Same Thing One of the most freeing realizations of Nurit's transition: she didn't have to find one role that held all of it. She could serve on boards, volunteer, be present for her family - and make money somewhere else.

Timestamps

04:00 Planting seeds: on cold outreach and the slow burn of relationships

06:00 The next generation and instant gratification in the workplace

08:00 Navigating liminal space

09:00 Nurit's path: from gymnast and dancer to nonprofit leader

11:00 Discovering the many career pathways in arts and culture

13:00 Music Forward Foundation and building apprenticeships in the music industry

16:00 Sunsetting an organization you love - and surviving it

21:00 Redefining what it means to be a creative person

23:00 Bundu bashing: what creative careers and entrepreneurship have in common

26:00 The year after: six months just to breathe

29:00 Hibernating, licking wounds, and slowly coming back to life

31:00 Redefining success and flipping the goal framework

33:00 When purpose and paycheck don't have to be the same thing

35:00 What financial insecurity taught both women about baseline joy

40:00 Building vs. reacting: staying grounded

42:00 Women founders, corporate boards, and the environment that needs to change

48:00 What's calling to Nurit now

Resources and Links

Connect with Nurit on LinkedIn

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com

Sign up for Kristin's newsletter Big Deal Energy: BeldenStrategies.com/newsletter

If this conversation resonated, share it with someone who needed to hear it — and consider leaving a review. It helps more women find these conversations.

What happens when you spend decades achieving everything you were supposed to want - only to realize it fits like an itchy sweater?

In this episode, I sit down with Ariana, co-founder and managing partner of Flight Design Co. and co-founder of Kindredly.

What I love most about her story isn't what's on her resume. It's what lives underneath it. She's a poet, a photographer, a former wilderness and whitewater river guide turned youth developer turned brand strategist - a self-described recovering achievement addict who spent a decade blowing up the version of herself she'd been building for everyone else.

We talk about creativity as resistance to hustle culture, why the thing you're most afraid to show people is probably your most powerful differentiator, and what biology might have to say about why women in midlife are just getting started.

You'll Learn

⭐ What it takes to unlearn achievement addiction and rebuild on your own terms

⭐ Why your "weirdest thing" is actually your greatest brand differentiator

⭐ How to honor your creative self when it doesn't fit neatly into your career

⭐ What the biology of menopause has to do with women's leadership (seriously)

⭐ How to let creativity be the antidote to hustle culture

Key Insights

The Itchy Sweater Moment You can build everything you were supposed to want and still feel completely disconnected from it. That discomfort isn't a failure - it's data.

Creativity Can't Be Hustled When you're actually in a creative practice, you can't drive it. That's the point. Five minutes of it is enough to pull you back into your body and out of the noise.

Biology Is Trying to Tell Us Something Humans are one of the only mammals that go through menopause - and the research on whales and elephants suggests it's because elder females are meant to lead. Ariana makes the case that women in midlife aren't winding down. They're just getting started.

Timestamps

02:00 How Kristin and Ariana met and what Ariana radiates

06:00 Was she always an entrepreneur?

08:00 The slightly feral childhood, risk-taking, and her time as a whitewater river guide

11:00 How guiding people through scary things became the through line

13:00 Fear of being truly known

16:00 The achievement addiction

18:00 The 100 Day Project

21:00 Launching a website that brings all of herself together

24:00 Cross-pollinating audiences and why showing your full self builds the best clients

26:00 Why overnight success is always a decade in the making

32:00 How capitalism and hustle culture are the enemy of creativity

36:00 Creative Roundtabling

40:00 What it would take to actually create the conditions for more women founders

45:00 Why having women at the table isn't enough without a culture shift

46:00 The biology of menopause and elder women as evolutionary leaders

Resources and Links

Connect with Ariana on LinkedIn or at her website

Learn more about Flight Design Co. and Kindredly

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com

Sign up for Kristin's newsletter Big Deal Energy: BeldenStrategies.com/newsletter

If this conversation resonated, share it with someone who needed to hear it — and consider leaving a review. It helps more women find these conversations.

What does it look like to stay completely, unapologetically yourself - across every job, every pivot, every industry?

In this episode, I sit down with my ride-or-die bestie Vanessa — creative director, UX designer, co-founder, freelancer, fine artist, and one of the most genuinely creative people I've ever known.

We go all the way back to the corners of an art school painting lab, survived a summer in Europe on nectarines and salami, and grew into adults together in San Francisco.

But beyond our history, this conversation is about something I think a lot of women are quietly wrestling with: how do you stay true to who you are when every system around you keeps asking you to be something else?

Vanessa has navigated corporate giants, a thriving event business, freelance life, and startup culture — always leading with integrity, always trusting her gut — even when the world wanted her to fix her face and be a little more "corporate Vanessa."

You'll Learn

⭐ How to trust your gut when the world wants a formula

⭐ What it looks like to pivot across corporate, startup, freelance, and entrepreneurship

⭐ How to keep your creative practice alive when life demands everything else

⭐ What staying true to yourself actually costs — and why it's worth it

⭐ How to redefine legacy when your path doesn't look like anyone else's

Key Insights

Integrity Isn't a Strategy — It's a Through Line Vanessa has never been able to perform her way through something that doesn't fit. That's been a friction point in corporate environments — and her greatest superpower everywhere else.

Intuition Is a Muscle Vanessa doesn't start with references — she starts with excitement. Dread, fear, and excitement are all data points. When something's exciting and a little scary? That's usually the green light.

"Flow" Over the Formula At every stage of her career, the signal wasn't a title or a number — it was the feeling in her body that said this rhythm is right. The work is chasing more of that.

Timestamps

02:00 – How Kristin and Vanessa met and grew up together

05:00 – Vanessa's creative family roots and her third-grade art teacher debut

09:00 – Why she calls herself a "unicorn designer" — and means it

13:00 – Keeping a creative practice alive when life takes over

17:00 – From event florals to web design: the many lives of Vanessa

24:00 – Early career in graphic design and the pivot toward UX

27:00 – Landing at Walmart.com and realizing corporate wasn't it

33:00 – Running an event company and a tech career at the same time

36:00 – Using dread, excitement, and fear as a decision-making framework

40:00 – Why she looks at fashion week, not other beverage brands, for inspiration

46:00 – The girl boss era, what we were told, and what nobody mentioned

48:00 – What building a legacy means when your path is entirely your own

54:00 – Authenticity as a through line — and why it's been both a blessing and a friction point

Resources and Links

Connect with Vanessa on LinkedIn

See her work at Vanessavellozzi.com

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com Sign up for Kristin's newsletter Big Deal Energy: BeldenStrategies.com/newsletter

If this one hit close to home, share it with a friend who needed to hear it — and consider leaving a review. It helps more women find these conversations.

What do you do when the career you need doesn't exist yet?

In this episode, I sit down with Lindsay Green Barber, founder of Impact Architects - a research and strategy firm helping journalism, media, and philanthropy organizations measure what actually matters.

Lindsay's path here was anything but straight: a PhD, two years of fieldwork in Ecuador, a postdoc fellowship, and a skillset that never quite fit the roles that existed.

So she built her own.

Nearly a decade later, Impact Architects is one of the most respected voices in media impact measurement - and Lindsay is in the middle of a new kind of inflection point. We talk about what it's taken to step into her identity as a founder and leader, why the metrics driving journalism decisions are quietly undermining the industry, and what legacy looks like when you're trying to reimagine an entire sector while also making it to swim class pickup.

You'll Learn

⭐ How to build a career when your skillset doesn't fit existing roles

⭐ What slow, intentional business growth actually looks like in practice

⭐ What it takes to step into your identity as a leader

⭐ How to align your personal growth with your business strategy

⭐ What community-centered journalism looks like and why it matters

Key Insights

Entrepreneurship Isn't Always a Calling - Sometimes It's a Solution Lindsay didn't set out to start a company. She set out to do work that mattered and realized the only way to do it was to build something herself.

Clear Is Kind Stepping into leadership means giving your team clarity - about direction, accountability, and vision. Avoiding that isn't humility, it's a disservice.

The Metrics Are the Message When journalism organizations measure success by page views designed for ad sales, they optimize for the wrong thing entirely. Impact measurement asks a harder, more important question.

Timestamps

02:00 Lindsay's non-linear path and why she went straight to grad schoo

04:00 Fieldwork in Ecuador and watching a government silence indigenous voices

06:00Moving back to the US and rejecting the ivory tower

07:00 The postdoc fellowship that landed her at CIR

08:00 Building impact measurement frameworks from scratch

11:00 How the model started resonating across the industry

14:00 Seeing an opportunity to build something outside of org life

15:00 Becoming a founder by accident — the "industry orphan" origin story

20:00 Postpartum, trust, and a turning point for the company

21:00 Building a team that could hold the work without her

22:00 Turning 40 and asking: what comes next?

23:00 When personal growth and business strategy finally come together

26:00 "What would Kristin do?" — on advisors and hype girls

27:00 What surprised her most about this phase of growth

33:00 The broken metrics quietly driving journalism decisions

37:00 Community listening and how to actually understand your audience

42:00 The CPB funding crisis and what's at stake for local media

44:00 How do you get people to care before it's gone?

45:00 What journalism has to do differently to earn trust

48:00 Legacy: professional, personal, and what her kid thinks of her

Resources and Links

Connect with Lindsay Green Barber on LinkedIn

Find out more about her work at Impact Architects

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com

Sign up for Kristin's new

What happens when the life you built… stops feeling like your own?

In this episode, I sit down with Shayne Corriea, who spent over a decade building a successful financial advisory business—only to reach a breaking point where her health, energy, and sense of self were completely depleted.

What followed wasn’t a simple pivot. It involved burnout, a full identity reset, and the difficult decision to walk away from something that was “working,” but no longer aligned.

We talk about what it actually means to “do the work” (not the buzzword version), how unresolved patterns shape our decisions, and why so many women ignore the signs of burnout until they’re forced to stop.

This conversation also explores mindfulness, meditation, and sound healing as tools for managing stress and rewiring old patterns—and what it looks like to rebuild self-trust when you’re no longer sure what comes next.

You’ll Learn

⭐ The real signs of burnout—and what happens when you ignore them
⭐ What it takes to walk away from a successful career
⭐ What “doing the work” actually looks like in practice
⭐ How mindfulness and meditation support nervous system regulation
⭐ Why self-trust breaks down—and how to rebuild it
⭐ Letting go of external validation and redefining success
⭐ How to navigate identity shifts and major life transitions

Key Insights

Burnout Doesn’t Happen Overnight
It builds slowly—until your body or life forces you to pay attention.

Success Doesn’t Always Equal Alignment
You can build something impressive and still feel disconnected from it.

Self-Trust Is Built (and Rebuilt)
Especially after major transitions, learning to trust yourself again is a process.

Doing the Work Means Going Back
Patterns often start earlier than we think—and require real reflection to shift.

Slowing Down Is a Skill
For many women, it’s not natural—it’s something that has to be practiced.

Timestamps

[00:00:00] – Recording in person and how this conversation started
[00:02:00] – Building a business and sensing something was off
[00:05:30] – Burnout, health challenges, and the breaking point
[00:08:30] – The fear of walking away from something successful
[00:11:00] – What “doing the work” actually means
[00:14:30] – Patterns, past experiences, and self-reflection
[00:17:00] – Rediscovering identity and joy
[00:20:00] – Meditation, sound healing, and stress
[00:24:00] – The science behind nervous system regulation
[00:27:00] – Why slowing down feels so difficult
[00:30:00] – People-pleasing and external validation
[00:33:30] – Loss, rebuilding, and perspective shifts
[00:36:00] – Practicing mindfulness in everyday life
[00:40:00] – Rebuilding self-trust
[00:43:00] – Community, storytelling, and connection
[00:46:00] – Redefining success
[00:49:00] – Legacy and breaking generational patterns

Resources and Links

Connect with Shayne

Find out more about her work at Mindful Abundance Strategies

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com

Sign up for Kristin’s newsletter Big Deal Energy: BeldenStrategies.com/newsletter

If this conversation resonated, share it with someone who might need it—and consider leaving a review. It helps more women find these conversations.

What if storytelling isn’t just how you communicate your work - but how you create impact and shape the legacy you leave behind?

Join me as I sit down with Tamiko Heim, a leader working at the intersection of community, government, systems, and real human impact.

Tamiko’s perspective on storytelling goes far beyond messaging. For her, it’s how people make sense of the work, how communities connect to it, and how ideas actually take root and last. It’s not a layer on top - it’s embedded in how impact is built and sustained over time.

In this conversation, we explore storytelling as a leadership practice, the role it plays in shaping systems and communities, and what it means to build something that actually lasts.

You’ll Learn

⭐ How to navigate complex systems where there are no clear answers
⭐ The importance of relationships in driving meaningful change
⭐ How to communicate work in a way that actually connects
⭐ What it takes to lead in community-centered environments
⭐ Why clarity often comes through action, not before it
⭐ How to stay grounded while making high-stakes decisions

Key Insights

Leadership Requires Holding Complexity
There aren’t always clean answers. Strong leaders are able to navigate nuance and move forward anyway.

Relationships Are the Work
Impact is rarely individual - it’s built through trust, collaboration, and connection.

Storytelling Drives Understanding
If people can’t understand or connect to the work, it’s difficult for it to gain traction or scale.

Systems Shape How We Lead
The environments we operate in influence decisions, behavior, and outcomes more than we often realize.

Clarity Comes Through Movement
Waiting for perfect certainty can stall progress - clarity is often built in motion.

Timestamps

[00:00:00] – Introduction and how Kristin and Tamiko connected
[00:03:00] – Tamiko’s path into leadership and community work
[00:07:00] – Where storytelling shows up in real-world impact
[00:12:00] – Communicating complex work in a way that lands
[00:18:00] – The relationship between storytelling and trust
[00:24:00] – Narrative, systems, and shaping perception
[00:31:00] – Why connection matters more than just information
[00:38:00] – Leadership, responsibility, and holding nuance
[00:45:00] – Building work that lasts beyond you
[00:52:00] – What legacy means in this work

Resources and Links

Connect with Tamiko Heim on LinkedIn

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com

Sign up for Kristin’s newsletter for more stories, insights, and tools for women leaders: BeldenStrategies.com/newsletter

Find Airel Vanece's (Tamiko's daughter) book Searching for Mr. Johnson's Song here

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It helps more women find these conversations - and means a lot as the show grows.

What if the most important part of leadership isn’t what you say or do - but how you see people?

Join me as I sit down with Jackie Kendricks, Director of Education at Roberts Family Development Center, who has spent years working alongside children, families, and young adults in community.

Jackie’s path into this work began in education, but it deepened as she stepped into nonprofit and community-based work - where she saw firsthand how complex people’s lives really are, and how often we reduce others to a single moment or behavior.

In this conversation, we explore what it actually means to lead people well: holding space without judgment, understanding the difference between expectation and entitlement, and recognizing that most people are simply trying to survive with dignity.

You’ll Learn

⭐ Why leadership starts with how you see and understand people
⭐ The difference between expectation and entitlement in younger generations
⭐ How technology is shaping attention, identity, and behavior
⭐ Why community and connection are essential to resilience
⭐ How to navigate emotionally demanding work without losing yourself
⭐ Why “your 3am phone call” matters more than anything

Key Insights

Most People Are Trying to Survive with Dignity
When you understand that people are navigating more than you can see, it changes how you lead, respond, and show up.

Leadership Is About How You Leave People
Impact isn’t just about outcomes - it’s about whether people walk away believing more in themselves.

Expectation vs Entitlement Is Often Misunderstood
What looks like entitlement may actually be a generation shaped by immediacy and constant access.

You Can’t Lead Without Seeing the Whole Person
Reducing people to a single behavior or moment limits both their growth and your ability to lead effectively.

Timestamps

[00:00:00] – Introduction: Meeting Jackie and her work in community
[00:01:05] – Jackie’s role at Roberts Family Development Center
[00:04:45] – Supporting children, families, and underserved communities
[00:08:00] – Working with young adults and generational differences
[00:10:45] – Technology, attention, and immediate gratification
[00:13:00] – Expectation vs entitlement
[00:15:30] – Teaching real-world skills in a digital generation
[00:18:00] – Parenting and navigating technology with kids
[00:20:30] – AI, learning, and critical thinking
[00:23:00] – Jackie’s path into nonprofit and community work
[00:26:30] – Understanding people beyond the surface
[00:30:00] – Surviving with dignity and isolation
[00:32:45] – The importance of community and “your 3am phone call”
[00:36:30] – Burnout and emotional load in this work
[00:40:30] – Self-care and learning to be alone
[00:43:30] – Balancing ambition, family, and boundaries
[00:46:00] – Leadership, confidence, and how you show up
[00:49:30] – Legacy and leaving people well

Resources and Links

Connect with Kristin Belden on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinbelden/
Learn more about Belden Strategies: https://beldenstrategies.com

Sign up for the Big Deal Energy newsletter: https://beldenstrategies.com/newsletter

Connect with Jackie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelyn-kendricks-89b35a47/

Check out more about Roberts Family Development Center: https://robertsfdc.org/

👉 If this conversation resonated, make sure to subscribe, share it with someone who needs to hear it, and let me know what stood out to you.

“Engagement is the metric of whether people actually care.”

Join me as I sit down with Simone Aponte, VP News Director at KTVU, who has spent her career inside newsrooms - from writing scripts at 3:00 AM to leading teams shaping how communities receive and understand information.

Simone has seen the media landscape shift in real time - not just in how news is produced, but in how trust is built, how teams are led, and how impact is measured.

In this conversation, we explore what it actually looks like to lead inside a newsroom - the shift from doing the work to building systems, developing people, and thinking long-term in an environment that runs on constant deadlines.

We talk about the tension between speed and thoughtfulness in news, why engagement matters more than reach, and how the way people consume information is fundamentally changing.

We also talk about AI in journalism, the realities of leading through constant change, and what it means to leave something better than you found it.

This is a thoughtful, grounded conversation about leadership, journalism, and the responsibility that comes with shaping how people understand the world around them.

You’ll Learn

⭐ Why engagement matters more than views or reach
⭐ What it actually looks like to lead inside a newsroom
⭐ The shift from doing the work to leading people and systems
⭐ Why local news still matters for strong, informed communities
⭐ How Simone’s definition of success has evolved over time
⭐ What it means to build trust with audiences today

Key Insights

Engagement Reflects Real Impact
It’s not about how many people see something - it’s about whether it resonates enough for people to respond, share, and care.

Leadership Requires Letting Go of the Work
Moving into leadership means stepping out of execution and focusing on people, systems, and long-term outcomes.

Speed and Thoughtfulness Are in Constant Tension
Newsrooms operate in real time, but meaningful storytelling requires context, nuance, and editorial judgment.

Trust Is Built Over Time
In a fragmented media landscape, trust isn’t assumed - it’s earned through consistency, clarity, and credibility.

AI Is Changing the Work — Not Replacing It
Technology can support efficiency, but human judgment and storytelling remain essential.

Timestamps

[00:00:00] – Introduction: Simone’s path into journalism
[00:03:00] – Early career and first newsroom experiences
[00:07:00] – The reality of working in broadcast news
[00:12:00] – Transitioning from producer to leader
[00:16:00] – Thinking long-term in a deadline-driven environment
[00:20:00] – Building a live streaming model during COVID
[00:24:00] – Engagement vs reach in modern media
[00:28:00] – Rebuilding trust with audiences
[00:33:00] – AI in journalism: tool vs risk
[00:40:00] – Redefining success over time
[00:45:00] – Early work experiences and leadership lessons
[00:50:00] – Legacy and leaving things better than you found them

Resources and Links

Connect with Simone on LinkedIn

Find host Kristin Belden on LinkedIn or at BeldenStrategies.com

Sign up for Kristin’s newsletter for more stories, insights, and tools for women leaders: BeldenStrategies.com/newsletter