Shefali Sharma knows how to build a brand. Johnson & Johnson. L’Oréal. IKEA. SAP. She’s spent her career helping some of the biggest names in the world figure out what makes them different.

Then she had to do it for herself.

“The hardest thing to brand is yourself,” she says. “It is the hardest thing to do.”

Building her personal brand wasn’t the first time she faced doubt. Even her move from beauty and advertising into tech came with doubt. When she joined SAP, she “didn’t think I had any valuable skills to add.” She stayed almost a decade.

Leaving corporate to start Protégé Advising was a bigger leap. Shefali had watched people burn out, check out, and quit for years, and she couldn’t stop asking why companies can say exactly what sets them apart while the people inside them can’t. That question pulled her out on her own. The first stretch looked nothing like a polished campaign. “I’m just crying every day... how am I going to make it work? When’s the next client coming in?”

She kept going because the mission mattered more than the paycheck. She’s still working on the patience part. (“I’m the most impatient person on the planet.”)

If you’re in a job that pays well and feels empty, and you’ve lost track of what you’re even good at, Shefali starts with this: that’s normal. And the thing you do every day without thinking about it might be the thing most people can’t do at all.

Connect with Shefali Sharma, Protégé Advising

🌐 Website: www.protegeadvising.com

✉️ Email: shefali@protegeadvising.com

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/protegeadvising

📅 Free 30-minute consultation: calendly.com/shefali-protegeadvising/30min

Amy Hager started her first career at nine years old, racing go-karts.

She was meeting with sponsors, talking with fans, and learning how to hold her own in rooms full of adults. In fifth grade, she took her go-kart to elementary schools so she could tell third graders they didn't have to wait until they grew up to chase a dream.

From the track, Amy zigzagged into radio, then TV, both behind the camera and in front of it. When she left racing and radio, she had no idea what came next, and she was moving halfway across the country. She took a job selling plasma TVs right when they first came out, back when (as Amy tells it) they cost $42,000 apiece. She didn't love it. She wasn't great at it, either, and she gave herself permission to admit that and go find the next thing. That path ran through the nonprofit world and into entrepreneurship. Today Amy is a marketing mentor and community curator at Joyful Business Revolution and an international speaker.

Looking back, she sees the signs showed up long before she acted on them. She got sick. Her skin broke out. "My body is telling me that something is out of alignment," Amy says. "There were so many signs so much earlier than when I actually got my brain involved."

In this episode, Amy shares how she runs every decision through her top five lifestyle values (if it doesn't check at least three, she stops and asks why she's doing it), why it's okay to leave a situation whether you've been there 30 minutes or 3 years, and where to start when you feel stuck. Her answer is simpler than you'd expect. A list of what you love and what you don't. A good friend across the table. A real conversation.

"We get clearer through conversation."

You may not be in third grade anymore. Your dreams didn't age out with you. And Amy's message to those third graders still holds: you don't have to wait.

If your body has been trying to tell you something about your job, this one's for you.

Connect with Amy

🌐 Website: joyfulbusinessrevolution.com

✉️ Email: amy@joyfulbusinessrevolution.com

🎧 Podcast, Grow Your Business for Good: joyfulbusinessrevolution.com/podcast

📘 Facebook: facebook.com/amy.hager.58

💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amy-hager-cae-iom

Cait Fenello loved her job. She left it anyway.

Cait's path started with a digital media degree from Messiah College and a job as a promotions producer in local TV news. Then she wanted work that happened offline. So she moved into agriculture, working for farming nonprofits in Buffalo and Pittsburgh, where she got to "put my hands in the dirt." She loved it. But for most people, that path doesn't pay well over the long haul. So although she loved the work, she pivoted her career again, working for the Clear Thoughts Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money for dementia research. Her skills learned over both her marketing and agriculture careers came with her every step of the way.

Then came the Airstream. She had rebuilt a vintage Airstream camper and she wanted to drive it across the country.

Cait describes herself as all-in: "You either get 100% of me, or you get none of me." She couldn't straddle both the career world and the RV'ing across the country dream. So she had honest conversations with her employer, stepped away from a job she loved, and stepped into the Airstream, not knowing whether that job would be there when she got back.

She finished the trip, sold the Airstream in California, and flew home. Her zigzag brought her right back to the foundation and the work she loved.

Before every pivot, Cait carried the same fear most of us do. What if the newness wears off and I realize I made the wrong move? Her answer to whether she regrets it: "I would have lost a part of me if I had never gone for it."

If you've been polling everyone you love about what you should do next, listen for Cait's advice near the end. Nobody can know you like you.

Connect with Cait

👤 Cait Fenello, Executive Director, Clear Thoughts Foundation 💼 LinkedIn (her preferred way to connect): https://www.linkedin.com/in/caitfenello/ 📧 Email: cait@clearthoughtsfoundation.org 🌐 Website: https://clearthoughtsfoundation.org

🎰 Clear Thoughts Foundation's biggest fundraiser of the year, a Monte Carlo casino night, happens the first Saturday in November. This year that is November 7, 2026. 🥂 For tickets or to learn more about the champagne dress, go to: https://secure.qgiv.com/event/ctfrollforareasongala/