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Who Are You Without the Title? | Michele Novack

Career reinvention after corporate is rarely just about finding the next job. Michele Novack invested 30 years in banking and finance building her identity from the outside in, and eventually had to rebuild it from the inside out.

Her arc moves from a Yonkers childhood marked by early trauma, through single motherhood and night school, to VP roles at Bank of America and Capital One, to founding CardinalsByte, her cybersecurity risk management firm for small businesses, entirely from the ground up.

You will hear:

• How a career becomes an identity, and what happens when that identity is gone
• The mirror practice Michele returns to when she needs to reconnect with herself
• How forgiveness, including forgiving herself, became the foundation of her reinvention
• Why she built her firm entirely through referrals and real relationships
• What small businesses actually need to know about cybersecurity compliance
• What authentic success looks like when a three-year-old grandson is part of the picture

Connect with Michele: Free cybersecurity assessment at cardinalsbytes.com/contact-us

Work with Caroline: nextsuccesscareers.com

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Watch full video episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NextSuccessMethod/

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How to Build an Event Production Career From Curiosity and Calling, With Cameron Magee

Building an event production career from scratch looks a lot like Cameron Magee's story: a curious kid, a mentor who pulled up a chair, and 20 years of showing up and giving more than he took.

In this conversation, the founder and CEO of avad3 shares how a small-town Arkansas boy with no entrepreneurial family background launched a company from his dorm room and grew it into a national production firm trusted by Walmart and the White House. More than the growth story, this is a conversation about identity, service, and what it takes to build a place where people actually want to stay.

You will hear:

• How a mentor at a church sound booth gave Cameron three years of patient instruction and changed the entire arc of his life
• The vending machine principle: give $1.10 back for every dollar someone gives you, and they will send three friends
• How he launched avad3 in college, nearly skipped college entirely, and graduated with the company logo on his cap
• The question at 25 that redirected everything: not "is this it" but "what could this become for others"
• Why avad3 collects next time notes from every crew member after every event, and how 1,400 moments of honest feedback a year drive their culture
• What a mentor told him about having a vibrant personal life that changed how he leads and how he lives

Connect with Cameron: Visit avad3.com to learn more about the team and how they serve event planners nationwide.

Connect with Caroline: nextsuccesscareers.com

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Watch full video episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NextSuccessMethod/

Learn more about Next Success www.nextsuccesscareers.com

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Money Mindset, the Enneagram, and Why Your Financial Patterns Go Deeper Than Money, With Doug Lynam

Money mindset work rarely begins with a monastery in the New Mexico desert, but Doug Lynam's story does, and that is precisely what makes his insights so hard to forget.

Doug is a former Benedictine monk, Marine Corps Officer Candidate, bestselling author, and financial advisor who built his practice around a single conviction: the way you handle money has almost nothing to do with math and everything to do with the wounds you have been carrying since childhood. In this conversation, he traces his own path from a home where money was weaponized in a bitter divorce, through two decades of monastic life, through a monastery bankruptcy he helped reverse, and into the world of wealth management. Along the way, he developed the framework that now anchors his books, his TEDx talk, and his work with clients: the money monster map.

You will hear:

• How growing up in an affluent home where money was used as a tool of control shaped the origin of Doug's own money monster
• Why taking a vow of poverty led him directly into the most intense financial education of his life
• What the Enneagram actually is, and how Doug combined it with Attachment Theory to identify 18 distinct money patterns
• Why capable, intelligent people keep repeating the same financial self-sabotage, and what actually breaks the cycle
• How the pain of staying in the monastery finally outweighed the pain of leaving everything behind after 20 years
• What authentic success looks like after that many complete reinventions

Connect with Doug: Visit douglynam.com to explore his books, TEDx talk, coaching, and speaking work.

Connect with Caroline: nextsuccesscareers.com

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Watch full video episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NextSuccessMethod/

Learn more about Next Success www.nextsuccesscareers.com

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How to Dream Again and Rebuild Your Life After Grief and Loss, With Chanoa Inez

Rebuilding your life after grief and upheaval is possible, and Chanoa Inez has lived the full arc of what that actually takes. She followed her instincts toward beauty and meaning through fashion, copywriting, and entrepreneurship until the kind of loss that changes everything arrived suddenly. What followed were years of pushing through without tools, a body that started carrying what her heart could not release, and an inner transformation that became the foundation of her book and her work.

Chanoa is the author of Dream On: How to Create the New Life of Your Dreams After Upheaval or Loss, and the creator of the Magnetize Your Personal Brand program, which helps business owners develop their presence from the inside out.

You will hear:

• How Chanoa built her copywriting business from genuine love of words, starting with her CEO boss as her very first client
• How sudden devastating loss quietly cost her years of health, confidence, and the capacity to imagine forward
• How changing her environment began healing her body, and the deeper realization about her own patterns that changed everything else
• Why she waited to write Dream On until she was genuinely on the other side, and what that patience made possible
• How her personal brand framework helps business owners attract from who they genuinely are

Connect with Chanoa: chanoainez.com, her book Dream On and all programs.

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Watch full video episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NextSuccessMethod/

Learn more about Next Success www.nextsuccesscareers.com

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Mastering Your Mind With Madelaine Weiss: Career Pivots, Life Transitions, and Getting to GREAT

Mindset mastery is the through-line of Madelaine Weiss's entire life, from grieving teenager to Harvard-trained psychotherapist, from lab technician to executive coach, from student who nobody believed in to author helping others believe in themselves.

In this conversation, Madelaine shares what she has learned across decades of reinvention: that the inner compass exists even when we cannot hear it, that transitions are not detours but invitations, and that a great life begins with a great fit between who you truly are and the world you inhabit. Her 5-step G.R.E.A.T. framework gives that idea a path.

In this episode, you will hear:

• How losing her father at 15 set Madelaine on a path she could only understand in hindsight
• Why she walked away from lab work to pursue people, and what that pivot taught her about listening to inner signals
• The G.R.E.A.T. framework: Grounding, Recognizing, Exploring, Action, and Tolerating resistance to change
• The marble and the groove: a powerful mental image for understanding how habits form and how to change them
• Why overthinking is a brain drain, and what to do instead
• How presence and small acts of human connection can redirect the course of a life

Connect with Madelaine: Visit madelaineweiss.com to explore her blog, access the free power breathing exercise, and book a complimentary strategy session.

Connect with Caroline: nextsuccesscareers.com | @nextsuccessmethod on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook

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Learn more about Next Success www.nextsuccesscareers.com

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How to Leave Corporate and Build a Business Before You Quit | Tabatha Jones

Tabatha Jones — Executive Director turned Corporate Escape Sherpa — built her coaching business one hour a day while still inside corporate, and left with a plan already in motion. In this episode, she shares how she navigated four mergers, learned to negotiate after a decade of waiting to be recognized, and finally walked away from a Fortune 50 career when her body made the cost undeniable.

If you're a midlife woman wondering how to leave corporate without financial free-fall, this conversation is for you.

You'll hear:

• Why the myth of meritocracy kept her in the same role for 10 years — and what changed when she finally asked
• What Epstein-Barr and Lyme disease taught her about chronic workplace stress
• The one-hour-a-day method she used to build a real business before giving notice
• How she used self-advocacy to get a 19% raise and bring other women along with her
• What her first Monday out of corporate looked like — and how long the rewiring really takes

Connect with Tabatha: Freedom Builder System — build your corporate escape plan: https://www.corporateescapesherpa.com/the-freedom-builder-system

Connect with Caroline: nextsuccesscareers.com | @nextsuccessmethod on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook

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Watch full video episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NextSuccessMethod/

Learn more about Next Success www.nextsuccesscareers.com

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When you reflect on your life, can you recognize the moments that shaped who you’ve become?

In this episode, I talk with Marcy Axelrod about her life and career journey, starting with an early experience that changed how she saw herself and the world around her. We walk through her path from childhood, to Cornell, to Wall Street and global consulting, and into the work she does today.

What stood out most is how closely her work is connected to her life. This is a conversation about what she experienced, what she noticed, and how the questions that stayed with her over time became the foundation of everything she now shares through writing, speaking, research, and art.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The early experience that shaped Marcy’s perspective
• How she became an observer of human behavior
• Her path through Cornell, Wall Street, and consulting
• What she noticed in high-performance environments
• How her work around showing up developed over time
• The connection between her life, her work, and her art

Learn more about Marcy: https://choosetoshowup.com/

Next Success Careers: nextsuccesscareers.com

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Subscribe to Your Next Success so you never miss an episode.

Watch full video episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NextSuccessMethod/

Learn more about Next Success www.nextsuccesscareers.com

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What happens when you’ve built a career you’re good at… and something in you starts to shift?

In this episode, Megan Applegate shares her journey from a 20-year career in hospitality into business ownership, recruiting, and career strategy. She opens up about the moment she realized the work no longer felt the same—and what it looked like to move forward without a clear plan.

This conversation explores what it means to recognize change, trust that awareness, and step into something new that aligns more fully with who you are.

Key Takeaways

• What burnout can actually feel like when you’re still performing at a high level
• How to recognize when something no longer fits
• Why you don’t need a perfect plan to move forward
• What it looks like to step into business ownership unexpectedly
• How clarity often comes after action

Links

Megan Applegate: https://www.careerblueprintsolutions.com/collections/all

Caroline Sangal: https://nextsuccesscareers.com

Support the show

Subscribe to Your Next Success so you never miss an episode.

Watch full video episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NextSuccessMethod/

Learn more about Next Success www.nextsuccesscareers.com