I Want Her Job

Diane Kahn is a teacher and co-founder of Humans of San Quentin, an organization seeking to break down the walls and stereotypes of prison life and to humanize the lives behind the bars.  Diane was teaching inside San Quentin to help prisoners receive their high school diplomas when the idea for Humans of San Quentin was born. In our conversation, Diane shares the story of starting the organization and why she is so passionate about sharing the stories of people in jail.  When you visit the Humans of San Quentin site,  you will find moving stories, art and poetry from prisoners around across the US and other countries. Listen to our conversation to hear how the people Diane has met in San Quentin and around the world have transformed her, and they ways they can transform you. Visit the Humans of San Quentin Website Connect with Diane Please follow us on IG @meanforit Reach out to us at: contact@meanforit.com to say hello or recommend somone for a future episode. Go to our website www.meantforit.com for past

Janelle Kellman, Esq. is the Mayor of Sausalito, CA. In our conversation, we discuss Janelle’s path from private practice as an environmental attorney in San Francisco to launching a successful e-commerce company and launching the Center for Sea Rise Solutions in 2021 to support the localization of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Janelle’s passion for teamwork was ignited and nurtured by a lifetime of sports including playing two Division I sports at Yale. Janelle says, “Sports taught me hard work, collaboration and team work”.  Janelle grew up in a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania. When Janelle’s mom developed asthma, Janelle became passionate about the environment and about working to find the balance between how we live in the natural environment. Janelle credits her father’s volunteering and involvement with community organizations as an early inspiration. The Jewish philosophy of Tikkum Olam (Repair of the world) has also guided Janelle’s motivation for environmental work and public service

  Are you curious about the process of writing a speech for the President of the United States? During 2019 - 2017, Sarah Hurwitz was a White House speechwriter starting out as a senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama and then serving as head speechwriter for First Lady Michelle Obama. In our conversation, Sarah shares what it was like to write speeches for the Obamas and the career path that led her to speechwriting. We also discuss how a decision to take a beginner's class on Judaism led Sarah down a transformational journey. Sarah grew up culturally Jewish and didn’t fully understand or connect to her religion until the fateful Intro to Judaism class changed everything. In Sarah’s book, Here All Along, Sarah shares what inspired her to continue learning about Jewish wisdom ranging from holidays, rituals, and prayer to Jewish conceptions of God, death, and social justice. If you are a cultural Jew or just interested in learning about Judaism, we think you will love the wisdom in Sarah’s book. We al

  If you want to learn more about how venture capital investing can change your life and the world, this episode is for you. Trish Costello is the founder and CEO of Portfolia, the leading venture investing platform designed for women. Prior to Portfolia, Trish was a pioneer in creating programs to educate and prepare people for venture capital investing in the Kaufman Fellows Program. She led the Kaufman Fellows program for 10 years as the CEO of Venture Education. Trish was also Founding President of CVE Capital Corp, the holding company of a $1.7 billion Fund of Funds. In our conversation, Trish shares the arc of her career and the milestones and decisions that led her to starting Portfolia. We discuss Trish’s motivations, how she invests and the reasons why Trish believes Portfolia will change investing. We guarantee you will be blown away by how much Trish has done throughout her career and her goals to make the world a better place. Trish’s goal is is over 100,000 women (and their colleagues and friend

Laura Garnett came to performance strategy after a career crisis with a job that left her sick and depressed. Instead of staying on a path that Laura didn't care about and where she could not perform at a high level, Laura had the confidence to make a change. Laura used her curiosity, work ethic and unique set of talents to study what makes people happiest at work, eventually writing books on this topic and becoming a performance strategist consultant. Today, "Laura guides CEOs, Executives, Entrepreneurs, and teams to new heights of success by shining a light on their unique purpose, values, and abilities, transforming the way they work." Laura also writes extensively and has been published in Fast Company, Time, and The Muse, with recurring columns in Inc. and Forbes.  In Part 1 of our conversation, Laura shares how she got on her career path, why she is so passionate about helping people find careers they were meant for and offers tips for how you can find your personal zone of genius. We hope you remember

From news reporting to Capitol Hill in various roles, then making a very intentional switch to working in San Diego where Holly Smithson ran CleanTECH San Diego and today as CEO of Athena, Holly has thrived in every role. As Holly shares in this podcast, everything that Holly has done and her success in each role comes from her intention, her desire to mobilize people toward a cause, and her intention to make a meaningful impact.  After realizing Capitol Hill was not right for her, Holly made an intentional decison to move to San Diego. In San Diego, Holly found the business culture with metrics, accountability and cooperation a place where she felt she belonged and could fulfill her vision. While Holly didn’t have any connections in San Diego she had the vision and knew what she had to offer.  Holly’s skills and experience combined with her unstoppable confidence and work ethic came together in a way that led to Holly’s amazing success in her roles. As Holly says, “anytime I put my mind to it I will manifest

Lindsay Tjepkema was a professional in the B2B marketing space for more than 15 years when she realized there was an opportunity to change how companies tracked and measured the impact of their podcast audio and video content so she jumped on the ideas and co- founded Casted. Casted has an impressive list of customers, including Salesforce, PayPal, HubSpot, Drift, Gong and ZoomInfo. Casted’s platform is also “the system of record” for Salesforce’s 25+ podcasting shows! In our conversation, Lindsay shares how she got the idea for Casted, the research she did to plan for the first MVP, her founder story and why she is so enthusiastic about growing Casted’s future. If you are interested in B2B marketing and the future of podcasting, we think you will enjoy this conversation with its CEO . Casted claims it has the ability to analyze content data and turn it into intelligence for sales and marketing. Casted’s platform allows a “fully searchable content archive” with transcription services and tagging. Check out o

When Christine Marsh was younger she wanted to change the world. If you consider high school teachers who change the lives of their students through their passion, enthusiasm and dedication to their work as people who have changed the world, Christine succeeded. Christine has taught high school English in Arizona for 30 years, and was named  Arizona's Teacher of the Year in 2016. After a repeated number of colleagues and friends encouraged Christine to run for state senate, about 7 different times, Christine decided to go for it. Since teaching is Christine's first love, Christine is passionate about reducing class sizes and increasing teacher salaries. While serving in the state senate, Christine faced one of the most difficult tragedies any parent can face, Christine's beloved son died two years ago after purchasing a percocet pill that was laced with fentanyl. Despite her overwhelming grief, Christine has committed to speaking about the dangers of fentanyl whenever possible, and put forth a bill that legal

Alex Otte is Mother's Against Drunk Driving youngest National President. Alex got involved with MADD when she was hit by a boat driven by a drunk driver. Alex’s injuries were life-threatening, severe and long lasting. Today, Alex is using her voice, her story and her passion to advocate for an end to drunk driving. While there is good news coming in 2026 about an almost complete reduction in drunk driving due to new technologies that will be implemented in all new cars, with an estimated 9,400 lives saved and countless injuries prevented annually from the new technologies once all cars on the road are equipped, there is still so much we can do today. An estimated 10,000 people die per year due to drunk driving and more than 300,000 are injured annually. With several years left before the new technology makes it to new cars, there are still going to be tens of thousands of lives lost. Think about that for a minute - tens of thousands of preventable deaths, and hundreds of thousands of preventable injuries cau

Ari Memar, the CEO and Co-founder of Tract, the world's first peer-to-peer learning community, shares the story of starting Tract with his former high school teacher, Esther Wojcicki. Ari was inspired by his time working as a camp counselor and by Esther Wojcicki’s nourishing, project based style of teaching, to create a platform that would inspire kids to develop a love for learning. Ari had a vision for a curated, safe learning community where kids explored what they actually enjoyed learning. When you join Tract.app, you will find videos your kids will actually want to watch. Since everything is created by kids for kids, the content really appeals to kids ages 8-13.  Listen to Ari’s founder story and then go to Tract.app to explore Ari’s big vision for inspiring kids to love learning.   Follow us @meantforit on IG Contact us contact@meantforit.com Check out our new website to submit guest ideas or review previous podcasts: https://meantforit.com Don't forget to listen to episdoe #96 with Esther Wojcicki

Katie Hood knows how to follow her instincts and heart when making major life decisions. Today, Katie is CEO of the One Love Foundation, the nation’s leading educator of young people on the topic of healthy and unhealthy relationships.  Katie shares the reasons why she joined One Love and her ambitious goals for reducing abusive relationships. We discuss how One Love was founded by Sharon Love to honor the memory of her daughter, Yeardley Love,  who was beaten to death by her ex-boyfriend three weeks before her graduation from the University of Virginia.  Sharon never imagined relationship abuse was something she needed to consider for her daughter,  “I didn’t know then what I know now, that relationship abuse is a public health epidemic and that young women in Yeardley’s age group are at three times greater risk than any other demographic.” In our conversation, Katie shares how she left the world of finance and consulting and  landed a job at the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, eventually

Vanessa Rivera, Product Programs Lead for DoorDash, shares the unconventional path she took to get her dream job and some of the bold moves she made along the way. When Vanessa decided she wanted to be in the tech world, she was living in Guatemala. Although she didn't know anyone in tech, Vanessa made the leap and moved to San Francisco.  In our conversation, Vanessa shares how being focused on problem solving, combined with a passion for learning, can open doors and opportunities. We also discuss how thinking differently can be your superpower and how having dyslexia can create a more empathetic approach to working with others.  We dive into Vanessa’s Guatemalan roots and Vanessa shares how her upbringing in an entrepreneurial environment and welcoming culture, has shaped not only who she is today but also how she approaches her work and life.  Please follow us @meantforit ! You can reach us at contact@meantforit.com If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, leave us a review on iTunes or

In Laurie Segall’s new book, Special Characters, Laurie shares how she first started covering the tech scene for CNN in the early days of Facebook and Twitter, to the rise of some of today’s most popular apps. Laurie was immediately drawn to the tech scene, and blazed her own path by doing what she loved, often without permission and without an official role. If you are ambitious and hungry to move up in your role, there is much to learn from the way Laurie forged her own path and consistently said yes to ambitious ideas and opportunities.    We discuss Laurie’s early influences, career highlights, how she pitched her role as CNN’s first multi platform journalist and a series on CNN called Almost Human. We discuss  memories from some of Laurie’s most meaningful interviews covering the Ashley Madison scandal, the QAnon community and much more. Laurie also shares why she left CNN and what lobsters have to do with some of her biggest life decisions. Follow us @meantforit Reach out to: contact@meantforit.com

BJ Miller is a physician, author, speaker,  practicing hospice and palliative medicine physician. In this current role, BJ sees patients and caregivers through Mettle Health, an online palliative care service. Previously,, BJ was the Executive Director of San Francisco’s Zen Hospice Project.]  BJ shares how he got on his career path and we discuss the ways his family and upbringing shaped his character.  We discuss the sources of BJ resilience, what BJ has learned about death, the ways society can make dying a better process, BJ reveals what people who are able to deal with death peacefully  have in common. This is an extraordinary conversation with an extraordinary human, We are honored to share BJ’s story and hope this conversation gives you new insights and maybe a little peace more about death, an event we all have to face at some point. Watch BJs famous Ted Talk Here   Mettle Health BJ NYT One Man's Quest to Change the Way We Die Follow us @meantforit on Instagram Reach out to us at contact@meanforit.c

Paume founder Amy Welsman openly shares the story of starting Paume, a luxury hand care product brand made with sustainably produced, bio-degradable and plant-based ingredients. Although Amy got the idea for a luxury hand sanitizer as a new mother in 2019, Covid gave her the nudge she needed to quickly and boldly enter the hand sanitizer market. In our conversation Amy shares how she went from idea to product, spanning areas such as sourcing, sales channels, funding, wholesale, selling directly to consumers, pitching to buyers, PR, design, operations, marketing and the importance of an advisory group. If you are curious about what it takes to start a product based business, we think you will love Amy’s candor and how generously she shares her entire journey. This conversation is guaranteed to bring you new insights and and inspiration. If you enjoyed this conversation please subscribe, leave us a review, follow us on IG @meantforit. You can reach us at: contact@meantforit.com

Jaime Rich, Program Specialist at Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) shares how she works to reduce underage drinking and driving through education and advocacy. Jaime shares some sobering stats about drunk driving that hopefully inspire you to listen in to the conversation, and find a way to get involved: “In 2019, 10,142 people died in drunk driving crashes so that is one person every 51 minutes. Every two minutes a person is injured in a drunk driving crash, and 2 out of 3 people will be involved in a drunk driving crash.”  Staggering statistics for a problem that is completely preventable. Prior to her role at MADD, Jaime spent 12 years working on policies to reduce underage substance abuse with the Center for Human Development. Jaimie shares some of the wins in her career, how she stays optimistic, and ways you can get involved in this important issue. The passion from teenagers  who are energized to  help prevent substance abuse, keeps Jaime motivated and focused on the work, even when progress seems

In our conversation Paige shares the inspiration for starting Naborforce and the lightbulb moment that gave her the idea for a business model and the confidence to make her idea a reality. Naborforce is an online platform that connects “nabors” to seniors requesting help for everyday tasks such as  household chores, groceries and  driving. “Nabors” get extra income and a meaningful way to connect to people in their community. Paige’s finance experience gave her the skills to research the market and create a business model that fit the varying market needs by region.  Today, NaborForce offers  standard hourly pricing or monthly plans and packages so seniors can get assistance from a trusted network of care providers. Naborforce is also signing up partnerships with employers so employees can get help balancing work with the type of caregiving activities that often push stretched employees to leave their jobs.  In our conversation, Paige shares the milestones in getting Naborforce started, how she is building he

If you are interested in investing, specifically in early stage investment funds, you will love this conversation with Leslie Goldman, Co-Founder of The Artemis Fund. Leslie shares how her 20 year legal career as General Counsel led her down a path  to board advising, investing and then to finding two co-founders who were the perfect partners for Artemis. The Artemis Fund’s vision is to invest in companies  democratizing access to wealth, encouraging sustainability, and reducing friction in the care economy. We discuss how Leslie and her partners raised their first fund,”one check at a time”. Leslie predicts between her partners and their networks they probably had 1000 meetings and talked to any accredited investors who were willing to listen. Leslie shares how her partners decide on investments, their diligence process  and Leslie tells us about a few of their exciting current investments, including unest, Dressx and Hop Skip Drive. Leslie shares the biggest challenges in managing an investment fund and how

Sofia Ramirez Shares How Tend, a Digital Personal Finance Platform that Just Launched in the USA and Mexico, is Modernizing and Simplifying finances While Building Community. In our conversation, Sofia shares how Tend plans to make banking easier for young people through transparency, debit banking with cash back services  and less costly international transfers coming soon. Tend launched recently in the USA and Mexico with plans to expand further internationally. We also discuss Sofia’a career milestones that led her to Tend, her career in marketing and finance, and her advice for others who are interested in similar paths. If you are interested in how to disrupt established industries with modernized and enhanced services based on community needs, we think you will love this conversation. Follow us on IG @meantforit Reach out to us: contact@meantforit.com

Rachel Praetorius shares the career path that led to her dream job as the Director of Sustainability for Amazon Devices and Services.   Rachel started as employee number 1 at Amazon's Lab 126 Program Management Office and eventually moved into her current role. If you are interested in sustainability programs at Amazon, or what it is like to work as a sustainability lead for a tech company, this conversation is for you! Follow us on IG @meantforit Reach out to us: contact@meantforit.com