Podcast Guest Spots
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Channel Your Genius with Mellissa Seaman
Episode: Your Dream of Opening a Spiritual Center with Mara Evenstar Recorded: 12/13/23 |
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"The Art of Transformation"
In 2015 I did a radio talk show series
13 interviews on topics of transformation with some amazing folks!
Transformation is more than just change. It is a change so radical that a shift in identity or form occurs. Even positive transformation is unsettling. How can we become allies with this powerful force? How can we move through our transformations with less fear and more grace? How do we become the artists of our own transformation?
Often we perceive that change is happening to us, rather than from us. However there is an alternative way to experience change and transformation, and it is one that works with the natural patterns of our world. This alternative way of experiencing allows and empowers us to be artists and creators of our own lives.
Here, on The Art of Transformation, we playfully explore transformation from several dimensions. We search out the patterns and mechanics of transformation at work on our personal, cultural and institutional levels. This deepened understanding allows us to participate with change more fully in all aspects of our experience.
Often we perceive that change is happening to us, rather than from us. However there is an alternative way to experience change and transformation, and it is one that works with the natural patterns of our world. This alternative way of experiencing allows and empowers us to be artists and creators of our own lives.
Here, on The Art of Transformation, we playfully explore transformation from several dimensions. We search out the patterns and mechanics of transformation at work on our personal, cultural and institutional levels. This deepened understanding allows us to participate with change more fully in all aspects of our experience.
Topics and Guests
Callan Loo
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Navigating the Big OnesLive Air Date: 3/11/15
Mara and guest Cal Loo of Intentional Legacies explore ways to navigate life’s biggest transitions with intention and grace. Some transitions are a natural part of the lifespan like birth, puberty and death. Others are cultural, and made important by our society or spiritual community, such as marriage, graduation, coming of age, spiritual or religious initiation, and even endings like divorce. All of these transitions, when marked intentionally, can help ease the way into releasing a previous stage, and preparing for the new roles, identity, or responsibilities that come with the new stage. It is especially powerful if these transitions can be marked in community, strengthening our ties and sense of belonging. We will discuss why rites of passage are especially relevant and important in today’s world and not just hold-over traditions from the long past. Cal will also share some of his personal journey in coming to his work of helping people traverse these life transitions. |
Callan (Cal) Loo is a co-founder and Chief Intention Officer of Intentional Legacies, and he's an experienced, authentic, and creative participant in the journey of life. He's a certified celebrant through the In-Sight institute, an ordained non-denominational minister, a certified personal legacy coach, and a business legacy coach, Based on his own experiences with major life transitions he's passionate about helping others find peace, balance, and personal growth while navigating life's major transitions, and also about improving the way our society views and plans for our own deaths. An Ohio native, Cal graduated from the University of Toledo and then spent 23+ years in technical sales and marketing before acting on the strong urge to do something "closer to the heart" by founding Intentional Legacies.
Mara Evenstar
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Dancing with Mara EvenstarOriginal Air Date: 3/18/15
This episode, we turn the tables and your host Mara Evenstar is interviewed by dear friend and colleague, Sandra Finkel. Mara will provide a glimpse into her work, and way of life, which is in developing and practicing what she calls transformational arts. She will tell stories from her own spiral dance, and of what wisdom she has gained about the fundamentals, mechanics, and beauty of living an evolutionary life. |
Sandra Finkel
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Moving with the Heart-MindOriginal Air Date: 3/25/15
This week's guest, Sandra Finkel, is a life coach and owner of Intentional Balance, LLC, a human development company that is dedicated to unlocking potential and cultivating flourishing lives through heart and wisdom based generative practices. Sandy will share with us her insights about personal transformation, and the power we each have to consciously choose. |
Sandra Finkel is a life coach and owner of Intentional Balance, a company dedicated to unlocking potential and cultivating flourishing lives through heart and wisdom based generative practices. Sandy has taught mindfulness meditation and mind/body practices for over 25 years. She coaches executives in various industries, and works with collegiate athletic teams on mental performance skills training. She is a principle consultant of Sirius Sense, an organizational consulting group, and previously directed Stress Management Services and the Executive Health Program for University of Michigan Cardiovascular Medicine. She has been a guest lecturer in U of M’s Medical School and the Ross School of Business. Her collaboration with Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, researching the effects of loving-kindness meditation, was published in JPSP. Sandy is co-founder of Jewel Heart Buddhist Center and has a Master’s in Public Health from University of Michigan
Jeanne Ballew
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Writing Your Way Through TransformationOriginal Air Date: 4/1/15
This week, we discuss the art of writing as a vehicle for many types of transformation. Guest Jeanne Ballew, book coach and owner of Edit Prose, shines a light on the long, challenging, sometimes terrifying, but ultimately exhilarating process of bringing a book to life. We will discuss the transformative power of this process on the writer and those close to the writer, the coach, the readers and ultimately the transformation of the idea itself that is trying to come alive in the world. |
Jeannie Ballew is the proud owner of Edit Prose, a team of coaches and editors who have helped hundreds of people write books and get them published. Writing a book is a long, challenging, sometimes terrifying, but ultimately exhilarating process. Having taught writing for nearly thirty years, Jeannie understands how important it is to take care of the writer and the writing to get both from the starting gate to the finish line.
Barry Lipscomb
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The Changing Landscape of BusinessOriginal Air Date: 4/8/2015
Mara speaks with Barry Lipscomb, a true thought-leader and innovator in the realm of helping business and organizations evolve to serve a higher purpose. We’ll talk with Barry about what he and other thought leaders see as an evolutionary path for business. In order to change the world, we have to change very basic underlying assumptions, and we need to create systems and processes to support the new assumptions. This impacts how and why we do business, and also can really impact the culture of a workplace. Join Mara and Barry to look beyond even the triple bottom line! |
Highly intuitive and conceptual, I like to work with big picture ideas and organize them into systems of thought. I hold high integrity to these ideas allowing me to establish and honor the context for a project. My communication style is to be concise and present complex ideas simply. As a business leader, I facilitated executive strategy sessions, led change initiatives and developed and directed process improvement efforts. My ability to connect genuinely with people has allowed me to mediate problem resolution and coordinate efforts across cross-functional teams and between senior executives. I bring my most authentic self to my work, drawing on my own life experience and quest for deeper meaning and purpose. Over the years, I looked in depth at many eastern spiritual traditions, explored paths of higher consciousness and engaged a study of Shamanism. Visit Barry's website on Business Focalizing
Tamara Sutton
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Grief as a Transformative Gateway to a Thriving LifeOriginal Air Date: 4/15/15
Today we speak with amazing grief coach, life coach and author, Tamara Sutton! Tamara will lead us through 3 key stages of life awareness and how we can transform through life’s challenges, especially the highest challenge found in the death of a loved one. Tamara helps us move through the initial suffering and fear, to using our experience to broaden and deepen our Soul and Heart of compassion, and even beyond to a freedom that allows full participation in the rising vibration of the cosmos and the planet, for harmony and balance within and throughout. Join us for an intimate conversation and an opportunity to examine your own life and path for an exercise in flexibility. |
Tamara Sutton has been a Grief Coach and Life Coach since 2004, she is Author of Demetrius, My Gift of Life: a Mothers Journal surrounding the death of her son and her personal mission to use her experience to expand her value and understanding of Life and Love. Tamara has since become inspired to meet life head on herself and to encourage her audience to do the same rather than playing our lives small and “safe”, to instead live the life we choose to create. In the past 18 months, Tamara has entirely changed her priorities, surroundings, her personal menu and her potential for Joy. She traveled the world, carried few possessions along, became free of opinion and judgement, while finding contentment and happiness.
Leslie Blackburn
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The Art and Path of Sacred SexualityOriginal Air Date: 4/22/15
Sacred Sexual Healer & Transformational Guide, Leslie Blackburn, speaks with us this week about sacred sexuality as a path of transformation. We will learn about this powerful path, hear about Leslie’s personal journey and developing this work, and explore the deep gifts of this practice. |
Leslie Blackburn, MS is a Sacred Sexual Healer & Transformational Guide - one of the leading authorities on sacred sexuality and tantra in the US. A former mechanical engineer specializing in quantum physics, and Ironman triathlete before her spiritual awakening, she has now worked with hundreds of clients individually, conducts workshops regularly (attended from as far away as Alberta and Australia), and has reached thousands with her inspirational presentations ranging from intimate groups to large speaking engagements. Her monthly radio program is one of the most listened-to on Body Mind Spirit Radio. She bridges the gap between sexuality and spirituality, covering tantra, consciousness, sexual anatomy and energetics, yoga, meditation, sacred geometry, and more. Leslie’s personal path and work has been the integration of the ever-unfolding feminine in body and psyche with masculine direction and purpose - Love in Action! More info, audio & video!
Rich Sheridan
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Transforming the WorkplaceOriginal Air Date: 4/29/15
Too many people hate going to work. But what if your work and your workplace brought you great Joy? This episode we chat with CEO, Chief Storyteller, and Joy, Inc. author, Rich Sheridan. Rich’s company, Menlo Innovations are experts at transformation and the world has noticed. This little software design and development company in Ann Arbor, MI has elicited Six Inc. magazine revenue growth awards, invitations to the White House, speaking engagements around the world, numerous articles and culture awards, and so much interest that they have come to doing a tour a day of their Menlo Software Factory™. Join us to hear how Rich and his company have transformed their culture and workplace into one of joy and great innovation. |
From kid programmer in 1971 to Forbes cover story in 2003, Joy, Inc. author Richard Sheridan (U-M BS Computer Science '80, MS Computer Engineering '82) has never shied from challenges, opportunities, or the limelight. While his focus has always been on technology, his passion is process, teamwork, and organizational design, with one inordinately popular goal: the Business Value of Joy! Sheridan is an avid reader and historian, and his software design and development team at Menlo Innovations didn't invent a new culture, but copied an old one ... Edison's Menlo Park New Jersey lab.
Some call it agile, some call it lean … Sheridan calls it joyful. And it produces results, business and otherwise. Six Inc. magazine revenue growth awards, invitations to the White House, speaking engagements around the world, numerous articles and culture awards, and so much interest have led to a tour a day of the Menlo Software Factory™.
Some call it agile, some call it lean … Sheridan calls it joyful. And it produces results, business and otherwise. Six Inc. magazine revenue growth awards, invitations to the White House, speaking engagements around the world, numerous articles and culture awards, and so much interest have led to a tour a day of the Menlo Software Factory™.
Peggy Liggit
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Transforming Our Learning SpaceOriginal Air Date: 5/6/15
The world is changing at a high rate of speed. The information and digital age we are co-creating, is shaping and transforming how we think and learn, and how we share and obtain knowledge. Join me as I chat with Dr. Peggy Liggit, Director of Eastern Michigan University’s Faculty Development Center, who is passionate about these changes, and in pioneering the shifts needed in our approach to teaching and learning in higher education |
Peggy Liggit is Director of the B.K. Nelson Faculty Development Center (FDC) at Eastern Michigan University. She has a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology and an undergraduate degree in biology with certifications in secondary biology and chemistry education. Peggy has been on EMU's campus for seventeen years, serving three years in the FDC, three years as Director of Academic Assessment, and eleven years as a professor in the Department of Biology teaching and conducting research in science education. Her research focus now includes professional development in learner-centered teaching and coaching in higher ed., appreciative inquiry, organizational learning, brain-based learning, and finding and fixing misconceptions through embedded assessment.
Angela Barbash
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You Have the Power to Transform Financial SystemsOriginal Air Date: 5/13/15
When we think about changes that are needed in our world, I often think about the financial systems that are not set up to truly support and sustain all humans. Here is an area ripe for transformation. And like many of our other conversations on this show, we look at the personal within the context of the culture and systems. Regardless of your financial situation, how financially literate are you? Do you know how the financial systems work, do you know what your money is doing? Join me as I speak with Angela Barbash, founder of Reconsider, an impact economy research and development firm, co-founder of Revalue, a registered investment advisory firm and she co-launched the Detroit Regional Chapter of the Social Enterprise Alliance. Angela is passionate about empowering people through knowledge and she is a thought leader in financial education, local investing, social impact investing, and creating ways to serve values-driven investors. |
Angela Barbash leverages her understanding of finance, passion for empowering people through knowledge, and ability to make connections between trends and implementation, to help build a future that works for everyone. Angela does this as the Founder of Reconsider, an impact economy research and development firm based in Ypsilanti, Michigan. With the support of the community in 2012, she and an advisory team then launched Revalue, a registered investment advisory firm, to serve values-driven investors, many of whom are interested in investing locally. Additionally, Ms. Barbash and several thought leaders in Metro Detroit came together to launch the Detroit Regional Chapter of the Social Enterprise Alliance to further develop the social enterprise sector in Michigan.
Austin Szelkowski
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A Portrait of Transformation in ActionOriginal Air Date: 5/20/15
What is it like to lead life constantly calling on the powers of transformation? What are the gifts and the trials of such a path? This week I speak with a fairly new acquaintance, Austin Szelkowski. I am intrigued by the little slices of Austin’s story I’ve been exposed to, and I have been impressed with his level of awareness and integrity in our interactions. I hope you’ll join me in getting to know Austin a little better too, and perhaps in the process we can learn from an up and coming artist of transformation! |
Here’s a big little story. An eccentric boy is raised by a kind pastor and his wife in a small town in the Midwest. As a young man, he grows to reject the norms of society. As a result, he sets out on his own adventure into the unknown, wandering for years in the deserts of uncertainty. During his wandering, he endures many trials and completes many quests. His quests include rollerblading across America and building two successful marketing companies. Because of the skate across America, he is recognized by General Motors Institute as the 2011 Young Alumnus of the Year. Even after receiving this award, however, the young man continues to struggle with excessive rebellion and distrust toward society and relationships. Eventually, the young man is brought to his knees by an enlightenment that completely transforms him. He is given a mission to unleash new energies into the world (a New Renaissance). Work on his mission began in Ann Arbor, MI in early 2015. Stay tuned....see what some of Austin is doing at A2 Mastermind!
Shel Kimen
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Transforming Culture By DesignOriginal Air Date: 5/27/15
How do we revitalize our communities? How do we create communities that support all of its inhabitants? Join me as I speak with the extraordinary Social Artist and Cultural Creative, Shel Kimen. Shel has many irons in the fire, but one of her current undertakings is Collision Works, a hybrid profit / non-profit social enterprise in Detroit, designed to connect people through their personal stories. Shel’s initiatives have brought her into the realms of placemaking, urban resilience, community-first design, architecture, entrepreneurialism, and healing through the power of story. We all have stories, and Shel believes more than anything that we all have something valuable to contribute, and has made it her mission to cultivate that. |
For 18 years, Ms. Kimen has helped organizations find new ways to learn about and engage people and culture. She’s worked across industries creating campaigns, products, and services for world-class brands like The New York Times and JC Penney. She holds a BA in Human Environment and Design from Michigan State and post-graduate work in Economic History at The New School in New York City. Her current work, Collision Works, is a hybrid profit / non-profit social enterprise in Detroit, designed to connect people through their personal stories. She has been featured in local, national, and international press for her pilot program “First Container,” a shipping container converted into a beautiful and engaging community space in Detroit’s Eastern Market. She speaks on topics such as urban resilience, community-first design, architecture and entrepreneurialism. Shel believes more than anything that we all have something valuable to contribute and has made it her mission to cultivate that.
Sura
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A Flowing Life with Meditation, Prayer & SynchronicityOriginal Air Date: 6/3/15
Join me for what is sure to be an inspiring, beautiful conversation with executive coach, meditation teacher and author, Sura, about living in the flow. Sura brings a gentle exuberance to living deeply and fully, and engaging consciously with creative energies. In this episode we will hear some of Sura’s own story and her journey to and through this life of flow. Sura will speak about meditation, prayer, synchronicity and creativity, and what they all bring to the party! |
Sura is an Executive Coach, Meditation Teacher & Author who also utilizes media as a means of raising consciousness. Prior to a transformative event, Sura worked on Wall Street as VP of Institutional Sales at Buckingham Research. She had started her finance career at Goldman Sachs and later helped manage a $12 billion dollar tech fund at Munder Capital. Sura currently works individually with leadership clients and hosts Executive Retreats at Meditation Mount in Ojai, CA. She leads online trainings for Integrative Leadership Coaches that integrate coaching, meditation and healing. She previously taught yoga & meditation at a Cancer Center in Ann Arbor, and at Exhale in Los Angeles, with well-known teachers, Shiva Rea & Erich Schiffman. Sura’s approach is direct and simple. Her meditation approach is universal and she enjoys integrating meditation together with coaching. She is an ambassador for meditation.com and feels passionate about sharing meditation with the world.