Meet Simmone Taitt, founder + CEO of Poppy Seed Health, who is rewriting the rules of pregnancy, loss and postpartum support. With 24/7 1:1 access to doulas, midwives, and nurses, Poppy Seed Health offers on-demand emotional and mental health support.

Simmone opens up to Angie D'Sa, her executive coach, about how she transformed her personal trauma into profound purpose. And what it looked like to get out of her own way and build her team.

Simmone shares a challenging part of her founder journey - one where she was slow to replace a star performer who left the company. And how limiting narratives got in the way of fast hiring and thoughtful onboarding. When she faced those narratives head on, she evolved as a leader and her business experienced positive momentum.

If you've ever felt intimidated by putting together a team or been the new hire, this conversation is for you. Listen in and apply Simmone's hard won learning in your own life and work. To learn more about how Angie and other Talentism coaches guide their clients, check out Talentism.com

The Clarifier team wants to hear from you.

What are the challenges you are experiencing as a founder or manager right now? As the manager or the person being managed? Send an email or voice memo to podcast@talentism.com describing your challenge and we might just address it on the show.

Meet Joel Keating. He’s Grindr's SVP of Engineering & Chief Information Security Officer. He's joined by his Talentism coach, Gregory Kim.

Together, they describe how paying attention to Joel’s “This Sucks” response can open up the door to curiosity and unlock solutions to big problems at work. But, this only works if the curiosity is genuine. We learn that sometimes Joel can go through the motions: set up a meeting, ask questions, get feedback. But if under those behaviors Joel is actually harboring judgment, it doesn’t unlock anything.

Greg and Joel have come up with a simple system to avoid the trap of hidden judgments. Joel exposes his expectations. All the time. This act is so simple, but when repeated regularly it has created powerful clarity for Joel and those around him.

Everyday at Grindr, Joel applies the frameworks he learned through coaching. The problems at work don’t go away, but he is able to move through them with more agency and clarity, making the next challenge that much more manageable.

Listen in and apply Joel's hard won learnings to your work context. For more on the frameworks Joel references, visit Talentism.com

Meet Evan O'Donnell an early-stage investor + co-founder of the VC firm, Timespan.

Evan shares his powerful journey of overcoming the deep-seated fears instilled from growing up closeted as a gay man, striving for perfection to avoid the perceived catastrophe of being outed. Through self-work, Evan shed the limiting armor he had built up and transformed his heightened perception from a self-protective mechanism into a "superpower" for intuition, creativity, and problem-solving.

By continuously confronting his fears, he has found a way to unlock new possibilities for personal growth and professional success.

Host Angie D'sa, Talentism coach + partner, highlights how fear so often limits leaders' ability to learn and unleash their unique potential. In conversation with Evan, Angie learns:

• How pursuing entrepreneurship felt scary -> "it's the purest form of self-actualization”
• How his armor still showed up at work, even after he came out
• How he methodically grapples with fear when it shows up at work
• How this deepens trust with his co-founder and they make better decisions as a result
• How his “super perception” drives faster feedback loops and better business outcomes

If you want to learn more about the framework Angie references in this episode, check out Purpose in the Big 4 model.