Episode 52: From the Cockpit to the Boardroom- Leadership Lessons from a Combat Veteran

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In this episode, we have the pleasure of interviewing retired Air Force Colonel, Kim "KC" Campbell, a fighter pilot who served in the Air Force for over 24 years. As a senior military leader, Kim led hundreds of Airmen both at home and abroad, and enabled them to succeed in their missions. She knows what it takes to be a successful leader, to inspire and empower high-performance teams to achieve success. Kim is passionate about leadership and feels strongly that leaders earn trust by leading with courage and connecting with their team.

In this episode, Kim shares her combat experience and leadership lessons that will motivate and inspire your team to be more confident when faced with adversity or uncertainty. She provides practical ideas and examples to improve trust and help your team prepare to face challenges in their personal or professional lives.

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Episode 51: Regina Jackson from Race2Dinner on "What it means to call yourself an ALLY?"

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In this episode Regina Jackson of Race2Dinner joins the Embracing Only Podcast where they deconstruct how being nice has not stopped racism. Thorugh her work and lived experiences over the last 72 years she is on a mission to change the status quo she co-founded Race2Dinner with Saira Roa. They took the experiences from these dinners and developed a documentary with film maker Patty Ivins called Deconstructing Karen. In the words of the filmaker’s themselves “It is a provocative documentary, white women experience RADICAL HONESTY ABOUT RACISM…their daily role in upholding it, their conditioning to ignore it and the essential part they can play in tearing down the systems that are killing black and brown people every single day.”

How does this translate into the workplace?

  • It provides thought provoking questions to consider if you call yourself an Ally at work?

  • It challenges you to start with yourself in deconstructing your beliefs and triggers first

  • It leaves us with key messages to ACT as there is urgency in having honest discussion however uncomfortable that make us feel. Only then can we seek to make the impact we seek within the Employee Resource Groups (ERG’s) or diverse teams we are leading in organizations.

  • Finally, a recognition that is a constant journey of learning, recognition and evolution

If you are ready to join in on this journey to deconstruct your own racism we encourage you to engage in the following way.

  • Purchase their book “White Women: Everything You Already Know About Your Own Racism and How to Do Better”. You can purchase it here or anywhere you read books. https://www.amazon.com/White-Women-Everything-Already-Racism-ebook/dp/B09RPPV3B8

  • Watch their movie “Deconstructing Karen”. You can watch it by purchasing it on iTunes or on YouTube

  • Engage with the Race2Dinner Community if you recognize as a white woman. If you are ready to unravel, connect and commit. You can buy one for yourself and gift one to another friend here through January 2023. https://www.race2dinner.com/race2community.

  • Register for the Race2Dinner Self Actualization Program if you identify as a person of color. An opportunity to dive deep, live authentically and free. https://www.race2dinner.com/race2selfactualization

  • Host a Race2Dinner with a group of your girlfriends. Reach out to Saira Rao and Regina Jackson here. They have SOLD Out of their dinner in 2023 but be on the watch out for more in 2024

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Episode 50: The year that was 2022 and how we allow it to shape us

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Archita and Olivia tie a bow on the year that was 2022, with their bonus 50th episode. They focus on transitions during this dynamic time in the workplace and economies and how continued focus on controlling the controllables, recognizing where our fear response stems from and allowing for the rest and help we all need.

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Episode 49: Leadership and Feedback with Olivia and Archita

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In the Season 5 Finale Olivia Cream and Archita Fritz tackle two key topics “Only’s” navigate in the workplace leadership and the power of feedback.

Here are some key takeaways from the episode:

  • Cancel the noise around not waiting to ask for permission for a title or for a place at a table because you are leading always in your own space in your own way!

  • You performing at your job is the ticket to the ball, yes! But what you do in terms of focus, in terms of advocacy, in terms of intentional networking, in terms of getting mentors that align with your goal. That’s what makes the difference in you reaching and ultimately achieving

  • Get that driver seat of your career warmed up, it has got to be you in it

  • Leadership journey when moving from the military to the civilian world shifts from one of Command and control to trust and inspire

  • You have to be aware of your battlefield and you have to understand the spoken or unspoken criteria for success in that environment

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Episode 48: Do What Matters with Katherine Byam

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Katherine Ann Byam is a best selling author of “Do What Matters”, sustainability activist, coach and consultant for business resilience and sustainable change, partnering with leaders committed to a shared future. Katherine chose “Doing what matters” after 20+ years in big corporate. She has developed a model to build your own career transition process. As ‘an only’ thriving in spaces across Corporate Audit, to ESG to the big tech she has always lead with a mind of abundance to take up space as a courageous leader. In this episode she navigates how to thrive as ‘an only’, how to work on yourself and discover your biases and those of others with curiosity and in doing so get curious about the planet. She is on a mission to engage and empower more businesses and individuals to lead net positive lives.


Key takeaways from this episode:

  • A company‘s culture when weaponised can be a blueprint for bias.

  • As long as your brain functions there is some kind of bias in you

  • You need to work through vulnerability on your own, make sure you are speaking from your scar not your wound

  • Take time to understand what leading a net positive lifestyle can mean for you

  • Questions are your friend, conclusions are your worst enemy

  • Black women don’t start off wanting to be a stereotype and be labelled a troublemaker.

  • Diversity created our one blue planet and inclusion will help us save it

Episode 47: Embrace your fierceness

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In this episode we have not one, but three fierce queens, Fabia, Zanele and Mai who share how they have embraced their ‘onlyness’ and thrived in the different spaces they have occupied. We talk about mentorship, sponsorship, is 30 the new 40 and how we as women can do more to raise and lift other women up.

Key takeaways from this episode:

  • Make someone’s voice heard more when you are in the room or at a table they don’t have visibility to yet

  • When you identify your strengths and something you are good at, do not shy away from it

  • Everybody is driving impact in their own way, own time and we shouldn’t fall prey to the comparison game

  • There is value in achieving great things, but pacing yourself and truly having the time to reflect and understand your journey is important

Episode 46: Limitless Leadership - consciously driving change

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"In life, you genuinely can't control what others say, what others do." - Meghana Rao Pahlajani

Meghana a multifaceted sustainability professional in the development sector has driven conscious impact across coal, natural gas and solar from rural India to large power plants in the Midwest USA.

In this episode she shares her limitless leadership lessons navigating being 'an only' leading a coal plant, to breaking the bias on maternity leave in corporate India, navigating loss due to COVID and raising conscious consumers. She challenges us to rethink resilience as a badge of honor one must endure alone and instead embrace it as a team sport. She leaves us with an emphatic and tangible call to action to leave the world a better place than we found it.

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Episode 45: Butterfly Wings with Dr. Rana Dajani →

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In this episode of the Embracing Only podcast, co-host Olivia Cream interviews Dr. Rana Dajani. Dr.Dajani, prolific scientist and social entrepreneur shares with us her journey to becoming the worlds leading Arab scientist. We discuss how to combat bias when migrating to a different culture, gender disparities in STEM, and assumptions we all make that impact the world around us.

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Episode 44: Start where you are with Coach Brandi Thompson

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In this episode we are thrilled to welcome #OperationGrowthCoach Brandi Richard Thompson! An expert coach and entrepreneur Brandi Thompson shares her journey from a college dropout to transformational growth strategist. She highlights how she recovered from failure; how she battles fear and perfectionism; and how history plays a role in helping Brandi understand the dynamics of interracial relationships.

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Episode 43: The light in the darkness

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In this episode of The Embracing Only podcast Joyal Mulheron talks about her traumatic experience that led to her purposeful vision of creating a Global system that supports anyone who has lost a loved one.

Death is an affliction that will affect us all. Joyal’s purpose is to provide support to those who need it most, when they need it most. In this episode she shares with us the startling statistics around death and the impact it has on the living. She dissects this often unspoken affliction and helps us understand why we need to focus on bereavement.

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Episode 42: 500 stories of THE FIRST, THE FEW, THE ONLY

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In her new book, THE FIRST, THE FEW, THE ONLY: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America (March 1, 2022, Harper Business), Deepa Purushothaman lays the groundwork for how other women of color can redefine success on their own terms. It’s the book she says she needed when launching her own career. In this episode of the Embracing Only Podcast, Archita Fritz and Olivia Cream unpack these stories as they share how they saw themselves on every page of the book for the first time. They talk through the inclusion delusion, the toll on the health of women leading from the front and the definitions women of color take on and how women of color can step into their power! Deepa’s book recieved raving reviews from Indra Nooyi, Billie Jean King, Dan Pink and many others. This episode is for all women of color, women and allies on the journey to building more inclusive workplaces.

PC: Leslie Bohm

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Episode 41: Kill the fear, step into your power

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In this episode Olivia and Archita dig deep and unpack doomsday scrolling within the backdrop of the ongoing war in Ukraine and share tangible ways to focus on our controllables. They tackle Olivia’s personal journey of defining ‘What it means to be a woman’ after life altering changes due to surgery or illness. They wrap up with questioning what our legacy is in a world that seems to be constantly hustling and performing.

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Episode 40: #BreaktheBias of a cancer diagnosis as a woman of color with Niyati Tamaskar

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In this episode NIyati shares her journey of leading from the front to #Breakthebias and cultural stigma associated with a cancer diagnosis in the black and brown communities. Olivia and Niyati share their individual experiences of navigating the healthcare system as people of color and the limits it puts on one’s experiences. Through humor and education Niyati emphasizes the importance of being your biggest advocate if you were to find yourself in a similar situation. She infuses humor and talks about her immigrant experience stepping into the American Midwest as an engineering student back in the early 2000’s. Most importantly she shares how one can thrive in their ‘onlyness’ while paying it forward for others in a journey of their own.

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Episode 39: Embracing Only with Olivia and Archita →

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The Embracing Only podcast introduces ordinary women who have defied the odds as they navigated their professional careers as 'an ONLY'. In this episode Archita Fritz and Olivia Cream engage, inform, empower and provide actionable ways in which the listeners can see the change they seek to rise and shine in their professional space as we continue to navigate uncertainty, loss and see more women join the influx of the Great Resignation.

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Episode 38: Choose to Challenge Workplace Harassment and Bullying

In this episode Linda Crockett unpacks why she call’s workplace harassment and bullying an epidemic and provides examples of how this has showed up in her personal life that led her on her journey to help eradicate it. She shares strategies for victims of workplace harassment and bullying on how they can lead with clarity, courage, confidence and reporting to make their way to recovery. She provides her perspective on how bringing all parties together and helping even the said perpetrators can only truly help us address the silent challenges with face with this epidemic.

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Episode 36: Choose to Challenge with your voice

Jessica describes herself as a wife, toddler mom, beach bum, aspiring foodie and a Broadway super fan. I’m also a vocal coach, professor, and researcher who is hell bent on helping women get what they want and change their lives.

In this episode she shares how knowing to you your voice voice is powerful! In the way you speak to others, and the way you speak to yourself, lies the power to change your entire life. The best part is - you have the ability to harness that power! You are in control. She shares her journey with finding her own voice and how the magician’s toolbox that she has built empower many women from the stage to the boardroom!

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Episode 35: Choosing to Challenge that women can have it all

Mecca Moore Tartt's love of empowering women and creating safe spaces for women to come together has led to her creating events for women focused on Health/Wellness, Relationships, and Motherhood with the launch of her company BESTU LLC. This busy multi-tasking wife and mother of two beautiful girls shows women that its true “You Can Have It All!”.

Mecca a Power 30 Under 30 Recipient strives for excellence in all that she does and shows other women how to do it too.

In this episode she shares how important mindset is towards anything you want to accomplish in life. She shares how coaches and advocates can help shape your journey as an 'Only' at the table. Most importantly she implores women to embrace their own health and wellness as they choose to challenge the notion that women can't have it all!

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Episode 34: Choosing to Challenge workplace bullying and retaliation

Dr. Kimberly Young-McLear is a Black, queer, scholar, engineer, and educator who is unreservedly committed to human resilience, human dignity, and human rights. Inspired by her educational foundation at Florida A&M University and the long legacy of freedom fighters from the African diaspora, she became an anti-bullying and anti-harassment policy expert who uses evidence-based research to promote justice and equity.

In 2019, she was one of few LGBTQ active duty service members invited as a State of the Union Guest of Honor. Kimberly represented Connecticut’s 2nd District for her tireless efforts to stand against systemic bullying and harassment in the Coast Guard. Following her public testimony at a joint Congressional hearing into the Coast Guard, she has been credited for the advancement of over 30 service-wide policy changes.

In this episode she unpacks what carrying the badge of whistleblower brings and how she has had to build up her self esteem. She shares how she doesn't let fear get in her way of having the audacity to be her full self and so much more!

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Episode 33: Leading with resilience and grace as a two time cancer survivor

In this episode of The Nine Oh Six #chosetochallenge two diagnosis as she fought Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Jess was first diagnosed at the age of 19 and then seven years later she found herself as a patient in the stem cell transplant unit where she served as an ICU nurse. She finds strength in her meditation, prayer, mindfulness and gratitude practice.

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