Finding Treasures in the Trash

What if the moments when your life stops making sense aren't interruptions in your path - but the very things pointing you toward it?There is a Sanskrit word for the experience of having the world you thought was solid suddenly crack open: samvega.It can happen when something falls apart. But it can also happen when everything goes according to plan. You get the title. The money. The relationship. The thing you were certain would make you happy - and a quieter voice inside asks: Is this it?Vish Chatterji knows these moments well.As a young man, Vish had a clear picture of success: America, achievement, the powerful executive in the suit. And he got there. But along the way came moments that punctured the story he had been living - moments of disappointment, disillusionment and unexpected redirection.In this conversation, Cari and Vish explore what happens when we stop treating those moments as problems to solve and begin asking what they might be here to show us.They talk about how easily achievement can become a way of outrunning deeper questions; why high performers are particularly good at overriding the signals that something needs our attention; and why there may not be one dramatic awakening that changes everything. Instead, Vish suggests, a life may be shaped by a series of samvega moments - each one nudging us a little closer to who we are becoming.They also explore an important paradox: listening to the deeper voice doesn't necessarily mean abandoning the life you've built. Sometimes we needed every chapter. The invitation is to learn how to witness ourselves while we are living it - to participate fully without becoming so consumed by the race that we can no longer hear ourselves.And sometimes, the treasure that emerges from the trash isn't something new at all. It is a part of ourselves that has quietly been there all along, waiting for us to recognize its value.Because the question may not be simply, How do I get out of this?It may be: What is this here to teach me?The Treasures in the TrashSamvega is the moment the old story stops working. It is the disillusionment that comes when something punctures the world we thought was predictable and secure. It can feel like everything has gone to trash - and that may be precisely where something true becomes visible.We are remarkably good at outrunning what we don't want to know. Another promotion. Another goal. More money. A new purchase. Staying busy can keep us from confronting the uncomfortable question underneath all the striving: Is the life I'm building actually the life I want to be living?There may not be one big awakening. Vish describes life as a series of samvega moments - small and large encounters with disappointment, discomfort and disillusionment that gradually redirect us. The question is whether we notice them or simply return to the status quo.Listening doesn't always mean leaving. Not every moment of disillusionment is an instruction to quit the job, end the relationship or reinvent your life. Sometimes we need the chapter we are living. Spiritual practice gives us the capacity to step outside the momentum long enough to witness ourselves inside it.The treasure may have been with you all along. Long before Vish became a coach or studied Vedic astrology, meditation, yoga and his Indian spiritual heritage were quietly accompanying his more conventional ambitions. Eventually, what had seemed like separate parts of his life began to reveal themselves as one path.Pain can contain a question. Vish closes the conversation with a different way of meeting difficult moments: rather than asking only how to make the hurt stop, step back and ask, What is the bigger picture? What is the context of this hurt? What is its purpose? What am I being asked to learn?About the GuestVish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic astrology teacher, author, and former business executive whose work bridges ancient wisdom and modern life.Before moving into coaching and teaching, Vish built a career across engineering, corporate leadership, technology and entrepreneurship. Throughout those years, however, another thread ran alongside his professional life: a longstanding practice of yoga and meditation and an evolving relationship with the wisdom traditions of his Indian heritage.Today, through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish brings together practical leadership experience with teachings from yoga, meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic philosophy and Jyotish, or Vedic astrology. His work invites leaders and seekers to listen more deeply to their own inner wisdom and to understand the larger patterns unfolding in their lives.He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, host of the podcast Bending the Light, and a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.Website: https://www.vishchatterji.com/Personal Karmic Blueprint Reading: https://www.vishchatterji.com/karmic-snapshotAbout Cari:Cari Jacobs-Crovetto is an executive and leadership coach and the founder of Brave Directions, where she works with senior leaders and C-suite executives to strengthen interpersonal and team relationships, navigate conflict skillfully, and deepen self-awareness, influence, and confidence.Before becoming a coach, Cari spent three decades in marketing and product leadership roles across Fortune 100 companies, media networks, consulting firms, and venture-backed startups. In 2019, she was named one of Forbes’ Top 50 Chief Marketing Officers.Cari brings together decades of operating experience with more than 45 years of Buddhist meditation study and practice, integrating deep inner work with practical leadership development.She facilitates the renowned Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at Stanford Graduate School of Business where she also coaches grad school students, leads meditation classes and leadership workshops, and hosts the podcast Finding Treasures in the Trash.Her mantra: Fierce Heart — where compassion meets bold, badass leadership.https://www.bravedirections.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/carisf/https://www.instagram.com/cari_bravedirections/Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.Leave us an Apple Podcasts reviewRatings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.Mentioned in this episode:This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

“Everything that we think we can hold onto is going to go. And isn't that freeing?” — Jordan KerstenJordan Kersten has learned to greet life's interruptions differently than most of us.Again and again, her body has asked her to stop. A knee that no longer held her. A concussion that slowed her mind. An illness without answers. Another injury that made independence impossible.None of them were experiences she would have chosen.Yet each one became a doorway into a deeper way of being alive.As Jordan shares her story, it becomes clear that this conversation isn't really about injury. It's about what happens after the life we expected gives way to the life that's actually unfolding. The body changes. Certainty disappears. Something familiar is lost. And in the space that's left behind, another way of seeing begins to emerge.Cari and Jordan wander through questions of mindfulness, vulnerability, safety, expression, and what it means to find your voice when the ground beneath you keeps changing. Together they explore how compassion grows through lived experience, why receiving can be harder than giving, and how even the most painful interruptions can deepen our connection to ourselves and to one another.There is a quiet wisdom running through this conversation.Not everything that breaks us is asking to be fixed.Sometimes it's asking us to become more awake.The Treasures in the TrashThe reliable becomes unreliable. That isn't failure—it's part of being human. Our deepest growth often begins the moment certainty falls away.Compassion is rarely learned through ideas. It is learned through lived experience. Our own struggles soften us toward the struggles of others.Finding your voice begins with feeling safe. Authentic expression isn't something we force; it's something that naturally emerges when we no longer have to protect ourselves.Healing isn't always returning to who we were. Sometimes it's becoming someone we couldn't have become any other way.Sometimes the body interrupts us before the soul can. The moments that stop us often become the moments that awaken us.Every episode of Finding Treasures in the Trash explores the places we'd rather avoid—the losses, disappointments, fears, and moments that seem to break us—and asks a different question:What if the treasure is already hidden inside the trash?About the Guest:Jordan Kersten is a passionate and grounded health coach, voice teacher, and yoga teacher dedicated to helping people reconnect with their innate creativity, resilience, and capacity for healing. She works with individuals from all walks of life, with particular experience supporting those recovering from injury and navigating complex health conditions.Inspired by the mindfulness traditions of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Plum Village, Jordan brings a deeply compassionate and curious approach to her work. She is endlessly fascinated by the connection between the body, mind, and creative spirit, and believes that even life's greatest challenges can become opportunities for growth, self-discovery, and transformation.When she's not teaching or coaching, Jordan can often be found backpacking, watching sunsets, or singing.https://www.jordankersten.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-kersten-b3b3bb24/https://www.instagram.com/jordanswellnessandperformance/Interested in exploring work with Jordan, get $135 off her 6 week Summer Jumpstart, and $245 off her Summer Season Reset (3 months)! Email her at [email protected] for more info.About Cari:Cari Jacobs-Crovetto is an executive and leadership coach and the founder of Brave Directions, where she works with senior leaders and C-suite executives to strengthen interpersonal and team relationships, navigate conflict skillfully, and deepen self-awareness, influence, and confidence.Before becoming a coach, Cari spent three decades in marketing and product leadership roles across Fortune 100 companies, media networks, consulting firms, and venture-backed startups. In 2019, she was named one of Forbes’ Top 50 Chief Marketing Officers.Cari brings together decades of operating experience with more than 45 years of Buddhist meditation study and practice, integrating deep inner work with practical leadership development.She facilitates the renowned Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at Stanford Graduate School of Business where she also coaches grad school students, leads meditation classes and leadership workshops, and hosts the podcast Finding Treasures in the Trash.Her mantra: Fierce Heart — where compassion meets bold, badass leadership.https://www.bravedirections.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/carisf/https://www.instagram.com/cari_bravedirections/Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.Leave us an Apple Podcasts reviewRatings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.Mentioned in this episode:This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/

“I think it was that intense sense of not belonging and being alone that actually created this beautiful spark of self-reflection.” — Sylvia LePoidevinSome people inherit a clear sense of who they are. Others have to build it themselves.In this conversation, Sylvia LePoidevin shares what it was like growing up between worlds. Raised in remote parts of Africa while never fully belonging there or in the United States, she learned early what it meant to live without a clear mirror reflecting identity back to her. What began as loneliness slowly became something else. Curiosity. Intention. Self-authorship.As a child, she would climb onto the roof alone and write about the kind of person she wanted to become. Calm. Wise. Grounded. Someone who could not be easily shaken. Years later, after becoming a successful startup executive known for helping companies go from zero to one, she began asking a deeper question: Did she become herself naturally, or did she consciously create herself in response to isolation?What unfolds is a conversation about identity, conditioning, belonging, reinvention, and the quiet self underneath every role we play. Together, Cari and Sylvia explore what happens when there is no script handed to you, and how loneliness can sometimes become the very thing that teaches you how to come home to yourself.And maybe the deeper truth is this: when no one tells you who you are, you get the rare chance to listen for yourself.The Treasures in the Trash:Not belonging can become a form of freedom - When there is no clear script, mirror, or community telling you who to be, there is also space to consciously shape yourself from the inside out.Loneliness can deepen self-awareness - The moments that feel most isolating can also become the moments where reflection, imagination, and inner clarity begin to form.The identity you create may still be deeply real - Even the parts of ourselves we consciously shape often come from something honest and essential underneath. Self-creation and authenticity are not always opposites.Starting over reveals what is stable - Every return to zero strips away what is temporary and brings us back to the part of ourselves that remains unchanged beneath achievement, location, or circumstance.You are more capable of rebuilding than you think - The more connected you become to the deeper self beneath external identity, the less frightening change, reinvention, and uncertainty begin to feel.About our Guest:Sylvia LePoidevin has built marketing from zero four times. As the first marketing hire at FloQast ($1.6B) and Kandji ($850M+), she's helped build companies now worth over $2 billion combined. She turned down two CMO roles at $5B+ companies to make her fourth early-stage bet as CMO at Juno, where they've gone from zero to millions in under six months. Raised in remota Africa before moving to the US alone at 17, she writes "The Zero to One Marketer" on LinkedIn and Substack.https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvialepoidevinhttps://substack.com/@sylvialepoidevinAbout Cari:Cari Jacobs-Crovetto is an executive and leadership coach and the founder of Brave Directions, where she works with senior leaders and C-suite executives to strengthen interpersonal and team relationships, navigate conflict skillfully, and deepen self-awareness, influence, and confidence.Before becoming a coach, Cari spent three decades in marketing and product leadership roles across Fortune 100 companies, media networks, consulting firms, and venture-backed startups. In 2019, she was named one of Forbes’ Top 50 Chief Marketing Officers.Cari brings together decades of operating experience with more than 45 years of Buddhist meditation study and practice, integrating deep inner work with practical leadership development.She facilitates the renowned Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at Stanford Graduate School of Business where she also coaches grad school students, leads meditation classes and leadership workshops, and hosts the podcast Finding Treasures in the Trash.Her mantra: Fierce Heart — where compassion meets bold, badass leadership.https://www.bravedirections.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/carisf/https://www.instagram.com/cari_bravedirections/Thanks for listening!Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!Subscribe to the podcastIf you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.Leave us an Apple Podcasts reviewRatings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.Mentioned in this episode:This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/