The Books That Shaped Me

0:00 – Intro: Angie welcomes Veronica Seaver, a woman she's known and admired for over a decade, back for Episode 9.3:21 – Career Journey: Veronica traces her path from the restaurant industry at Hyatt to HR, to running her own nurseries, to becoming Elgin Chamber president. Every stop taught her the same skill: how to create buy-in.8:55 – Choosing Honesty Over the Mask: Veronica gets real about faking her life for years and the moment she decided to just be honest with everyone, about everything. She talks about how dropping the mask disarms people and how much energy it gives back.12:04 – 📚 Book Mentioned: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. This is the book that taught Veronica to love reading and showed her, as a kid, that she was creative. She's already planning a Narnia-themed event because of it.16:16 – 📚 Book Mentioned: Hey Doll by Veronica Seaver (unpublished). Veronica wrote this after losing her mom and grandma to cancer within one week of each other, both diagnosed at the same time. She checked into a hotel the day her mom died and started writing. It sat untouched for eight years before she finally finished it, locked away in a hotel room by herself. Heartbreaking and funny in the same breath.25:09 – Empowering Women Without Undermining Men: Veronica pushes back on the assumption that empowering women means being anti-men. Her mentors, her general manager, her ex-husband, have all been men who called things out of her. She wants to do for other women what men have done for her.28:15 – Adjusting Her Business for a Tough Economy: Veronica talks candidly about how expensive everything's gotten and why she had to rethink her business model to stay sustainable.32:21 – Introducing The Business Social: Veronica unveils her new event space in downtown Elgin, seats 70, walk-in ready, and open to the public for everything from business classes to baby showers. She's also planning a monthly community night with concepts like Pitch a Friend Singles Night and Hot Take Night.37:11 – Where to Find Veronica: She shares where to follow her, mainly Facebook, with LinkedIn and her website sheisallthethings.com as backup.

Ep. 8 | Anne Grady: Evolvability, the Inner Critic, and Why Your Brain Would Rather Be Predictably UnhappyWhat happens when the life you planned falls completely apart — and you end up more yourself than you ever would have been otherwise?Anne Grady is a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and resilience expert who has spent two decades learning — the hard way — how to not just survive tough circumstances but actually grow through them. Her son Evan was born with autism, mental illness, and developmental delays, and navigating his world as a single mom became the unlikely foundation for everything she now teaches.In this conversation, Anne and Angie cover a lot of ground: why uncertainty is neurologically threatening, the 15-second trick that rewires your brain, what it means to use your values as a decision filter when the choice feels impossible, and why your resume and your eulogy really shouldn't be the same thing.Anne also unpacks her brand new book Evolvability — and the difference between resilience (surviving) and evolvability (actually growing forward).This episode is packed with neuroscience that doesn't feel like neuroscience, real talk about mental health stigma, and more than a few lines you'll want to write down.Books mentioned: 📚 Evolvability by Anne Grady 📚 Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff 📚 Anchored, Aligned, Accountable by Ayo Bethia 📚 Joyful Prayerful Thankful by Kevin KarschnikConnect with Anne: Website: AnneGradyGroup.com Free adaptability assessment: evolvability.com Social: @AnneGradyGroup

Kathy Wetzel is a tech executive, long-time SIM leader, and one of those people who has quietly shaped rooms full of leaders for decades. Armed with both an accounting and computer science degree, her career took her from Honeywell to Great Clips to TASB, the Texas Association of School Board Services, with a few wild pivots in between.This conversation is packed with real leadership wisdom. Kathy breaks down why change management is a people problem first and a technology problem second, why you need to stop chasing the naysayers and win the people in the middle, and why your HR person should be on your speed dial before you ever have a crisis.She also talks about building a personal board of directors, succession planning as a leadership essential, and the books that kept showing up for her at every stage of life and career.Books cited are Don't Sweat the Small Stuff to Crucial Conversations to Who Moved My Cheese,She closes with a perspective on AI that is grounded and hopeful. She has watched every major tech cycle arrive and create more than it displaced. Her take on the jobs that do not exist yet is worth the listen alone.This one is for every leader navigating change they did not sign up for.

What do you do when everything you built — suddenly disappears overnight?That's the real conversation in Episode 6 of The Books That Shaped Me.Melinda Quiroz spent 11 years building a massive insurance book of business. Then, on March 17th, 2026, that chapter ended — without warning, without a choice.She calls it her "captive to called" season.And what she says next stopped me in my tracks:"I truly would have never seen what my true worth was... until I lost it all."If you've ever poured your whole self into something — your job, your business, your title — and then had it taken away, this episode is for you.We talk about:Why your gaping hole might actually be cleared spaceThe "upper limit problem" from The Big Leap by Gay HendricksElla Langley's Dandelion album and why Melinda says it was made for this seasonWhat it means to rebuild — and why rebuilding is NOT failure

Brandon is a well-read servant leader. He has served our country and continues in public service in IT at TX Facilities Commission. He shared about "radical accountability" and how these lessons, that have been hard earned have shown him how to be empathetic while maintaining grit in the face of adversity. Leaders Eat Last by Simon SinekExtreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jacko Wilkins and Leif BabinHidden Potential by Adam GrantThe Comfort Crisis by Michael EasterThink Like A Monk by Jay Shetty

What do Spartan Races have to do with getting a CIO job at a space agency?Everything, it turns out.Episode 3 of The Books That Shaped Me drops this week — and Rafael Pimentel Pinto brought a book that changed how he sees obstacles, careers, and the moment your mind says "I can't."Spoiler: he learned to ignore that voice.

Join me in this conversation with Brooke, she shares her journey with vulnerability and beauty.The Sacrament of Happy by Lisa HarperGirl Wash Your Face by Rachel HollisI Do Feelings by Havilah Cunnington

0:00 – Intro & Welcome: Angie kicks off Episode 3 and introduces her guest Rafael, a fellow IT-world connector she met through Texas state agency networking events.2:32 – Meet Rafael: Rafael shares what drives him — a lifelong restlessness, a hunger to learn, and a refusal to stay in one lane that started all the way back in school.6:03 – Never Fitting One Box: Rafael unpacks what it felt like to float between the athletes, the musicians, and the techies growing up, and why that actually became his superpower.8:04 – Career Transitions & Trusting Your Gut: Most of Rafael's career moves came from other people calling him because organizations needed transformation — not because he was out hunting for something new.12:12 – The Unexpected CIO Offer at 29: He shows up to what he thinks is a casual lunch, and leaves with a C-suite role and a pile of high-stakes government problems nobody warned him about.15:02 – Landing at the Mexican Space Agency: Rafael applied 15-20 times before a Christmas Eve phone call opened a side door — what started as a system admin gig turned into him running the whole agency.18:44 – Forbes Mexico Digital Transformation Genius Cover: A photo shoot he tried to escape turned into a Forbes Mexico cover feature. He still can't believe it happened.23:17 – 📚 Book Mentioned: Spartan Up by Joe De Sena — Rafael introduces the book that brought it all together, written by the founder of Spartan Race, and why he picked it up in the first place.27:38 – What Spartan Races Teach About Life: The book flips your whole perspective on obstacles — they aren't punishment, they're preparation, and discomfort is the actual curriculum.28:22 – The Resilience Jar Tool: Write down every hard thing you overcome and how you did it, drop it in a jar, and pull from it when life gets heavy. It's a proven record that you can do hard things.29:11 – The Possibility List Tool: When something bad happens, make a list of what's now possible because of it. Rafael calls this the reframe that changed how he processes setbacks.30:51 – Angie's Triathlon Story & Mindset Shift: Angie gets real about what she discovered training for her first triathlon — it wasn't her legs that gave out, it was her mind, and then she found out she could override it.34:12 – Finding Comfort in Discomfort: Calm in the middle of chaos is the actual skill. Your brain literally cannot make good decisions when you're panicked, stressed, or angry.35:10 – Spartan Race Austin Challenge + Wrap Up: Rafael throws down a challenge, Angie accepts, and they make a public one-year pact to run a Spartan Race together in Austin next May. Deal sealed.

Theresa Pore is a Business Coach, Motivational Speaker and Entrepreneur.Theresa’s passion in business is to help individuals become the best version of themselves while teaching them how to bring their authentic self, their personal strengths and gifts towards becoming independently wealthy in business and in life.The life that they design.Activator by Dr. Jason Jones

Introduction discussion with podcast host Angie Smith and long-time bestie Gina Dodd. Together the vision for the podcast is set along with the guiding concepts for further conversations. Books are like teachers, showing up at the right time to aide us on our journey of life.