With every new year comes the resolutions: the promises of big change, self-improvement, personal growth, breaking bad habits, and even plans for complete reinvention. Whatever your goals for 2024, The Breakout is back to inspire you with powerful breakout stories, perspective-shifting leaders, and thought-provoking expert advice. So, as we jump into the season of new breakouts, Keri and Kelly decided to look back on some of their favorite and most powerful breakout guest moments of...

2023 has been a big year with highs and lows for everyone. As the year draws to a close, Keri and Kelly are looking back at their breakout year with The Breakout (sorry, had to).  The show has hit number 1, the audience has had huge growth, and they’ve been hard at work on their new book that dives into a lot of the learnings from the show. It’s called Whatever the Hell You Want – An Escape Plan to Break Out of Life’s Little Boxes and Live Free From Expectations, and we’re thrilled to...

“I lived in Southern California, born and raised my whole life. And I was bullied for being different”. That’s how Dr. Zabina Bhasin, better known as “Dr. Zee”, experienced her childhood as a South Asian American growing up in California. Today she is a child psychiatrist who is deeply committed to the health and wellbeing of children. Her work is about building self-confidence and self-awareness in kids, and she’s been committed to diversity, equity and inclusion in the healthcare space...

“I didn’t want to be a leaf floating down a stream. I wanted control of the oars in this next phase of my life”.  Stacie Shifflett has always led a bold life. She’s been pushing against boundaries and expectations since she was a teenager and she walked into the principal’s office to demand that she graduate high school early. She went on to several leadership positions, building a construction business, working for a large consulting firm, and then even ran a llama farm while raising a...

 “I was beginning to lose my ability to feel. I would go to movies just to be able to cry, because otherwise I didn't feel anything”. If you’ve ever felt dead inside and  that your job was killing you, you’re going to want to hear Robert Markowitz’s reinvention story. Years ago, Robert was a very successful, and incredibly miserable, criminal lawyer. And then something broke and he traded in his respected, high earning law career for a new career that no one would have predicted, especially...

“The beauty of adversity is it creates these amazing conditions for growth”. Jolie Wills is a cognitive scientist and a specialist in disaster relief who wants us to rethink how we deal with disasters. In 2011, Jolie lived through New Zealand's worst earthquake on record. As she helped her community through the aftermath that included 5 years of devastating aftershocks, she saw how disasters can make people re-assess their whole way of life.  “You hit this point where you're having to...

“We have so much more in our own control than we acknowledge”. Erica Rooney knows there are big glass ceilings that are tough to bust through, but she also believes that sometimes we also hold ourselves back. Erica is a C-suite executive, speaker and podcaster who’s on a mission to help women break free of what she calls “sticky floors”. Those are the limiting beliefs and toxic behaviours that keep us from moving forward. On this episode Erica explains those sticky floors, and how they can...

“I like to say that I help people break out of the sucking vortex of ‘pissed off’ ”. That’s how Carol Bowser describes her role as a conflict management expert. Carol is a former employment lawyer but after years of practicing law, she found herself much more drawn to mediation. She realized that conflict, and breaking it down, was her real passion.  Carol now works to train others in mediation and conflict resolution in the workplace, and on this episode she shares the big truths about...

Are people born gritty and resilient, or can anyone learn to be that way? Dr. Brian Davidson says that the tools for success can be developed by anyone, we just need to know what needs improvement.  We met Brian in our last episode, when he told Keri and Kelly about MindVue, the assessment tool and learning platform that he built which uses positive psychology principles to first measure your mindset and then help you improve it. On this episode, Keri and Kelly put it all out there when they...

Brian Davidson is a psychologist and leadership expert who has always been fascinated by what drives successful people, and whether these same qualities can be taught to everyone. After years of research, he developed MindVue, an assessment tool and learning platform that first measures your mindset and then helps you improve it. But when he began to assess a range of individuals, from high-ranking military personnel to prison inmates, Brian learned some surprising things about success.  On...

“When we start our corporate careers, no one gives us any tools on how to enter the working world as a female. And I'm coming back in my mid-forties to say, here's some of the resources I wish I would've had”.  Jennifer Pestikas is a senior VP in financial services, but after battling burnout she realized how many other women also struggle with balance, and being able to thrive in their careers. That’s when she established Brave Women at Work, where she’s made it her mission to help women...

Rob Cross’s latest book was supposed to be about how relationships have a positive effect on people’s well-being. But during one interview, he ended up discovering something else. When Rob asked his subject what had stopped her from doing what she wanted in life, she’d answered “just life, I guess”. And Rob realized it wasn't the big stressors, like a health scare or a nasty boss that derails people, rather “it’s an accumulation of small that it creeps up, week to week, month to month.” On...

“It's so beautiful to meet other people and work with them, because then we can see our own society with so much more clarity and perspective”. Janet Livingstone has a unique perspective on the bubbles we all inhabit. After decades living and working throughout Europe and Africa, she’s learned a thing or two about how our cultural expectations get in the way of understanding each other, and ourselves. On this episode, Janet talks about her work as an intercultural competency coach, and the...

“I looked at the way Gabriel lived and, and he just didn't allow fear to get in the way of anything he wanted to do”. Clint Hatton’s son Gabriel was a bold kid who embraced life completely. So when he died in a plane crash at only 17 years old, Clint made a choice to honor his son by living fearlessly, and helping others do the same.  On this episode, Clint tells about his devastating loss and how he created Big Bold Brave, a personal coaching company aimed at helping people move beyond fear...

A hurricane, premature twins, gallstones, a husband deployed to Iraq, a toxic workplace, and terrible grief; these are just some of the incredible stressors that Danielle Cobo has tackled in the past few years. But as difficult as all this was, it led to Danielle leaving her sales job, and following her passion. Today, Danielle is a change management, leadership development, and burnout prevention consultant, and she uses her own difficult experiences to help others develop grit, resilience...

Contest Alert: Find details below, after episode summary! In 2009, Kim Sorrelle was diagnosed with breast cancer. If that wasn’t devastating enough, four months later, her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and passed away six weeks later.  In that extraordinarily difficult time, Kim did something surprising: she decided she needed to embrace her own life even more, and went looking for the meaning of love. On this episode, we dig into Kim's year-long quest to find out what love...

Contest Alert! Find details below, after the episode summary! Liz Alterman was at a comfortable place in life. She and her husband were enjoying solid jobs in their respective careers, supporting their three children, and paying their mortgage. And then just before the holidays, her husband was laid off from a job he’d had for 18 years. Six weeks later, so was Liz. That’s when she was forced to face a crossroads of her life and future. On this episode, Liz shares the inspiring story of how...

“I didn’t want to be a statistic”, says Tyler Nehila, “I just kept trying to chase that improvement and that brought me to where I am now”. Diagnosed with ADHD and bipolar disorder in his teens. Tyler struggled for years to find his way. Now with the launch of his clothing company, Self Conquered Apparel, Tyler is starting a new conversation about mental health. May is Mental Health Awareness month, so we’re kicking off the month with Tyler’s story about how pushing his limits with marathons...

After years of working in the financial industry, Beth Dana began to notice something interesting. Despite the fact that money touches every aspect of our lives, many people have a limited understanding of our financial systems. Not only that, but those systems are rooted in a highly masculine, acquisition-focused mindset that is unhealthy in so many ways. Beth decided to challenge that paradigm. On this episode, Beth tells us how she created a teaching system and nonprofit organization...

Fitz Koehler is a passionate fitness innovator, speaker, and author who's devoted her life to health and wellness. But when she was diagnosed with an aggressive breast cancer in 2019, her dynamic career as a motivational force was really put to the test.  On this episode, Fitz talks about the many breakouts she's had, from calling out the diet industry, to finding strength and resilience during her harrowing 16 months of cancer treatments. Her books My Noisy Cancer Comeback, and Your Healthy...

“As children, most of us are creative”, says Professor, Author and Designer, Robin Landa, “but somewhere along the line, we start to believe that we’re not”. A range of societal perspectives have led to a narrow view of what creativity really means, and who we define as creative. In her latest book, The New Art of Ideas, Robin sets the record straight.  On this episode, Robin talks about her book and her many years teaching students how to generate ideas worth pursuing. She shares what makes...

Five years ago, Lucie Quigley’s world was changing. Just as her son was leaving home to go to university, Lucie confronted an intense emotional crisis and survived what she calls her darkest day. To turn things around, Lucie had to ask some critical questions about who she really is. This is the third and final instalment of a three-episode run about different aspects of motherhood on The Breakout. On this episode, Lucie talks about being a midlife mom and the identity crisis that came with...

During her 40 years as a nurse, Patrice D’Amato has seen a lot of things, but it was her years spent providing abortion care that had the biggest impact on her. She’s never thought of herself as an activist, but as the polarizing debate about abortion raged on, Patrice realized that the real problem is our perception. So she decided to do something about that. This is the second installment of a three-episode run that will explore different aspects of motherhood on The Breakout. In this...

“This was a very big, well-constructed, covert military spy operation that we were on. I didn’t want anyone to talk about it”. That’s how Meirav Zur felt about her long, painful journey through fertility treatments. She’s an actor and writer who makes a living being open and vulnerable on stage, but for almost a decade, Meirav insisted that she and her husband keep this part of their lives top secret. Until one day, something shifted, and Meirav found a beautiful way to get past her...

Will Samson is a successful C-Suite coach and social scientist, but three years ago he had what he could only describe as “a life crash”. On this episode of The Breakout, Will shares what happened, the ways it reshaped his life, and how it formed his mission to disrupt the self-help industry. It’s an extraordinary Breakout story of rebooting your life and embracing how much we depend on each other to thrive.