Your Next Success
Have you ever looked at your life or career and quietly wondered, “Is this it?” That question isn’t a crisis — it’s a signal. An invitation. A beginning. Your Next Success Podcast with Dr. Caroline Sangal is for students, job seekers, and professionals navigating career transitions, unexpected detours, and the search for authentic success. Here, we normalize questioning your path — because discovering what you truly want begins with letting go of who you thought you had to be. You’ll hear: Honest conversations about layoffs, pivots, burnout, and reinvention Guest interviews with real people navigating career and life turning points Insights and frameworks to help you align your work with your purpose Whether you’re just starting out, reimagining what’s next, or simply asking deeper questions — this is your space to pause, reflect, and rebuild from a place of clarity. Stop chasing someone else’s version of success. Start building the career — and life — you were made for. Tune in and begin Your Next Success.
Episodes
What happens when you’ve built a career you’re good at… and something in you starts to shift?
In this episode, Megan Applegate shares her journey from a 20-year career in hospitality into business ownership, recruiting, and career strategy. She opens up about the moment she realized the work no longer felt the same—and what it looked like to move forward without a clear plan.
This conversation explores what it means t...
Have you ever woken up at 3 a.m., wondering if the life you’re living is truly fulfilling?
In this episode of Your Next Success, Dr. Caroline Sangal sits down with Jennifer Mecham to explore the mindset shifts that can redefine success and unlock human potential. Raised in the coal mining towns of Utah, Jennifer’s journey was shaped by resilience, legacy, and a powerful lesson from her father that inspired her to thi...
What if you experienced what some have called the most devastating loss imaginable, and discovered a path to healing in its aftermath?
In this episode of Your Next Success, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Annah Elizabeth, author, speaker, and creator of the Five Facets® Philosophy on Healing. Annah shares her powerful journey through profound grief, heartbreak, and betrayal, revealing how tragedy became the catalyst f...
Camilla Calberg knows what it feels like to bring strong ideas, deep contribution, and genuine effort into a workplace… and still feel unseen.
In this episode of Your Next Success, she joins Dr. Caroline Sangal for a thoughtful conversation about career alignment, trusted influence, and the moments that reveal whether you are forcing yourself to fit or paying attention to where you are truly meant to contribute.
Camil...
John DeDakis told other people's stories for 45 years. In this episode, he tells his own.
It begins with a curious kid in La Crosse, Wisconsin who knocks on a radio station door during a bike ride and discovers something that will shape his entire life. It winds through the Vietnam era, the White House, 25 years at CNN, a 48+ year marriage, three children, profound loss, and a creative life that kept expanding e...
What does performance actually mean—and how does it shape the life you’re building?
In this episode of Your Next Success, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with high-performance coach Rob Tracz about the role performance plays in personal and professional growth. Rob shares how his early experiences in sports introduced him to discipline, structure, and personal development, and how those patterns carried into his work with ...
Mike Barefoot served 27+ years in staffing and recruiting, placed 1,000+ professionals (primarily in IT), generated $50M+ in revenue, and built a profitable boutique firm. In this conversation, we trace how his early life changes, competitive drive, and decades of martial arts discipline shaped the way he evaluates people, protects reputation, and plays the long game in hiring and leadership.
What We Cover:
- The mo...
Ben Stein transitioned from executive leadership in advertising and tech to founding Purpose Up, where he now coaches professionals navigating career pivots with clarity and alignment.
In this episode of Your Next Success, Dr. Caroline Sangal speaks with Ben about the internal evaluation that often precedes visible career change and how that season ultimately shaped the work he now does.
In this episode, we discuss:
Some chapters of life arrive without permission.
In this episode of Your Next Success, Judy Pearson shares her story of resilience, reinvention, and what it means to keep moving forward when life does not go as planned.
Judy opens up about the chapters she never would have chosen, including divorce, cancer, and starting over, and how those experiences shaped her perspective, her writing, and the way she now serves oth...
What if burnout is feedback?
Meggi Rombach has spent over 20 years leading teams and driving change across the private and humanitarian sectors, from Procter and Gamble to UNICEF and the ICRC. Constant high performance eventually led to burnout and health challenges that forced her to pause.
That pause reshaped her definition of success.
In this episode, Meggi shares how external validation can quietly drive leadership...
You can have a retirement plan that works on paper and still feel uneasy about what comes next.
In this episode of Your Next Success, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Chris Pollard, West Point graduate, U.S. Army veteran, and principal of Great Path Planning, about retirement planning beyond the spreadsheet.
Chris shares his personal story, including the early loss that shaped his awareness of time, the pressure and int...
Growth changes direction.
In this episode of Your Next Success, Cecilia Zapata-Harms shares how nearly 30 years of leadership in life science and healthcare prepared her to build something new, something aligned with who she had become.
Cecilia is the Founder and Executive Director of Women, Life and Science, the community behind the annual Women, Life and Science Conference. She also supports early-stage innovators t...
Lin Wu fled China as a child during the Communist revolution, came to the U.S. at sixteen, and had to start over completely on his own—right down to working in a broom shop to afford school. He went on to study engineering, enter the computer industry, and help build some of the fastest computers of the era in the early days of Silicon Valley.
In this conversation, Lin shares the turning points that shaped his life: ...
What happens when your life looks full — yet something inside you knows you’re meant for more?
In this episode, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with author and global speaker Cortney McDermott, whose journey moves from a chaotic childhood in Chicago to London, France, Italy, corporate boardrooms, global stages, and ultimately, a profound internal awakening.
Cortney shares how achievement became a substitute for belonging, w...
A full calendar can look like success. Sometimes it’s just a belief you absorbed early.
In this episode, Dr. Caroline Sangal is joined by Wes Towers, founder of Uplift 360, to talk about the definition of success he picked up as a kid: busy equals important, and how his perspective evolved into building real value, protecting time for family, and designing work around life.
We also talk about trust in a noisy world, t...
What happens when your career looks amazing on paper and your body keeps signaling strain?
In this episode, Caroline talks with Nataly Huff, executive coach and founder of Inspire Forward Coaching, about the hidden cost of high performance, the “professional face” many of us learn to wear, and the moment values make everything come into focus.
Nataly shares her journey from growing up in Russia during major political ...
What changes when you choose your career with real-world exposure and honest insight before you invest years into a guess?
Mike Wysocki spent 30 plus years in tech sales, built stability, and recognized that meaning and alignment shape long-term career satisfaction. He turned that experience into action by creating Careers By the People, an award-winning career readiness resource built from candid input from pro...
Management is a major career decision and a lot of people step into it without real clarity.
In this episode, Dr. Caroline Sangal talks with Joanne Merrick, founder of The Leadership Recipe and author of Game On! Is Management Your Best Career Play? Joanne shares her story from Australia to Hong Kong to the United States, why neuroscience changed how she sees leadership, and why she believes impact is everything.
This...
What would you do if you spent years delivering at a high level supporting leaders, carrying responsibility, being the steady presence behind the scenes, and then the promotion opportunity comes up and you’re passed over.
Not only that. You’re asked to train the person they chose.
In this episode of Your Next Success, Sybil Stewart shares what happened when she lived that moment and what it revealed. We talk about the...
You can be highly capable and still feel stalled. Sometimes the work speaks for itself and the room still does not move. In this episode, Keith Anderson shares what he learned after years inside big tech watching how promotion decisions are actually made. He breaks down the hidden layer most high performers never get taught: the trust signals leaders look for when deciding who is safe to elevate.
If you’ve ever ...
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