Next Steps Forward
Personal empowerment, commitment to our own well-being and the motivation to achieve more than we ever thought possible are the ingredients of a better life. And, they’re all within our reach. Next Steps Forward with Chris Meek delves into each aspect of the three keys that add energy, excitement, direction and purpose to everything that we do. Each week, Chris hosts leaders from the worlds of business, sports, entertainment, medicine, politics and public policy as they engage in thought-provoking discussions to help us all take the next step forward on our own journeys to our better selves and greater service to others. Next Steps Forward with Chris Meek is an informative, uplifting hour every Tuesday at 1 PM Eastern Time and 10 AM Pacific Time on the VoiceAmerica Empowerment Channel that’s certain to inspire you to take that important next step forward, too.
Episodes
September 26, 2023 • 60 mins
Reagan Cannon is an international leadership speaker and coach, with proven tactics and insights from over 20 years of experience at Fortune 15 companies, including executive leadership positions at Amazon and AT&T. As a true global thought leader, she has delivered keynotes, coached global leaders, delivered a TEDx talk, and conducted development workshops for thousands of people in more than 20 countries - on six continents. She ...
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September 19, 2023 • 60 mins
Meaghan B Murphy is the author of “Your Fully Charged Life: A Radically Simple Approach to Having Endless Energy and Filling Every Day with YAY” (Penguin Random House), an editor, on-air personality, lifestyle and health expert, a home-hack master and certified trainer. She brings her high-energy, upbeat personality to Next Steps Forward to discuss how the audience can take a simple yet effective approach to having endless energy e...
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September 12, 2023 • 60 mins
22 years ago the United States of America experienced the worst terrorist attack in American history. The attacks on the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania took the lives of over 3,000 Americans and injured countless more who still live with the effects of both their visible and invisible injuries today. As a 9/11 survivor, program host Chris Meek p...
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September 5, 2023 • 60 mins
Rochelle Keyhan is the Chief Executive Officer of Collective Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit committed to eliminating human trafficking. She joins the Next Steps Forward audience to speak about how she develops and executes the organization’s strategic direction and collaborations focused on disrupting specific types of human trafficking. She was formerly the Director of Disruption Strategies at Polaris, the nonprofit o...
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August 29, 2023 • 60 mins
Stephanie C. Hill is executive vice president of Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS) for
Lockheed Martin Corporation, a $16 billion enterprise employing 35,000 people across the
globe. She’s also a vocal advocate for women in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics, and a role model for mentorship in the workplace. She joins program host Chris Meek on this edition of Next Steps Forward to discuss her deep commitment to men...
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August 22, 2023 • 60 mins
“Next Steps Forward” host Chris Meek speaks with Anne Beiler, creator of the world’s largest hand-rolled soft pretzel franchise, Auntie Anne’s, Inc. Beiler will offer an inside look at the company’s humble beginnings as a single farmer’s market stand and the steps she took to turn it into an internationally recognized brand. Beiler will speak about how her professional success came after many years of personal turmoil and how other...
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August 15, 2023 • 60 mins
Chris Meek welcomes Tom Sterner to Next Steps Forward. Tom is best known as the founder and CEO of the Practicing Mind Institute. In addition to those roles, he is a successful entrepreneur, an expert in Present Moment Functioning, and an in-demand speaker who works with industry groups and high-performance individuals, including athletes, to help them operate effectively in high-stress situations so that they can achieve new level...
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August 8, 2023 • 60 mins
Next Steps Forward host Chris Meek is honored to speak with Dana Perino, co-anchor of FOX News Channel’s morning news program America’s Newsroom and co-host of The Five, about her career as an American political commentator, bestselling author and role as White House press secretary under President George W. Bush. Perino will speak about the lessons that she has learned throughout her career on how to maintain a level head and find...
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August 1, 2023 • 60 mins
On this installment of Next Steps Forward, Dr. Elizabeth Anderson-Fletcher and Jeff Dill join program host Chris Meek. Dr. Elizabeth Anderson-Fletcher is Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management in the Department of Decision and Information Sciences in the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, with a joint faculty appointment in the Hobby School of Public Affairs. She is Faculty Director of Bauer Honors...
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July 25, 2023 • 60 mins
This week's guest on Next Steps Forward is Michael Koslow. Michael Koslow joined the U.S. Air Force at the age of 17, rising through the ranks and working in counterintelligence to safeguard our national security. He retired from military service after 33 years and his path led him to the Department of Defense Inspector General's office. He broadened his perspective as a special investigations regional manager for a leading healthc...
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July 18, 2023 • 60 mins
This week’s guest on Next Steps Forward is Jenn Granneman. Jenn is the founder of Introvert, Dear and the co-founder of Sensitive Refuge. An educator and a journalist, she is the co-author of a fascinating, and even groundbreaking, new book, Sensitive. She’s also the author of The Secret Lives of Introverts. Jenn has been featured in The New York Times and Washington Post, by the BBC, Oprah Daily, Buzzfeed, Glamour, HuffPost, and m...
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July 11, 2023 • 60 mins
Julie Scelfo is the Founder and Executive Director of Get Media Savvy, a nonprofit using pop culture to establish a healthy media environment for kids and families. She joins Next Steps Forward host Chris Meek to discuss the mission, goals and outcomes of her organization, as well as how exactly to create a healthy media environment for children. Julie will provide background about how her experience as an award-winning journalist,...
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July 4, 2023 • 60 mins
On this edition of Next Steps Forward, program host Chris Meek speaks with General George Casey and Dr. Joel Kupersmith, authors of “Supporting Veterans After 50 Years of the All-Volunteer Force and 20 Years of War: Ideas Moving Forward.” The goal of their book and their wider work is to begin the important discussion regarding how best to treat and serve the veterans of the all-volunteer military which will have existed in the Uni...
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June 27, 2023 • 60 mins
In her memoir, The Fine Art of Camouflage, Lauren Kay Johnson tells a coming-of-age narrative against a backdrop of war wherein both her mother’s and her own service are explored. Lauren focuses on in-depth questions of war, the military, the role of information in war and in interpersonal relationships and her own family history in the memoir, as well as throughout her appearance on Next Steps Forward. Ultimately, she wrestles wit...
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June 20, 2023 • 60 mins
Next Steps Forward is focused on resiliency, leadership, personal empowerment and wellbeing. There are very few people who personify and epitomize all of those qualities more than this week’s guest, Breanna Cole. She is an outreach advocate at Selah Freedom, a faith-based nonprofit anti-human trafficking organization, based in Florida and the Midwest, with the mission to end sex trafficking and bring freedom to the exploited throug...
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June 13, 2023 • 60 mins
James Dudley joins this episode of Next Steps Forward. Jim Dudley has extensive experience as a practitioner in law enforcement and criminal justice in San Francisco. A 32-year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department, he has served in the ranks as a patrol officer, Sergeant, Inspector, Lieutenant, Captain, Commander and Deputy Chief. He served in all bureaus including Airport, Administration, Special Operations, Homeland Sec...
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June 6, 2023 • 60 mins
The war against sex trafficking and exploitation of children by predators who prey on them for profit or their own gratification may be the most important human rights battle of our time. This week’s conversation on Next Steps Forward is with someone on the front lines of that struggle. Stacey Efaw is the executive director of Selah Freedom. Stacey grew up in a military family. She lived in the Tampa Bay area in the 1980s when her ...
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May 30, 2023 • 60 mins
Burke Bryant is an esteemed author, public speaker, and humanitarian whose life-saving contributions have garnered widespread recognition, including the prestigious Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, where he served as an operations specialist, and possesses a diverse skill set that includes combat search and rescue, tactical combat casualty care and diving instruction. In 2016, Bryant founde...
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May 23, 2023 • 60 mins
Christy Warren, a retired fire captain from the Berkeley Fire Department in California and host of The Firefighter Deconstructed, walks the audience through a firefighter’s journey through PTSD on this week’s episode of Next Steps Forward. She has twenty-five years of service as a professional paramedic and eighteen years as a professional firefighter/paramedic. After being diagnosed with PTSD in 2014, she retired from the fire ser...
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May 16, 2023 • 60 mins
On this edition of Next Steps Forward, program host Chris Meek speaks with Aaron Stark, a TEDx speaker, author and advocate, who shares his story of growing up in painful and abusive conditions which very nearly led him to an atrocity as he planned a deadly shooting spree on his Denver, Colorado high school until simple acts of kindness changed his life forever. His TED Talk, “I Was Almost A School Shooter,” has more than 14.4 mill...
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