Aligned
Conversations on career, purpose, and authentic success for lawyers and other high achievers. Hosted by Jessie Brown, JD, PCC, former Big Law litigator executive coach and retreat facilitator. Inspirational and practical, Aligned (formerly Returning to Soul) explores how to build an authentic career and life that foster joy, fulfillment, and impact. Tune in for solo episodes and thoughtful interviews.
Episodes
What if you could be a successful law firm partner without sacrificing your health, relationships, and happiness along the way?
For many lawyers, success comes with a steep price: long hours, high stress, missed family moments, lack of sleep and exercise, and little time for many of the things that make life meaningful.
But does it have to be this way?
In this episode of Aligned, I sit down with Jennifer Gillman, former practicing at...
What happens when we follow the path we were taught would lead to success, only to discover that the life we've worked so hard to create isn't the life we actually want?
For many lawyers, we've spent years chasing the next achievement: getting into a great law school, landing the prestigious job, making partner, earning more money.
But what happens when our priorities change? When the career that once made sense no longer fits who w...
What does it take to make a successful career pivot, job change, or turn a passion project into something more?
In this solo episode of Aligned, Jessie shares the mindset shifts and mental habits that helped her gradually transition from practicing law into building her coaching, consulting, and retreat business.
One of the biggest challenges for lawyers considering a change is the desire to have the entire path figured out before ta...
What happens when we spend so much of our lives thinking, producing, achieving, and caring for others that we lose touch with ourselves?
In this solo episode of Aligned, Jessie explores the transformative power of retreat—especially for women lawyers whose demanding careers and full lives can leave little room for creativity, embodiment, play, or feeling fully alive.
Drawing from her own experience as a Big Law attorney, workin...
What if discovering your purpose isn’t about finding one perfect calling but about noticing what makes you come alive?
In this episode of Aligned, Jessie explores one of the questions at the heart of her work with lawyers: How do we create lives and careers that feel meaningful, purposeful, and true to who we are?
Drawing from her own journey from Big Law to coaching and retreat facilitation, as well as her training as a Purpos...
What if thinking about death could help you live — and work — more fully?
In this solo episode of Aligned, Jessie shares one of the most powerful tools she's found for cutting through fear and getting clear on what truly matters: contemplating mortality.
Drawing on her own story of losing both parents during college, her training as a death doula with former lawyer Alua Arthur, and her time volunteering with hospice pati...
Aligned: Conversations on Career, Purpose & Authentic Success
In this episode of Aligned, host Jessie Brown sits down with Eliza Rey — an intuition expert, occupational therapist, and evidential psychic medium affiliated with the research-based Winbridge Institute and Forever Family Foundation.
Eliza grew up around lawyers, helping out in her dad's law firm, and has had significant relationships with lawyers throughout her...
In this episode of Aligned, Jessie sits down with Sarah Horowitz — lawyer, mom of four, and founder of the Sarah Horowitz Law Group, Adulting Docs, and the Legacy Collective — to talk about what it really takes to build a law practice around your life instead of the other way around.
Sarah shares how a missed school event while sitting idle at her government desk became the turning point that pushed her to leave a stable...
In this episode of Aligned, Jessie sits down with Cindy Pensoneau — a lawyer, mediator, yoga and mindfulness teacher, and retreat facilitator who has built a career around one word: authenticity.
Cindy shares how she intentionally built a "portfolio" career that blends family law and mediation with yoga, coaching, and retreats for lawyers.
Cindy and Jessie explore what it means to make career decisions from the body and nervou...
Welcome back to Aligned — a podcast for lawyers and other high achievers seeking deeper meaning, purpose, and joy in their work and lives.
You may know this show as Returning to Soul — same podcast, new name.
In Season 1, we explored what it looks like to build a career that aligns with your strengths and values — who you are and what matters most to you.
This season, we're exploring: how do you actually create tha...
Are you a busy lawyer or other professional seeking more peace, presence, and joy in your work day? If so, this episode is for you.
Lea Abrams, founder of RiseWell Coaching, shares practical strategies you can implement starting today to feel and perform at your best.
Lea spent the bulk of her career working in organizations while raising a family, so she knows firsthand the challenges busy professionals and working parents face.
Le...
Like podcast host Jessie Brown, Haley Morrisson spent years trying to make law work.
From transactional law in Boston, to a federal clerkship, to litigation at Gibson Dunn in DC, exploring practice areas searching for a fit.
In this episode, Haley shares the turning point that changed everything: a Kundalini yoga retreat in India in March 2020 — just as COVID began reshaping the world. What emerged from that experience wasn't ...
What does it look like to leave a demanding corporate legal role — not out of burnout, but out of recognition that something more aligned is possible?
In this episode, I sit down with Maria Flanagan, JD, founder of Flanagan Law PLLC in North Carolina. Maria's story isn't a dramatic escape from law — it's something more nuanced: she found a way to do the work she enjoys while reshaping it to fit her life.
We talk about her...
What would it be like to let go of the titles, the awards, and the accolades to make space for who you are becoming, which is who, deep down, you already are?
In this rich and deeply moving conversation, Jessie is joined by Michael Tender Heart Denmeade, faculty member at the Purpose Guides Institute, longtime therapist, fire keeper, and vision quest guide.
Drawing on 40+ years of participation in indigenous ceremonial traditions, M...
What happens when you let go of the identity you've built your career around?
In this episode, I sit down with Peggy O'Neal — lawyer, business advisor, strategist — for an intimate conversation about career pivots, identity, and what it means to listen to your own inner knowing.
Peggy left a 12-year legal career to pursue work in human potential and coaching. And the external leap turned out to be far easier than the inte...
What do you do when the career you chose is not a fit?
In this episode, I sit down with Suellen Fagin-Allen, a Florida-based mental health therapist for women in midlife, attorney, performing musician, nonprofit leader, Reiki master, and amateur photographer.
Suellen's story is one of the most honest and inspiring I've heard: she went to law school partly out of boredom, partly out of revenge, and partly because a friend secretly s...
In this episode, Jessie explores the concept of identity rest — a powerful practice for anyone whose sense of worth has become entangled with their productivity, performance, or professional title.
Jessie first encountered the concept of "identity rest" from Chandani Patel Thompson, a lawyer and creator of the Rest to Rise Summit (May 19–22, free to attend).
When we spend years in environments that reward us for what we ...
In this conversation, Chandani Patel-Thompson, who spent 20+ years in corporate legal departments, shares how a six-minute daily gratitude practice transformed her capacity to work, parent three young children, and show up as a leader — and how the people around her noticed the shift before she did.
We talk about the neuroscience behind gratitude, why lawyers are especially prone to worst-case-scenario thinking, and how reconn...
When we're doing the brave work of aligning our careers and lives with what truly matters to us — whether that's a professional pivot, stepping into our purpose, or simply living more authentically — the people we surround ourselves with matter deeply.
In this episode, Jessie celebrates two friends and fellow coaches, Becky Roberts and Alex Pitt, and their recent wins: Becky signed a lease for her own office space and la...
What if the career and financial choices you've been making aren't really yours — but instead reflect what you were programmed to want?
In this episode, I sit down with Billy Zerillo, founder of Your Money Your Purpose, to discuss the intersection of money, identity, and living a life that's truly aligned with what matters most to you.
Billy brings a unique approach to financial advising — one that starts not with investm...
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