Smashing the Plateau

Donna Marie Fullerton is the creator of Food for the Soul, a writer, and a former qualitative research consultant whose curiosity about people has shaped her work for decades. Her writing explores gratitude, joy, personal development, and what she calls Soul Flow and Soul Masculinity.An idea that began in the 1990s with reflections on her father has evolved into a larger body of work that now includes essays and interviews with fathers. Donna Marie is still exploring whether that work will eventually become a book, podcast, program, or something else.In this conversation, we discuss how ideas evolve, how work and life can support one another, what her father taught her about developing judgment, and why trusted mentors and peers matter when navigating uncertainty.Donna Marie and I discuss:[00:04:27] Creating Soul Flow through work-life integration[00:09:40] How an idea about fathers evolved over decades[00:14:01] Learning judgment and trust from Donna Marie's father[00:17:23] Leading with kindness and vulnerability[00:20:35] How mentors and peers support evolving ideas[00:24:11] Exploring what Soul Masculinity might becomeLearn more about Donna Marie and her work:Food for the Soul on SubstackThe Freedom Zone: Your Gateway to Love, Liberty and Happiness About Smashing the PlateauSmashing the Plateau features candid conversations with experienced professionals who are building businesses around their expertise and creating greater control over their work and their lives.Each episode explores the decisions, challenges, and opportunities that come with independent work, drawing on the experiences and perspectives of people who have navigated them firsthand.Take the Next StepBetter decisions begin with seeing your situation more clearly. Get the free SMASH System™ Self-Assessment at SmashingThePlateau.com/clarity.

Janylène Turcotte spent 25 years as a senior HR executive, the last eight at Deloitte — a career built on guiding others through transition and transformation. Then her own role ended on someone else's terms, and she learned firsthand how wide the gap can be between knowing what to do and being able to do it. Today, as founder of Hypnocoach, she's led over 1,500 sessions helping founders and senior leaders rebuild their identity after a major career or business transition. Her method: Peel Back, Rewire, Rise. In this conversation, Janylene traces her own path from job loss to sobriety to building a business, and what she learned along the way about the gap between knowing what you should do and being able to do it. She and David talk about the strange void that follows a major transition, the role an "in-between" job can play while you figure out what's next, and why having people in your life who will challenge you honestly — not just support you — matters more than most people realize. Much of the conversation also centers on the entrepreneurs Janylene works with as they exit their own businesses: the identity questions that surface once the deal is done, how power shifts between buyer and seller, and why the transition that follows a sale can take years rather than months. Janylene and I discuss:[00:02:43] The sudden void after leaving corporate[00:04:32] The interview that changed her direction[00:06:14] Building a support team[00:11:10] Navigating the sale of a business[00:12:39] How power shifts after a sale[00:16:10] Giving trusted people permission to challenge you[00:20:41] Building relationships online and in personLearn more about Janylene at https://link.hypnocoach.ca/widget/bookings/janylene-turcotte-personal-calendar-yqnwtklhsshegli ______________________________________________________________About Smashing the PlateauSmashing the Plateau features candid conversations with experienced professionals who are building businesses around their expertise and creating greater control over their work and their lives.Each episode explores the decisions, challenges, and opportunities that come with independent work, drawing on the experiences and perspectives of people who have navigated them firsthand.Take the Next StepBetter decisions begin with seeing your situation more clearly. Get the free SMASH System™ Self-Assessment at SmashingThePlateau.com/clarity.

Anita Sandoval is a Licensed Professional Counselor Supervisor (LPC-S), EMDR therapist, author, and host of Empowering Women in Conversations. She helps women break free from people-pleasing, heal from trauma, rebuild self-trust, and create healthy boundaries. Through her work, Anita combines psychology, neuroscience, and practical strategies to help women stop losing themselves in relationships and start living authentically with confidence and resilience. Anita's path to building an independent practice involved repeatedly choosing her own judgment over the expectations of the people around her, whether that meant moving her work online years before telehealth was common, stepping back from contracts that no longer served her, or letting go of friendships that no longer fit who she was becoming. She and David talk about what that kind of independence actually costs, including the self-doubt that comes with making decisions alone and the loneliness that can follow when you outgrow a community before you've found the next one. Anita's perspective is that this in-between period isn't something to avoid or rush through, but a necessary part of figuring out your own values and finding the people who share them.Anita and I discuss:[01:59] How a strong need for mental health support in the Rio Grande Valley, particularly within Mexican culture, shaped her path into counseling[03:00] Why she believes women face particular pressure to conform, drawing on what she observed as a teacher[04:54] Being called "arrogant" and "difficult" for insisting on her own autonomy[07:20] Opening a telehealth practice years before COVID, despite skepticism from her community and her supervisor[09:32] Breaking a three-generation pattern of abuse and neglect by deliberately choosing a different path[11:29] How she manages self-doubt while running a solo practice without a built-in support system[14:27] What changes between online and in-person connection, and what may not[16:32] What it takes to build growth and momentum for an online counseling practice[19:06] Moving from taking on every available contract to niching down and working primarily by referral[21:31] Her advice for finding a community that provides long-term support[22:00] Why she believes "motivation is garbage" and intentionality is what actually drives change[22:54] Embracing the loneliness of outgrowing old relationships and identities while figuring out who you areLearn more about Anita at:https://anitasandoval.comhttps://www.anitasandoval.com/newsletters/therapist-tea-things-i-notice-in-therapyhttps://www.anitasandoval.com/podcast-directorieshttps://www.anitasandoval.com/why-am-i-so-tired-subscribe______________________________________________________________About Smashing the PlateauSmashing the Plateau features candid conversations with experienced professionals who are building businesses around their expertise and creating greater control over their work and their lives.Each episode explores the decisions, challenges, and opportunities that come with independent work, drawing on the experiences and perspectives of people who have navigated them firsthand.Take the Next StepBetter decisions begin with seeing your situation more clearly. Get the free SMASH System™ Self-Assessment at SmashingThePlateau.com/clarity.

James Hayden is a fractional CRO and go-to-market strategist who fixes broken B2B sales engines. Over 38 years, he has influenced more than $1B in revenue across 140+ companies, helping founders and leaders rebuild positioning, pipeline, and scalable revenue systems. He is the author of "Real World Selling: The Art of the Selling Conversation" and "Adapt or Die." Based in Seattle, James blends hard-won sales leadership with a personal story of resilience and reinvention.James's conversation goes beyond sales strategy. He talks candidly about the insecurities that shaped much of his career, what it was like to understand those experiences differently later in life, and why he believes vulnerability, offered first, tends to invite more of it from others. He also describes the specific role he plays as a fractional executive, why he insists on fixing the underlying process before adding technology, and how he thinks about recognizing when an organization needs outside expertise to move past a plateau.James and I discuss:[01:38] James's personal story of resilience and reinvention, and why he believes every executive carries some form of trauma[02:31] Discovering his birth family in his forties, and, more recently, twelve half-siblings through Ancestry.com[03:09] How his early insecurities became what he calls "rocket fuel" for his career[05:15] Why sharing vulnerability changes the nature of a relationship[05:50] His approach to creating space for someone else to open up: go first[08:27] Outworking everyone as a response to insecurity, and what it cost him at home[09:22] The fear that drove him for years and how he now thinks about its cost[11:12] The niche he occupies as a practitioner with a system, and becoming a "conscious competent" by writing his book[13:40] Where AI actually fits in a sales organization, and why a broken process just produces bad data faster[15:03] Why working as a fractional CRO means staying hands-on rather than handing over a report[15:27] How he thinks about organizations that have hit a plateau, and when it's time to bring in outside help[18:35] The role trusted peers and mentors have played in his own career[20:55] The blunt advice from a Seattle real estate developer that stuck with him for decades[22:00] What he's learned from younger colleagues and the idea of being a “mentern,” part mentor and part internLearn more about James at:Website: https://jamesbhayden.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimhaydenBook: Real World Selling | Free GTM diagnostic: https://jamesbhayden.com/book-gtm-diagnostic/______________________________________________________________About Smashing the PlateauSmashing the Plateau features candid conversations with experienced professionals who are building businesses around their expertise and creating greater control over their work and their lives.Each episode explores the decisions, challenges, and opportunities that come with independent work, drawing on the experiences and perspectives of people who have navigated them firsthand.Take the Next StepBetter decisions begin with seeing your situation more clearly. Get the free SMASH System™ Self-Assessment at SmashingThePlateau.com/clarity.

Dr. Tamsin Astor is a neuroscientist who studies habits in teams, relationships, and systems. She works with executives and their teams using her Pause · Notice · Choose framework to move leaders from reactive to creative, because conscious leadership starts with your daily habits.Tamsin holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from UCL, hosts the Hot Habits with Dr. Tamsin podcast, and has worked with leaders at Firestone, Prudential, and high-growth startups. She's a Brooklyn-based mother of three, a Zen practitioner, and a fierce believer that a joy-filled life and high performance are the same project.Tamsin's path moved through academic neuroscience, education research, yoga, Ayurveda, and executive coaching, but the conversation isn't really about the resume — it's about what drove each move. She talks candidly about burnout, grief, and how each of those moments pushed her past simply understanding her patterns intellectually toward finding practices that actually changed how her body responded to stress. That distinction — between insight and embodied change, runs through much of the conversation, along with what she's learned about community as a place to practice difficult conversations and repair, and why she's chosen to build her business around relationships rather than hierarchy. It's a useful listen for anyone who has done the self-awareness work and still finds themselves reacting the same old way under pressure.Tamsin and I discuss:[00:02:00] Why she left academia, and the disconnect between being a content expert and being equipped to manage people, teams, and money[00:03:45] Walking away without a plan, a brief stint as a stay-at-home parent, and becoming a yoga teacher[00:04:29] The move into executive coaching and facilitation, and how appreciative inquiry counters the brain's built-in negativity bias[00:07:21] The internal mindset work behind her career transitions, and growing up in a family that valued following what you feel called to do[00:08:05] Her son's cancer diagnosis, the burnout that followed, and how Western medicine's symptom suppression led her toward Ayurveda[00:10:13] Her cousin's death and how his reflections on anger and mental habits shaped her interest in mindset science[00:11:32] What freedom means to her, and how it has guided her career decisions[00:12:33] Growing up in a home where feelings were part of dinner-table conversation, and why she values relationships with no BS[00:13:01] The gap between intellectually understanding a stress response and actually changing how the body reacts to it[00:14:41] Moving away from years of pure talk therapy toward practical, in-the-moment tools[00:15:23] Working with practices she can't fully explain, and getting her ego out of the way[00:16:42] What community support offers, and treating it as a container for practicing difficult conversations and repair[00:18:00] A specific story about a friction conversation and repair with a friend[00:19:35] What her business looks like today as a fractional culture architect and executive coach[00:21:05] What she's building next, now that her children have grown and left home[00:22:18] Letting go of strict hierarchy in her business and life, and why she puts relationships firstLearn more about Tamsin at:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hot-habits-with-dr-tamsin/id1894052368?i=1000763790905https://open.spotify.com/show/6slgbFwOLOetsVkJxm9N1T?si=41966d90e58540behttps://www.hothabitspodcast.comhttps://tamsinastor.comTamsin also offers an Energy Audit for those interested in exploring their energy and daily habits. Learn more here: https://energyauditbydrtamsin.subscribepage.io.______________________________________________________________About Smashing the PlateauSmashing the Plateau features candid conversations with experienced professionals who are building businesses around their expertise and creating greater control over their work and their lives.Each episode explores the decisions, challenges, and opportunities that come with independent work, drawing on the experiences and perspectives of people who have navigated them firsthand.Take the Next StepBetter decisions begin with seeing your situation more clearly. Get the free SMASH System™ Self-Assessment at SmashingThePlateau.com/clarity.