Monthly Archives: July 2025

Zenobia Moochhala: Co-founder of Care.com -317

July 31, 2025Uncategorizedthestorybehindhersuccess

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It’s very easy to focus on fixing your failures. But how do you take what is successful and keep building on that? The answer is: focus on what you do well and make it even better. -Zenobia Moochhala

Meet entrepreneurial superstar Zenobia Moochalla. Born in Mumbai, India, Zenobia came to the United States at 20 to attend Brandeis University and is one of the original co-founders of www.care.com, the world’s largest and most successful online platform for childcare, elder care, and pet care. Recorded in my living room, this upclose and personal interview takes you into the early days of Care.com, where the team, led by Sheila Lirio Marcelo, examined pain points for working parents and discovered that childcare was their number 1 concern. Says Zenobia: “And it wasn’t just childcare: it was care for everyone you love. That’s how the idea of care.com was born.” In the beginning, she was the only member of the co-founding team who didn’t have children, so she became the person who spearheaded research into what people needed. Now the mother of two, Zenobia learned early on how working women were struggling to balance lives. To keep things safe for caregivers and families, Care.com quickly built in checks and balances, including background checks. With each member of the Care.com founders tasked with projects aligned to their specialties, Zenobia is proud to have been a part of a team that took Care.com from a start-up to $200 million in revenue. The daughter of a child psychologist mother and an entrepreneur father, Zenobia points to her two older sisters as her“superpowers”. Although she was raised in India for the first 20 years of her life, Zenobia says “there was lots of dinner time conversation in our house and our Indian value system was mixed with American optimism. I grew up knowing that I could do anything I put my mind to.” As an entrepreneur, she believes in the role mission plays in achieving success. “Mission is that moment when you wake up and say I am really excited about what I’m going to do today because I’m always in pursuit of something that matters. Success is this elusive thing that you have to recognize when it happens, enjoy it while it’s happening, and then let it go, because it will come around again.” For 23 minutes filled with wisdom, purpose, and passion, just hit that download button.

Pat Monteith: NASA Solar System Ambassador patmonteith.com -316

July 24, 2025Episodesthestorybehindhersuccess

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Every week, I have access to astronauts, researchers, and scientists as a NASA Solar System Ambassador, and it’s beyond a dream come true. -Pat Monteith

Pat Monteith remembers hearing John F. Kennedy tell the nation that we would send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s. On that day, the president’s words shaped her lifelong fascination with space. Decades and many different careers later, Pat is a NASA Solar System Ambassador, STEM advocate, and community leader with a passion for helping students achieve their dreams, particularly by helping them with award-winning science fair entries. Raised by a single mom and a Lithuanian grandmother who spoke 7 languages, Pat grew up in Watertown, Massachusetts, where her mother worked for the Hood Rubber company. From the time she was 10 years old, Pat took on the responsibility of caring for their small apartment, including all the cooking and cleaning. She recalls her mother’s long hours and learned the value of a strong work ethic early in her life. Always a wiz at math, she earned her undergraduate degree in Mathematics from the University of Massachusetts Boston and her Master’s in Communication from Emerson College. In this interview, we learn that Pat’s success story really did come in chapters. She’s a Renaissance woman who has experienced success across multiple careers, including as founder and manager of WUMB, Founder & Director of the Boston Folk Festival, Executive Director of the syndicated radio program Commonwealth Journal, the weekly feature NASA Space Notes, and a science fiction novel for kids called The Secret Case of the Space Station Stowaways. Recently, Pat was speaking at a local elementary school about her work as a NASA Ambassador, and a third-grade student approached her asking, “MissPat, are there children at the International Space Station?” When Pat replied “no”, the girl said: Well, I’m gonna be the first one.” For 22 minutes of intergalactic wisdom and inspiration, just hit that download button. #NASA #STEM #science #solarsystem #sciencefair

Carol Conway Bulman: CEO & Chair of Jack Conway jackconway.com -315

July 16, 2025Episodesthestorybehindhersuccess

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I was in my 20s when I read the book: Breaking the Glass Ceiling, and I remember saying to myself: I’m gonna do that. -Carol Conway Bulman

Carol Conway Bulman is the proud daughter of real estate legend Jack Conway, but becoming CEO and Chairman of his real estate empire wasn’t handed to her. In this up-close and personal interview, Carol shares her father’s success story as well as her own rise to the top with this life lesson: “Don’t wait for someone to put an opportunity out on a silver platter for you, because they’re not going to do it. I adored my dad, but he didn’t give me this opportunity. I needed to earn it.” Today, Carol is at the helm of a real estate firm whose signature bright red for-sale signs are in front of houses from the South Shore to the tip of Cape Cod, across the state to the North Shore and over the border into New Hampshire and Rhode Island, with 700 agents and 20 offices throughout the region. Innovation has been her middle name with the creation of a one-stop shopping experience for their clients. Carol and her team have created Conway Country Insurance, Columbia Title Company, and Conway Staging. Their newly renovated headquarters in Hanover also includes relocation experts and a learning space for continued education. The icing on the cake? Some of Carol’s children are also involved in the business! When I asked what Jack Conway would think, Carol says: “He’d be tickled pink to see his grandchildren working in this organization and loving real estate the way he always did.” For 23 minutes of wisdom from a 30+ year real estate maven, plus tons of #wisdom you can use, just hit that download button. #realestate #leadership #women #empowerment

Naomi Judd: Country Music Icon -314

July 10, 2025Episodesthestorybehindhersuccess

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When we first moved to Nashville, we lived in a pitiful apartment, and Wynonna, Ashley, and I slept in one bed. All we had to eat was bologna and crackers. -Naomi Judd

The story you are about to hear is a piece of country music history because it is the final full-length interview featuring country music superstar Naomi Judd. Sadly, Naomi took her own life on April 30, 2022, after a long history of mental illness, but her legacy as a brilliant songwriter, captivating live performer, and country music icon remains. This interview was originally part of the Nashville-based series called Country Music Success Stories. For two years, my talented friend Jacy Dawn Valeras and I co-hosted the show, and thanks to the powerful network Jacy built in Music City, famous artists like Naomi agreed to be on the show. Recorded at Naomi’s 500-acre compound in Leipers Fork, Tennessee, in a barn next to her house, this interview is full of stories that will blow your mind and touch your heart. Naomi raised the girls on a mountaintop in Kentucky with only a coal stove for heat. She got the money to buy Wynonna her first guitar by selling her hunting knife and put herself through nursing school to become an ER nurse. From the moment Naomi walked into the room, I knew that I was in the presence of a superstar. Naomi and her daughter, Wynonna, were billed as The Judds, and throughout the ’80s and into the ’90s, they cemented their standing as country music’s most successful duo of all time with 25 top-ten singles, 14 #1 songs, and 5 Grammies. Naomi’s younger daughter, Ashley, crafted her own success story as an actress and a passionate activist. The road to stardom was long and hard, but in this interview, we learn just what Naomi Judd is made of. Like the little engine that could, she kept telling herself: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. #countrymusic

Laura DeSisto: author of Resurfacing: Sisterhood, Sharks and Storms -313

July 3, 2025Episodesthestorybehindhersuccess

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There is something about facing down your biggest fears that really changes you on an elemental level. -Laura DeSisto

Happy 4th of July weekend, everyone! This week’s success story is a listener favorite…and perfect to listen to in the car on your way to the beach. You may have heard that it’s the 50th anniversary of the movie that made a lot of people afraid to go into the ocean at all. JAWS was released in the summer of 1975 and featured a gigantic mechanical great white shark with a very bad habit of terrifying beach goers on Martha’s Vineyard. Laura DeSisto spent her summers on her father’s boat, sailing off the coast of the idyllic New England island. She begged her parents to allow her to see the movie, and emerged terrified of the water. Flash forward to a rough patch in her adulthood, when Laura’s grown children moved out and she and her husband became empty-nesters. Her friends gathered around her and encouraged her to try new things, get outside of her comfort zone, and embrace this newfound freedom. Her bestie even decided it was time to conquer Laura’s biggest fear of all: SHARKS and enrolled her in a scuba diving class at a resort in the Bahamas. Shaking in her flip flops, Laura took the class and on her very first dive, safely tethered to her dive master, she came face to face with a….(just hit that download button for the rest of the story! #sharks #courage #sisterhood

The Story Behind Her Success with Candy O'Terry

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