Courageous Pivot with Meghan Telpner

EP 044: Knowing When to Stop: Identity and the Quiet Life No One Warns You About with Abigail Keeso

A conversation with Registered Nurse turned tech founder and growth leader. Essential listening for anyone who has ever wondered what comes after the win. Abigail Keeso co-founded That Clean Life with her husband in 2014, grew it into a wildly profitable SaaS platform with a 93% profit margin and a team of four, and then sold it. What happened after the sale is the conversation nobody is having. In this episode, Abigail gets honest about the anticlimactic reality of a business acquisition, the identity earthquake that follows when the thing you built for a decade is no longer yours, and what it actually feels like to wake up on the other side with nowhere to be and nothing to prove. We talk about building a bootstrapped business from a nursing break room, naivety as a superpower, the moment she looked at her husband and said "it's time," navigating two years of earn-out inside a private equity world she hadn't quite prepared for, and the quiet life she and her family have landed in on 10 acres in the country. There are real questions about purpose, belonging, and who you are when your title disappears. If you're in a season of transition, sitting with a decision that scares you, or quietly wondering whether success might actually mean slowing all the way down, this one will feel like a deep exhale. Links + Resources * Full show notes [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/blog] * Shop: 30% off Rise + Shine: Guided Path to Heart-Led Living and Leadership [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/offers/Nt3QgZam?coupon_code=PIVOT30]

EP 043: Life at a 10: What It Actually Takes to Build a Business and Life In Alignment with Kristen Gale

A conversation with owner of the THE TEN SPOT® International Franchise, Kristen Gale. Essential listening for anyone who has ever wondered if the same drive that built their business could actually save their life. Kristen Gale was fired on a Friday. By Sunday she had a business plan. By Wednesday, she had signed a lease. Twenty years later, she has 38 locations and a franchise system she built by doing the thing most founders never do: firing herself from her own company. But this conversation goes so much deeper than business. Kristen opens up about the marriage that dimmed her light, the moment she decided to become the CEO of her own life, and how applying the same strategic tools she used to scale The Ten Spot pulled her out of the hardest chapter she had ever lived. We talk core values, confidence, the "perfect day" exercise, and why missions are the secret weapon for getting through literally anything. Oh, and we go there on the tummy tuck too. Kristen and I have known each other for twenty years. This one felt like sitting down with a very old, very wise, very hilarious friend. Which is exactly what it was. Links + Resources * Full show notes [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/blog] * Money Mastery [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/MoneyMastery] - A wildly practical approach to financial literacy, empowered money mindset, and wealth building for a life of joy and freedom (use code PIVOT30 at checkout to save 30% on the course).

EP 042: Rewiring the Mind to Heal the Body: From MS Diagnosis to Full Recovery with Sanjay Parmar

A conversation with mindset coach and Solution Engineer, Sanjay Parmar. Essential listening for anyone who has ever wondered if true healing were possible. Sanjay Parmar was 34, a brand new father, and running on fumes in a toxic work environment when his body finally said enough. An MS attack in 2007 left him dragging himself into the hospital, clutching a stack of prescriptions he never intended to fill. What the doctors didn't account for was his refusal to let that diagnosis become his identity. What followed was nearly two decades of choosing a different path. Anti-inflammatory eating, neuro-linguistic programming, releasing friendships that were quietly draining him, and doing the deep work of healing childhood patterns that had been running the show long before any symptoms appeared. He never took the medication. Nineteen years later, he describes himself as fully optimized. Sanjay and I go way back, and this conversation has the warmth and honesty that only comes from two people who actually know each other. It is funny in places, surprising in others, and genuinely moving throughout. If you have ever wondered whether healing is really possible, this one is for you. Links + Resources * Full show notes [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/blog] * Shop: 30% off Rise + Shine: Guided Path to Heart-Led Living and Leadership [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/offers/Nt3QgZam?coupon_code=PIVOT30]

EP 041: The Fertile Void: Burning Out, Letting Go, and Learning to Just Be with Heather Crosby

A conversation with author and founder of the Good Food Cooking School, Heather Crosby. Essential listening for anyone who has driven themselves so hard, for so long, that they woke up one day and didn't recognize themselves anymore. Heather Crosby built YumUniverse, the Gluten Free Baking Academy, and the Good Food Cooking School almost entirely alone. She designed everything, photographed everything, wrote and tested every recipe, and handled every decision. From the outside, it looked like a thriving creative business. From the inside, it was quietly and steadily grinding her down. What followed was burnout so deep that she lost her joy for cooking entirely. An identity crisis she hadn't seen coming. And then, slowly, something else. Horticultural therapy and a job. Heather is in what she calls the fertile void right now. She has all the pieces for what comes next and a genuine resistance to rushing toward it. She is learning, maybe for the first time, to let something come to her instead of building toward it at full speed. This conversation is about what happens after the big thing. About the loneliness of doing it all yourself. About losing and slowly finding your way back to the thing you love. And about trusting that what is underground is still growing, even when you cannot see it yet. Links + Resources * Full show notes [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/blog] * Shop: 30% off Rise + Shine: Guided Path to Heart-Led Living and Leadership [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/offers/Nt3QgZam?coupon_code=PIVOT30]

EP 040: A Radical Pivot: Reclaiming Your Energy in an Age of Distraction

Essential listening for anyone who has ever felt perpetually distracted, like they can't be without their phone, and wondered what that's actually costing them. What if the most courageous pivot you could make right now doesn't require a career change, a new city, or a dramatic life overhaul? What if it starts by putting your phone down? This episode began as an email. And then it just kept going. Because this is something that needed to be said out loud. We talk a lot on this show about nervous system regulation, heart coherence, and coming home to yourself. But there's one thing we keep dancing around, something we've collectively normalized to a degree that would have felt unthinkable a decade ago, and it is quietly dismantling all of it. The average adult picks up their phone between 50 and 100 times a day. Teens, up to 200. That's not a productivity problem. That's a nervous system crisis. And it's happening at the dinner table, in your bedroom, and in every in-between moment that used to belong to you. This isn't an anti-technology episode. It's a pro-human one. And it might be the most important pivot conversation we've had yet. Links + Resources * Full show notes [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/blog] * Shop: 30% off Rise + Shine: Guided Path to Heart-Led Living and Leadership [https://fun.meghantelpner.com/offers/Nt3QgZam?coupon_code=PIVOT30]