12 Steps to Success: Navigating change, uncertainty, and what comes next

Identity, Pressure, and Reinvention: Season 1 Highlights (with Eric Mackay)

This final episode of Season 1 steps back from the individual conversations and looks at what emerged across the season as a whole. What became clear is that despite very different backgrounds, guests kept arriving at the same questions. Identity, pressure, belonging, reinvention, and what happens when the version of you that got you here no longer fits your life. This is not a typical highlights episode. It is not built around the loudest moments or neat takeaways, but the ones that pointed to something deeper. Across this episode, you will hear reflections from conversations with Marni Wandner, Mo Hiromoto, Christopher Brereton, Nyeesha D. Williams, Brian Recker, Lauren Blitzer-Wright, Jean Gomes, Spenser Liszt, Dr. Chelsey Green, and Moira Carmenate. Taken together, these conversations form a bigger picture. Not of what success is supposed to look like, but how people actually live with it, question it, and outgrow it. This episode explores the patterns underneath the stories: identity, pressure, belonging, reinvention, and the slower work of becoming more honest about what matters. Alongside this podcast, I’ve been writing a book, 12 Steps to Success: Finding Your Purpose, which explores these themes in a more structured way. What comes up in the conversation - Identity beyond roles - Pressure and performance - Belonging and walking away - Reinvention as a messy process - Community and honesty - Discomfort as the start of clarity Links & resources Marni Wandner: https://marniwandner.com [https://marniwandner.com] Mo Hiromoto: https://www.mohiromoto.com [https://www.mohiromoto.com] Christopher Brereton: https://christopherbrereton.com [https://christopherbrereton.com] Nyeesha D. Williams: https://www.nyeeshawilliams.com [https://www.nyeeshawilliams.com] Brian Recker: https://www.brianrecker.com [https://www.brianrecker.com] Lauren Blitzer-Wright: https://www.lonewolvesclub.co/ [https://www.lonewolvesclub.co/] Jean Gomes: https://londonspeakerbureau.com/speaker-profile/jean-gomes/ [https://londonspeakerbureau.com/speaker-profile/jean-gomes/] Spenser Liszt: https://www.motifplanning.com [https://www.motifplanning.com] Dr. Chelsey Green: https://www.chelseygreen.com [https://www.chelseygreen.com] Moira Carmenate: https://www.almoyra.com [https://www.almoyra.com] 12 Steps to Success: Finding Your Purpose Pre-order: https://amzn.to/4d3pNDN [https://amzn.to/4d3pNDN] About the podcast 12 Steps to Success is a podcast about what happens when the path you were on stops making sense. Hosted by Eric Mackay. Honest conversations about change, identity, and rebuilding without false certainty. Stay connected https://twelvestepstosuccess.com [https://twelvestepstosuccess.com] https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess [https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess]

Resilience, Reinvention, and the Refusal to Stay Down (ft. Moira Carmenate)

This conversation with Moira Carmenate is slightly unusual for the podcast, because Moira isn’t just the guest. She’s also my mum. Recording this episode felt a little like opening a family archive that probably should have stayed closed. Behind the stories, though, is a mindset that shaped much of how I think about resilience and getting back up when things fall apart. Moira grew up in Scotland under extremely difficult circumstances and lost the only stable figure in her life by the age of seventeen. From there she rebuilt repeatedly. She ran a hotel in her twenties, escaped an abusive marriage with two young children, started again from nothing, and eventually built a successful career in financial services where she became one of the few women in senior leadership roles at the time. Later in life she reinvented herself again, launching businesses, consulting across Europe, and eventually relocating to Spain where she now runs a company focused on later-life planning and funeral services for expatriates. This conversation isn’t really about the résumé. It’s about mindset. When things go wrong, you have two choices: roll over and play dead, or get up and fight. What comes up in the conversation In this episode, we talk about: * Losing stability at a young age and learning self-reliance early * Escaping an abusive relationship and starting again with two young children * Building a career in financial services in a male-dominated industry * The mindset required to rebuild your life multiple times * Why failure is information rather than identity * Reinventing yourself later in life and moving countries * Working in the funeral and later-life planning industry with empathy and purpose About Moira Carmenate Moira Carmenate is an entrepreneur, later-life planning specialist, and founder of Almoyra and White Doves Funeral Planning in Spain. After building a career in financial services and consulting across Europe, she relocated to Spain where she created a service supporting expatriates with wills, funeral planning, and end-of-life preparation. She is also the author of In a Mental Fog, a book designed to help people eliminate mental fog, ask themselves honest questions, and take greater control of their lives. Links & Resources Moira’s website - https://www.almoyra.com [https://www.almoyra.com] Expat Lifestyle Centre - https://www.expatlifestyle.es [https://www.expatlifestyle.es] White Doves Funeral Planning - https://www.whitedovs.es [https://www.whitedovs.es] Moira’s book (In A Mental Fog) - https://amzn.to/4seRWMO [https://amzn.to/4seRWMO] About the podcast 12 Steps to Success is a podcast about what happens when the path you were on stops making sense. Hosted by Eric Mackay, the show centres on honest conversations with people navigating change, pressure, identity shifts, recovery, and reinvention. These are not success stories or instruction manuals, but real conversations about how people live inside uncertainty and keep moving forward without false certainty. Stay connected Website: https://twelvestepstosuccess.com [https://twelvestepstosuccess.com] Instagram: https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess [https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess]

Legacy, Joy, and the Work of Not Fighting Alone (ft. Dr. Chelsey Green)

This conversation with Dr. Chelsey Green is about legacy, but not in the polished, career-summary sense of the word. It’s about what we build day to day, what we protect, who we make space for, and what happens when responsibility gets heavy. Chelsey is a classically trained string player, educator, community builder, and Chair of the Recording Academy. What stayed with me most in this conversation was how openly she talks about the emotional cost of perfectionism, the tension between individuality and belonging, and the way community has repeatedly been the thing that brought her back to herself. We talk about growing up in Houston in a deeply musical family, the freedom she found in church music, the restrictions of formal classical training, and the way education shaped her desire to become the kind of teacher she never always had. We also get into identity, representation, what it means to walk into rooms as “the inclusion,” and how she thinks about serving 26,000 members through her work with the Academy. But underneath all of it is a simpler truth: you do not have to fight alone. What comes up in the conversation In this episode, we talk about: * The tension between formal classical training and personal expression * What community, sisterhood, and chosen support systems make possible * The emotional cost of perfectionism and always having something to prove * Depression after achievement, and the community that helped her through it * Representation, responsibility, and leading as the first Black woman to chair the Recording Academy * Why legacy is less about status and more about what you make possible for other people About Dr. Chelsey Green Dr. Chelsey Green is a Billboard-charting recording artist, educator, and Chair of the Recording Academy’s Board of Trustees, the first Black woman and youngest person ever to hold the role. A Houston native, she is also an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and a leading advocate for music education, access, and equity. As bandleader of Chelsey Green and The Green Project, she blends classical training with jazz, R&B, soul, and funk, and has performed with artists including Stevie Wonder, Lizzo, Ledisi, Maxwell, and Kirk Franklin. Website: www.chelseygreen.com [http://www.chelseygreen.com] Instagram: @drchelseygreen About the podcast 12 Steps to Success is a podcast about what happens when the path you were on stops making sense. Hosted by Eric Mackay, the show centres on honest conversations with people navigating change, pressure, identity shifts, recovery, and redefinition. These are not success stories or instruction manuals, but real conversations about how people live inside uncertainty and keep moving without false certainty. Website: https://twelvestepstosuccess.com [https://twelvestepstosuccess.com] Instagram: https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess [https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess]

Money, Identity, and the Cost of Avoidance (ft. Spenser Liszt)

This conversation with Spenser Liszt is about money. But not in the “optimize your portfolio” sense. It’s about identity. Shame. Performance. And what happens when your external success doesn’t match how you feel internally. Spenser went from a 17-year career as a professional musician to becoming a Certified Financial Planner. Along the way, he had to separate money from music to heal his relationship with both. We talk about growing up around bankruptcy and scarcity, the pressure to prove people wrong, the hidden financial instability behind creative careers, and why so many high performers avoid looking directly at their numbers. We also explore values, mortality, artistic freedom, and why clarity around what matters makes decisions less complicated than we think. This isn’t a conversation about getting rich. It’s about getting honest. What comes up in the conversation In this episode, we talk about: * Growing up with scarcity and how early money stories shape identity * The hidden financial instability inside creative industries * Why making money from your art can quietly damage your relationship with it * The moment avoidance stops working * How separating income from identity can create freedom * Why knowing your values leads to clearer decisions * Status games, shame, and the performance of success * Reframing retirement as artistic freedom * Mortality, time, and what actually matters About Spenser Liszt Spenser Liszt, CFP® is a holistic financial life planner and founder of Motif Planning, a firm helping music executives make confident financial decisions rooted in their values and long-term goals. After a 17-year career as a professional musician touring and recording nationally, he transitioned into financial planning and now supports senior professionals across the music business through personalised advice. He also provides free financial education and pro bono planning to those facing financial hardship. Website: www.motifplanning.com [http://www.motifplanning.com] About the podcast 12 Steps to Success is a podcast about what happens when the path you were on stops making sense. Hosted by Eric Mackay, the show centres on honest conversations with people navigating change, pressure, identity shifts, recovery, and redefinition. These are not success stories or instruction manuals, but real conversations about how people live inside uncertainty and keep moving without false certainty. Website: https://twelvestepstosuccess.com [https://twelvestepstosuccess.com] Instagram: https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess [https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess]

Leaders Worth Believing In: Agency, Accountability, and the Mindset Economy (ft. Jean Gomes)

This conversation with Jean Gomes is about what it means to stay human when leadership, work, and technology keep pushing us toward speed, cynicism, and performance. We start with agency, not “positive thinking,” but the practical kind: choosing how you show up, what you feed, and what you participate in. From there, we get into the stories we’re sold about success (and why so many of them collapse in real life), what “leaders worth believing in” actually means, and why accountability has a physical and emotional foundation, not just an intellectual one. We also talk about AI, tech culture, and the way “existential fear” can be used to numb people into passivity. Jean shares why the real advantage in an AI-first world isn’t efficiency, it’s mindset, embodied intelligence, imagination, and moral ambition. What comes up in the conversation In this episode, we talk about: - Why “agency” is getting harder to hold onto and why it still matters - The gap between business-school success stories and what actually happens inside change - Leadership archetypes and why charisma without moral centre is a dead end - Why your body is part of your brain and what embodied intelligence changes - The Mindset Economy: what becomes valuable when machines can think - AI narratives, power concentration, and the risk of learned futility - Polarisation at work, ideology vs values, and what it costs to stay quiet - Reclaiming a “both-and” mindset in a world addicted to binary thinking - Building a healthier relationship with your future self About Jean Gomes Jean Gomes is a New York Times best-selling author and an advisor to hundreds of CEOs, focused on applying the science of mindset to leadership, wellbeing, and organisational agility. He is part of the research-based consultancy Outside, and co-host of The Evolving Leader and The Mindset Economy podcasts. Since April 2024, Jean has been Professor of Practice at UCL Global Business School for Health. He co-authored the New York Times bestseller The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, and his book Leading in a Non-Linear World explores how to build mindsets for uncertainty. Jean also writes the newsletter The Mindset Monthly. Links & resources Jean’s Speaker Profile (London Speaker Bureau): https://londonspeakerbureau.com/speaker-profile/jean-gomes/ [https://londonspeakerbureau.com/speaker-profile/jean-gomes/] Jean’s newsletter (Mindset Monthly / The Mindset Economy on LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/mindset-monthly-7001265313933619201/ [https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/mindset-monthly-7001265313933619201/] About the podcast 12 Steps to Success is a podcast about what happens when the path you were on stops making sense. Hosted by Eric Mackay, the show centres on honest conversations with people navigating change, pressure, identity shifts, recovery, and redefinition. These are not success stories or instruction manuals, but real conversations about how people live inside uncertainty and keep moving without false certainty. Website: https://twelvestepstosuccess.com [https://twelvestepstosuccess.com] Instagram: https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess [https://instagram.com/twelvestepstosuccess]