Meet a Lawyer Turned Healthcare Business Leader

Meet the Founder of Glo Health Center in Nicaragua

You can feel the difference between wellness that’s marketed and wellness that’s lived, and Grace Van Berkum is firmly in the second camp.  This week, on Workplace Confessions: Behind Closed Doors, we talk with the founder of GLO Health Center in northern Nicaragua about what it really takes to build a detox and nutrition retreat from absolute scratch, keep it going for 10 years, and guide people through a seven-day reset that actually changes their day-to-day life.  Her core belief is simple but sharp: food is medicine, but the real transformation comes when you slow down enough to let your nervous system settle and your habits catch up to your goals. Grace shares her path from early addiction to becoming a registered holistic nutritionist, then “breaking up with winter” and finding her home in the tropics. We get into the surprising parts of running a wellness retreat program. She also calls out diet culture myths. The most powerful story is deeply personal: bringing her father with Alzheimer’s out of a care home, taking care of him in Nicaragua, and witnessing changes that challenged what she’d been told was possible.  Listen now for a grounded, story-driven look at holistic nutrition, lifestyle medicine, and what a real reset can look like. If it resonates, subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a breather, and leave a review so more listeners can find us. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568525/fan_mail/new] Want to be interviewed? You can remain anonymous. Voice distortion now available. Email or Text us!

Meet a Midwife in Training

A home birth that was nearly “not allowed” in Iowa planted a seed that never stopped growing, and our anonymous guest follows that seed all the way into a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) apprenticeship.  Along the way, she takes a real detour, walking away from midwifery hierarchy, studying linguistics, working jobs like Starbucks and publishing, and spending years raising and homeschooling kids.  Then a visceral dream pulls her back toward birth work, and we talk through what it really takes to return to a calling with more maturity and a clearer sense of the costs. We get specific about the difference between a doula and a midwife, what each role does during labor, and how midwifery training works in the home birth setting.  If you care about home birth, midwifery care, doula support, patient advocacy, and the real meaning of informed decision-making, listen through to the end. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s expecting or supporting someone who is, and leave a review so more people can find these behind-closed-doors work stories. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568525/fan_mail/new] Want to be interviewed? You can remain anonymous. Voice distortion now available. Email or Text us!

Meet a Lawyer Turned Healthcare Business Leader

One photo can change a life, and sometimes it rewires an entire career.  This week, we sat down with an anonymous C-Suite executive who started out making holiday gifts with his mom. At 23, he was thrown into management at the Four Seasons. Then he walked away to join the Peace Corps. And that's just the beginning. From there, the path gets even wilder: Guatemala, emergency response, becoming an EMT, and eventually making the call to go to law school and build a long in-house career in healthcare and life sciences.  We talk honestly about what it means to lead beyond the legal department when you are also responsible for HR, compliance, privacy, cybersecurity, environmental health and safety, and culture. You will hear why he says the “lawyer part” can be the easiest piece and why the hard part is earning trust, coaching people, and clearing the roadblocks so the team can deliver. Subscribe for more anonymous workplace stories, share this with a friend who loves career pivots and leadership lessons, and leave a review so more listeners can find us. What is the boldest professional choice you have ever made? Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568525/fan_mail/new] Want to be interviewed? You can remain anonymous. Voice distortion now available. Email or Text us!

Meet a High School Math Teacher

You think you know what teachers do all day until you hear what happens after the bell rings, after the emails pile up, and after the policies change without anyone asking the people in the room.  This week on Workplace Confessions: Behind Closed Doors, we’re joined by an anonymous high school math teacher with 18 years in California public schools, and she tells the truth about why relationships matter more than worksheets and why the emotional load of the job follows you home.   We dig into the gap between what teachers can control inside their classrooms and what gets decided outside of them. She shares what she wishes every parent would do today. We also talk about “accountability” as the missing ingredient and how those patterns show up later in the workplace. Then we get real about the post-COVID classroom, safety drills, and the rise in student mental health needs.  If you care about education, parenting, school safety, or the future workforce, this one will stick with you. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more people can hear these behind-closed-doors stories. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568525/fan_mail/new] Want to be interviewed? You can remain anonymous. Voice distortion now available. Email or Text us!

Meet_a_Color_Expert

Your hair color is not just “light or dark” or “warm or cool.” It is a full system, and when it is wrong, you can feel it in your mirror, your closet, and your confidence. This week, we sit down with Renee Taglia, a Master Hair Colorist & Educator and Certified Color Analyst, to talk about why personal color analysis is more than a trend and how a true, customized palette can change the way you get ready every day. We get practical about the process. Renee explains how she combines image consulting with cosmetology so hair color stops being “correction” and starts being enhancement, plus how she navigates the tricky moment when someone brings an inspirational photo that will not flatter them. We also dig into the messy side of the industry. Finally, we talk about color psychology and how shades can hold memory, comfort, and even grief, which is why a color consultation can turn unexpectedly emotional. Subscribe for more behind-closed-doors work stories, share this with a friend who is stuck in “nothing to wear,” and leave a review if you want more conversations like this. What is one color you love but never feel great wearing? Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2568525/fan_mail/new] Want to be interviewed? You can remain anonymous. Voice distortion now available. Email or Text us!