This week's podcast guest knows all about forging a new path and finding happiness and success. At a young age, Marie Gould found herself with a gaping hole in her heart. Her journey to mend her brokenness took her to all the wrong places, and at times she feared she would never find what she longed for as she continued to make decisions that made her life challenging.

In the introduction to her book, "Love Thirst: a Spiritual Journey from Broken to Beautiful,"  Marie says, "My story is not about anything extraordinary other than the fact that from the time I was young, I needed a lot of love and kept looking for it in the craziest places. I was like everyone, desiring to be loved. So I looked for a lot of it, plain and simple."

Marie is a hairstylist, mother, grandmother, author, and speaker who hopes to encourage others with a longing to heal their own broken, hole-riddled hearts.

What we talked about:

I grew up with Marie, and we had not talked to...

There’s a creative genius in you; in all of us! This is a remark shared by Izolda Trakhtenberg, this week's guest on Power Up Your Performance. Izolda T. is a speaker, author, podcast host, and innovator who leverages her years of experience as a NASA Master Trainer to help businesses tap and supercharge innovation in their workforce. Her message is all about empowering individuals and promoting collaboration as a way to solve problems at the personal, organizational, and global levels.

What We Explored:

We went over several topics revolving around communication, nurturing creativity, why collaboration is key (and how to go about it), creating a culture of innovation based on Izolda’s “3 Cs of Changing the World,” and more. It’s a conversation with a thing or two for parents, teachers, team leaders, and anyone in the workforce.

Working with NASA

Izolda: I worked for a program called GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the...

Who are you? What makes you tick? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are your core values, and how do they impact your everyday life? Self-discovery is an essential component of personal growth.

Discovering your potential and purpose in life is a key element to thriving, rather than surviving—especially for students transitioning from high school to college, which is a career- and life-defining stage in their lives. This is something that today’s guests, Greg and Beth Langston, discovered the hard way while preparing their kids for college application in a system that paid little attention to the crucial role of self-discovery.

Drawing on their professional and personal experiences, Greg and Beth Langston created the College Flight Plan Self-Discovery Course. According to their website, the program “gives your students everything they need to determine a career course as they confidently apply their unique strengths, values, purpose and goals to their...