Shows
Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinAaron Barlin closes out Season 1That's a wrap on Season 1! Many thanks to our wonderful guests this season: together, they offer a robust range of different and in-depth expertise. We asked them hard questions like we meant it -- and they all answered like they meant it, too!Presented by Elynndí, and hosted by Aaron Barlin. See elynndi.com to learn how we "think like a teacher" to create the show.
2025-11-2400 min
Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinSarah Kagan helps us rediscover ourselves through griefSarah Kagan, grief coach and consultant at Keriah Grief Coaching & Consulting, helps people and organizations rebuild the capacity to grieve together—openly, skillfully, and with ritual. Sarah examines what our loss of common grief practice reveals about community and emotional life today.Sarah shares insights on:How her lived experienced called upon her to become a grief coachWhat distinguishes grief coaching from therapyHow to design grief-literate teams and organizations—and avoid delaying the work we know is healthy but uncomfortableWhen grief fuses with identity and how to transition toward “building a life that fits who you’ve becom...
2025-11-1056 min
Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinMaria Morukian explains what it means to lead lovinglyMaria Morukian, founder and CEO of MSM Global Consulting, has spent over 18 years guiding leaders and organizations through culture change, intercultural competence, and leadership development.Maria reframes leadership not as a position of power but as an act of loving stewardship—setting the tone for what organizations and people can become when they work alongside each other, rather than "for" their respective superiors.Maria shares insights on:What motivates her to challenge traditional organizational norms and leadership approaches she sees repeatedly across cultures and industriesThe underlying cultural and structural mechanisms that perpetuate the same ol...
2025-11-031h 09Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinWallis Mills helps us stay modern in our own way, instead of following the herdWallis Mills—Founder & Principal Advisor at Modern Enterprise—helps C-suites separate real modernity from trend-chasing. Drawing on executive roles at AMD and NVIDIA, she advises on AI readiness, go-to-market, and narrative strategy that builds durable advantage instead of “shiny object syndrome." Wallis shares insights on:Why she left her previous roles to build an independent strategic studioLessons from big-chip playbooks (AMD, NVIDIA): strategies worth emulating, as well as common missteps to avoidHow and why she identifies an organization's identity and direction before strategies and tacticsDifferentiating helpful collective wisdom from unhelpful groupthink when it comes to the "new sh...
2025-10-2753 min
Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinEllen Raim helps Gen Z and Gen X finally understand each otherEllen Raim, founder of People Matter LLC, is a "generational interpreter" in the workplace, helping companies and young professionals bridge the divide between Gen Z, Gen X, and all in-between.In this episode, Ellen invites us to rethink how age-based differences in the workplace are about more than just our years of life: they’re about how we handle change and difference in general, as well as how we play—or not play—by "rules of the game" that organizations often leave unwritten.Ellen Raim shares insights on:What sparked her shift from employment attorney and H...
2025-10-201h 12
Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinRachael G provides a deep dive on toxic workplacesRachael G describes herself as a “Big Law refugee,” and she joins us to pull back the veil on some of the most toxic workplaces in her industry (while keeping the most sensitive details confidential along the way). Our conversation is about how walking away from toxicity is the start, not the end, of a new and more fulfilling phase of work and life.A former attorney at one of New York’s billion-dollar law firms, Rachael clerked for a federal judge before finding her way to the firm she's at now: a workplace haven known for its mo...
2025-10-131h 23
Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinCharlotte Safran knows strong health starts with strong communityCharlotte Safran, Program Manager at Vermont Department of Health, has built her career around transforming healthcare into a system of genuine partnership. Her work bridges hospitals, families, and communities—grounded in both her lived experience as a parent and her professional mission to center empathy, equity, and collaboration in care.Charlotte shares insights on:What “patient- and family-centered care” meansHow community storytelling reshapes empathy and policy in healthcareThe entrenched philosophies that still compete with partnership modelsHow partnership as a principle could transform healthcare’s cultureWhether you’re a provider, policymaker, patient advocate...
2025-10-0650 minAsk It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinLani Matsumura explains how to make learning its own lifestyleLani Matsumura, Director of Social Services Training & Development at The Salvation Army, brings her background as a teacher, instructional designer, and believer in lifelong learning to this conversation. In this episode, she offers a fresh perspective on embracing a learning lifestyle—one rooted in growth, rest, and integrity, not in pressure, perfectionism, or burnout.Lani shares insights on:Her professional pivots and how each transition signaled a deeper call to learnThe teaching tools and design strategies she still leans on in her own personal growthThe tension between productive growth and rest, and how she honors learning ev...
2025-10-0639 minAsk It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinIanna Raim coahces us to unlearn what holds us backBusiness and executive coach Ianna Raim, MBA, PCC of Ianna Raim Coaching helps leaders and professionals stop sabotaging themselves and build careers that feel authentic, resilient, and fulfilling. In this episode, she breaks down how to get out of our own way and grow in both business and life.Ianna Raim shares insights on:What it really means to “get out of our own way” in career and leadershipWhy professionals often mistake self-advancement for self-sabotageCommon challenges her clients face—and the root causes behind themDefining coaching moments that reveal what transformation looks like in action
2025-10-0655 min
Ask It Like You Mean It, with Aaron BarlinTrailer — "Today's deepest question is..."Think of the show “Hot Ones,” but instead of pop icons, we’re putting industry leaders in the hot seat to ask them spicy questions about their expertise—from consultants, to educators, to healthcare professionals, and more.The first 3 episodes of Season 1 drop on Monday, October 6, with new episodes released on Mondays after that.We start with our "deepest" question—a question that makes you go, "Woah." It's relatively unanswerable, but the process of trying to answer it matters more than the answer itself. The guest gives their initial response at the start of the show.
2025-09-2901 min