Path Found
Path Found is the podcast for anyone who’s ever asked, “What now?”
This show explores the real, messy, and inspiring journeys people take to find fulfilling work—and themselves. From pivots and side hustles to mentorship and major career changes, Path Found reveals what college never taught and counselors never said.
Episodes
43 episodes
The Distance Between the Plan and the Path
Elise Barrow had it mapped out: Johns Hopkins, medical school, doctor. Her father held a PhD; college was never a question, and medicine was the destination.Her first semester didn't change the direction so much as the certainty. She mov...
The Leap: Women Who Built It Anyway
What does it actually take to build something of your own? In this compilation episode, we bring together eight voices from the Path Found archive — eight women who started businesses without a playbook, an MBA, or anyone’s permission. Their se...
He Spent 24 Years in the Wrong Job — Here's What He Did Next
Tom Miller* grew up Catholic, careful, and certain that college wasn't for him. After losing his mother to leukemia at 18, and spending that summer as her primary caregiver, he drifted into a 24-year career in commercial printing, doing skilled...
A Sports Kid Who Found His Way Back to the Field
William Combs always assumed he'd run his own business. He just didn't know it would be a Subway franchise in Orange County. In this conversation, William traces his path from a kid who scraped by as a B student, through Cal Poly Pomona's hotel...
Permission to Start Over: Five People Who Got Kicked Out, Dropped Out, or Walked Away
Five guests. Five very different lives. One thing in common: every one of them dropped out, failed out, got kicked out, or walked away, and built something meaningful anyway. In this compilation, a deputy attorney general, a congressional staff...
Going Through the Trash (On Purpose): Anna Sacks on Reinvention, Waste, and Systemic Change
What do investment banking, a Jewish farming fellowship, and New York City's trash have in common? For Anna Sacks, known to hundreds of thousands of followers as The Trash Walker, they're all stops on the winding road to her life's work....
The Winding Road: What Six Journeys Taught Us About Finding Your Way
Six guests. Two truths. There is no single right path. And you cannot do this alone. In this special compilation episode of Path Found, I weave together conversations with David Camarena, Coach Christian, Michael Harley, Taylor Rabe...
The First Principles of Being Human
Justin Rufa grew up in a small Rust Belt town on the St. Lawrence River with one clear thought: I'm leaving. What followed was nearly 24 years in the Air Force — aeronautical engineering, a master's, a PhD from Michigan, teaching calculus at th...
Denim on Her Own Terms: The Bold, Scrappy Path Behind Knorts
Eleanore Guthrie didn't set out to disrupt the fashion industry. She set out to find a pair of shorts that looked good on a bike. What followed was more than a decade of building Knorts, a brand built entirely on knit denim - from weekend photo...
From High School Dropout to Harvard Law: How Discipline, Detours, and Doing the Work Built a Career
Steven Kerns grew up in Long Beach, California, dropped out of high school at seventeen, and eventually made his way through the Army Infantry, Long Beach City College, Cal State Long Beach, Harvard Law School, and on to the California Departme...
Kitchen to Capitol: On Being First, Finding Your Way, and the Jobs Nobody Tells You About
Alex Mitchell didn’t have a plan when he graduated from high school. No one in his family had gone to college, and he didn’t apply to a single university. He started at community college, changed his major five times, and it wasn’t until a poli...
Relationships Are the Resume: Career Pivots, Tech Ethics, and Finding Your Place in Policy
Virginia Ross has one of those careers that sounds impossible until she explains exactly how each step led to the next — and even then, it barely seems planned. Because it wasn't. After getting kicked out of college twice, pi...
The Hidden Curriculum: How to Build a Career that College Never Taught You
What does it actually mean to go to college? If your honest answer is “get a degree so I can get a job,” Ned Johnson and Scott Carlson want to complicate that, in the best possible way.In this conversation, the authors of Hacking Col...
The Interview Answer That Lost Her the Job (and Set Her Up for 30 Years)
In her first round interview, Alicia Rose was asked about her dream job. She told the truth: she wanted to be an ambassador. The interviewer told her on the spot she wasn't getting the position, and explained exactly why that was the right call...
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Steve Sewell on Grief, Chaplaincy, and Why Life Really Happens in the Transitions
Steven Sewell didn’t plan on becoming a chaplain in corporate America. He thought he’d spend his life as a pastor. But after almost 30 years in ministry, he discovered something: the break room at a car dealership needs the same thing as a Sund...
From Zimbabwe to Cape Town to the World: Building a Life on Curiosity, Risk, and Reinvention
What does it look like to stumble, pivot, fail, travel, and eventually find your calling, not once, but many times? Sean Walpole's story is a master class in entrepreneurial resilience: from founding an IT company as a teenager in Zimbabwe, to ...
Ordering Off the Menu: Eric Adams on Disability, Discovery, and Designing a Life on Your Own Terms
Eric Adams spent his childhood mute in the classroom and decades as the loudest, most electric presence in Los Angeles nightlife. In between: a path that refuses every conventional menu option. In this conversation, Eric traces the through-line...
Making Business Better with Holly Hill
Holly Hill didn't wait for the world to catch up with her vision — she designed her own path. In this episode, Holly shares her remarkable career journey from environmental compliance at IBM in the 1990s, to sustainable design at an architectur...
Ask Questions. Build Relationships. Keep Your Integrity
Tyler Reeb grew up on a Canadian farm, moved to Long Beach at 11, slacked through college, and somehow ended up leading one of the country's most influential transportation research centers. Tyler reflects on what his path has taught him — abou...
Building What You Believe In: A Nonlinear Journey in Design & Sustainability
Jessica Nersesian’s journey doesn’t follow a straight line; it is driven by curiosity, ethics, and a deep belief that design can change the world.A lifelong reader and systems thinker, Jessica explored communication, ethics, sustainabili...
Doing the Work: How Gus Orozco Built a Life of Purpose
Gus Orozco’s story is one of resilience, service, and the power of saying yes to unexpected opportunities.Growing up in Long Beach as the child of immigrants, Gus struggled in school, dropped out of high school, and earned his GED while ...
Your Dream Job Doesn’t Exist Yet
Melissa Romero never followed a straight line—and that’s exactly the point. From a perfectionist, science-loving kid with dreams of being a singer or mermaid to an environmental advocate writing legislation and lobbying in Sacramento, Melissa b...
Commit First, Pivot Later: A Veterinarian’s Nonlinear Path
Sudeep Wahla’s path was anything but conventional.Raised in Fontana by first-generation immigrant parents, Sudeep assumed college was the next step—until he didn’t get into the schools he expected. Instead of regrouping locally, he made ...
You Are Not Wrong: Trusting Yourself When the World Says Otherwise
What happens when the path everyone expects you to take doesn’t feel right—and the one that does feels risky, misunderstood, or “not legitimate enough”?In this episode of Path Found, Monica sits down with Macey McCallion, an equine prof...
When the Plan Breaks: Joon Kim on Serendipity, Second Chances, and Mentorship
Joon Kim’s life looks successful on paper: senior leadership in higher education, decades of mentoring students, and a career built around helping others reach medical and graduate school. But his path there was anything but linear.Born...
