Author name: Patricia Talbot

My conversation with Changemaker Laurie Sallee radiates with messages about love, kindness, and compassion. Laurie is quite the storyteller and one particular story around the theme of “firekeepers” has resonated throughout her adult life.  You won’t want to miss her optimistic “Homegrown Solutions for a Patchwork World.” Despite the challenges conspiring against us, Laurie sees great potential in the human capacity to care for one another and keep each other’s fires alight through it all.    […]

Healing communities can seem like a daunting task, but that is the core mission of Changemaker Sara Dechter. As a certified urban community planner, Sara has a bird’s eye view of the Flagstaff, Arizona community she serves.  From this vantage point, she looks for opportunities to bring growth, love, and understanding to the process of community development. The special secret to her work though is coming down to earth, walking the path alongside her constituents

In this episode of “On Your Own Terms,” we meet Changemaker Anne Campbell. Anne shares her “Homegrown Solutions for a Patchwork World” including her efforts to work with others to build a comprehensive hospice facility in her home community of Blacksburg, Virginia. Watch the video of our conversation, listen to the podcast, and read the summary here! Homegrown Anne Born and raised in Blacksburg Virginia in the United States, Anne Campbell took a huge step leaving

Changemaker Sandy Joy Weston is a refreshing reminder of how to choose the joy in life.  Sandy and I had such a wonderful conversation that helped me come back to my own positive nature.  We often hear so many negative reports from many corners of the world.  If you turn on the news, you are likely to be shown some of the ugliest sides of humanity, but Sandy believes deeply in the basic good in

If I were to summarize my conversation with Changemaker Stacy Fritz, I would say, “passion driven by love.” Stacy’s passion for a healthier community has led her on a journey to help people live healthier lives. After her kids started school, she started her company, FIT2order with her business partner, Pattie Sassano.  Together, they brought fitness programs to locations beyond “the gym”. The company has evolved over the past 14 years and now provides wellness solutions for companies whose employees sit most

My conversation with Changemaker Jenna Banks was a powerful one. Jenna is a keynote speaker and best-selling author who strives to help women reclaim their inner power. Jenna’s journey began with a traumatic upbringing and a nearly fatal suicide attempt. These experiences brought her to her lowest, yet were the same experiences that led her to a pivotal change in her life. Despite her challenges, Jenna found a way to reclaim her power through self-love.

My conversation with Sue Bevan Baggott was so empowering! Sue has a wide range of rich experiences from building a safer community for domestic violence survivors and supporting people with mental illness challenges to corporate innovation and angel investing. Sue’s life has helped her recognize the importance of channeling time, talents, and financial resources toward the positive changes she wants to see in her community and the world. Sue shared her story with us on

Almost exactly a year ago this week, I was privileged to meet Changemaker Jen Mott in the Heroic Public Speaking course we were taking.  I heard her introduce herself as a school administrator and, as some of you know, that’s my background, too.  It’s fun to meet people you have something in common with even in these, sometimes awkward, online environments we seem to be frequenting more and more. What I didn’t pick up on

I first met Connie Rensink as a classmate in World Savvy’s Global Competence Certificate (GCC) program.  (You may remember we featured Founder and CEO of World Savvy, Dana Mortenson, in this series a while back.)  Connie and I hit it off right away because of our common love for international travel, elementary-aged kids, and our enthusiasm for learning at every stage of life.  After more than a year of online classes, we finally met up

Today we welcome Changemaker Gunin Kiran to this series celebrating the work of people making the world a better place by creating “Homegrown Solutions for a Patchwork World.”   Gunin completed 8 years as a school board member in my local school district last fall, but she remains very active in our community as she explores next options to put her brilliant mind and heart for service to best use. I invited Gunin to share her