Host Julie Harris Oliver welcomes leadership coach and experience designer Rishikesh Tirumalai to discuss how "disruption" can mean returning to harmony with natural cycles, the body, and authenticity. Rishi shares his path from tech and solo travel to teaching and coaching, including how getting sober and working with a coach changed his trajectory, and reflects on being a young Indian man in a coaching world that often undervalues asking for help. They explore leaders finding integrity and fun in their roles, the courage of slowing down amid urgency culture, and the relationship between authenticity and activism in a colonizing power. Rishi also speaks about grieving his father's death, discovering inner stability, seeking agenda-free connection, and holding a seasonal intention of non-striving while listening for when action is needed.

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work

01:17 Rishi's Coaching Journey

01:48 Panama and Leaving Tech

03:58 Discovering Coaching and Sobriety

05:16 Outlier in Coaching Culture

07:18 Disruption and Family Roots

09:09 Alignment With Natural Cycles

11:46 Authenticity as Activism

12:53 Leaders Finding Fun

14:47 Holding Possibility Through Grief

16:02 Dad's Passing and Adulting

21:20 Expansion Without Striving

24:12 Non Striving in a Harsh World

28:29 Slowing Down as Disruption

33:22 Support Without an Agenda

36:03 North Star Fun and Care

36:42 Closing and Call to Action

Host Julie Harris Oliver welcomes coach Marie Smith, founder of Golden Hour Coaching, who shares her path from teacher to personal trainer to life and health coach after hearing a clear spiritual prompting to become a life coach. Marie discusses the idea of "living off menu," inspired by Glennon Doyle's story about ordering beyond the menu, and connects it to agency, permission, and creating a life beyond inherited expectations. The conversation explores purpose as "being" rather than "doing," women's conditioning around worth tied to productivity, domestic labor and mental load, and learning to receive help. Marie offers practical steps to begin: journal desires, list the reasons you think you can't, challenge them as if advising a friend, choose one small experiment, and act. She shares where to find her and a Stress SOS guide via text.

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work

00:37 Meet Marie Smith

01:33 Her Coaching Origin Story

03:41 Hearing the Call

04:34 Living Off Menu

08:06 Permission and Agency

09:05 Purpose as Being

12:08 Worthy Just Because

16:15 Moms Dads and Bedtime

17:57 The Menu We Inherit

19:04 Double Standards Trap

20:04 My Life Is Mine

20:53 Quiet the Inner Critic

23:50 Small Off Menu Experiments

26:58 Learning to Receive Help

28:53 Asking for Help After Surgery

30:59 Journal Your Next Step

33:50 Find Marie and Wrap Up

Host Julie Harris Oliver welcomes executive coach and two-time founder Connie Liu (CEO of Tandem) to discuss humor's role in work, leadership, and coaching. Connie shares that her path to coaching began after hiring an executive coach during her transition out of her first company, valuing coaching as a place to be fully honest without "curating" for others. They explore humor as a release valve that extends emotional runway, reduces high-stakes pressure, and increases creativity—especially through improv's "yes, and" approach and design-thinking environments that normalize risk and riffing on bad ideas. Connie describes using standup comedy as a counterbalance to founder seriousness and as a way to practice levity, while both reflect on when humor is welcomed or risky at work, including for women and in highly serious roles.

00:00 Welcome and Format

00:35 Meet Connie Liu

01:09 Connie's Coaching Origin

02:31 Why Humor at Work

04:10 Standup as Counterbalance

06:09 Humor as Release Valve

07:15 Making Humor Feel Safe

09:07 Creativity and Yes And

13:40 Dog Interruption Reset

14:12 Lightening the Room Fast

16:03 Can You Teach Funny

16:23 Rule of Three Parenting

17:53 Sarcasm and Pranks Roots

18:36 Back to Executives

18:45 Personality on Calls

19:25 Creating vs Reporting

20:22 Finding the Right Balance

21:07 Sales Stories That Land

21:51 Standup Fear and Dares

22:49 Bombing and Getting Hooked

24:14 Comedy Style and Influences

24:57 Work Persona and Gender

28:41 Founder Seriousness vs Humor

30:18 Keeping Perspective at Work

31:37 Key Takeaways and Farewell