In this electrifying episode of Unleashing Your Great Work, we’re joined by Shantel Love—award-winning VP of Customer Success, keynote speaker, and author of Promote Your Damn Self. From near homelessness to managing over a billion dollars in her career, Shantel shares her powerful story of reinvention, resilience, and rising to the top. Learn how personal branding is more than a buzzword—it’s a path to economic justice and generational wealth. Shantel’s insights will leave you inspired to own your value and advocate for your greatness.

Key Topics Covered:

• Shantel’s journey from stuck at $40K to executive leadership
• Why personal branding is a tool for economic justice
• Strategies to overcome imposter syndrome (Meet Big Bertha!)
• How to use your voice, even when it shakes
• Tactical personal branding strategies for career and business

From being near homeless to managing over a billion-dollars in her career—plot twist: this isn't a Netflix series, it's Shantel Love's actual life story. As an award winning, Global VP of Customer Success and the first Black Woman VP in her division's history, she's living proof that shattering glass ceilings makes for excellent cardio.

Author of the game-changing career and personal branding book, Promote Your D@mn Self, Shantel transforms boardrooms and ballrooms with her electrifying keynotes. While others perfect their elevator pitch, she's busy teaching professionals how to own the entire building. Her secret sauce? Turning professional roadblocks into launching pads with a signature blend of sharp insights, authentic leadership, and refreshingly real talk.

When she's not managing global teams or dropping wisdom on stage, Shantel serves on the board of Elevate Diversity and Girlz Who Sell and champions diversity as an executive sponsor of a Black Employee Resource Group. Her mission? Creating corporate ladders with wheelchair ramps, elevators, and escalators—because everyone deserves access to the top.

Through strategic mentorship and speaking engagements, Shantel equips professionals with more than inspiration—she hands them the tools to rewrite their career stories and build an empire on their own terms.

Website: ShantelLove.com

Book: Promote Your D@mn Self: The 3 Personal Branding Mistakes to Avoid That Nearly Destroyed My Career

Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/shantellove

Dr. Gena Cox returns to explore the power of respect in transforming workplaces and society. In this candid and timely conversation, Gena shares her Respect Ethos Framework, explains how respect fuels innovation, and reflects on how societal shifts have redefined her “great work.” Whether you're a leader, collaborator, or change-seeker, this episode will inspire and challenge you to think deeper about how we go about being human.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What it truly means to be seen, heard, and valued
• Respect vs. DEI: What's missing in traditional models
• How fear shuts down innovation and collaboration
• Why leaders must go beyond performance to focus on human experience
• Respect as a form of activism and resistance

For over 20 years, Dr. Gena Cox, an organizational psychologist, executive coach, and thought leader, has guided business leaders in building psychologically healthy cultures. Gena’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T Ethos™ framework helps leaders grow profitable businesses, enhance their leadership impact, and break down barriers to employee collaboration and innovation. Gena is named to the prestigious Thinkers50 Global Top 50 Coaches list and has earned many awards as the author of Leading Inclusion. She writes about the intersection of psychology and leadership for top-tier media, including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Forbes. Gena earned her PhD in I/O Psychology from the University of South Florida.

Opt-In: 25 Ways Anyone Can Help Build A Culture of Respect - https://www.genacox.com/25ways

My POV & research page: https://genacox.com/respect/

Latest Forbes article about respect: https://www.forbes.com/sites/genacox/2025/05/06/7-ways-to-win-respect-as-a-power-advantage-when-stakes-are-high/

Connect with Gena: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genacox/

Guest: Julie Ellis, award-winning entrepreneur, author of Big Gorgeous Goals, and podcast host of Figure 8

Summary:

Julie Ellis returns to Unleashing Your Great Work for a lively and insightful conversation about building businesses, setting Big Gorgeous Goals, the necessity of collaboration, and how trusting others is essential to growing your great work. Julie shares her journey from co-founding Mabel's Labels to launching her own coaching and authoring career, emphasizing why solopreneurs must overcome lone-wolf tendencies to truly thrive. Amanda and Julie explore how leaders evolve, the tough lessons of delegation, and how peer support can be a game-changer.

Topics Discussed:

• Julie’s transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship
• Why women entrepreneurs struggle with setting and achieving big goals
• The power of systems, processes, and people in business growth
• How trusting your team leads to greater expansion
• Building and relying on a network of peers and mentors
• Frameworks for decision-making and leadership development
• Julie's Big Gorgeous Goals workbook and its practical approach

Julie Ellis is an author, keynote speaker and leadership coach to corporate leaders and scaling Entrepreneurs. Julie provides her unique experience and expertise to her coaching clients, gained through 25 years of working first in the corporate world, and then as a leading Canadian entrepreneur. She is a co-founder of award-winning Mabel’s Labels, one of Canada’s greatest small business success stories.

Julie’s book, Big Gorgeous Goals is written for women entrepreneurs who want to step out of the small box they find themselves in and set world domination in their sights. In discussion with over a dozen women entrepreneurs, Julie explores their stories of why and how they have achieved great things in their lives and careers, and pairs that knowledge with her own stories of how she built, grew, and sold her business to a giant in her industry.

Website: www.biggorgeousgoals.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-ellis/

Instagram:

www.instagram.com/thejulieellis

www.instagram.com/biggorgeousgoals