Past the Profile

Host Liz Sweigart met Elaine Duncan several years ago after Liz posted a vulnerable mental-health reflection on LinkedIn. Elaine—moved by the post—sent a cold DM of gratitude. One phone call (no video, just listening) sparked a friendship rooted in deep conversation, shared writing classes, and mutual permission to shed every professional mask.
In this Past the Profile episode, Elaine—writer, consultant, and author-in-progress of the memoir Mercy—revisits that first call and traces her long journey from corporate over-achiever to mountain-top writer exploring complex trauma, mid-life ADHD diagnosis, and psychedelic healing. She and Liz discuss how writing allows her not to abandon herself, how women’s careers often mirror unhealed childhood scripts, and the practical next steps she’s taking to land a literary agent for a story that hasn’t been told: the psychological impact of mega-adoption on biological children.
Highlights
Writing as self-rescue — journaling and memoir draft-after-draft turned rage into compassion for her mother and herself.
Diagnosis in midlife — how CPTSD + ADHD reframed decades of depression loops and people-pleasing.
Sacred practice — ceremonial breathwork, plant medicine, and woodland solitude that “let the book write itself.”
Mercy & forgiveness — discovering that compassion for parents (and their parents) is the hinge of inter-generational healing.
What she needs now — introductions to literary agents who champion extraordinary, research-backed memoir; panels or podcasts on adoption, trauma, or women’s mid-life awakenings.
Connect with Elaine Duncan
Medium → https://medium.com/@eduncanbc
Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/elainetduncan/
LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaine-duncan-a9a6126/
Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/eleibsohn

Host Liz Sweigart first met Parsa on a winding Jeep ride to DWeb Camp. What started as small talk from the back seat turned into an enduring friendship grounded in vulnerability, candid conversations about identity, and a shared love of Persian food.
This episode of Past the Profile is intentionally raw—no edits, no polished silence—because the story deserves to breathe. Parsa traces his journey from queer teen poet in Shiraz to U.S. boarding-school student, college humanities major, and now budding human-centered tech entrepreneur. Along the way he unpacks the grief of family separation, the gift of metamorphosis, and why embracing agency is an everyday act when the lower rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy are still in flux.
Highlights
Sixteen and solo – leaving Iran for an arts high school on a California mountaintop and learning English from Friends reruns.
Culture as experiment – how each relocation (Idyllwild, Baltimore, DWeb Camp) revealed new facets of America—and of himself.
Resilience costs – the hidden toll of “making it” when basic safety nets (family, money, legal certainty) are missing.
Entrepreneurial moon-shot – why Parsa sees start-up culture as his best path to agency and impact, and what guidance he’s seeking now.
Home defined – a promise to be buried in Shiraz and a dream of sharing tea there with Liz someday.
Support Parsa’s next stepsGoFundMe → https://gofund.me/2f0c511a

A viral LinkedIn post on mental health first linked host Liz Sweigart with Zurich-based entrepreneur Aladár Tepelea. One direct message became a video call, which blossomed into years of idea-swapping (and friend-level concierge introductions) across time zones.
In this #PastTheProfile episode, Aladár—co-founder of Mindset Technologies and Allindex—charts his journey from strategic associate inside big corporates to serial founder obsessed with tech that elevates human awareness. He and Liz explore why resonance beats simple relevance when networking, how eye-tracking AI can reveal cognitive load in real time, and why his moon-shot dream is “A World in Harmony.”
Highlights
Corporate to start-up – leaving board rooms behind to build fast, experimental ventures that solve real problems.
Resonance vs. relevance – asking “What’s your dream?” to broker introductions that spark authentic, long-term value.
Mindset Technologies – pairing neuroscience with eye-tracking hardware to coach high-pressure performers on focus and recovery.
Allindex – a tool that lets investors filter portfolios by values, themes, or AI-boosted signals—in minutes, not months.
Data literacy before sovereignty – why teaching people how data works is the first guard-rail to ethical tech.
World in Harmony – his systems-level vision: applying harmonic principles from music and nature to politics, business, and daily life.

Host Liz Sweigart first met Brussels-based coach Chris Rawden when a thoughtful LinkedIn comment turned into a video call—and then into a pandemic-era pen-pal friendship. Their bi-monthly check-ins became a safe rehearsal room to practice coaching skills, swap leadership puzzles, and compare parenting notes across the Atlantic.
In this #PastTheProfile episode, Chris—founder of Live Your Performance and a lifelong musician—traces his path from cornet soloist and youth-orchestra tours to advising senior accountants, lawyers, and international executives. He and Liz explore how musical training maps to business life, why “start where people are” beats pushing them where you wish they’d be, and how leaders can transform stage fright into authentic connection.
Highlights
Practice as strategy – what daily scales, micro-goals, and concert prep taught Chris about disciplined business planning.
Energy at the door – choosing the vibe you bring into a meeting and watching mirror neurons do the rest.
Confidence vs. survival – helping technically brilliant leaders enjoy presentations instead of just getting through them.
International nuance – respectful curiosity, clear agreements, and the art of asking before assuming across cultures.
What's next – A preview of Chris' upcoming small-group program: coaching cohorts on “living, not surviving” high-stakes moments.

Host Liz Sweigart sits down with Dr. Joanie Connell—electrical-engineer-turned-consulting-psychologist, founder of Flexible Work Solutions, and newly elected President of the Society of Consulting Psychology. Joanie traces her journey from Silicon Valley circuit boards to advising tech leaders on human-centric innovation. Together they explore why critical thinking is the best guardrail for AI, how affiliative humor defuses tension, and what it means to make work better for people and people better for work.
Highlights
How snowy Boston winters nudged Connell toward California
Discovering psychology as a way to bridge the engineer–human gap.
Why properly stewarded technology—and clear organizational guardrails—determine whether AI becomes utopia, dystopia, or something in-between.
Destigmatizing humor at work: laughing with people, never at them, and using levity to open hard conversations.
“Make workplaces healthier and help humans thrive there”—Connell’s twin mission for executives and organizations.
What’s next: drafting a chapter on potential AI futures and stepping into SCP’s presidential Trio to champion consulting psychology on a larger stage.

This week, host Liz Sweigart is joined by Dr. Daniel Lattimore — stand-up-comic-turned-consulting-psychologist and Community Domain Leader for the Society of Consulting Psychology. Daniel, the founder of Omiyo Consulting, traces his arc from bombing a college open-mic to integrating affiliative humor and improv principles into executive coaching. He and Liz unpack why leaders often feel like “Superman alone on stage,” how moments of laughter can create psychological safety, and why he’s happiest switching between front-of-room “leader” and supportive “first follower” roles.
Highlights
How a failed stand-up set nudged Daniel toward psychology — and showed him comedy’s deeper therapeutic power.
What sitcoms like Friends and Seinfeld taught international students (and now executives) about belonging.
Destigmatizing humor at work: using jokes to ease tension, not dismiss it, and timing laughter to open hard conversations.
The “leader ↔ follower” dance: when to cast a vision, when to amplify someone else’s, and how community multiplies impact.
An invitation to leaders who value connection: Daniel's offer to brainstorm creative, cost-effective ways to support people and cultures.

Walks and talks at the 2022 APA Convention in Minneapolis sealed the friendship between host Liz Sweigart and Shannon Jennings, PsyD, LMHC. Now, they sit down together to explore how their connection and collaboration has grown over the last few years.
In this episode of Past the Profile, Shannon, a therapist-turned-facilitator, strategic-doing champion, and self-described super connector, revisits that serendipitous beginning and unpacks how her “everything, everywhere, all at once” brain helps leaders tame messy, adaptive problems. She and Liz explore translating deep psychology into business value, the magic of micro-commitments, and why uncertainty is Shannon’s favorite playground.
Highlights
How a house-share at APA led to walks, vulnerability, and a standing-room-only coaching workshop the next year.
Why Shannon believes micro-commitments are the secret to momentum — whether you’re launching a network or rebuilding a fitness habit.
A primer on Strategic Doing: agile strategy + appreciative inquiry + psychological safety for complex, networked challenges.
Bridging the gap between mental-health science and organizational life — helping CEOs lead the “whole selves” they invite to work.
What’s next: publishing her ideas publicly and training more change-makers to use Strategic Doing for systems impact.

A mutual mentor, Dr. John Reed, once told host Liz Sweigart: “You have to meet Mira.” Minutes into their first call, Liz and Dr. Mira Brancu were jumping from quantum physics to organizational power structures. A lasting friendship was born.
In this episode of Past the Profile, Mira (founder & CEO of Towerscope) retraces her journey from arriving in the United States from Romania as a young girl to psychologist, author, and architect of a new Leadership Academy for mid-level managers in resource-strapped sectors. She and Liz swap stories about mentorship seeds that sprout years later, the difference between resilience and resourcefulness, and why “having choice” is the ultimate form of power.
Highlights
How escaping a communist dictatorship and learning English on playgrounds fueled Brancu’s scrappy, systems-level worldview.
The “cockroach resilience” mindset she brings to writing, entrepreneurship, and social-impact work.
How her next book, tentatively titled Enough Is (Never) Enough, tackles the knot of gender, leadership identity, and achievement culture.
Lessons from prototyping the Towerscope Leadership Academy: blending community support with bite-size hard-skill content.
A call for mid-career “organizational misfits,” women in STEM/healthcare/academia, and mission-aligned partners to co-create the next phase.

A chance Hacker Hall conversation at DWeb Camp — sparked by the words “Holochain” and “Nostr” — pulled host Liz Sweigart into conversation with technologist-activist Daveed Benjamin. Within hours, they were mapping constellations of human knowledge and scheming how to weave deeper context and connection into the fabric of the Internet.
In this episode of Past the Profile, Daveed (co-author of The Metaweb: The Next Level of the Internet and catalyst behind the Meta-Layer Initiative) traces the path from local-energy advocate to architect of a web where everyone can link, label, and share context. He and Liz explore why our data should serve us, how “bridges” can replace one-way links, and what it takes to crowd-draft the next layer of the Internet before June 30, 2025.
Highlights
How seeing the Web’s “dots without lines” led Daveed to design two-way bridges that anyone, not just site owners, can draw between pages.
Why he believes personal data, properly stewarded, will eclipse homes and cars as our most valuable asset.
A primer on the Trivium (knowledge → understanding → wisdom) and why today’s Internet gets stuck at Step 1.
The MetaLayer submission assistant (“Bridgit”) that turns germs of ideas or favorite links into formal proposals for the next-gen Web.
An open invitation to mid-2025’s first white-paper sprint: drafting the “Desirable Properties of a MetaLayer" as suggested by Vint Cerf.

Host Liz Sweigart met Dr. Sunni Lampasso during a pandemic-era phone call arranged by a mutual colleague at the Society of Consulting Psychology. Months later they finally connected in person — walking Minneapolis streets between APA Convention sessions and bonding over a shared love of live music.
In this episode of Past the Profile, Sunni traces a career arc that runs from hedge-fund consulting to coaching international DJs. Along the way she recounts the childhood moment she pulled her grandmother from deep water, the lifeguard mindset that still shapes her work, and the “Level Up” book tour she’s using to platform emerging artists.
Highlights:
How a rescue at age 11 sparked a lifelong drive to show up for people in crisis.
Why Lampasso treats imposter syndrome, performance anxiety, and rejection as data points — not diagnoses — for the artists she coaches.
The mechanics of her new partnership model: record labels retaining a psychologist “on call” to keep talent healthy.
Plans for a low-cost subscription community so up-and-coming DJs can access live trainings and Q&A sessions.
Insights from Miami Music Week and why being “front-row support” can change an artist’s trajectory.
A tour schedule that doubles as grassroots networking — showcasing local DJs in every city.