Liftoff Journeys with Jeanniey Walden

I don't know about you, but 2025 wasn't the best year for me. I lost my mom, my former company liquidated in bankruptcy and most people I know lost their jobs. That had to be more than a coincidence, and after chatting with Letao Wang, now I know why and I am super psyched for this new year- the year of the Fire Horse!
All I have to say is THANK goodness Letao didn't listen to his family and chose this path.
A conversation you will not want to miss.

In this episode of Liftoff Journeys, I sit down with Letao Wang, counselor and award-winning astrologist, to talk about how your life can positively impact many people when you follow the path you are drawn too.
Like many of us, Letao didn't find his career part right away. In fact, he followed the expected path his family had set for him. He graduated, went into finance, graduated, and stepped into a career that looked stable and successful. But internally, something was missing, and he could feel it.

Imagine living according to expectations rather than alignment. That was Letao's reality and a chance spiritual encounter during his Saturn return became the moment that shifted everything. Not because it gave him all the answers, but because it finally gave him permission to ask better questions.

He makes everyone who has been in this position before feel really happy as he shares how how astrology and counseling became tools for Letao not to escape reality, but to understand people more deeply and to help them heal. What I loved most was how authentic and relatable he was about fear, doubt, and the grief that can come with choosing a different path. Best of all, he trusted his inner voice. Trust led to belief and belief led to his business leadership.

This episode is for anyone who has ever looked at their life and thought, this should feel right by now. This is your year. Let's do this.
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Famous author and great guy, Gareth Russell Dreamt about being the Czar of Russia when he was little. WHAT?!? I wasn’t expecting this conversation to go where it did, and honestly, that’s my favorite kind.

In this episode of Liftoff Journeys, I sit down with author and historian Gareth Russell to talk about how he became the writer he is today… and it turns out that journey started much earlier than most people realize. Long before the books, the acclaim, or The Palace, there was a child in Belfast surrounded by Bible stories, family history, old films, and an imagination big enough to dream of becoming the Czar of Russia.
Gareth is incredibly authentic about the fact that writing wasn’t just a dream, it was a refuge. A place where things made sense. A necessity before it was ever a career. And in that honesty, there’s something deeply inspiring about realizing that the path doesn’t have to be linear or obvious to be meaningful. This is one of the first conversations we have had where the person knew what they wanted to be when they grew up from such a young age!

Because this is Liftoff Journeys, the conversation doesn’t stay in one lane. We move from childhood dreams to modern leadership, from royal history to artificial intelligence, and from the past to the very real questions we’re all asking about the future. Gareth shares why history isn’t something we leave behind, it’s something we repeat, reinterpret, and often fail to listen to.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt called to something before they had the language for it. For anyone who’s taken a winding path and for anyone who believes that understanding how people become who they are can change how you think about your own journey.

P.S. It is SUCH a good conversation that we've already asked Gareth to come back on the show in a month (we heard he is working on a new project) and we want to share the scoop!

I’m sitting down with Stephen Gee — CEO and co-founder of Blend — expecting him to give me a common story of his background, and at some point he casually says, “I actually went to college to become a volcanologist.”
Volcanoes.
Lava.
Remote islands.
No friends. (His words, not mine.)
And somehow… that explains everything about how he sees leadership today.
This episode of Liftoff Journeys is very much about Stephen’s journey — not the polished LinkedIn version, but the real one where he followed curiosity instead of a title and ended up exactly where he was supposed to be.
Stephen walks through how studying volcanoes — systems under pressure, unseen fault lines, sudden eruptions — shaped the way he now spots what’s broken in modern leadership. Why siloed executives feel productive but miss what’s actually building beneath the surface. Why pressure narrows perspective instead of expanding it. And why the most dangerous leaders aren’t the ones who fail — they’re the ones who stop questioning.
We laugh a lot in this conversation. About awkward rooms. About walking into spaces where you have no idea what anyone does. About realizing, decades into your career, that the most growth happens when you’re willing to say, “I don’t know — tell me more.”
And we also get real about:
how Stephen accidentally found his way into the human side of leadership
why community and cognitive diversity matter more than playbooks
how Blend was built by intentionally breaking industry boundaries
and why curiosity — not certainty — is what actually makes leaders better
Without trying to, this conversation brings The AIR Method™ to life:
Authenticity — being willing to admit what you don’t know
Inspiration — letting unfamiliar perspectives reshape your thinking
Relatability — realizing no one’s path is as linear as it looks
If you’ve ever wondered how someone really ends up where they are — or if you’ve felt that quiet nudge that says there might be more growth outside your usual lane — this journey will stick with you.
Because sometimes the very thing that seems like a detour…
turns out to be the training ground for everything that comes next.

Some kids learn how to speak up early.
Others learn how to disappear.
Scilla Andreen learned how to disappear.
Bullied as a child and conditioned to keep her voice small, Scilla grew up believing that staying invisible was safer than being seen. That belief followed her into adulthood until the moment she realized that silence was no longer an option.
In this episode of Liftoff Journeys, Jeanniey sits down with Scilla Andreen, CEO & Co-Founder of iNDIEFLIX and Founder of iMPACTFUL, for a conversation that will hit home for anyone who was ever bullied, excluded, or made to feel like they didn’t belong. (That's almost all of us at some point in our lives)
Scilla shares how the loneliness she experienced early in life didn’t break her, it shaped her. What started as her love for independent film became a global edutainment movement focused on empathy, mental health, and human connection, reaching schools, corporations, and communities around the world.
Together, they talk about what it really takes to build a purpose-driven business when your motivation is deeply personal, the tension between passion and practicality, the courage required to ask for what you’re worth, and the cost of living in a world where technology, isolation, and mental health struggles are colliding faster than we’re willing to admit.
This conversation is about what happens after Scilla starts living authentically, inspirationally and in a very relatable way (The AIR Method).
It’s a powerful reminder of three things we could all be reminded about:
1- Kindness isn’t weakness, it’s leadership.
2- Being seen isn’t ego, it’s responsibility.
3- Choosing to use your voice can change far more than your own life.
This isn't just a journey you need to hear, its one you need to share with someone who needs to hear they matter too.
Support the show
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Watch the TV show "Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden"
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Meet Jeanniey live - see where she will be next.

“When I grow up, I want to be a bubble bather.”
At three years old, my daughter didn’t know what a career was, but she knew exactly what mattered to her: helping people, having fun, and creating happiness. That moment stayed with me. What’s remarkable is that those same values have guided every chapter of her life since, through different paths, different choices, and now, working alongside me at Liftoff Enterprises.
In this relaunch episode of Liftoff Journeys, I sit down with longtime friend and collaborator Steve Olenski (aka The CMO Whisperer) to share the true origin story of this podcast and why it’s coming back now. We talk about the quiet moments that define us, the trust it takes to honor who we are at our core, and how easily that trust gets disrupted as we grow up and “get practical.”
This conversation also introduces the heartbeat behind my upcoming book, The Trust Threshold: the idea that growth doesn’t come from reinventing ourselves, but from crossing the invisible line between self-doubt and self-trust.
This episode sets the tone for everything Liftoff Journeys is about:
real stories, real people, and the moments that shape us long before success has a name.
If you’ve ever wondered whether the things that lit you up early in life still matter, this journey starts here.