Human Design for Entrepreneurs: Beating Imposter Syndrome & Burnout with Mel McSherry
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Release Date: 12/02/2025
What the Best Leaders Can't See About Themselves (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Brian Vogel)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Picture your ideal Tuesday. You come in with a clear head, a short list of things that actually matter, and a couple of hours of uninterrupted time to think strategically about where you're taking this thing. Now picture your actual Tuesday. Six fires before noon. Three decisions that landed on your desk that someone else should have made. A calendar that left no room for anything except reacting. And somewhere around four in the afternoon, the quiet feeling that you've been incredibly busy and somehow accomplished nothing. If that second picture is more familiar, this episode is...
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You Were Creative Once. Find Your Way Back. (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Maria Gatling)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
When was the last time you made something? A drawing, a photo, a collage, a doodle in the margin of a notebook. Something you made with your hands because something in you wanted to. Most of us have to think about it. And the longer we think, the further back the answer goes. Somewhere along the way, we handed our creative lives back. Not all at once, and not on purpose. Just gradually, between the jobs and the responsibilities and the screens and the schedules, the things we used to make got quietly set aside. And we told ourselves we’d get back to them. And then we didn’t. And eventually...
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The One Thing Your Competition Can Never Buy or Copy (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Joe Fusco)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Here's a question I want you to think about before you hit play. When was the last time you felt like the work you were doing actually mattered? Not mattered as in the numbers went up or the boss was happy. Mattered in that way where you finished a day and felt genuinely full rather than just done. Most of us have forgotten what that feels like. Or maybe we never had it to begin with. This conversation goes deep on that. My guest Joe Fusco and I got into what actually makes a company great, why people don't fit in a spreadsheet no matter how hard we try to make them, and what it really...
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Hurricane Katrina at 21: The Story the Media Never Fully Told featuring Sandy Rosenthal
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Most of us have been there in some form or another. You know the truth. You can see it. You can feel it. And everywhere you look, the official version of events tells a completely different story. The institutions say one thing. The media repeats it. Slowly, the narrative everyone keeps hearing becomes the narrative everyone starts to believe, even when it is wrong. Sandy Rosenthal refused to let that happen. Twenty-one years ago, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the floodwaters rose and swallowed whole neighborhoods and displaced hundreds of thousands of people, the country...
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Pressure-Proof Leadership with Claire Hayek (The Ripple Effect Podcast)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Be honest. When’s the last time you actually felt calm, not just looked calm? Because those are two very different things, and most of us have gotten so good at faking the second one that we forget what the first one even feels like. You handle the hard conversation. You keep your voice steady in the meeting that’s falling apart. You hold it together for everyone else in the room. And then later, alone in your car or lying awake at night, it all comes flooding back. That gap between performing calm and actually being calm is something my guest today has spent her entire life studying,...
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Is Your Survival Brain Leading Your Team? (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Dr. Annie Campanile)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Most of us have spent years learning how to communicate better. Better words, better models, better frameworks. And yet somehow the same conflicts keep happening, the same conversations keep getting avoided, and the same people keep making the room tense the moment they walk in. Dr. Annie Campanile has a different theory about why, and it starts somewhere most leadership training never goes. Watch to learn what's actually driving workplace conflict beneath the surface, why the protective patterns you developed as a kid are probably still showing up in your leadership today, and what your...
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Honest Thoughts on Surviving Online Hate (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Ileana Garcia: Part Two)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
If you listened to Part 1, you already know Ileana Garcia doesn’t hold back. Part 2 goes somewhere I honestly didn’t expect when we sat down to record it. We start with something that still visibly stings a little: the Wall Street Journal feature that was supposed to be a proud moment for her and instead turned into something else entirely. Ileana walks me through what actually happened behind that headline, and by the end of that story, I understood exactly what her brother meant when he called it “engagement by enragement.” Ileana tells me about the anonymous accounts that stitched...
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What Dating Looks Like After 50 (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Ileana Garcia)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Have you ever had that moment where you realize the life you built isn’t actually the one you want anymore? Today’s guest knows that feeling better than almost anyone I’ve talked to on this show. Ileana Garcia (you probably know her as Illy in the Streets on TikTok) has spent the last few years turning her gray divorce and everything that followed into some of the most honest and funniest content out there. If you’ve ever gone through a divorce after 50, or you’re staring down starting over at 50 and wondering if you have it in you, this conversation is going to feel like sitting...
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An AI That Answers Leads Before You Even Wake Up (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Austin Willman)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
If you run a business and have ever lost a customer because you didn’t call them back fast enough, this one is going to sting. A lead comes in, life happens, and by the time someone picks up the phone, that customer has already booked with whoever responded first. My guest, Austin Willman, built his entire business around fixing that exact problem. He started in door-to-door solar sales, learned the home services world from the ground up, and turned that experience into an AI voice agent that helps contractors and roofers respond to leads the moment they come in, rather than 2 days later. ...
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Your Phone Is Making You Lonely (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Julie Sands)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
You already know the feeling. You put your phone down after an hour of scrolling and somehow feel more drained than before you picked it up. Maybe you’re in a room full of people you love, and everyone’s looking at their screen instead of each other. Maybe you’ve been quietly wondering if the way you’ve been living and connecting is actually working for you anymore. If any of that sounds familiar, this conversation is going to feel like coming up for air. I brought Julie Sands back into The Ripple Effect Podcast, and I’ll be honest with you: time completely disappeared during this...
info_outlineIf you’ve ever built a business that looked successful from the outside but secretly felt misaligned on the inside, this episode will hit home.
I’m so grateful to have the incredible Mel McSherry on The Ripple Effect Podcast! We explore Human Design for entrepreneurs and the surprising ways it can eliminate burnout, imposter syndrome, and that nagging feeling that you’re doing everything right, yet something still feels off.
Mel’s story is powerful. Being a business & life guide, Mel McSherry helps inspired yet overwhelmed entrepreneurs honor their lives and become the architects of their own success.
Mel uses their spiritual gifts and 15+ years of business-building experience to slash entrepreneurs’ stress and bring their success to life! Using both Human Design in partnership with traditional business development tools, Mel coaches others on how they can connect to what they want, understand how they are designed to create what they want, and implement their strengths and strategies, so every day they are profitable–mentally, emotionally, and financially.
As an entrepreneur since 2010, Mel has launched two successful businesses, become a 2x published author, spoken almost 200 times all over the US and overseas, and created a true life by design–all while being the primary caregiver to their teenage son with autism.
We discuss time and energy management, emotional and energetic profitability, the power of honoring your natural design, and what happens when you stop forcing yourself into strategies that were never meant for you.
Are you curious about Human Design? Are you a coach, entrepreneur, or a leader searching for a more authentic and sustainable way to grow your business? If so, I can’t wait for you to hear Mel’s insights.
She brings clarity, humor, honesty, and a level of realness that makes this one of my favorite conversations on The Ripple Effect Podcast.
Ripple with Mel McSherry
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