115. From Struggle to Sustainability: How Purpose Takes Shape with Vanessa Thompson
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
Release Date: 12/24/2025
126. Choosing a Life Before You’ve Lived It | Alex Dworsky & Gabriel DeSanti from Staj
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
How do you choose a career before you’ve really lived life? That’s the question at the center of this conversation with Alex Dworsky and Gabriel DeSanti, co-founders of Staj. Most of us are asked to decide what we want to do at 18, 20, or 22 — long before we’ve had enough experience to truly understand what those choices mean. And while some people land in the right place, many others find themselves years into a path that no longer fits. Alex shares her experience inside corporate America, where careers often follow a predictable path shaped by expectations, environment, and...
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125. Andi Simon: The Stories We Believe—and Why They Make Change So Hard
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s the Point?, Bill Ellis sits down with Andi Simon—corporate anthropologist, author, and founder of Simon Associates—to explore a deceptively simple question: Why is it so hard to see what’s right in front of us? Andi has spent decades studying how people think, behave, and—most importantly—how they make meaning. From working with banks and healthcare systems to helping leaders navigate transformation, she’s seen the same pattern over and over again: People don’t resist change because they lack information.They resist change because of the stories they...
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124. The Price of Change: David Schnurman on Choice, Family, and What Really Matters
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s the Point?, Bill Ellis sits down with David Schnurman to explore a question many of us quietly carry: what do we think will happen when we change our lives? Change often begins with hope. A new job, a new city, a new path — we imagine it will give us clarity, fulfillment, or relief from whatever feels unresolved. But as David reflects throughout this conversation, change doesn’t always deliver exactly what we think we’re buying. Together, Bill and David explore the deeper motivations behind the choices we make. Family expectations, personal responsibility,...
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123. Built to Serve: Omar Ritter on Leadership, Discipline, and Living With Purpose
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s the Point?, I sit down with Omar Ritter for a conversation about discipline, leadership, and what it really means to live with purpose. Omar’s story is rooted in challenge. He reflects on the moments that shaped him — not just professionally, but internally. We talk about early lessons in responsibility, learning how to carry weight, and what it means to choose growth instead of comfort. Throughout our conversation, a theme keeps surfacing: discipline. Not the loud kind. Not the performative kind. But the quiet, daily commitment to becoming someone you can...
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122. Ron Kmetovicz: What We Carry Forward About Money, Work and Independence
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s the Point?, Bill Ellis sits down with Ron Kmetovicz—engineer, entrepreneur, investor, and author of Ghost Money: The Pathway to Financial Independence. This conversation isn’t about getting rich quickly. It’s about what quietly sustains a life. Ron reflects on growing up in an entrepreneurial farm family in Pennsylvania, working in early Silicon Valley labs during major technological shifts, and building a career grounded in confidence rather than accumulation. He shares the philosophy behind “ghost money”—multiple revenue streams paired with minimal...
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121. Remember You’re Dying: Annie Dike on Change, Courage, and Finding Meaning Without Tidy Answers
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
Welcome to What’s the Point? — the show where we explore what shapes us, what changes us, and what gives our lives meaning over time. In this episode, I’m joined by Annie Dike — a writer whose life has moved through wildly different worlds: a complex early life in Clovis, New Mexico, a career in law, years living and working at sea, and a steady commitment to writing as a way of making sense of experience. Annie begins in Clovis — a place she once wanted to escape, but later came to appreciate for what it gave her: creativity, closeness with her brother, and a tough kind of...
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120. Building Something That Holds: Loryn and Edo Nalic on Partnership, Perseverance, and Belonging from Balkan Treat Box
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s The Point?, I sit down with Loryn Nalic and Edo Nalic, partners in life and work and the force behind Balkan Treat Box, Telva, and the Ridge Room in St. Louis. Their story isn’t just about building award-winning restaurants. It’s about displacement, resilience, trust, and what happens when two people commit to solving problems together instead of letting adversity define them. Edo shares what it was like growing up in Bosnia during war, fleeing to Germany, living with uncertainty, and eventually coming to the United States alone. Loryn reflects on a very...
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119. From Survival to Self-Respect: Jason Van Ruler on Healing Old Patterns
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s the Point?, I sit down with Jason Van Ruler for an honest conversation about healing, responsibility, and the quiet work of becoming someone you can respect. Jason shares parts of his story that began in instability—growing up in a chaotic environment, learning early how to survive, and internalizing beliefs about worth that followed him into adulthood. Like many of us, he found himself repeating familiar patterns, even when they no longer served him. We talk about the turning point that came when Jason realized that awareness alone wasn’t enough. Wanting change...
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118. The Secure Leader: How Attachment Shapes Trust, Leadership, and Purpose with Dr. Jaime Goff
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s the Point?, host Bill Ellis sits down with Dr. Jaime Goff, founder of The Empathic Leader, LLC and author of The Secure Leader, for a powerful conversation on how our earliest emotional experiences quietly shape the way we lead. Drawing from her background in psychology, higher education leadership, and executive coaching, Dr. Goff explains how attachment patterns formed in childhood influence trust, control, communication, and emotional regulation in adulthood—especially in leadership roles. She shares personal stories from her own journey, including growing up...
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117. From Experiments to Empowering Creatives: Kacper Staniul on Purpose, Curiosity, and Building What Matters
What's The Point? - Discover Your Purpose
In this episode of What’s the Point?, I talk with Kacper Staniul, founder and CEO of MyArchitectAI, about how purpose often reveals itself not through a single calling—but through curiosity, experimentation, and the discipline to keep building. Kacper’s journey began far from startups and artificial intelligence. As a university student in Poland studying materials science, he admits he had little sense of direction. What changed everything was exposure to the internet and the realization that learning wasn’t limited to formal education. That discovery sparked curiosity, and curiosity...
info_outlineIn this episode of What’s the Point?, I’m joined by Vanessa Thompson, whose story is a clear reminder that purpose doesn’t usually arrive fully formed. More often, it takes shape slowly—through struggle, uncertainty, and hard-earned clarity.
Vanessa shares her journey through seasons of instability and questioning, moments where the path forward wasn’t obvious, and how those experiences ultimately reshaped how she thinks about work, success, and sustainability. We talk about how easy it is to chase outcomes without pausing to ask whether the life we’re building is actually livable—and how purpose often shows up when something simply stops working.
What stood out in our conversation is Vanessa’s honesty about redefining success. She speaks openly about burnout, recalibration, and the courage it takes to slow down enough to listen. Her story reflects how people find meaning not by avoiding difficulty, but by paying attention to what those moments are asking of us.
We explore what it means to create sustainability—not just environmentally or professionally, but emotionally and personally. Vanessa describes learning to align her values with her daily choices, letting go of expectations that no longer fit, and building a life that can be sustained over time, not just admired from the outside.
This episode is a human story of growth, resilience, and intentional living. It’s about discovering what matters when life strips away certainty—and how purpose often reveals itself not in the breakthrough moment, but in the steady work of rebuilding.
What’s The Point? is a podcast hosted by Bill Ellis featuring real conversations with people who’ve figured out what matters – their purpose. Each episode explores what motivates them and how they find meaning in what they do.
Connect with Bill:
- bill@billellis.com
- www.billellis.com
- www.brandingforresults.com
- IG - @wcellis
- Facebook - @CoachBillEllis
- Facebook - @bill.ellis
- LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/wcellis
- Book: Women Who Won
Links for This Episode:
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Email vanessa@vanessathompson.com
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Website(s) https://www.the-sustainability-experts.com
SOCIAL MEDIA INFO:
LinkedIn:
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessathompson5
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-sustainability-experts
Quick Episode Summary:
- 00:00 – Welcome + Introducing Vanessa Thompson
- 01:00 – Vanessa’s early struggles and uncertainty
- 03:00 – When life stops working the way you planned
- 05:00 – Rethinking success and sustainability
- 07:00 – Burnout as a wake-up call
- 09:00 – Learning to pause and reassess
- 11:00 – Letting go of old definitions of achievement
- 13:00 – How purpose begins to take shape
- 15:00 – Building work and life that can last
- 18:00 – Alignment between values and daily choices
- 20:00 – Why sustainability isn’t just environmental
- 22:00 – Living with intention instead of urgency
- 24:00 – What keeps Vanessa going now
- 26:00 – Advice for those feeling stuck
- 28:00 – Discovering what truly matters
- 30:00 – Vanessa answers: “What’s the point?”