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“I know what your website says. I know what your bio says. But who do you say you are, and do I believe you?” — Niiamah

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“Model the future now.” Niiamah

Join Niiamah Ashong and Dr. Anthony Fleg for a live coaching conversation about what it costs to stay behind your own work.

Anthony practices medicine backwards from the entire system. Where medicine asks what is wrong with you, he asks what is right. He built a nonprofit that ran for twenty years and kept his name off all of it. Then he names the thing he has never said out loud to anyone.

What you get:

– Why every deficit is a strength in disguise, and what that changes in a room
– The difference between a thin goal and a thick goal, and why the thick one is worth failing at
– What it actually costs to keep your name off your own work

Timestamps:

00:00 – Welcome to Outlier’s Edge
02:38 – Every deficit is a strength
05:12 – Honoring stops the whole conversation
09:33 – Proudly not on social media
11:28 – I will not help you
17:56 – Thick goals versus thin goals
20:30 – Not TED talks, 23 people
27:10 – It was never the strategy
30:20 – He names it out loud
44:08 – What he does Monday morning

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“What if you’re already ready.” — Niiamah

Join Niiamah Ashong and Kelsie Furst, executive and artistic director of Loveland Opera Theater.

Kelsie never set out to run an opera company. She came up through the chorus, auditioned pregnant, said yes every time she was asked, and rose. Now she wants to make something nobody will ask her for. This conversation is about the gap between the leader everyone recruits and the artist waiting for permission to start her own work.

What you’ll take away:
– Why the question of “enough experience” is the wrong question for a leader who has never qualified in advance
– How the constraints you carry from your old game quietly rewrite the rules of your new one
– The difference between a project that drains you and one that pays you back

Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome to the Outlier’s Edge Podcast
00:33 – From Nutcracker to opera director
04:59 – Asked to lead the company
17:37 – What life changing would require
21:31 – You already know the answer
22:32 – The movie opera she wants
26:22 – Her fear of vanity
31:22 – Too nervous to start
32:39 – Experience is the wrong question
43:45 – Energy is not limited

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“The question is not just how do you raise more money. It’s how do you make the mission bigger than you?” — Niiamah

Join Niiamah Ashong and Meg Lowman for a live coaching conversation where they explore what happens when a mission becomes bigger than the person who started it.

This session explores rainforest conservation, the challenge of saving forests faster, and why funding alone may not solve the problem. Meg and Niiamah explore succession, systematizing outreach, building partnerships, and creating experiences that bring influential people into the treetops and into the mission.

You’ll take away:

– Why a powerful mission can become too dependent on one person
– How immersive experiences can turn awareness into action
– Why scaling impact requires more than raising more money

Timestamps:

00:00 – Welcome to Outlier’s Edge
00:43 – Half the species live above
03:18 – Only the bottom six feet
11:14 – $150,000 became $30 million
17:02 – Ten forests is not enough
28:26 – There is no arbornaut school
32:10 – She calls it luck
35:31 – Random is just probability
37:59 – Nobody tells it like me
43:23 – Seeing is believing

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“It’s not about the impossible goal. It’s about the impossible becoming, like who am I going to become and allow myself to become, to step into it fully. Because I don’t need permission from anybody else other than myself.” — Pauline

Join Niiamah Ashong with guests, Diane Cunningham Ellis, Pauline Victoria, and Nate Guadagni for the return of live group coaching on the Outlier’s Edge Podcast. Three outliers. Three real edges. One hour of transformation in real time. In this episode, we go deep on impossible goals, seasonal change in business and life, invisible impact, the identity work that never ends, and what it actually takes to stop hiding from your potential. No scripts. No highlight reels. Just leaders showing up and going there.

Timestamps:

00:00 Playing safe kills growth
02:30 Why Diane showed up
05:40 Pauline’s impossible vision
08:00 Nate wants bigger impact
12:00 Impossible goal reframe
18:00 Diane’s real answer revealed
22:00 Seasons of change explain
26:00 Nate’s invisible impact problem
36:00 Pauline’s identity upheaval
47:00 Closing insights from all three

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“Breaking cycles will come with a lot of inner resistance, external resistance. But you will be able to get through that one step at a time.” — Bianca Hellenga

Join Niiamah Ashong and Bianca Hellenga as they go deep on what it actually costs to break free from generational cycles, reclaim your authentic self, and trust your own truth, even when everyone else disagrees. Bianca shares her raw journey from silencing her own voice to deconstructing four generations of family expectations, triggered by a single moment as a new mother that changed everything. If you’ve ever felt the tension between who you are and who others expect you to be, this conversation is for you.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introducing cycle breaker Bianca
00:42 Breaking invisible mental limitations
03:19 Why Bianca chose this work
06:43 Grandmother calls her bad mother
10:21 Trusting self over expectations
12:47 The real cost of authenticity
14:30 How she rebuilt without coaching
15:42 You are not alone: finding community
18:19 Connect with Bianca directly
20:24 Flow, trust, and manifestation

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“The world needs you to be as powerful and as free as you need to be to live your life, live your vision, live your purpose. I believe that is our right and responsibility.” — Tanja Bogataj

Join Niiamah Ashong and executive coach Tanja Bogataj for a rare conversation about what real leadership transformation looks like. Tanja has spent 8 years helping exceptional leaders go beyond executive skills to reclaim the power and freedom that was inside them all along. In this episode: why most leaders feel stuck despite their success, how coaching the person changes everything, and what it really means to be powerful AND free.

Timestamps:
0:00 Tanja’s world and game
3:55 Being powerful while free
7:21 Freedom as a muscle
10:04 Coaching the person not role
12:34 Surface symptoms vs deeper blocks
18:53 Burnout to three companies
20:58 Co-creation over coaching
22:00 How much power you give
32:40 Learning from difficult leaders
36:15 Tanja’s message for outliers

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“Specialization is for insects. You can be an investment banker and an actor. A Navy SEAL and an author. A film director and a football coach. Don’t buy into the myth that you have to over-specialize.” – Abhi Prakash

Join Niiamah Ashong and three outliers who are building worlds from scratch, Unni Rav, Shawn Flynn and Abhi Prakash. In this episode, they go all the way in on the thing nobody talks about enough: what it actually takes to keep growing when the problems get bigger, the stakes get higher, and you’re doing something most people around you have never done before. From M&A deals that carry the weight of 200 families, to standing in front of a camera for the second time ever, to coaching JV basketball while building AI companies. This one hits different.

Timestamps:
00:00 Meet today’s three outliers
01:45 Unni Rav: indie films and grit
04:10 Shawn explains M&A like life
06:54 What gives you sweaty palms
11:27 Shawn: stakes are not abstract
15:25 Abhi: plan your life quarterly
18:50 Unni: wealth is not just money
23:01 Growth vs results tension
31:28 Shawn’s secret mastermind method
35:54 Abhi: specialization is for insects

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Enter Shawn Flynn’s World:

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Enter Abhi Prakash’s World:

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Continue into Outlier’s Edge World:

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