Last week, I invited two mentors from my past life (when I was working as a public health practitioner and government consultant) to join me in a candid conversation about our beautifully messy journeys stepping into entrepreneurship.
Meet Lynne Cuppernull and Dan Ward, co-creators of a boutique consulting agency called The Sparklit Group that helps individuals and organizations ask better questions, tell their stories, and build better futures.
This conversation really touched me because the three of us met in a very different world: a 10,000-person company in a highly-regulated industry with lots of standard operating procedures, well-defined pipelines, and bureaucracy. In 2025, though, around the same time, we all left to build our own things (I went full-time on Tomatokind, and Dan and Lynne launched The Sparklit Group).
So, in this conversation, we get honest about what it really felt like to give up a direct deposit (and a community we genuinely cherished) to embark on an ever-evolving business and personal journey.
Quick reminder to join us for…
Live Conversation with Nicole Garfunkel, personal stylist for people in eating disorder recovery, on 7/22 at 11am PST. Add to your calendar here.
A Summer Picnic in collaboration with Creative Lunch Club in Berkeley on 7/24 at 12pm PST. RSVP here.
Summer Vision-boarding: A Mid-Year Reset & Manifestation Party on 7/29 in Berkeley, CA at 6pm. Get tickets here.
And, our July Possibilities Club on 7/31 at 3pm PST over Zoom. Open to paid subscribers only. RSVP here.
5 Takeaways from Our Conversation
If you’re a paid subscriber, feel free to go straight to our full conversation by clicking the video above. Or, you can browse below for the topics that stayed with me the most.
