Breaking Rank

What does leadership look like when it doesn't announce itself? In this episode of Breaking Rank, I sit down with my dear friend TeAnna Strickland, a healthcare regulatory compliance consultant who helps providers navigate Medicare and Medicaid, and one of the most quietly powerful people I know. TeAnna doesn't self-promote. She rarely tells anyone about her accomplishments, and yet she has built a career and a reputation that speak for themselves. She's the kind of leader whose actions carry the room, even when she isn't saying much at all. We start where she started: growing up multiracial in Omaha, the granddaughter of a Black airman from Washington, DC and a German woman who met on his first base assignment overseas. TeAnna talks about being born in DC, spending her earliest years in Germany speaking both German and English, and then finding her footing as one of very few minority students in predominantly white classrooms. That experience shaped a woman who learned early how to belong to herself first. From there we get into the heart of it. TeAnna has always marched to the beat of her own drum. She is nearly impossible to peer pressure (and trust me, I have tried), and she credits that unshakeable core to her single mom, her stubborn German grandmother, and a lifetime of deciding for herself who she wants to be. We also go somewhere a lot of people avoid: pretty privilege, and what it actually costs in the workplace. TeAnna is honest about how being a plus-size, curvier, Black woman changes how you are seen in leadership spaces, how easy it is to become invisible in a room, and how much harder you have to work to prove you belong. She shares how she navigates it, from taking fashion risks in a hot pink suit to setting boundaries that protect her energy and her health. And she speaks candidly about resilience: leading with rheumatoid arthritis, knowing her limits, and refusing to let a chronic illness or anyone's assumptions define what she is capable of. This one is for the quiet ones. The people who lead without the noise, who don't fit the mold, and who are still learning that they were always meant to be in the room. In this episode: Growing up multiracial in Omaha with roots in Germany and Washington, DC What quiet leadership looks like, and why it is so often underestimated Where her unshakeable, peer-pressure-proof confidence comes from Pretty privilege and how appearance shapes who gets seen at work Being a plus-size Black woman in leadership spaces Building a career in Medicare and Medicaid regulatory compliance Leading and living with a chronic illness What sisterhood and Greek life taught her about humility and perspective Why you should set boundaries early in your career Her advice for young women who don't fit the mold Connect with TeAnna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teannaleigh/ Follow Breaking Rank:Website: breakingrankpod.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakingRankPodInstagram: @breakingrankpod.comTikTok: @Breaking.Rank.PodFind all our channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Threads, at breakingrankpod.com If this one resonated, share it with someone who leads quietly and deserves to be seen. #BreakingRank #leadership #authenticity #prettyprivilege #quietleadership

Rachel Clar has a law degree and chose to walk away from it early. Not because she failed, but because she was paying attention. She saw the billable hours, felt the misogyny, received no mentorship, and made a decision that would take 15 years to fully make sense. She went into real estate, affordable housing, urban infill, and renewable energy, and built a career entirely outside the walls of law. Then the pandemic hit and she couldn't look away from what was happening to the women she'd been quietly inserting herself into conversations with for years. Smart women. Women lawyers who were exhausted, underpaid, invisible to leadership, and had no roadmap for building a book of business no one had ever actually taught them to build. So she built Interconnected Us. In this episode, Rachel and I talk about what it cost her to leave law when everyone expected her to stay, what 15 years in business development taught her that no law school could have, and how the "good girl" archetype plays out as a very real career barrier for women in Big Law. We dig into non-binary thinking, her study of non-violent communication, and why she calls herself a compassionate disruptor. We also get into AI, specifically why Rachel believes the timeline is shrinking for women to take the reins of their careers, and why knowing the tools is not enough. This is a conversation about trusting the long way around, and why for some of us, that's the only path that was ever going to work. Connect with Rachel Clar:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelclarWebsite: https://www.interconnectedus.com Connect with Breaking Rank Podcast:Website: https://www.breakingrankpod.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakingrankpodLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/breaking-rank-podcastYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakingRankPodTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@breaking.rank.podFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583609863334

Leading from the margins looks like this: curriculum and human development strategist Ly'chel Carmichael joins Breaking Rank to talk about dyslexia, ADHD, and why emotional intelligence beats any system. Ly'chel Carmichael was a non-reader until almost the 9th grade. Undiagnosed dyslexia and dysgraphia, three years of failing the same grade, and a brain injury that finally led to the right diagnosis and the right support. She graduated on time, went on to earn five degrees, and became a special education teacher, curriculum strategist, and multi-hyphenate entrepreneur running ventures in beauty, food, media, and business consulting. In this episode, host Diana Lauritson talks with Ly'chel about what it actually takes to lead people, not just manage systems, in a world where AI is automating more of the technical work every day. Ly'chel explains why she believes emotional intelligence is the leadership currency that will not be replaced, how assuming positive intent changes outcomes in hard conversations, and why she thinks reading and math scores are a flawed measure of a child's intelligence. In this episode, you'll hear about Ly'chel's path from undiagnosed learning disabilities to five degrees and a doctoral study in progress. Why she manages people's emotional wellbeing before she manages any program, and how that turned a struggling daycare into a million-dollar facility. The year she took over one of the most challenging classrooms in her school, more than 85 percent of the students with IEPs, and spent two weeks on emotional repair before teaching a single academic lesson (that class ranked third in the state). Why she believes AI is a tool for leaders willing to question it, not a threat to replace them. What culturally responsive curriculum actually requires, and why representation in literature changes outcomes for Black boys in particular. Building four businesses at once: Goddess Lux Beauty, Food by a Goddess, Love Jones Media, and Dream Chasers Business Solutions. Connect with Ly'chel Carmichael:Website: dreamchasersbusinesssolutions.comInstagram: @goddessluxbeauty Breaking Rank is the podcast about leading without permission, hosted by Diana Lauritson. New episodes explore leadership, reinvention, and what it takes to build a life and a career on your own terms. If this episode resonated with you, leave a rating and review, and share it with someone who needs permission to lead differently. breakingrankpod.com

Megan Senese gave everything to Big Law. When the review that called her work the best they had ever seen came with the smallest raise they could offer, she decided to build something that belonged to her. In this episode of Breaking Rank, Diana talks with Megan Senese, co-founder of stage and co-host of So Much to Say: A Legal Podcast for People, about leaving the firm and going to market as her full self. Megan started building her visibility before anyone knew she was leaving Big Law, launched a company with $2,000 and a one-year runway, and grew a LinkedIn following of 23,000 by trying every strategy she was told would never work. They talk personal branding, business development, and why the simplest outreach beats the polished campaigns. They get into abundance over scarcity, being the person who builds the room instead of guarding it, bad bosses, and how Megan turned a childhood label into the name of her show. For legal marketers, business developers, and anyone considering the leap out of a role that no longer fits. Find Megan on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/megansenese/ and at stage.guide, and listen to So Much to Say: A Legal Podcast for People wherever you get your podcasts. For more from Breaking Rank, visit https://breakingrankpod.com Like, subscribe, and share Breaking Rank.

Black. Queer. Reverend. In this episode of Breaking Rank, Rev. Don Abram refuses to choose between the parts of himself the world keeps asking him to separate. Don grew up in a hand-clapping, toe-tapping Baptist church on the South Side of Chicago, raised by a Jamaican Patois-speaking grandmother who dragged him to service every Sunday. He shares the story of a recurring dream that called him to the pulpit, and the moment his grandmother told him she couldn't interpret it for him, because only he knew what God was telling him. That moment became his first real introduction to queer theology. Don makes the case that the church has been naming the wrong sin all along, and it has nothing to do with who anyone loves. He also talks about the manufactured care crisis he sees playing out across institutions, the belief that care is a limited resource that only belongs to some, and what it would take to build systems from a place of abundance instead. This conversation covers his founding of Toward Pride, formerly Pride in the Pews, and what's next for the organization, including a new initiative supporting people living with HIV and a research partnership with Northwestern University exploring faith as a determinant of health. This is a conversation about theology, identity, and refusing to shrink any part of yourself to be accepted by a room. Connect with Breaking Rank:Instagram & Threads: @breakingrankpodTikTok: @breaking.rank.podYouTube: @breakingrankpod breakingrankpod.com Connect with Toward Pride:Website: towardpride.orgFacebook & Instagram: Toward Pride #breakingrank #theology #queertheology #faith #queer #leadership #authenticity