Nine months ago, a woman I love sat down across from me for the first time on this show. We had no idea if a podcast about Black women’s leadership would find an audience. We just knew the conversation mattered.

That episode is still, to this day, the most downloaded conversation we have ever aired.

This week, she’s back. opened Season One. She opens Season Two too.

A lot has changed since January. The book is real now. Her business is turning five. And this time, we went somewhere we had not gone on this show before.

The Shame Nobody Names

Job loss carries a shame that rarely gets spoken out loud.

I should have left a long time ago. I’m being pushed out of my job. I’m worthless.

Leilani hears these things constantly in her work helping people through career transition. Not as dramatic confessions. As quiet, unspoken feelings that sit underneath every resume and every interview.

Here is the problem with that shame. It is unearned. And it keeps you from asking for exactly the help you need.

The Revolutionary Pathmaker, in Practice

In the book, I write about the Revolutionary Pathmaker. The person who goes first so someone else doesn’t have to.

Leilani is one. Two decades in senior leadership, including chief marketing officer roles at Fortune 500 companies. Then she left to found Giant Steps.

She didn’t force herself into an existing model of what a founder is supposed to look like. She built a new route instead.

That is pathmaking. Not the absence of a system. The refusal to be limited by one that was never built for you.

Friend Raising, Not Networking

We talk often about friend raising. The informal networks where power actually gets shared, built as an alternative to the golf outings and late happy hours that exclude people without existing access.

This year alone, Leilani added six new relationships. Not through strategic LinkedIn outreach. Through coffee, through lunches, through consistently showing up for people without keeping score.

Friend raising is not a distraction from professional development. It is a form of it.

The Advice Worth Rejecting

Speak softer. Network like everyone else. Don’t be too direct. Be grateful.

We unpacked that last one specifically. Because “be grateful” often is not gratitude at all. It is a request to accept less than you have earned, dressed up as humility.

Real gratitude, Leilani told me, is a daily practice. It’s the difference between accepting what you’re given and choosing peace with what’s true, including when a door closes because it was never supposed to open for you.

Redefining Success

The biggest shift I have seen in my own research shows up in this conversation too. Success is no longer measured by title or business size alone.

It’s sustainability. Autonomy. The ability to care for people, yourself included, without erasing anyone in the process.

The Practical Part

Leilani also gave the clearest job search advice I have heard in a long time.

If you are spending eight hours a week searching for a role and getting nowhere, the problem is not effort. It’s strategy. Two to three focused hours a day, spent intentionally searching, curating, and reaching out directly to specific people, will outperform eight scattered hours every time.

She compared it to potty training a child. Force it too early, too hard, and it takes longer. Ease into it, and it moves faster.

Listen to the Full Episode

This conversation covers all of it. Unearned shame, pathmaking, friend raising, and what it actually looks like to build a career and a business on your own terms.

Listen now at revolutionarylead.com

Where to Find Leilani M. Brown

Leilani is Founder and CEO of Giant Steps, a consulting firm advising leaders and institutions on strategy, culture, and governance. She is the author of Your Next Giant Reset, free for anyone in career transition, and host of Giant Steps with Leilani Brown, now in its fourth season.

Website: giantstepsllc.com

Free book: resetguide.giantstepsllc.com

Podcast: Giant Steps with Leilani Brown

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