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Ronderings

Ronderings

By: Ron Rapatalo
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Summary

 In RONderings, Ron talks to his guests about their superpowers, including career advice, diversity, mindset, wellness, and leadership. Ron grew up in New York City, and has been coaching and leading executive searches for the last five years, taking what he has learned from 15 years in corporate, higher education, government, and non-profit contexts. He and his wife are obsessed with reality television, and Ron also moonlights as a men's personal stylist and group fitness instructor. Ron says, "I believe in the power of intuition and deepening one’s self-awareness and impact on others. I believe in the power of connection and transparency. I believe that we must dismantle systems of oppression and racism to recover our fullest humanity. Most of all, I believe our power to change the world starts from changing ourselves first."© 2023-2025 Ron Rapatalo Career Success Economics Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Community Is Medicine: Healing Schools Project, Trust, and the Three Questions That Change Everything with Wenimo Okoya

    Community Is Medicine: Healing Schools Project, Trust, and the Three Questions That Change Everything with Wenimo Okoya
    May 13 2026
    In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Wenimo Okoya, educator, public health scholar, and founder of Healing Schools Project, for a conversation about why community itself is medicine and why the adults carrying the most trauma are the ones being asked to deliver wellness frameworks for kids.Wenimo's path runs from a Newark classroom (where she lost her job in the Christie-era budget cuts that brought the Zuckerberg money in) to a Master's of Public Health and doctorate at Columbia, to the Children's Health Fund, to the JED Foundation, and now to leading Healing Schools Project, a nonprofit born out of pandemic-era healing circles for educators of color.She introduces herself the way her colleagues at GirlTREK do, by her matrilineal lineage. She is Wenimo, the daughter of Grace, the daughter of Estolita, the daughter of Maude. The thread of women, entrepreneurship, and Caribbean healing wisdom runs through everything she builds.The conversation lands on a simple frame Wenimo brings into every circle she holds: three questions. How are you arriving? What do you need? What do you have the capacity to give? Ron calls it the simplest leadership tool listeners will hear all year. The back half of the episode unpacks why connection has been overcomplicated and why trust is the metric organizations refuse to measure even though they could.Tune in to hear why connection doesn't require innovation and why community is the public health intervention we keep walking past.Chapters:📚 01:23 Publish your book at www.leveragepublishinggroup.com🌍 02:35 Meet Wenimo Okoya: Newark teacher, public health scholar, founder of Healing Schools Project👵 03:32 Daughter of Grace, daughter of Estolita, daughter of Maude: introducing yourself by lineage🏫 05:40 Teaching in Newark during the Christie cuts and the Zuckerberg money🎓 08:11 Columbia, Carolyn Belell, and integrating public health and education when no one else was🦠 13:00 Pandemic healing circles, the JED Foundation, and how Healing Schools Project was born✍️ 15:14 Find support for writing your impact-driven book at www.booksthatmatter.org🧪 21:13 Peppermint in the backyard: Caribbean healing wisdom and what immigrants kept🪑 23:11 The three questions that beat any icebreaker🌟 32:03 If you are a leader or changemaker looking for support, check out www.geniusdiscovery.org📊 36:55 Trust is the metric organizations refuse to measure🏛️ 40:28 Why funders won't pay for what's in the middle💊 43:23 Wenimo's Rondering: micro-shifts beat massive change🎧 48:23 Want a podcast just like this one? Check out www.podcastsmatter.comLinks:Website: https://healingschoolsproject.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/healing-schools-project Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healingschools Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healingschoolsprojectConnect with Dr. Wenimo Okoya and the Healing Schools Project team to learn more about their work bringing healing-centered practices and educator well-being into schools across the country.Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloCheck Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.comPublish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.orgStart a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.comGo from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.orgFor more great podcasts like this one, visit: https://podcaststhatmatter.org
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    50 mins
  • Safe Rooms for Leaders: Revenue, Emotional Regulation, and the Business You're Growing Into with Amirah Raveneau-Bey

    Safe Rooms for Leaders: Revenue, Emotional Regulation, and the Business You're Growing Into with Amirah Raveneau-Bey
    May 6 2026

    Revenue strategist and third-generation entrepreneur Amirah Raveneau-Bey has spent 25 years inside Citibank, Zillow, Trulia, NerdWallet, and Opendoor. The truth she keeps coming back to: you cannot scale a business you are not personally growing into.

    In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Amirah, founder of Grow Scale Develop, to talk about why what looks like a revenue problem is almost always a leadership problem.

    Amirah traces the entrepreneurial line that runs through her family. Her grandparents built a business on Long Island. Her father became a Broadway drummer who turned arts education into a calling when New York public schools started cutting music. She thought she wanted a nine to five and went to Citibank, where her boss told her to stay in the box. Tech said the opposite, so she built what wasn't there. It made her discover something she could never go back from. Leadership is 10% strategy and 90% emotional regulation.

    Ron and Amirah dig into why every sales problem is really a trust problem, why bosses who cannot regulate themselves are the bosses people quit, and how Amirah talks to her clients about rest. Rest is not a reward. It is a requirement for the level of leadership we are asking people to step into. And she lands on a Rondering that stops Ron mid-conversation. Every strong leader needs a space where they do not have to be strong. Coaching and mentorship are not luxuries. They are protection.

    Tune in to hear what 25 years across finance and tech taught Amirah about scaling a business while scaling the leader inside it.


    Chapters:
    🌱 00:36 Meet Amirah Raveneau-Bey: third-generation entrepreneur and revenue strategist
    📚 01:50 Publish your book at www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
    🎶 03:44 Nineties R&B, Jodeci, and the music that shapes who we become
    🏝️ 07:17 Long Island grandparents, a Broadway drummer father, and the entrepreneurial line she could not outrun
    💡 10:19 Saying no to entrepreneurship and getting in trouble at Citibank for thinking too creatively
    🚀 13:28 What tech taught her that a big bank could not: build the thing that is not there yet
    ✍️ 18:46 Find support for writing your impact-driven book at www.booksthatmatter.org
    🤝 19:20 Why every revenue problem is really a leadership problem in disguise
    👋 23:33 People do not quit jobs, they quit bosses who cannot regulate
    🧠 26:48 Autonomy is the leadership move most leaders skip
    🪞 35:22 Who you were as a leader five years ago is not who you need to be today
    🌟 37:29 If you are a leader or a changemaker looking for support, check out www.geniusdiscovery.org
    😴 43:19 Rest is not a reward: it is a requirement for the leadership we are asking people to step into
    🛋️ 49:38 Every strong leader needs a space where they do not have to be strong
    🎧 56:35 Want a podcast just like this one? Check out www.podcastsmatter.com


    Links:

    Website: https://www.growscaledevelop.com

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirahraveneaubey

    Substack: https://amirah.substack.com

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grow.scale.develop

    Connect with Amirah on LinkedIn or visit Grow Scale Develop to follow her work helping founders and executives turn revenue problems into leadership breakthroughs.


    Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo

    Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473

    Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com

    Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org

    Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com

    Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    For more great podcasts like this one, visit: https://podcaststhatmatter.org
    Show More Show Less
    58 mins
  • Leading Without Hardening: Identity, Neurodivergence, and Education Leadership with Jameelah Stuckey

    Leading Without Hardening: Identity, Neurodivergence, and Education Leadership with Jameelah Stuckey
    Apr 29 2026

    Education leader Jameelah Stuckey has built a career across finance, classroom teaching, school founding, and national education research, and she did it without losing the softness her father told her to protect.

    In this episode of Ronderings, Ron sits down with Jameelah, senior manager at TNTP and education chair of the Greater Tulsa Area African American Affairs Commission, to talk about identity, neurodivergence, advocacy, and what it actually takes to lead without hardening.

    Jameelah grew up in South Central LA, the ninth of ten siblings, raised between mosque and church by three parents who each taught her something different about how to move through the world. She started in finance, working her way up from a high school teller program at Washington Mutual to Bank of America to a stint at the White House during the Obama administration. That ended when she was sent home for two days for being too passionate about the people the policy was supposed to serve. The redirect pointed straight at education.

    She taught, became a founding principal of a non-traditional high school in Compton, and eventually landed in Tulsa, a city she describes as small enough to dream and implement in the same week. Now she serves nationally through TNTP while leading community work across Tulsa Young Professionals, the Tulsa Area United Way, and a few other tables in town.

    Ron and Jameelah get into the difference between assertion and aggression, how neurodivergence shaped the way she works and leads, and why her father's line, the same people you see going up you will see coming down, has carried her across every sector she has worked in.

    Tune in to hear why becoming who you are meant to be does not have to mean losing your softness along the way.


    Chapters:

    📚 01:40 Publish your book at www.leveragepublishinggroup.com

    🌴 02:30 Meet Jameelah Stuckey: South Central, TNTP, and the Ed homie connection

    🕌 04:03 Mosque, church, and three parents: an early lesson in inclusion

    🤝 11:33 The leadership ethic her father taught her: respect, assertion, and never the big I or little U

    💵 13:39 From Washington Mutual teller to Bank of America: a finance career that started in eighth grade

    🏛️ 16:38 Sent home from the White House for being too passionate

    🏫 19:02 How a substitute gig in Compton turned into founding a school

    ✍️ 20:22 Find support for writing your impact-driven book at www.booksthatmatter.org

    🎓 21:03 Building a non-traditional high school for non-traditional students

    🌆 24:18 Why Tulsa is the place where dreams actually get implemented

    🏘️ 27:13 Black Wall Street, social capital, and what makes Tulsa different

    🌊 33:33 Be like water: the leadership ethic that meets the moment

    🧠 35:36 Why neurodivergence works better in remote, autonomous environments

    🤖 43:04 How AI became a real accommodation tool for ADHD leaders

    🌟 43:56 If you are a leader or a changemaker looking for support, check out www.geniusdiscovery.org

    😊 47:02 Where Jameelah finds joy: progress, new things, and a purple suede coat

    🔁 48:43 Think, believe, release, receive: the mantra she lives by

    🎧 59:52 Want a podcast just like this one? Check out www.podcastsmatter.com


    Links:

    LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jameelah-stuckey-mba
    TNTP: tntp.org
    African American Leadership Academy: aalatulsa.org

    Connect with Jameelah on LinkedIn to learn more about her work in education, leadership, and community impact across Tulsa and beyond.


    Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapatalo
    Check Out Ron's Book: www.amazon.com/dp/1613431473

    Leverage Publishing Group: www.leveragepublishinggroup.com
    Publish a Book That Matters: http://booksthatmatter.org
    Start a Podcast That Matters: http://podcastsmatter.com
    Go from Expert to Thought Leader: http://geniusdiscovery.org

    Show More Show Less
    53 mins
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