WisdomExchange (WE!)
A "by us, for us" collective for Optionality Premium members
The Optionality WisdomExchange or WE! program is a benefit of Optionality Premium membership. All Premium members get access to a cohort of wise fellow Premium members (aka Sages) who are offering digestible, practical topics designed to help you upskill, upgrade, and level up…all at an exclusive, heavily discounted rate available only to Optionality. Learn more here.
Annual Premium members also receive a voucher for one complimentary WisdomExchange session per year.
Meet some of our inaugural sages:
Betsy Tong: Let AI Unlock Your Superpowers
Offering: Ready to revolutionize your business and achieve extraordinary success? Betsy Tong can guide you, and her AI Strategy Session will kickstart your journey by helping you uncover how AI can propel your business forward. From developing a personalized ChatGPT 'army' to streamline operations and ignite creativity to learning how to build and deploy AI solutions tailored to your specific goals, with Betsy’s guidance, you’ll identify the top AI techniques to stay ahead in the digital age.
Bio: Betsy specializes in making AI accessible and practical, driving business growth for industry leaders like Intel, Symantec, and Lenovo. She has built businesses reaching hundreds of millions in revenue and helped companies adopt Agile and other new approaches to work. As one example, Betsy just wrote a book in 72 hours leveraging AI+her brain as a digital factory, which enabled her to move from idea to page in record time.
Bree Diaz Porter: Personal vs. Professional Instagram: Which is right for you?
Offering: Review the difference between a personal IG vs a Business Professional IG, the benefits and different analytics available for each, and how to use them best to get the most engagement.
Bio: Bree Diaz Porter is Optionality’s community manager and has served similar functions focused on member success for the past several years. Her true passion lies in fostering human connections and facilitating personal growth. Bree thrives on the challenge of tackling the unknown, embracing every opportunity to learn and mastering new skills. The journey of continuous learning is not just a pursuit—it's a way of life.
Britt Bravo: Big Vision Coaching
Offering: Are you at a career, project, or book crossroads and not sure what direction to go? Our one-hour call will help you feel focused, organized, and grounded so you can move toward your Big Vision. You’ll walk away with 3-5 concrete, manageable action steps you’re excited to implement.
Bio: Britt Bravo is a Big Vision coach, copywriter, editor, and content creator. She has helped hundreds of creatives and changemakers bring their unique big visions into the world through a coaching process that produces manageable, inspired action plans.
Elisa Camahort Page: Create a Keynote That Kills
Offering: Use this 60-minute session to start creating your compelling keynote talk or to refine the narrative arc of a talk you’ve been working on. A frequent keynote speaker herself, Elisa also programmed and coached the keynote stage at BlogHer Conferences for a dozen years.
Bio: Elisa Camahort Page is the co-founder of Optionality and was previously the co-founder and COO of BlogHer, Inc. She has been a serial entrepreneur, trusted advisor, and strategic consultant who launches and scales businesses, products, and authentic user communities and initiatives. A frequent public speaker, LinkedIn Learning course instructor, and freelance writer, Elisa also writes the This Week-ish newsletter and is the co-author of Road Map for Revolutionaries: Resistance, Activism, and Advocacy for All (2018).
Grace Hwang Lynch: What’s Your Story?
Offering: Everyone has a story to tell, sometimes so many tales it can be overwhelming. But in reality, many of our narratives –whether it be about ourselves, our companies, our projects—really come down to variations of a few basic arcs. This one-hour coaching session is designed to help you identify which core story works as a framework for your purposes. Before the session, you’ll receive a one-sheet of suggestions to review and during the meeting, you will talk through your top choices to narrow down how to frame your personal narrative. If you’d like to schedule follow-up sessions, you’ll work to apply that story arc to other channels, such as your professional bio, social media, etc.
Bio: Grace Hwang Lynch is a storyteller and consultant, with broad experience in journalism, editing, and organizational communications. Her reporting has been on NPR, Public Radio International, NBC Asian America and other outlets. As a communications consultant, she helps nonprofits and small businesses find and articulate their mission, values, and aspirations across various platforms. In her creative writing life, Grace has been published in Tin House, Catapult, Brevity Magazine, and recently in the anthology Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World (Woodhall Press). She believes that curiosity and listening are the first steps to telling a good story.
Joanna Bloor: Borrow My Brain
Offering: It's your future, you choose: Want to have a chat about your potential? Or the potential of an idea you have? Need to brainstorm on the probable, possible, or preferable futures? This session is about choosing the right future for you. If you've got an idea or plan that you think is brilliant but you need to get others from "I don't get it" to "Oh, that's cool!" - this is the conversation we should have. Let's talk about creating intrigue. This is a session about the stories in other people's heads about you and your idea. You need this one if you want to help them tell a different story than the one they have today. Or do you need the Fairy Godmother version of Joanna? Do you feel like there's a "ball" in your future and something is between you and the party you want to get to? Focus on building the right "invitation" strategy for you. Joanna can't promise magic but can promise a no-bullshit conversation about your future. And it's YOUR actions after that conversation that will create the magic of the future you.
Bio: Joanna Bloor is a Potentialist who has transformed thousands of lives worldwide. A former Silicon Valley executive, TED speaker, and trusted advisor to leaders worldwide, she’s been described as a “glittering buzzsaw that cuts through all the workplace BS.” Instead of platitudes and possibilities, Joanna rolls up her sleeves and jumps in with future-focused leadership to create experiences that bring their teams into the future.
Jory Des Jardins: Fractional Exec Go-to-Market Strategy
Offering: Are you an executive in transition and wondering if you want to embark on a fractional practice or look for another full-time role? Or maybe you are a fractional executive and want to improve your day-to-day management of an existing client to make your role more manageable. Jory can help you think through any number of relevant topics, including 1. Finding clients 2. Building awareness in your target market 3. Structuring work and contracts (from a business perspective…not meant to replace legal advice!) 4. Managing a project portfolio 5. Sustaining a practice in good times and less good times.
Bio: Jory Des Jardins is a fractional executive, board member, and angel investor who has advised dozens of startups in go-to-market, scale, and exit stages. She was co-founder and President of BlogHer, Inc., serving as the organization’s evangelist of social marketing to brands and agencies. She has advised emerging marketplaces, B2B SaaS, B2B2C platforms, and emerging tech teams in VR/AR/MR, privacy tech, AI and Web 3.
Kathleen Warner: Just in Time Consulting
Offering: As a successful, cross-functional, cross-sector, non-linear leader, Kathleen blends curiosity, creativity, and connectivity to help you work through a strategic decision of any kind. Whether you are looking to make a career move, dealing with a challenging team member or strategic partner, or launching a big, entrepreneurial venture, Kathleen will work with you to unearth the right set of questions to ask yourself, the possible -- and often non-linear -- paths to consider, and the resources to explore to move you forward.
Bio: Kathleen Warner is a mission-driven, entrepreneurial leader who clears paths, cultivates relationships, and aligns resources so that big ideas take root and grow. In recent years, Kathleen has advised leaders, teams, and organizations across multiple sectors and industries. Prior to her current work, Kathleen led a 65-person team at the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)’s Center for Urban Innovation, was Founding Chief Operating Officer of the Startup America Partnership, and led Emerging Strategies and Ventures at the American Heart Association and has been an Entrepreneur-In-Residence at a number of companies, including Techstars and GE.
Maria Ross: Brand Booster Session
Offering: Got a big idea for a new business, book, or offering, but you need a sounding board to clarify your vision, brainstorm killer names, or simply figure out the first step? Has your brand or business lost a bit of its shine, and you’re not sure why? Need help positioning your offerings better or making smarter marketing decisions – but you’re totally overwhelmed at where to start tweaking? Or do you simply want to get a tough love sanity check? You could keep spinning your wheels inside your own head, feeling frustrated, overwhelmed– and getting nowhere. Or you could kick-start your ideas into action. Hash out ideas, get clarity, brainstorm creative themes, and focus on the most immediate next steps you need to make your dream a reality.
Bio: Maria Ross is a speaker, facilitator, author, brand strategist, and empathy advocate who believes cash flow, creativity, and compassion are not mutually exclusive. She’s spent decades helping forward-thinking leaders and teams connect and engage through empathy to accelerate growth and impact. Maria has authored multiple books, including her newest coming this fall, The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries, a sequel to her previous book, The Empathy Edge. She also hosts The Empathy Edge podcast. Her work has appeared in publications including Entrepreneur.com, Newsweek, and Huffington Post.
Melissa Ford: Understand Facebook/Instagram Advertising
Offering: Understand how Facebook or Instagram ads work and whether these two affordable options are the best marketing channel for one of your initiatives or products (or whether LinkedIn or Google ads would be a better fit — and how those sites work). Learn how to reach the correct audience and what to know when designing the ad.
Bio: Melissa Ford is a social media amplifier, content creator, strategist, storyteller, and idea pollinator with 17 years of experience in online writing, data, and digital ad design. She uses a blend of predictive analytics, social listening, marketing tactics, and algorithm watching to optimize web content, social copy, and ads with an eye toward budget efficiency, working primarily in the nonprofit space. Her goal is to get people sold on new ideas.
Rachael Ellison: The SHIFT Session
Offering: 60-minute targeted coaching session focused on a specific leadership challenge or workplace goal. Includes a pre-session assessment to maximize the impact of the session.
Bio: Rachael has been coaching and consulting for nearly two decades and has worked with clients across a range of sectors. Her approach is a blend of theory, research, and practical experience as a tech founder and as a coach focused on helping leaders enhance their self-awareness and adaptability. A big part of Rachael’s work is helping leaders transition from reactive to creative thinking, which is where her SHIFT framework (Security, Horizon, Impact, Fluidity, and Ties) comes in. It's designed to equip leaders with the tools they need to navigate the ups and downs of the modern workplace. Rachael’s goal is to help leaders make a lasting impact in a world where change is the only constant.
Susan Mernit: Putting AI to work for your work
Offering: Build skills with AI to give yourself a time-saving, competitive advantage in your work. Automating routine tasks and planning higher-level strategic work can both be improved by using Generative AI. Learn more about how to put this new technology to work for you.
Bio: Susan Mernit is an innovative nonprofit development consultant with a deep understanding of technology's potential to drive social change. Over her 20 years of leadership experience, Susan has combined tech expertise with a profound commitment to community service. Susan has founded two impactful nonprofits and provided invaluable strategic planning, fundraising, and operational advice to many more. Susan has recently focused on integrating AI technologies into nonprofit strategies. This endeavor aims to enhance organizational efficiencies and communication capacities, ensuring nonprofits can better serve their communities amid rapidly changing digital landscapes.