Raising Our Gifted Children with Sara Troy and her guest Dr. Shemmassian: on air from May 11th
For nearly 20 years, our group of super smart admissions nerds has helped thousands of students get accepted to America’s top colleges, medical schools, and law schools at unprecedented rates using my exclusive approach.
Now, we’d love to do whatever it takes to help you achieve your educational and career goals.
Dr. Shemmassian is the Founder of Shemmassian Academic Consulting and one of the world’s foremost experts on medical school admissions, college admissions, and graduate school admissions. For nearly 20 years, he and his team have helped thousands of students get into medical school and top colleges using his systematic and proprietary approach.
Dr. Shemmassian received his B.S. in Human Development from Cornell University. Despite graduating with a 3.9 GPA as a pre-med student, Dr Shemmassian’s interests in mental health led him to complete his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at UCLA. Throughout his education and beyond, Dr. Shemmassian successfully guided students into top colleges, medical schools, and graduate programs, and has found his professional calling in helping others achieve their educational and career goals. Dr. Shemmassian’s admissions expertise has been featured in various media outlets, including The Washington Post and Business Insider. Moreover, he has been invited to speak at Yale, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and other prestigious institutions about various aspects of the admissions process.
Expert: Dr. Shirag Shemmassian, CEO of Academic Consulting
Choose Positive Living with Sara Troy and her guest Jacquelyn M Vasquez, on ait from May 10th
Finding true love for self through affirmations. Affirming one’s greatness is the first step to being your most amazing self daily. When we operate from a point of going after what it is we want we start in the mirror with a conversation with self.
Heyyyyyyy! My name is Jacqui Vasquez. I’m so grateful for each and everyone of you that are reading this. Growing up I never really felt like I fit in and I lost friends quickly and often. I started to fill the loss of friend with boyfriends. I was looking to feel whole, dare I say it, complete. This lead me down a dark road where I was looking for validation in others. I suffered from imposter syndrome so bad I felt like a fraud even in my own home.
In January 2008, I made a decision that changed my life. I decided to love myself unconditionally. And that’s where my love story begins. It started with me dancing in the mirror, to me dancing in the mirror naked (you should try it, it’s liberating), to me speaking to myself in the mirror. The tools I learned to love myself continuously grows over time. From that moment on I learned about my power of manifestation. I have manifested promotions on my job, apartments I wanted, and vacations I have attended. I even manifested my attendance on TV show The Price Is Right, where I won $20,000 and got to spin the wheel.
Jacquelyn is an Author, motivational speaker, and a soul-aligned success coach that helps driven moms find their passion and turn it into a profitable business so they can become their own BOSS. She is your happiness coach who is passionate about all things positivity, passion, and purpose.
Choose Positive Living with Sara Troy and her guest Laila Tarraf, on air from May 11th
Laila Tarraf, author of Strong Like Water: How I Found the Courage to Lead with Love in Business and in Life. As women increasingly claim leadership roles in business and politics, and at a time in our nation when people are seeking authentic leaders, Laila Tarraf offers insights and inspiration for finding a natural balance and leading as a whole person—with compassion and courage, intellect and empathy. To be a successful leader, a woman needs to be tough—for years, that’s what Laila Tarraf believed. She prized her ability to be strong, firm, and impassive, like her hardline immigrant father. Her strength became her power, and, for a while, it served her well in her business life. It enabled her to go toe-to-toe with powerful male leaders and excel in a career that took her from a recruiter for the internet division of Wal-Mart to Chief People Officer for Peet’s Coffee & Tea, the company that launched the craft coffee movement in America. But always being in control and never letting herself be vulnerable bled over into her personal life with disastrous results.
In Strong Like Water: How I Found the Courage to Lead with Love in Business and in Life, Laila Tarraf shares her journey of awakening and profound transformation as a leader, a mother, and a woman. For much of her career, Laila, like many women, struggled to balance courage and compassion, intensity and flexibility, being respected and being likable. It took a series of three crushing losses for Laila to finally unlock decades of buried emotions and integrate the parts of herself that make her both strong and soft. As she attests: “I have come to see that true power comes from connecting your head to your heart.”
As the eldest of three children, Laila took on the dual role of mediator between her two warring parents and her mother’s comforter. At age seven, when her family left Lebanon for Las Vegas, her responsibilities expanded to serving as a bridge between two cultures and two languages. Her childhood training made her a natural for a career at the intersection of business and people: human resources. After seven years at Walmart.com, she landed a plum executive position with Peet’s in the San Francisco Bay Area. She thrived at work. She had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances. Yet, intimacy eluded her. After two failed relationships, she fell into marrying Daniel, an attractive and seemingly carefree younger man. Despite the gift of a daughter, Nadia, her brief marriage was troubled and ended tragically—with Daniel’s death from a drug overdose.
In Strong Like Water, Laila recounts her shock—first over the loss of her husband, then at her parents’ lack of response. Struck with the fact that her cold, hard father and needy, helpless mother were both incapable of giving her emotional support, Laila was overwhelmed with grief. As she grappled with Daniel’s death and then faced two more tragedies, she knew it was time to seek out professional help for herself.
LAILA TARRAF is a senior human resource executive with over 25 years of professional experience. After graduating with her MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, she became one of the founding team members at Walmart.com. She then served as Chief People Officer at Peet’s Coffee and Tea, an iconic Bay Area premium coffee company. Currently, Laila is the Chief People Officer at AllBirds, a trusted advisor to entrepreneurs and investors, and a regular guest lecturer at Berkeley Law School. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her daughter, Nadia.
Mental Health Awareness with Sara Troy and her guest Cindy Shaw, on air from May 11th
Cindy Shaw is the founder of the Better Brain Academy. As a brain health coach and mental performance trainer, she helps people improve their lives by blending leading-edge neuroscience, brain health, and self-improvement strategies that help individuals naturally overcome mental health disorders, supercharge their energy and focus, and optimize their well-being.
My story: For years I suffered from debilitating brain fog, insomnia, anxiety, and depression. As well, my youngest daughter suffered from anxiety and ADHD, leading me to fear for her mental well-being. As someone who taught mindset strategies for years, nothing I knew worked for myself or my daughter, which led to my exploration of the brain’s health and how it impacts how we think, feel, act and interact with others. This led me to create The Better Brain Academy which combines brain health principles with mindset coaching.
Their Story Matters with Sara Troy and her guest Andrew Gruel. on air from May 11th
Andrew Gruel, is an American chef and television personality, who appeared as a judge on Food Network’s Food Truck Face Off and is the founder, CEO, and executive chef of Slapfish, a seafood restaurant franchise based out of Huntington Beach, California.
THE 86 RESTAURANT STRUGGLE: A Fund Helping Struggling And Out Of Work Restaurant Workers Restaurants in the U.S. are in an “economic free fall” amid the ongoing spike in coronavirus cases and the forced shutdowns, with almost 20% of dining establishments around the country haveclosed permanently since the start of the pandemic. This has left thousands of restaurant workers struggling to survive, many unable to pay even the most basic bills and put food on the table. In the absence of any substantial government relief and gridlock in state unemployment agencies, it is incumbent on us within the community to help one another. All of the funds raised will be redistributed directly to restaurant workers, via checks and electronic platforms, who have either lost their job or are in need of a small leg-up to cover rent payments, medical bills, childcare, or any other day-to-day help. A backend admin team of volunteers will double-check and confirm references, previous employers, and more to ensure the process is honest and transparent.
Chef Gruel | Seafood Guru – Sandwich Junkie – Restaurateur Andrew Gruel, a summa cum-laude graduate of Johnson & Wales University, is currently the Founder and Executive Chef of Slapfish Restaurant, the award-winning food truck turned international brick and mortar, based out of Huntington Beach, CA. Chef Gruel has taken Slapfish (bootstrapped!) from 2 food trucks to 10+ restaurant locations in just over 3 years. Chef Andrew Gruel has appeared on multiple Food Network shows including his most recent role as a Judge on the show Food Truck Face Off. Gruel has also been on “TODAY Show”, PBS, Cooking Channel, as well as in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Health, Food & Wine Magazine, Entrepreneur, and Restaurant Business. In 2013 he was named the top 40 under 40 entrepreneurs in Orange County. He is currently the host of a new restaurant makeover show set to air in spring 2015 on a major network.
How he got here: After years of working in fine dining restaurants, hotels, and diners — ranging from The Ritz Carlton to the midnight shift at Denny’s — Chef Gruel’s love of the ocean drove him to direct a non-profit project at The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA called “Seafood for the Future”. Here he worked with hundreds of chefs, fishermen, and like-minded organizations establishing a national culinary awareness for the sustainable seafood movement. Andrew is admittedly addicted to the fast pace of the restaurant world and translates that into his business approach to be very hands-on whenever possible. His next project is to establish a monthly changing restaurant space that gives aspiring chef-entrepreneurs a chance to “beta-test” their concept without spending thousands of dollars.
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