Must-Listen ThinkingCAAP Episodes: Confidence, Team Growth & Leading with Purpose
In this special end-of-year episode, Beck Moore pauses to reflect on the journey of the Thinking CAAP Podcast so far. Instead of a new guest conversation, Beck offers a personal recap of the episodes that have shaped him most as a CEO, colleague, and advocate for community action. From lessons in leadership and vulnerability to moments of growth and unscripted connection, this episode is a heartfelt tribute to the power of dialogue and the stories that define our work.
Whether you're brand new to the podcast or a longtime listener, you'll walk away with a few episodes to revisit and a renewed appreciation for the people moving Community Action forward in Pennsylvania and beyond.
Episodes highlighted include:
Ep 17: Erika Carpin & Georgia Del Freo - Managing Up: Strategies for Leading from Any Role
Ep 19: Amanda Hoprich & Ashley Bulley - Blueprint for Better Teams: Safety, Trust, and Team Wins
Ep 22: Rachelle Abbott & Meghan McBryan - Fixing What’s Broken: The Program Changing Childcare in Pennsylvania
Ep 23: Dr. Vanessa Shannon - Surf the Waves: How to Master Imposter Syndrome
Ep 25: Hattie McCarter - Navigating Leadership with Hattie McCarter: Heart-Forward and High-Performing
Thinking CAAP Episode 27 Highlights
[00:00] - Introduction and Podcast Host’s Reflections on Leadership Growth
Beck Moore introduces the episode, sharing personal reflections on leadership growth and the meaningful impact of past podcast conversations on their work and development as a CEO in community action.
[01:00] - Blueprint for Better Teams: Building Safety, Trust, and Effective Leadership
Beck highlights the episode with Amanda and Ashley about creating strong teams through safety, trust, and intentional leadership, emphasizing the importance of growth and purposeful leadership in nonprofit management.
[02:30] - Overcoming Imposter Syndrome: Insights from Dr. Vanessa Shannon
Beck discusses the impactful episode with Dr. Vanessa Shannon on imposter syndrome, sharing how self-doubt affects leaders and the powerful concept that confidence is mastering doubt, not its absence.
[04:30] - Leadership Conversations: Managing Up and Authentic Dialogue with Team Members
Beck reflects on episodes with team members Georgia, Erica, and Hattie McCarter, highlighting leadership growth, managing up, and the value of unscripted, genuine conversations about workplace culture.
[06:50] - Community Action Impact and How to Engage with the Thinking Cap Podcast
Beck encourages listeners to explore episodes that spotlight community action’s impact, shares contact info for feedback, and invites new listeners to subscribe and engage with future podcast content.
Episode 27 Transcript
[00:00]
What's up, everybody? I'm Beck Moore, CEO of Community Action Association of Pennsylvania and your host of the Thinking CAAP podcast. Now, full transparency. Want to make sure to say we don't have a brand new episode for you today, but I didn't really want to let the month go by without jumping in and saying hello and sharing a couple things that are meaningful to me. As we sort of close out this year and about to start the new year, one of my favorite parts of hosting this podcast is really getting the opportunity to revisit conversations that have continued to shape the work that we do in community.
[00:32]
And I honestly think sometimes shaping me as well. And hopefully those of you who are listening, every one of the conversations that I've had on the Thinking CAAP has really inspired me in so many different ways. And today I want to highlight a couple of those past episodes that you might enjoy, especially if you're newer to the Thinking CAAP community or maybe you just need a little inspiration in your day.
So without further ado, the first episode that I want to highlight is the one that is titled Blueprint for Better Teams: Safety, Trust and Team Wins. To me, it was really one of the most meaningful episodes as a person, as a CEO, and as I say a lot in my upfront contracts conversation when I present on workplace culture.
[01:14]
You know, I've made all the mistakes in my career as a manager, as a leader, as someone in the nonprofit world, and, well, maybe not all the mistakes, but a few. And so this last year has really tested me in all sorts of ways and I've reflected a lot on my growth and where I still need to grow, where I am still growing. And in the discussion with Amanda and Ashley—Amanda, who is a former colleague of mine, happens to be a sometimes host on the Thinking CAAP, and Ashley, who is now my wife—but all of us work together in some capacity in different organizations.
And I think that conversation really reminded me about why growth matters and reminded me to lead with purpose and that I think leadership a lot of times, right, it's the big things, the little things—the little things in particular—they leave big influences and impact people in big ways later on in their careers that we may not even recognize. And loved listening back to that episode in particular because it just showcased that for me.
[02:33]
The other episode that I really want to highlight for our listeners and those folks who are new maybe to the Thinking CAAP is the episode with Dr. Vanessa Shannon around imposter syndrome. And that episode really struck a chord with me as a leader because it's something that I've struggled with my entire career and still continue to struggle with.
And I think there's little pieces of that conversation that have been running around in my mind, particularly when I find myself in situations where I'm speaking or having to make decisions, or in scenarios where I've just not experienced that thing before. And I think for me, the new things are often the most anxiety-driving things. They're very exciting, but they also drive anxiety, right? And that imposter syndrome—for me, that's when it starts to creep up.
[03:09]
And the quote that I've had running in my mind ever since that episode is the quote around “Confidence is not the absence of doubt, it's the mastery of it.” And I just cannot stop thinking about that quote. And so as I continue, quite literally on a month-to-month basis, find myself in these situations where there's something that's new, I've not done it before—again, that lack of confidence, that imposter syndrome has started to creep up a little bit. And I'm somebody who finds themselves on a stage a lot. And people often say, “You know, Beck, you just seem so confident on stage.”
[03:48]
And I tell them I don't care how confident I look. It's—there's always this piece of me who is doubting, right, what's going on and what I'm saying and why is anybody listening to me? And so that episode just reminds me, right, that as I share all the time, all of us have kind of that self-doubt. And so if you haven't listened to that episode, would encourage you to listen to it because there's a lot of just really good tidbits in there about how to ground yourself. And can't say enough good about Dr. Vanessa Shannon and the discussion that we had.
[04:19]
And hopefully we'll have her back on the podcast soon. And then the other two episodes that I want to highlight are episodes that I love for similar reasons within those two episodes. And one of them is with some of my team members, Georgia and Erica. And it's the episode on Managing Up. And I love that episode because it was just—it was fun to listen back to.
[04:43]
It was a fun episode to make. It was something that was a little bit out of the team's comfort zone. But I just—I’ve listened back to it a couple times and I smile every time I listen to it. And I think it reminds me of just the growth of our leadership team over the course of this last year. And then the other episode, the last episode that I really want to highlight is the episode with Hattie McCarter on navigating leadership.
[05:08]
And I think mainly that is one of my favorite episodes because it's really one of the only episodes that we did and we had quite literally no script. We had no predetermined questions that we were going to go through. The whole point of the Thinking CAAP is really to just have a conversation, right?
[05:24]
And we go in with some very specific questions that we want to ask our guests because we don't want to forget, right? We want to make sure that our guests are comfortable, and we try to format it in a way that's a conversation. But sometimes I can appreciate that it might seem a little more scripted. One episode might seem a little bit more scripted than another. The episode with Hattie—I had sent her a message right before the episode and said, “Hey, I'd really just like to kind of riff off each other and see where we go.”
[05:51]
“Here are some topics maybe I want to get to, but ultimately, right, let's just have a discussion.” And she was comfortable with that, thank goodness. And so I think it's really an episode where it was a conversation among friends around hard topics, and it was just really authentically us, and we just vibed, right? And we talked about the things that we love to talk about. And so I hope if you haven't listened to that episode, you can feel—If you do, I hope you can feel our friendship and get some insight on workplace culture and truly, truly why that topic matters.
[06:27]
So that's a little bit of some of the recaps on some of the episodes that I know that I loved making, loved listening back to in. If you haven't listened to them, I hope you do. And if you've never listened to an episode before, I would recommend starting with the episode on Fixing What's Broken: The Program Changing Childcare in PA. That episode's with Rachelle Abbott, the president and CEO of STEP, and Megan McBrien, one of her team members. And I think that episode really captures the heart of what we're trying to do here on the Thinking CAAP, which is to elevate stories, to share strategies, shine a light on some amazing best practices, and also shine a light on the people who are really, truly making community action what it is and making a difference in their local community.
[07:17]
We'll make sure to link these episodes in the show notes so you can find them easily. And if you find one that sparks something new for you—something you didn't know—and just maybe something that really emphasized something for you, right? For whatever reason—I’d love to hear about it. You can find me always—Beck Moore on LinkedIn, or you can send an email to info@thecaap.org (that's info@t-h-e-c-a-a-p.org) and let me know what you think.
[07:49]
We're always looking for feedback from our guests. We don't get it very often, so we'd love to hear what you like, what you don't like, a suggestion about an episode or just, “Right. This really resonated with me, Beck.” So I hope this short highlight reel of the Thinking CAAP episodes from this past year encourages you to subscribe, download some episodes, catch up on any that you may have missed, and come back next month where we'll have some brand new conversations lined up for you.
[08:12]
As always, thank you for listening, thank you for putting on your Thinking CAAP, and thank you for being part of this community. CAAP out.
[08:23]
Thank you for being a part of this episode of the Thinking CAAP. Check the show notes for resources and links to other episodes, and don't forget to subscribe and follow to be notified when new episodes are released. If you have any Community Action questions you'd like Beck or one of our local experts to answer in a future episode, please email your questions about Community Action to info@thecaap.org.
If you have any Community Action questions you’d like Beck or one of our local experts to answer in a future episode, please email your questions about Community Action to info@thecaap.org — subject line: Thinking CAAP.