12 Steps to Success: Navigating change, uncertainty, and what comes next
Eric Mackay
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About This Podcast
What happens when the old definitions of success stop working?
12 Steps to Success is a long-form podcast about identity, purpose, burnout, and the messy, uncertain middle of building a life and career. It explores moments of transition, pressure, reinvention, and recovery, especially when clarity disappears and familiar paths no longer fit.
Hosted by Eric Mackay, a senior music industry executive, founder, author, and recovering perfectionist, the show sits between success stories and self-help. These are not highlight reels or tidy frameworks. They are honest conversations with artists, founders, executives, creatives, and operators who have built things, lost things, walked away from roles that looked perfect on paper, and had to rethink who they were along the way.
Each episode examines themes including identity, leadership, burnout, sobriety, creativity, pressure, and the quiet recalibrations that happen when life does not go to plan. The focus is not on how people made it, but on how they kept going when certainty disappeared.
Eric is not a neutral interviewer. He brings his own lived experience into the room, asking better questions, challenging assumptions, and staying with discomfort rather than rushing to resolution. The tone is reflective, occasionally funny, sometimes raw, and deliberately unscripted.
This is a podcast for people in transition. For anyone questioning success, navigating change, or trying to build something meaningful without losing themselves in the process.
New episodes are released weekly during each season, with breaks between seasons.
Learn more at twelvestepstosuccess.com and on Instagram @twelvestepstosuccess.
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Recent Episodes
S1E11 Identity, Pressure, and Reinvention: Season 1 Highlights (with Eric Mackay)
This final episode of Season 1 steps back from the individual conversations and looks at what emerged across the season as a whole. What became clear is that despite very different backgrounds,…
S1E10 Resilience, Reinvention, and the Refusal to Stay Down (ft. Moira Carmenate)
This conversation with Moira Carmenate is slightly unusual for the podcast, because Moira isn’t just the guest. She’s also my mum. Recording this episode felt a little like opening a family archive…
S1E9 Legacy, Joy, and the Work of Not Fighting Alone (ft. Dr. Chelsey Green)
This conversation with Dr. Chelsey Green is about legacy, but not in the polished, career-summary sense of the word. It’s about what we build day to day, what we protect, who we make space for, and…
S1E9 Legacy, Joy, and the Work of Not Fighting Alone (ft. Dr. Chelsey Green)
This conversation with Dr. Chelsey Green is about legacy, but not in the polished, career-summary sense of the word. It’s about what we build day to day, what we protect, who we make space for, and…
S1E8 Money, Identity, and the Cost of Avoidance (ft. Spenser Liszt)
This conversation with Spenser Liszt is about money. But not in the “optimize your portfolio” sense. It’s about identity. Shame. Performance. And what happens when your external success doesn’t match…
S1E7 Leaders Worth Believing In: Agency, Accountability, and the Mindset Economy (ft. Jean Gomes)
This conversation with Jean Gomes is about what it means to stay human when leadership, work, and technology keep pushing us toward speed, cynicism, and performance.We start with agency, not…
S1E6 When the Pack Disappears: Community and Building Something That Lasts (ft. Lauren Blitzer-Wright)
This conversation with Lauren Blitzer-Wright centres on what happens when the community you relied on suddenly disappears - and what it takes to rebuild connection without losing yourself in the…
S1E5 When Your Belief System Breaks: Identity, Fear, and the Way Back to Love (ft. Brian Recker)
This conversation with Brian Recker centres on what happens when the belief system you built your life around no longer feels honest or humane. We talk about growing up inside fear based religion,…
S1E4 When Things Fall Apart and You Have to Rebuild (ft. Nyeesha D. Williams)
This conversation with Nyeesha D. Williams explores what happens when the structures you’ve relied on begin to fall apart, and the work required to rebuild without rushing to make sense of it too…
S1E3 When Momentum Stops Feeling Like Progress (ft. Chris Brereton)
This conversation with Christopher Brereton centres on what happens when the identity you built your life around no longer fits as cleanly as it once did. We talk about momentum and how easily it can…
S1E2 You Can’t Rush Clarity (ft. Mo Hiromoto)
This conversation with Mo Hiromoto sits inside a familiar but often unspoken place. Knowing that something needs to change, without yet having language for what that change looks like.We talk about…
S1E1 When Burnout Arrives Quietly (ft. Marni Wandner)
This conversation with Marni Wandner explores what happens when burnout does not arrive as a breaking point, but as a slow erosion.We talk about creative ambition, responsibility, and the quiet ways…
S1 Trailer: The Messy Middle — Purpose, Identity & Redefining Success (with Eric Mackay)
What happens after the big win - or before anything makes sense?12 Steps to Success isn’t a podcast about polished success stories or highlight reels. It’s a series of honest conversations about the…
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12 Steps to Success: Navigating change, uncertainty, and what comes next has published 12 episodes since January 2026, covering topics in Education, Health & Fitness.
12 Steps to Success: Navigating change, uncertainty, and what comes next is currently sporadic with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 49m.
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