Cecilia Satovich was 40, raising three young daughters, and living inside the life she had hoped for.

Then she went in for her first mammogram.

What started as something routine (an appointment you know you should make, the kind you might delay because life is full and you are busy and also, let's be real, who wants to deal with it?) became the beginning of a breast cancer diagnosis right as the world was heading into the uncertainty of early 2020.

In this episode of Things Go Sideways, Cecilia talks about what it felt like to hear the word cancer when her children were still small, treatment was suddenly complicated by COVID, and the future she had been counting on no longer felt guaranteed.

We talk about mammograms, fear, motherhood, asking for help, saying the wrong thing, and how hard it can be to stay close to someone else's pain when you don't know what to do with your own discomfort.

This is not a neat cancer-survivor story with a shiny bow on it. Cecilia's story is about what happens when the body interrupts the plan, when ordinary life becomes precious in a way that feels almost unbearable, and when surviving something changes how you show up for other people who are still in it.

Because sometimes the sideways moment is not only the diagnosis. Sometimes it is realizing how much you love your life.

And yes. Get the mammogram.

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What is it like when your first mammogram leads to a breast cancer diagnosis?

When a first mammogram leads to a breast cancer diagnosis, the shock is not only medical. It can interrupt your sense of safety, your plans, your family life, and the future you thought you were standing inside. In this episode of Things Go Sideways, Cecilia Satovich talks about being diagnosed with breast cancer at 40, while raising three young daughters and beginning treatment during the uncertainty of early 2020. Her story is about fear, motherhood, asking for help, and what changes when your body forces you to pay attention.

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Connect With Things Go Sideways:

Substack: https://thingsgosideways.substack.com/welcome

Website: https://thingsgosideways.com

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikilitalien/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thingsgosidewayspod and https://www.tiktok.com/@thingsgosideways

For Business Inquiries: kiki@thingsgosideways.com

He Built a $25 Million Business. Then Everything Collapsed.

🔴 JOIN on SUBSTACK: 👉https://thetrustproject.substack.com/

Shane Barker thought he was building something that mattered. His company grew fast during the mortgage crisis by helping people challenge predatory loans. Within two years, the business exploded to 130 employees and a reported $25 million valuation. Then everything shifted. A $62 million lawsuit, frozen bank accounts, public attacks, and years of uncertainty forced him into a fight he never expected.

In this episode, Shane Barker talks with KiKi L'Italien about what it feels like when your name, your business, and your future all come under pressure at once. They discuss the emotional toll of public scrutiny, the collapse of professional trust, losing opportunities because of online narratives, and the strange reality of trying to rebuild while still in the middle of the storm.

This conversation also explores how that experience eventually led Shane into online reputation management and the creation of TraceFuse.ai. Underneath the business story is something more human: what happens when survival replaces strategy, and the only way forward is one day at a time.

Resources

Website — Shane Barker: https://shanebarker.com/

TraceFuse.ai — Shane Barker: https://tracefuse.ai/

LinkedIn — Shane Barker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanebarker

About the Things Go Sideways Podcast

When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting.

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down.

New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.

Connect With Me On Other Platforms:

• Substack: https://thetrustproject.substack.com/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhenThingsGoSideways/shorts

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kikilitalien/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikilitalien/

• For Business Inquiries: KiKi@ThingsGoSideways.com

If you're the one everyone leans on… this conversation with brain health coach Barbara Gustavson is worth your time.

Barbara's path to becoming a brain health coach started with a piece of paper handed to her at a Cracker Barrel on Thanksgiving Day — a document that revealed a family history of covered-up crimes, mental illness, and Huntington's Disease. That moment didn't end anything. It started something.

What followed was fifteen years of navigating caregiving alongside a career just beginning to take shape, children, a marriage, and a growing awareness that her own brain was carrying more than she'd admitted. In this conversation, Barbara walks through the difference between resetting and regrouping — why you can sleep eight hours and still wake up depleted, and what it takes to actually address the root causes. We also talk about the limbo season: that stretch of time after something shifts where the old rules don't work and the new ones haven't formed. Barbara doesn't frame it as a problem to solve. She frames it as a pause that asks you to listen differently.

The conversation also covers the window of tolerance, what it costs to work outside it, and how learning the language your brain actually speaks — signals, not shoulds — changed how Barbara made decisions, set limits, and stayed present through the hardest stretch of her life.

Her book is Regroup: How to Reset Your Mind to Unlock Hidden Energy, Enjoy Productive Peace, and Feel Like Yourself Again.

Resources mentioned the following during the episode:

• Regroup (Audiobook) — Barbara Gustavson: https://amzn.to/48AWdCw

• Welcome to Your Crisis: https://amzn.to/3QJpyVc

• Think Again — Adam Grant: https://amzn.to/3P2SxTg

• Calm — mindfulness app: https://www.calm.com

• Five Minutes' Peace — Jill Murphy (children's book): https://amzn.to/4w536G8

Connect With Things Go Sideways On Other Platforms:

Substack: https://thetrustproject.substack.com/

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikilitalien/

For Business Inquiries: kiki@amplifiedgrowth.net

• 00:04 — Show opens; KiKi introduces today's guest

• 01:53 — The Thanksgiving moment that changed everything

• 06:18 — Caregiving guilt: the feelings we don't name out loud

• 09:17 — What limbo season actually is and why it isn't a mistake

• 11:24 — From quicksand to surrender: reframing the stuck feeling

• 14:40 — Survival mode is biology, not a character flaw

• 18:32 — Regroup isn't reset: the difference and why it matters

• 23:30 — Listen to the whisper before it becomes the two by four

• 25:59 — The window of tolerance and the cost of ignoring it

• 31:12 — The principle Barbara still wrestles with: negativity bias

• 34:30 — Staying present in the current season, not the last one

• 36:32 — What to do when you're in the middle of your own limbo

About the Things Go Sideways Podcast

When life or leadership goes sideways, the story's just getting interesting.

Things Go Sideways with KiKi L'Italien features honest conversations with leaders, creators, and changemakers navigating disruption, uncertainty, and identity shifts. Each episode explores trust, resilience, and what it means to stay human when certainty breaks down.

New episodes share real stories about rebuilding agency and meaning without rushing to quick-fixes, spiritual bypassing, or pretending clarity comes easy.