Episode Details

Julie Piekarski, Mary Shearer Eckert, and Jaimie SkultetyThis edition opens with a Mitchell S. Karnes Podcast simulcast featuring actress, dancer, and choreographer Julie Piekarski, who was one of just twelve children chosen from some thirty thousand for Disney's 1970s New Mickey Mouse Club before going on to play Sue Ann on The Facts of Life. Piekarski shared warm memories of filming daily, performing at Disneyland, and the show's enduring global fan base, noting the Mickey Mouse Club's fiftieth anniversary reunion is coming in January. A St. Louis native who kept up her Catholic schooling on set, she credited her parents, her faith, and mentors who told her the truth for keeping her grounded through child stardom, recalling that she turned down a potential big film break rather than compromise her values. Now a mother and grandmother acting in faith-based independent films, she discussed her dramatic role in Forgive Me, April opposite Brett Varvel, and her part as Dr. Mandy Coleman in the adaptation of host Mitchell Karnes's Water Grave mystery series. The two traded notes on writing, auditions, the shift from stay-in-your-lane TV to today's blurred streaming world, and the rising pressure of social-media following in casting.Neil then turned to a Wounded Sisters Podcast simulcast with best-selling author Mary Shearer Eckert, who spoke about the courage it takes to share your story. Drawing on the Book of Esther, whose bravery saved a nation, Eckert encouraged listeners who carry heartache, disappointment, or past hurt to let go, trust God with their past, and step out, because revealing hard truths can bring healing to others and to oneself. She framed her novel as a thread of forgiveness of others and of self, insisting that life is not about always winning or being first, and that sharing one's brokenness is itself a form of going the distance. She shared that a book trailer and eventual movie are in the works, and that she has finished the first draft of the sequel, Herbal Teas and Honeybees, which follows the same characters through the theme of grief. Purchase Wounded Sisters at maryshearereckert.com.The show closes with a Storehouse Media Group simulcast featuring LinkedIn visibility strategist Jaimie Skultety of UpscaleYourBusiness.com. After losing her corporate role in the 2008-2009 downturn, Skultety built a virtual assistant business and now helps coaches, consultants, and fractional executives get visible on LinkedIn. She and Neil agreed the platform's real power lies in genuine relationship-building through direct messages, never a hard sell, and in growing a focused, well-defined audience rather than connecting with everyone. She stressed profiles that speak to an ideal client instead of reading like a resume, inviting people to your profile rather than waiting for them to land there, and the newsletter as a standout tool that lands directly in subscribers' inboxes and positions the author as a thought leader, all packaged into what she calls an authority playbook for each client.

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