Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Life Shift™ | Pivotal Moments & Life Change

Tyler spent years building what the world told him success looked like. The abs, the car, the company. And the world cheered him on. He drove his dream car home one day, pulled into the driveway, turned off the engine, and felt completely empty inside. He didn't know yet that emptiness was trying to tell him something. Then he went to gymnastics class in his late twenties, and a coach told him to punch harder. His body said no. He said, you shut up. And his knee went completely sideways. ACL, MCL, LCL, quad, meniscus, all in one shot. He hobbled to the side and started doing ring work anyway, because that is what kind of man Tyler was before all of this began. What followed was four surgeries, nearly a year of his life spent in bed recovering, and a slow, painful unraveling of the identity he had built from the inside out. This is a conversation about what happens when you can no longer prove yourself. About the inner critic that drove him and the inner cheerleader he had to build to replace it. About the company he shut down because it was making money the wrong way. About what he calls a choiceless choice. And about the life that came after. What You'll Hear: Why Tyler bought everything society said would make him happy, and why none of it worked The moment on the gymnastics floor when his ego and his body had it out, and the body won What four surgeries and years of recovery forced him to face about himself How a meditation retreat moment changed the way he speaks to himself for good Why he shut down a successful company because it was built on shame-based marketing What he means by the inner cheerleader, and how you actually build one Guest Bio: TYLER BRAMLETT is a movement coach, father, and co-founder of WeShape whose path was reshaped by a cycling accident that shattered his femur and permanently damaged his knee. Unable to return to traditional, appearance-driven fitness routines, he began a 15-year healing journey that included multiple surgeries and deep study in functional anatomy, biomechanics, and rehabilitation. Through working with top physical therapists and coaches, he discovered that real transformation comes from moving smarter, not pushing harder. This lead him to reject shame-based fitness culture and create an approach centered on alignment, mindful movement, and what he calls “movement freedom,” the ability to live without feeling trapped in a body that hurts. Find Tyler and WeShape across social media: @WeShape Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- You Might Also Like: How Kevin Palmieri Rebuilt His Life After Chasing the Wrong Dream Alan Lazaros on Rebuilding His Life After a Near-Fatal Car Crash When Her Body Spoke, She Finally Heard -- shame-based fitness, identity and injury, ego and healing, inner critic, movement freedom, fitness industry toxic culture, choiceless choice, self-compassion and fitness, recovering from knee surgery, performing success Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments in life when someone says something so simple, so obvious, that you almost miss it. And then it stays. It rewrites everything. Joomin Hwang had been dancing since middle school, performing since college, and quietly watching Broadway clips on YouTube long before anyone told him it was possible. What he needed wasn't a strategy. It was permission. His professor gave him that. She said, you don't have to make it. Go and experience it. And something shifted. Not a plan, not a guarantee. Just a door left open. Joomin packed his bags at thirty, moved to Wisconsin without knowing a word of English, and spent the next decade doing exactly what he'd been told was unrealistic. This conversation goes well beyond Broadway. It goes into what it felt like to grow up without a stable home, to find power for the first time through movement, to cry for three months when a teacher said you weren't good enough, and to write a journal in the middle of a divorce just to help yourself breathe again. Joomin's story is about what it looks like when you stop treating your dream as a destination and start treating it as a way of moving through the world. What You'll Hear: Why Joomin felt powerful for the first time when he saw a breakdance move at twelve years old The two teachers who told him he wasn't talented, and what he did next The six words from a professor that sent him across the ocean at thirty What it felt like to be the first native Korean to perform at the Tony Awards How a divorce in 2024 led him to build a journaling method that changed the way he faces problems What he means when he says you should dream your dream as a verb, not a noun Guest Bio: Joomin Hwang began his journey as a breakdancer in South Korea. While touring and performing a dance show at London’s Peacock Theatre in 2007, his life was changed after seeing a performance of Billy Elliot. Shortly after, at the age of 29 and despite not speaking English, he moved to the US to study Vocal Performance at the University of Wisconsin. He made history in 2018, just 5 years later, with his Broadway debut in The Prom by becoming the first native Korean to perform at the TONY Awards. He later joined the original cast of & Juliet, making another breakthrough as an actor from South Korea to play a non-Asian principal role in Broadway’s history. Joomin brings a dynamic and multidisciplinary energy to the stage and screen. His diverse credits include performances in the off-Broadway production of KPOP at A.R.T., In the Heights at Axelrod Performing Arts Center, and screen appearances in Iron Fist, Isn’t It Romantic, Pose, and the film adaptation of In the Heights. Now based in New York City, Joomin continues to expand his artistic reach across theatre, film, and television—committed to representing international artists with authenticity, resilience, and heart. Living in New York and doing what he loves to do is an unbelievably sweet dream for Joomin. In addition to his performance career, Joomin is a certified vocal coach dedicated to helping others find freedom and confidence in their voice. He combines personal experience with technical expertise to guide dancers, actors, and singers through real transformation—just as he did himself. Joomin just released his first book, The Rule of Five Journal, which grew out of his own experience navigating major life changes and building a daily system to help individuals build clarity, balance, and forward momentum. www.joominhwang.com Book: www.amazon.com/dp/B0GR6H3W1N Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- following your passion, permission to fail, starting over at 30, Broadway performer story, immigrant identity, self-doubt and perseverance, dreaming without a destination, finding power through movement, journaling through divorce, living life as a verb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you’ve had a moment where you looked around at your life and didn’t recognize it. Not because it was bad, exactly. But because everything you’d been holding together had finally stopped holding. That moment has a weight to it that’s hard to describe. And if you’ve been there, this episode is going to feel familiar. Matt Ross spent decades building things. He grew School of Rock from a struggling startup into a global brand. He led teams, created value, stayed in motion. He was the guy with the plan. And then at fifty, everything came apart at the same time. His son had a psychiatric breakdown. His brothers were lost to addiction. Both sets of parents were dying. He’d just lost the company he’d built. And one night he sat alone in his basement and asked himself if he was going to fold. He didn’t fold. But the road back wasn’t fast or clean or dramatic. It was therapy, Al-Anon, medication, a very slow kind of self-honesty, and eventually, a question that changed everything: what if you treated yourself like a business? This conversation is about what it actually looks like to rebuild from the inside out, one careful step at a time. What You’ll Hear: The moment Matt sat in his basement and asked himself if he would fold What it felt like to carry the weight of a disabled son, addicted brothers, and dying parents all at once Why treating yourself like a business became the framework that helped him rebuild The slow, unglamorous work of therapy, Al-Anon, and learning to ask for help How founding One River School gave him the first real sense of purpose he’d ever felt What he means by functional, emotional, and creative growth, and why creative growth might be the missing piece for a lot of us Guest Bio: Matt Ross is an entrepreneur, author, and media executive with nearly 30 years of experience building businesses that inspire passion and creativity. From rocking New York’s airwaves to scaling global education brands, now he is the author of GROW OR FOLD: Transform Yourself in Midlife and Beyond, a profound story of awakening your enthusiasm for growth. Since 2012, Matt has been the Founder and CEO of One River School, a company whose mission is to “Transform Art Education®.” Today, One River operates fifteen schools in six states with plans for substantial growth over the next five years. Learn more at mattross.com You Might Also Like: How Carol Look Found Joy When Her Loved Ones Struggled with Addiction Identity: More Than the Thing You're Known For Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- Keywords: midlife crisis, rock bottom, rebuilding after loss, mental health and success, caregiving and burnout, parenting a disabled child, purpose after 50, self-awareness, treating yourself like a business, growth mindset, addiction in the family, creative education Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some people live their early lives in what Dave Raymond calls blissful ignorance, and he'll be the first to tell you that isn't a bad thing. Growing up as the son of a legendary college football coach, stumbling into becoming the original Philly Fanatic, Dave spent decades inside a life that felt close to charmed. He didn't overthink it. He just showed up, leaned in, and let the joy carry him. Then, in the span of a few weeks, everything changed. His mother received a terminal diagnosis. His seven-year marriage ended. He had a newborn son at home. And for the first time in his life, Dave found himself somewhere he had never been, completely without footing. What he didn't expect was that the character he had spent sixteen years performing would become the thing that slowly pulled him back. Tick by tick. Appearance by appearance. Until he could see something on the other side. Now at 70, Dave is a speaker, author, and happiness advocate who has spent decades studying what it actually takes to build a good life. This conversation travels through bliss and loss, through grief and resilience, and into the quieter question of what we're really being shaped for, even in the seasons that feel like they might break us. What You'll Hear: How growing up in a football coaching family formed Dave's identity, and what he couldn't yet see about himself The role his deaf mother played in shaping the performer he would become How three separate losses arrived in the same few weeks and what that collision felt like from the inside The way the Philly Fanatic became an unexpected lifeline during the darkest stretch of Dave's life What positive psychology taught him about joy, suffering, and not wasting either one How meeting his wife Sandy shifted his understanding of what a partnership was supposed to feel like The moment he finally gave himself permission to call himself a performer, and what that unlocked Guest Bio: Dave Raymond is the original Philly Fanatic, the beloved mascot he performed for sixteen years with the Philadelphia Phillies. A speaker, author, and happiness advocate, Dave has spent decades studying the science of positive psychology and translating it into practical tools for building a meaningful life. He now speaks to organizations and individuals about long-term sustainable happiness, resilience, and finding purpose. You can connect with him and explore his work at DaveRaymondSpeaks.com. -- 🎧 Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow 📬 Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/     You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Identity: More Than the Thing You're Known For -- finding purpose after loss, happiness after grief, resilience, positive psychology, life shift, blissful ignorance, performance and identity, meaning after crisis, the Philly Fanatic, long-term happiness, don't waste your suffering, finding your calling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever been so good at becoming what people needed that you forgot who you actually were underneath it all? Taira Soo did that for almost fifty years. Different rooms, different versions, a new self for every chapter. It felt like a superpower. It was also a way to keep from being seen. Then a friend reached across a lunch table, touched a lump, and said the word that changed everything. What followed wasn't just treatment. It was a strange, forced stillness, the first she'd had in years, and in that quiet, everything she'd been outrunning finally caught up. The pain, the questions, the girl she'd left behind in every reinvention. And then her memory started coming back in fragments, and she began writing them down, and she could not stop. This is a story about the life shift that happens when you can no longer perform your way through. About realizing you were never a series of separate lives, but one continuous thread. About putting the luggage down and finding out the little girl, the dancer, the founder, they were all still there, waiting. Taira didn't set out to write a book. It found her. And on the other side of it, she stopped proving and started living. What You'll Hear: The lunch where a friend said "it's cancer" between bites, and why she didn't fall apart Why a lifetime of adapting felt like strength until it left her a stranger to herself The night after her first infusion, when the stillness surfaced everything she'd buried How her memory returned in fragments and turned into 412 pages she never planned to write What it means to set down an old identity, and grieve the friends who quietly disappear The quieter, more internal life she lives now, with nothing left to prove Guest Bio: Taira Soo is the author of Just a Little Buzzed, a memoir about identity, adaptation, and learning to know yourself after a lifetime of becoming what was needed. She spent years in dance, acting, and fashion before a cancer diagnosis interrupted everything she had built. Her work explores what happens after the performance stops. Website: www.splitandtype.com Instagram: @tairasoo -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com -- cancer diagnosis story, reinventing yourself, losing your identity, finding yourself after 40, chemo brain and memory, healing through writing, breast cancer journey, learning to slow down, who am I really, letting people love you You Might Also Like: Illness: When the Hard Thing Sets You Free Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments that don't make sense until much later. And then there are moments that make total sense the instant they happen, even if you can't explain them to anyone else. Kate Clinch sat in a small chapel in Sydney, a self-described non-believer, and felt something she had never felt before. Not a feeling she worked toward. Not a belief she talked herself into. Just a deep, quiet, unquestioned knowing. She was in the presence of a saint. She walked out with armfuls of biographies and a story she didn't yet know was also hers. What followed was a decade of discovery. A historical novel about Eileen O'Connor, a disabled Australian woman who built a nursing organization from her sick bed and is currently being investigated for sainthood. A cancer diagnosis, stomach surgery, chemotherapy, and learning to eat and drink again. A slow, surprising realization that she couldn't tell Eileen's story without her own coming along for the ride. Kate came to this conversation as someone who spent years hiding behind her subject. She's leaving it as someone who finally understands why she was the one who had to write the book. What You'll Hear How a stranger's offhand suggestion led Kate to a chapel that changed her life The near-death experience that quietly rearranged her sense of what mattered What a stomach cancer diagnosis took away, and what it somehow gave back Why she started making rosaries before she knew she'd need them The moment she realized she couldn't tell Eileen's story without telling her own What a century-old smile taught her about what actually changes the world Guest Bio Kate Clinch was a solo General Practitioner until a near death experience prompted a change in priorities, and she became a full-time mother homeschooling her children, with a developing interest in mysticism and the meaning of life. As her children became more independent, she started to write novels exploring those themes. Her first, unpublished novel longlisted for the 2020 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers in Australia. Her debut novel, Every Inch a Saint: a Novel about Eileen O'Connor, Australia's Second Saint-in-Waiting, was published in April 2026. It celebrates the inspirational life of a woman who defied the odds of illness and disability and the opposition of the church hierarchy to establish a home nursing organisation to care for the sick in Sydney's slums in 1913. Find her at kateclinch.com. -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- spiritual awakening, cancer survival story, historical fiction, faith without religion, near-death experience, writing as healing, calling and purpose, grief and motherhood, life after loss, following your instincts You Might Also Like: When Illness Becomes a Gateway to Spiritual Awakening Surrender: The Wave That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have ever loved someone so much that you quietly rearranged your whole life around them, this conversation will feel familiar. At twenty-two, Andrea Wilson Woods got the phone call that split her life into a before and an after. Her mother no longer wanted to be a mother, and her eight-year-old sister, Adrienne, needed someone. Andrea said yes without knowing what she was saying yes to. She worked multiple jobs so she could be there for school pickups, dinners, and school events. She built a life around one person. And then, three weeks shy of finishing her first year of high school, Adrienne was diagnosed with stage four cancer. What followed was 147 days, and a grief that Andrea would spend years learning how to actually feel. This is a story about caregiving, about the friends who show up and the ones who quietly disappear, about laughing in hospital rooms because laughter is its own kind of survival. It is about the mistake of pretending you are okay, and the slow work of finding yourself again when the person who was your center is gone. What You'll Hear: What it means to become a parent to your sibling before you are ready Why some people vanish when things get hard, and how to ask for the help you actually need The humor that lived inside the hardest days The cost of pushing grief down, and why grieving out loud matters Advocating for someone you love, all the way to the end What it looks like to find a new North Star, more than once Guest Bio Andrea Wilson Woods is a keynote speaker, a writer who loves to tell stories, and a patient advocate who founded the nonprofit Blue Faery: The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association. For over ten years, Andrea worked in the education field as a teacher and professor for public and private schools as well as universities. Andrea obtained her master's degree in professional writing from the University of Southern California; her nonfiction writing has won national awards. Her best-selling and award-winning book, Better Off Bald: A Life in 147 Days, is a medical memoir about raising and losing her sister to liver cancer. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrea-Wilson-Woods/author/B07X51HH8W https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawilsonwoods/ https://www.facebook.com/bluefaerylivercancer/ https://www.instagram.com/bluefaeryliver/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/blue-faery https://www.youtube.com/c/BlueFaery/ -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- sibling loss, becoming a parent young, caregiving and grief, losing a sister, delayed grief, finding purpose after loss, childhood parentification, hospice and dying at home, friendships that fade after loss, finding a new north star You Might Also Like: The Complexity of Grief After Losing a Brother in Childhood Part of Me Died That Day: Learning to Live After the Worst Day of Your Life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a version of you that other people count on. The one who shows up, who fixes things, who holds the whole thing together. So what happens when that version can no longer do the thing that made it yours? Robert spent thirty-two years as a surgeon. Then an accident took his hand, and the surgeries that followed took something he never expected to lose. First his career, slowly. Then, quietly, his footing. What he thought was control turned out to be an addiction, and the person who saw it clearly was the one who loved him most. This is a story about the identity we build to survive, and what is left of us when it falls away. It is also, gently, a story about what grows back. Robert does not wrap his hardest years in a neat bow. He sits with the darkness, the withdrawal, the fog that made getting out of a chair feel impossible. And then he tells us what he found on the other side, and why he believes his worst chapter was the one that wrote his best. What You'll Hear Why success can become a place to hide from the fears we never dealt with The moment a wife's ultimatum became an act of love What eight days of rehab and seven weeks of withdrawal actually feel like The brain fog that no achievement could push through How a packet of five herbs reopened a door he thought was closed Choosing not to return to the career that once defined him Guest Bio Robert R Beltran MD, Pharm D, FACS. Doctorate degrees in medicine and pharmacy from the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center. Fellow of the American College of Surgeons. Double board certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery and the American Board of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Surgical practice for 31½ years, performing 14,000 surgeries. Founder, CEO and Chief Formulator for Recomnd Nutrition. www.recomnd.com -- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ -- losing your identity after a career ends, opioid addiction recovery, surviving withdrawal at home, prescription painkiller addiction, finding purpose after addiction, rebuilding after rock bottom, starting over later in life, when your work is your identity, hope after addiction, healing after loss of self You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Identity: More Than the Thing You're Known For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever built a life so carefully that you forgot to ask whether it was actually yours? Lora did everything right. The good girl, the good student, the good wife, the good mom. And then, right on the edge of an empty nest and a little freedom, she found out her husband had been living a second life for fifteen years. This is a conversation about what happens after the floor gives way. Lora talks about collapsing, literally, and then getting back up. About the slow realization that the people who hurt her did not get to decide who she became. And about the harder mirror underneath the betrayal, the one that showed her all the ways she had been abandoning herself long before anyone else did. It is tender and honest and, in the end, hopeful. Not because everything wrapped up neatly, but because Lora found out something worth knowing. You can lose the whole thing and still be okay. What You'll Hear: How perfectionism can quietly become your entire identity The visceral moment everything Lora believed came apart Why she stopped waiting for the pain to disappear and started rebuilding The turning point: they don't get to ruin my life What the betrayal revealed about the ways she was betraying herself Choosing boundaries, honesty, and a smaller, deeper circle Guest Bio: LORA CHEADLE, JD CHt is an author, TEDx speaker, and leadership wellness coach who specializes in burnout and betrayal recovery. She is the author of It’s Not Burnout; It’s Betrayal: 5 Tools to FUEL UP & Thrive, the award-winning book FLAUNT! Drop Your Cover and Reveal Your Smart, Sexy, & Spiritual Self, and hosts the top-rated podcast, FLAUNT! Create a Life You Love After Infidelity or Betrayal. Website: https://loracheadle.com/ Social Media Links: YouTube: www.youtube.com/@LoraCheadleLifeChoreographer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loracheadle/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lora.cheadle --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ You Might Also Like: Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Comfort: When Cozy Becomes a Cage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever quit the thing everyone could see, only to find the thing nobody could see was still running the show? Zach Brittle is a couples therapist who spent decades certain that alcohol was the danger. He grew up afraid of becoming someone he wasn't, carrying stories about drinking that were planted in him long before he ever had a drop. When he finally put the bottle down in November of 2020, he expected relief. What he found instead was anger, the kind that had been hiding in plain sight his whole life, quietly running every relationship he had. This episode follows Zach through that harder, truer work. Not the quitting, but everything that came after it. The slow rebuilding of trust with his daughters, the patience required while his wife found her own sobriety two years behind him, and the strange, steady gratitude that replaced the pride he used to need. It's a conversation about what we each call our drug of choice, and what it actually costs to finally put it down. What You'll Hear: Why Zach's fear of alcohol started long before he ever took a drink The moment his daughter confronted him, and why he calls it brave What changed the night he poured out his last drink on November 13th Why he says quitting drinking was the easy part of his recovery How the chaos in his family shifted onto someone else once he got sober The theory he now uses with couples about everyone's hidden drug of choice Guest Bio: Zach Brittle is a licensed mental health counselor, Certified Gottman Therapist, Certified Relational Life Therapist, speaker, and host of Marriage Therapy Radio, a relationship podcast with more than 4 million downloads. He has spent years helping couples navigate conflict, connection, repair, and intimacy with more honesty and skill. In addition to his clinical work, Zach speaks openly about his own recovery journey and the deeper work of learning to stay present in the face of anger, uncertainty, and relational pain. His story brings together themes of sobriety, emotional responsibility, marriage, and personal transformation in a way that is both honest and deeply human. Follow Zach on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and LinkedIn all under the same handle @marriagetherapyradio --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- sobriety, recovery from alcohol, anger and addiction, parenting through change, couples therapy, asking for help, family healing, gratitude in recovery, fatherhood and forgiveness, honesty after addiction You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Fatherhood: The Fifteen Minutes That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever kept moving because stopping felt more dangerous than going? Pat knew that feeling better than most. He filled his life with travel and sport and constant motion, not because he loved being busy, but because stillness was where his hardest thoughts lived. Then on an ordinary foggy morning, a wave put him face-first into a sandbar at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. He broke his neck. He stopped breathing in the water. And somewhere between almost dying and being pulled back to shore by his friend John, something in him reorganized completely. This episode follows Pat from a childhood that taught him to hide what he felt, through years of outrunning himself across more than fifty countries, into a hospital bed where he had to relearn how to move his own foot, and finally into the life he lives now. One built, day by day, on a phrase he still says to himself. Even when it's bad, it's good. What You'll Hear: How a childhood built on toughness taught Pat to hide what he was really feeling The accident at Ocean Beach, and the minutes he spent saying goodbye to the people he loved What it was like to be rescued, revived, and told his neck was broken How he found gratitude inside a body that had to relearn how to walk Why he now works with young people who carry the same silence he used to carry What it means to finally live in the present instead of always running from it Guest Bio: Patrick Yalon is a San Francisco-based deputy probation officer, high school basketball coach, endurance athlete, writer, and the author of the upcoming memoir Still Here. In 2024, he nearly died in a catastrophic surfing accident at Ocean Beach, where he broke his neck, drowned, was revived on the beach, and underwent emergency spinal surgery. What followed was a long and uncertain recovery that forced him to rebuild not only his body, but his identity and sense of purpose. Since then, Patrick has used endurance, reflection, and writing as part of that rebuilding process, including taking on the Moab 240 ultramarathon. He writes and speaks about trauma, resilience, meaning, and what it means to live fully after nearly losing everything. iRunFar article: https://www.irunfar.com/still-here-running-the-moab-240-mile-after-a-near-death-surfing-accident --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- near death experience, surviving trauma, spinal cord injury recovery, learning to be present, outrunning your feelings, gratitude after tragedy, second chance at life, healing from silence, masculinity and emotion, finding purpose after trauma You Might Also Like: Illness: When the Hard Thing Sets You Free Fatherhood: The Fifteen Minutes That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever lived a life that worked, on paper, and still felt like you were only halfway in the room? That is where Lena Fein spent most of her life. Not broken. Not miserable. Just partially there, ever since a moment at seven years old when the safest place she had, her own diary, got read out loud and used against her. Lena did everything right after that. School, a career in engineering, a family, a persona that held. And underneath it, a part of her stayed folded up and quiet for over forty years, until her mother was dying of cancer and Lena looked into her eyes one last time and saw something she had been waiting her whole life to see. That moment did not fix anything overnight. But it cracked something open, and Lena spent the years after slowly, gently claiming back the pieces of herself she had given up on. Her voice. Her rhythm. Her breath. Her story, eventually written down and shared with the world in her memoir, Shattering the Mirror. This episode is for anyone who has ever wondered if the parts of themselves they buried a long time ago are still in there somewhere, waiting. They usually are. What You'll Hear The diary moment that taught a seven-year-old to hide her heart A childhood accident that left Lena unable to fully breathe for decades What she saw in her mother's eyes in the final days of her life How she slowly reclaimed dancing, singing, and writing as an adult Why she finally found the courage to publish her memoir What it means to find compassion for a parent who never had the tools Guest Bio Lena Fein lives in San Francisco, the city of her birth. After receiving a master’s degree in engineering from UC Berkeley, she enjoyed a successful career in high tech and founded a non-profit that funded health and education projects in at-risk communities around the globe. Now retired, Lena enjoys the arts in all their forms, including painting, singing, dancing, and writing. Currently, Lena is often seen taking long walks by the bay and hugging her grandchildren. Her memoir, "Shattering the Mirror," is about her quest to confront her life and see through the distortions of her traumatic childhood. Now in her late sixties, Lena lives with more freedom, clarity, and love than she ever imagined. The book is really about the truth that healing is possible at any age — and that wholeness is priceless. Lena's book and links: shatteringthemirror.com Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/s5e270 Follow the show: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- mother wound, childhood shame, deathbed forgiveness, reclaiming your voice, emotional numbness, generational trauma, finding wholeness, late life awakening, memoir writing, healing after loss You Might Also Like: Choosing the Harder Door: From Childhood Shame to Federal Prison Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some secrets get handed to us before we are old enough to know what to do with them. Ranae was a preteen in a small Minnesota town when she was sexually abused by boys she had known her whole life. The instruction that followed- stay quiet, or people will think you are bad- became the quiet architecture of everything she built afterward. For decades that belief ran the show. It showed up as people pleasing, as quitting good jobs before anyone could find out she was not good enough, as a kind of disappearing she did inside her own mind without ever naming it. Eventually it led her into a scheme that spiraled into wire and mail fraud, and one morning, into a bathroom mirror where she gave herself exactly two ways out. She chose to turn herself in. She served fifty-one months in federal prison, and she will tell you plainly that walking through those doors is the day her healing actually began. This conversation is about shame, about the stories we are told to keep, and about what becomes possible once we finally put one down. What You'll Hear: How a childhood secret in a town of 572 people shaped three decades of choices The moment Ranae faced two options in front of a mirror, and chose the harder one Why she says her healing began the day she walked into federal prison The prison psychologist who refused to let her settle for halfway What it felt like to walk out the doors and feel free for the first time How Connecting to Cope, named after her dog, became her life's second purpose Guest Bio: Ranae Van Roekel is a mother, grandmother, wife, dog lover—and someone whose life was forever changed by the consequences of her choices. After committing a crime that harmed people both close to her and unknown to her, Ranae served 36 months in federal prison. What she once thought could never be part of her story—being labeled a felon—became a defining chapter in her journey. Through incarceration, Ranae came to understand how deeply unresolved trauma had shaped her actions and decisions. This realization became the catalyst for years of healing and recovery. She has since dedicated herself to self-care, education, and advocacy, using her lived experience to help others—regardless of their histories or hardships—discover coping skills and pathways toward healing. Today, Ranae is a passionate advocate for justice reform, working to create a system that acknowledges the humanity of every individual and addresses the root causes of crime, including trauma, stress, and mental health struggles. Through her platform, Connecting to Cope, she shares her story, insights, and strategies with others navigating personal or professional challenges. Her mission is clear: to empower people to face their pain, embrace healing, and move toward thriving lives. Social Channels https://www.facebook.com/connectingtocope/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/connecting-to-cope/ https://www.instagram.com/connectingtocope/ https://connectingtocope.com/ --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- childhood sexual abuse, shame and secrecy, people pleasing, federal prison, healing in prison, trauma and choices, white collar crime, family forgiveness, finding worth, prison reform advocacy You Might Also Like: Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever noticed your life getting smaller without ever deciding to shrink it? Not all at once. Just one canceled plan, one closed door, one quiet no to something that used to feel possible, until one day you look up and wonder where all the room went. That's where Scott Stirrett found himself partway through COVID. He'd already done the hard things once. Left a steady job at twenty-two to start a charity from nothing. Came out, eventually, after years of being afraid of what people might think. But comfort, real comfort, has a way of quietly wearing off if you let it. A decade of stability dulled the muscle he used to take risks with, and it took a pandemic and a therapist's gentle observation to show him how far it had drifted. This is a conversation about what it actually takes to rebuild a relationship with the unknown. Not white knuckling through it. Practicing it, on purpose, the same way you'd train a muscle you forgot you had. And about what becomes possible once you stop needing to know how things will turn out before you're willing to try. What You'll Hear: How a decade of stability quietly wore down Scott's comfort with risk The moment in COVID that made him name his own perfectionism out loud Why he believes self compassion, not ambition, is the real engine behind growth What it took to leave the charity he built and led for twelve years How coming out later in life changed his relationship with fear itself The difference between a good decision and a good outcome, and why that distinction matters Guest Bio: Scott Stirrett is a Canadian entrepreneur, author, and social impact leader whose mission is to help people reach their full potential. He is the Founder of Venture for Canada (VFC), a national charity that has supported over 10,000 young professionals since its launch in 2013. Under Scott’s leadership, VFC has raised over $80 million and built partnerships with organizations including Employment and Social Development Canada, RBC Foundation, TD Bank, Scotiabank, and leading Canadian foundations. The organization focuses on equipping early-career Canadians with the entrepreneurial skills and mindset needed to thrive in an uncertain economy. Scott is the author of The Uncertainty Advantage, a practical guide for young professionals navigating today’s unpredictable world of work. Endorsed by Andrew Yang, Stephen Poloz, Amanda Lang, Eric Ries, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, and Michele Romanow, the book draws on lessons from scaling VFC, emphasizing adaptability, entrepreneurial thinking, and lifelong learning. Before founding VFC, Scott worked at Goldman Sachs in New York City. He is a graduate of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. He has been recognized as a Telus LGBTQ Innovator of the Year, an Action Canada Fellow, a Globe and Mail Changemaker, and an Ashoka Fellow, among other honours. His commentary has been featured in The Washington Post, Forbes, Fast Company, The Globe and Mail, CBC News Network, and BNN Bloomberg. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Board at the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights and sits on the Board of the Speech and Debate Canada Foundation. Links: Personal website: https://www.scottstirrett.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottstirrett/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottstirrett/ Substack: https://substack.com/@scottstirrett Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Uncertainty-Advantage-Launching-Career-Change-ebook/dp/B0DGCD6ZCV/ —- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- comfort with uncertainty, fear of the unknown, perfectionism recovery, coming out later in life, leaving what you built, self compassion practice, risk taking and growth, shrinking under pressure, rebuilding confidence, chosen family and friendship You Might Also Like: Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay Fatherhood: The Fifteen Minutes That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever looked fine on paper and still felt like something was missing. Good job, good marriage, kids who love you, and underneath all of it, a quiet hum of not quite. Drew Norton knew that hum well. He was drifting through his late twenties, chasing money because he thought money was the thing that would finally make him feel like enough. Then one afternoon he came home to find his six month old son not breathing. What followed was an hour and a half that felt like a lifetime, a misdiagnosis that haunted his family for weeks, and a slow, unglamorous rebuilding of a man who realized the work he thought he was doing for a paycheck was actually the work that taught him how to show up for the people he loved. Drew talks about what it cost him to keep performing wellness instead of practicing it, what his wife's healing taught him about his own, and why he now spends his days helping other men find the brotherhood he didn't have when he needed it most. What You'll Hear: The fifteen minutes between a phone call and a front door that changed everything Why looking fine from the outside almost cost Drew his presence on the inside How a misdiagnosis turned weeks of fear into a strange kind of mercy The realization that sales training and listening to his wife were the same skill Why men are lonelier than ever, and what brotherhood actually requires The four pillars Drew now builds his life and his work around Guest Bio: Drew Norton is "The Everyday Sales Leader," a podcast host, and Co-founder of The Abundant Man. After a family emergency reshaped his perspective, Drew lost 100 lbs and led a sales team to over $20 million in revenue. Today, he helps leaders and teams unlock their potential through his core teachings: Leadership is a Choice and Sales is Life. He believes that to Belong is the first step to Believe and Become , and he challenges high-performers to realize that Wanting More is the only path that enables you to Serve More. Drew is a private pilot, a husband of 13 years, and a father of four. https://my.theabundantmanproject.com/ ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- drifting, complacency, fatherhood fear, marriage after trauma, faith and doubt, men and vulnerability, brotherhood, finding purpose, presence over perfection, rebuilding after fear You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Surrender: The Wave That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever had a feeling in your gut that just knew, that told you to keep going even when nothing around you confirmed it? Carly had one of those since she was a kid. And then, somewhere around thirty, it went quiet. If you have ever lost the thing that used to steer you, you already know how unmooring that silence can be. Carly's path winds through a childhood spent on stages, a move to New York at twenty-two, a pandemic that emptied out her industry overnight, and a second cancer diagnosis that arrived right when she had already started to lose her footing. She talks about sitting on a couch and telling the people who loved her most that she needed to go dark for a while, and how that one honest moment became part of how she found her way back. The shift here is not loud. It is the slow trade of proving herself to other people for simply loving the work because she loves it. By the end, Carly is lighter. Not because everything got easier, but because she stopped carrying things that were never hers to carry in the first place. What You'll Hear: How a lifelong gut feeling disappeared around Carly's thirtieth birthday, and what that silence revealed The pandemic years that emptied out her life in New York and quietly reshaped her identity A second cancer diagnosis at thirty one, and the couch conversation where she asked for permission to fall apart Why she chose to go dark instead of staying positive, and what that taught her about real support Starting a TikTok account from a hospital room and finding a community no support group could give her How a feature film role and a move to Philadelphia became proof that the hardest chapter also cleared a path forward Guest Bio: Carly Otte is a New York City & Philadelphia-based actor, improviser, and storyteller originally from Pittsburgh. Her on-screen credits include The Fault in Our Stars, recurring appearances on Impractical Jokers, and most recently the feature mockumentary The Conspiracists (now streaming on Amazon Prime). In addition to her performance work, she teaches improv at the Philly Improv Theater and works in communications and storytelling. Carly is also a two-time cancer survivor who shares patient advocacy content on TikTok, using her platform to document her journey and support others. Follow Carly on Instagram: instagram.com/CarlyOtte Follow Carly's cancer journey on TikTok: tiktok.com/@CarlyOtte Watch The Conspiracists on Amazon Prime --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- cancer survivor, redefining success, identity shift, acting career, second diagnosis, grief and healing, creative joy, finding community, starting over, self worth You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Surrender: The Wave That Changed Everything Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever performed feeling completely fine while everyone around you assumed you were falling apart. Kate Kayaian knows that feeling from the inside. She spent four decades as a professional cellist, the kind of career most people only dream about, and on the night that career quietly ended, a room full of people watched her voice shake and assumed grief. What she was actually feeling was relief. We talk about how she chose the cello at four and a half because of a boy she had a crush on, and how that one small decision became her entire identity for the next forty years. We talk about what it felt like to be cheered for and still feel like, in her words, a trained monkey. We talk about giving herself permission to stop with no crisis forcing her hand, just a quiet knowing. And we talk about sitting at her mother's deathbed and asking forgiveness for a decision her mother never needed her to ask forgiveness for. The shift here isn't really about quitting an instrument. It's about the moment you realize the thing everyone has always known you as isn't the whole truth of who you are, and what it costs, and frees, to go find out who's underneath. What You'll Hear Why a four year old's crush on a boy shaped four decades of Kate's life The night an audience mistook her relief for heartbreak What it felt like to be called a trained monkey, and still love the music Giving herself permission to stop, with no crisis forcing her hand Rebuilding an identity from scratch in her late forties The conversation with her dying mother that gave her real permission Guest Bio Kate Kayaian is an author, speaker, and career strategist for high achievers who want to build lives of impact, purpose, and sustainable success. A former professional cellist, Kate performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and recitalist in venues ranging from Boston’s Jordan Hall to leading European concert halls. She trained at the New England Conservatory of Music and held a fellowship with the New World Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas. Today, Kate’s work centers on helping accomplished professionals—creatives, executives, educators, and entrepreneurs—define success on their own terms and create careers that feel as good as they look. Through her 1:1 coaching and her signature group program, the Creatives Leadership Academy, she guides clients to develop clarity, confidence, and the practical strategies needed to lead at the highest level without sacrificing their well-being. She is the author of Beyond Potential, a practical guide for high performers navigating the next chapter of their professional lives, and the host of Tales from The Lane, a podcast exploring the hidden challenges and unexpected joys of success. As a sought-after speaker, Kate delivers keynotes and workshops on leadership presence, mindset transformation, and redefining what’s possible for high achievers across industries. Alongside her private practice, Kate serves as President and Artistic Director of the Bermuda Philharmonic Orchestra, where she continues to champion creativity, collaboration, and innovation in the arts. She lives on the island of Bermuda, where she spends her days coaching clients around the world, writing, speaking, and tending to her garden. Instagram: @kkayaian LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-kayaian-852147181/ Website: www.katekayaian.com ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- identity after a career, professional musician burnout, who am I without my job, redefining potential, second career after forty, grief and relief, permission to stop, starting over later in life, letting go of an identity, midlife reinvention You Might Also Like: Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began Illness: When the Hard Thing Sets You Free Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some decisions cannot be made with a chart. Joy Kong knows this because she tried. Three days and three nights of careful, logical reasoning, and still she could not talk herself out of what her gut already knew: she needed to leave China and find her own life, even if she could not explain why. What followed was years of fighting. A visa rejection that most people would have taken as a sign to stop. An isolating marriage in a country where she knew almost no one and had no safety net. And a quiet moment on the floor of her apartment, squatting and sobbing, where something in her finally admitted how much pain she had been carrying. Joy did not just survive those years. She built something from them. A medical career. A stem cell academy. A company. A memoir. And a way of seeing the world that holds both the difficulty and the beauty at the same time. What You'll Hear: The three-day decision that changed the entire direction of Joy's life What it felt like to be rejected by the American embassy after 18 months of preparation How she cold-called hotel rooms in Beijing to find her way out The slow, quiet erosion of an isolating marriage, and the moment she knew she had to leave The unexpected mentor who went to bat for her when no one else would How escaping circumstances is only the first kind of freedom, and why the deeper kind takes much longer Guest Bio: Dr. Joy Kong is a UCLA trained, Stem Cell Doctor of the Decade 2021 and triple board certified anti aging physician. She is the President of the American Academy of Integrative Cell Therapy and a leading voice in regenerative medicine and longevity science. Beyond her medical work, Dr. Kong’s personal journey includes immigrating from China, escaping an abusive marriage, and rebuilding her life from scratch after arriving in the US with almost nothing. She brings a grounded perspective on resilience, integrity, and the body mind connection, while helping audiences understand stem cell therapy with clarity and realism. Website: https://joykongmd.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_joy_kong/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joy-kong-md-4b8627123/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@joykongmd ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- starting over, leaving home, abusive marriage, finding identity, immigrant resilience, escaping control, rebuilding a life, inner strength, freedom, soul survival You Might Also Like: Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay Reclamation: Coming Back To The Girl Who Got Shut Down Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever built a life that looked exactly right from the outside, and felt completely hollow from the inside? This episode is for you. Colette Jane Fehr grew up watching her parents argue in a house where conflict felt dangerous. So when she fell in love with a man whose family never raised their voices, she thought she'd finally found safety. They married, built a beautiful life, had a daughter. And somewhere in the space between the perfect house and the quiet dinner table, Colette started disappearing, one unspoken need at a time. The shift came three weeks after her daughter was born. Colette was sitting on the couch, postpartum and unraveling, while her husband watched golf and sipped wine beside her. She didn't yell. She didn't storm out. She just looked over and understood, quietly and completely, that she was utterly alone. That moment didn't end her marriage. But it started the long, honest work of figuring out who she actually was, and what she actually needed. Colette eventually went back to school, earned her degree in counseling from Rollins College, trained for years in emotionally focused couples therapy, and built a career helping others find the language for the things they'd been too afraid to say. Her book, The Cost of Quiet, is drawn directly from that work and from her own story. What You'll Hear: How growing up in a conflict-averse household set Colette up to choose the wrong kind of quiet in her marriage The moment on the couch that cracked everything open, and what she understood in that silence Why she calls it "good girl itis," and how people pleasing hides even in outgoing, seemingly confident people How a chance conversation with a short-term boyfriend planted the seed for her career in therapy What 15 years of sitting with other people's pain taught her about her own The difference between self-silencing out of fear and choosing peace from a place of wholeness Colette Jane Fehr is a licensed psychotherapist, author, and speaker based in Orlando, Florida. She specializes in emotionally focused couples therapy and has spent nearly 15 years helping individuals and partners learn to communicate from a place of vulnerability rather than avoidance. Her book, The Cost of Quiet, is available wherever books are sold. She also writes a weekly Substack newsletter, Secrets from a Therapist, and can be found on Instagram at @colettejannfehr or at colettejannfehr.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- people pleasing in marriage, emotional disconnection in relationships, finding your voice, postpartum anxiety, couples therapy, self-silencing, divorce and reinvention, emotional attunement, the cost of quiet, self-connected communication You Might Also Like: Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking Self-Worth: The Life She Fought For Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a bonus drop, a little different from our usual Life Shift episode. I just launched a new show called Trivia, Sort Of. It's lighter, it's playful, and it's less "guess the answer" and more "here's a strange, fascinating fact, wait really?" I wanted to bring it to you here first, since you're already part of this community. In this bonus episode, I share a quick intro to the new show and then play episode one for you right in this feed. Two episodes of Trivia, Sort Of are live now, with a new one dropping every Tuesday. If you enjoy what you hear, subscribe wherever you listen: https://pod.link/6787199863 Thanks for letting me share something new with you. I'll see you back here soon for the next Life Shift episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments in life when everything falls apart at once. The job, the relationship, the car, the sense of direction. And then, in Laurie Collister's case, the house itself. A neighbor's forgotten french fries started a fire that took nearly everything she owned. But somehow, a floor-to-ceiling shelf of three hundred handwritten diaries made it through the smoke without a page touched. Laurie had been journaling since she was eighteen. Not for posterity, not with any plan. Just to survive, to process, to let the pressure out. She never imagined those entries would one day be the map that led her home to herself. But reading through them, volume by volume, she began to see her own life the way a novelist sees a character: clearly, curiously, with a kind of tenderness that had been hard to access from the inside. This is a conversation about what it means to excavate your own story, to find the thread that was always there, and to finally stop measuring your life against a template that was never built for you. What You'll Hear: How a house fire became the strange beginning of Laurie's deepest self-understanding What it felt like to read her own diaries as if they belonged to someone else, cringing, laughing, and eventually arriving at compassion The way loneliness had become her status quo so quietly she didn't know it was there until it wasn't How writing her memoir forced her to name the arc of her own change and ask whether she had actually changed at all What it means to stop being the sidekick in your own life The idea of a "secret contract," the calling that was being named by others long before she could hear it herself Laurie A. Collister is a memoirist, former counselor of seventeen years, and caregiver to her 97-year-old mother. Her debut memoir, A Different Kind of Vow, traces her winding journey through career, connection, and identity, drawing from decades of personal journals to uncover what she calls her sacred contract. Her second memoir is due in July 2027. She lives in the Pacific time zone with her mother's very large dog nearby. You can find her and her books at lauriecollister.com and on Amazon. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- finding yourself through journaling, house fire life change, memoir writing healing, loneliness and self-discovery, starting over in your 30s, reading your own story, identity outside society's template, self-compassion through writing, caregiving and personal boundaries, life purpose and calling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a version of your life where you take the safe path. The familiar one. The one that makes sense on paper. And then there's the version where you say yes to something that sounds completely ridiculous, and that version turns out to be the one that teaches you the most. David S. Bernknopf spent over 20 years at CNN, covering the world, building a career that became his whole identity. When new ownership came in and the culture shifted, he made a decision, quietly and quickly, the way journalists learn to do. He walked away. Then he moved to Alaska on a cold call from a stranger. He didn't know anyone there. He'd been once, for five days. But something about the absurdity of it felt right. This is a conversation about what happens after the identity you've built for decades gets set aside. About the kind of loneliness that settles in slowly, that you normalize before you realize it isn't healthy. And about the two words from his adult kids, that would be a pretty cool thing, that quietly set him free. What You'll Hear: How a 21-year-old chose CNN over a safe small-market job, and why his dad thought he was crazy What it felt like to walk away from a 20-year career that had become his whole identity The unexpected cold call that sent him to Alaska in his mid-60s The isolation and loneliness that surprised him, even though he thought he'd prepared How two years in Alaska made him more patient, and gave him his first fiction book Why his kids' permission slip mattered more than he expected it to Guest Bio: David S. Bernknopf is a veteran journalist and television news producer who spent more than two decades at CNN, where he rose to executive director of news planning. After leaving CNN, he continued his investigative journalism career in Washington, D.C., before accepting an unexpected job running the only investigative news unit in the state of Alaska. That two-year experience became the basis for his debut novel, Two Years on Another Planet, a fictionalized account of life, loneliness, and reinvention in the last frontier. He now lives in Colorado, consulting on documentaries and, as he puts it, living a project-oriented life. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- career identity loss, reinvention after 60, loneliness and isolation, saying yes to the unknown, life after CNN, moving to Alaska, writing your first book, permission to change, journalism and purpose, children as anchors Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some questions live quietly inside us for so long that we forget they're there. Not because they don't matter, but because we've learned to keep moving without an answer. That's where this episode begins. T. Alex Blum was adopted as an infant into a privileged East Coast family. He always knew he was adopted. It just wasn't something anyone talked about. And so he carried that sealed envelope through decades of building a career, raising kids, and making a full life, never quite realizing the weight of what he was holding. Then, in 2019, a message arrived on 23andMe. His niece. And behind her, three full biological brothers he'd never known existed. What followed wasn't a dramatic unraveling. It was something quieter, and somehow more profound. It felt like relief. Like a question finally exhaling. What You'll Hear: Why Alex grew up knowing he was adopted but never feeling permission to ask about it The moment holding his newborn son became the first time he understood what it meant to be biologically connected to someone How a single 23andMe message unlocked three brothers and a whole new sense of belonging What it felt like to gain three best friends overnight, later in life when that kind of connection is hardest to find The parallel lives he and his brothers lived, growing up in the same part of the country without ever knowing the other existed What writing his memoir taught him about saying less and being honest Guest Bio: T. Alex Blum grew up in New York City, attended boarding school, and built a long career in commercial TV production and marketing consulting. He and his wife Andrea run a consulting firm in San Diego and have a blended family of five kids. His memoir, An Accident of Birth, explores his experience as an adoptee and the unexpected discovery of three biological brothers. It was released in May 2025. Find him at talexblum.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- adoptee identity, biological siblings, 23andMe discovery, adoption and belonging, finding family later in life, sealed adoption records, late-life connection, DNA relatives, untethered feeling, origin story You Might Also Like: Adoption: The Chapter You Thought Was Finished Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've always known something was a little off, like there was a frequency everyone else could tune into that you just couldn't quite find. Rob Lynch felt that from the time he was a kid, a quiet, persistent sense of difference that he couldn't name. When he was eleven, a Brady Bunch episode and a careless comment to his mother unlocked a secret his family had kept since the beginning. He was adopted. For decades, Rob absorbed that truth and moved on. He built a life, raised kids, wrote a novel, loved people, lost people. The adoption became background noise, something other people found more interesting than he did. But then lockdown arrived, his daughter did a DNA test, and a stranger reached out through a genealogy website. The message was simple: I think I'm your first cousin. And the thread, once pulled, didn't stop. What followed was three Sundays of pacing, a phone call he almost didn't make, and a voice on the other end that said: I looked for you for so long. Can you ever forgive me? Have you had a good life? This episode sits with what it means to find a missing piece, and whether the shape of your life changes once you finally hold it. What You'll Hear: The night Rob found out he was adopted at eleven years old, and why his mother finally told him How being a late discovery adoptee shaped (and didn't shape) his sense of self The DNA test, the stranger's message, and the daughter who changed everything Three Sundays of almost making a phone call, and what it felt like when he finally did His biological mother's first words to him, and how he responded What a warm, careful relationship with a new family looks like years later Guest Bio: Rob Lynch is an author, mental health advocate, and animal rights supporter based near Toronto, Canada. His debut novel, Vudon Caliber, is available on Amazon. He is a passionate music fan, film lover, and someone who believes, along with Ted Lasso, that we are never finished versions of ourselves. You can reach him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/official_voudoncaliber/. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- adoption identity, biological mother reunion, late discovery adoptee, DNA ancestry test, finding birth parents, adoptee mental health, lockdown genealogy, belonging and identity, family secrets, recovery and healing You Might Also Like: Adoption: The Brothers He Never Knew He Needed Choosing the Harder Door: From Childhood Shame to Federal Prison Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some people spend their whole lives searching for the thing that animates them. Rich Harwood found it the hard way. He was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in 1960 and told he had three to five years to live. His family went on a death watch. Doctors called him a lemon. He grew up in hospital beds, learning early what it felt like to be invisible, manhandled, spoken about but never spoken to. What Rich did with all of that is not a story about triumph over adversity in the bumper-sticker sense. It's quieter and more honest than that. He decided, at eight years old, to stop calling for his parents in the night. Not out of bitterness. Because watching them fall apart hurt him more than the fever did. That decision became the seed of everything that followed, a life built around seeing people, hearing them, and refusing to let dignity be a thing you have to earn. Nearly forty years ago, Rich started the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. Today it operates in fifty states and forty countries. His work is about bridging divides, restoring belief in one another, and helping communities come together and actually get things done. The line from that sick little boy watching a clock tick through the night to the work he does today is not a straight one. But it is a direct one. What You'll Hear: The moment at age eight when Rich stopped calling for his parents in the night, and what that act of compassion cost him How repeated chronic illness shaped his understanding of dignity, invisibility, and what it means to truly be seen The story of Mr. Rivers, a coach who changed the game schedule for one Jewish kid and saved a life in the process What Rich believes is the direct line between his childhood in hospital beds and the community work he does today The burning bush, and why Rich returns to that image every single day when the work feels impossible How getting in motion became his survival strategy at 4:28 in the morning, and why it still is at sixty-five Guest Bio: Rich Harwood is the founder and president of the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping communities bridge divides, build shared responsibility, and restore belief in one another. He started the organization at twenty-seven, when everyone told him not to. It now operates in fifty states and forty countries. He has written nine books, most of them with the word hope somewhere in the title. He lives his faith, loves his family, and still wakes up before 4:30 every morning ready to make something of the day. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- chronic illness and identity, finding purpose through suffering, hope and community building, childhood trauma and resilience, cystic fibrosis survival story, being seen and heard, civic renewal, mentorship and belonging, transforming pain into work, the burning bush and calling Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some stories ask a lot of you. This is one of them. But it gives something back too. Karen Diskin-Dickson grew up in a house where silence was survival. From her earliest memories, she carried fear the way other kids carried backpacks, always aware of what the next moment might bring. She was a twin, a straight-A student, a girl who rescued stray dogs, and a child who believed it was her job to protect her sisters from what was happening inside their home. She never got a carefree childhood. She got a crash course in endurance. When she was 12 and a half, the weight of it all became unbearable. What followed was a moment by a river, a dog who changed everything, and a voice she had never heard before that told her she was loved. She chose to believe it. And somehow, improbably, that choice held. This episode traces what happened next. The escape. The years of silence. The therapy that helped her learn to play. The confrontation with her father at 24 finally freed her from fear. The decision, later in life, to move her elderly parents into her care, not out of obligation but out of grief for the mother she had never had, and a hunger to finally learn how to be someone's child. And the foundation she now runs with her sisters, helping trauma survivors understand that it's not what's wrong with them. It's what happened to them. What You'll Hear: The moment at 12 and a half that became Karen's life shift, and the dog who stopped it from going another way What it felt like to grow up not knowing what carefree meant, and how animals became her refuge How she learned to parent without a map, and why asking for help was one of the bravest things she ever did The long road to confronting her father and finally releasing a fear that had followed her across state lines Why she chose to care for the parents who hurt her, and what she was really looking for in that choice How the Remarkably Resilient Foundation grew from a shared question among sisters: who was going to teach this? Guest Bio: Karen Diskin-Dickson is a retired nurse, EMT, Reiki master, grandmother, and co-founder of the Remarkably Resilient Foundation, which she runs alongside her sisters. She is the co-author of Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters, published in 2019. Karen speaks publicly and volunteers with incarcerated individuals, helping trauma survivors understand their own responses and find a path toward healing. She lives with her life partner and four grown children nearby. You can reach her and explore her work at www.remarkably-resilient.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ ---- healing from childhood trauma, generational abuse, breaking the cycle of trauma, surviving childhood neglect, trauma recovery journey, choosing love after abuse, ACEs and resilience, trauma informed healing, finding joy after hard things, incest survivor story Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've spent years showing up as a slightly different version of yourself depending on who was in the room. Maybe you learned early that being liked was safer than being known. If any of that lands, this conversation is for you. Peter Bailey grew up carrying something heavy: the feeling that something in his family was broken, and that it was somehow his job to fix it. That inherited sorrow shaped him into a kid who crossed the outside of a bridge over a six-lane highway just to feel like he mattered. It shaped him into someone who drank and people-pleased and performed his way through his twenties, until one night, sitting at a typewriter with a beer beside him, something in him finally said, this is going nowhere. What happened after that, including sobriety, Joseph Campbell's hero's journey, 45 years of leadership work across 50 countries, and a new book called The Epic of You, is a story about what becomes possible when you stop running from your own chapters and start reading them differently. What You'll Hear: How Peter inherited his family's sorrow as a young child, and how that shaped his relationship with approval and identity The moment at a typewriter that became his rock bottom and his turning point How discovering Joseph Campbell's hero's journey gave him a map for every season of his life, past and future The difference between surviving and thriving, and how we often spend years in the closet looking for the light Why he teaches "don't fix, don't judge, don't steal" as a way of showing up for others without taking the light off them What it looks like to treat your own life as a heroic journey, even the ordinary parts Guest Bio: Peter Bailey is the President of The Prouty Project, a strategic planning and leadership development firm based in Minneapolis. He is also the author of the newly published book The Epic of You- Reframe Your Past to Navigate Your Future. Bailey’s personal story — from challenges to triumphs, travel to transformation — becomes a living example of how obstacles can shape our identity and fuel our growth. Whether you’re standing at a crossroads or simply wondering “What now?”, The Epic of You helps you see your past with fresh eyes and your future with fresh purpose. Book and Ted-x website: www.peter-bailey.com Prouty Project website: www.proutyproject.com — Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ — sobriety journey, hero's journey, people pleasing recovery, self-esteem and identity, Joseph Campbell transformation, leadership and vulnerability, emotional intelligence, disease of comparison, reclaiming your story, life shift moment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Matt Gilhooly and I host The Life Shift – a podcast about the moments that change everything. When I was eight years old, my life flipped upside down. For a long time, I didn't know how I would ever process it. That's a big part of why I created this show. Each week, I sit with someone and talk about one specific moment – the kind that splits a life into before and after. Loss. Trauma. Identity shifts. The quiet unraveling that nobody sees coming. We talk about how they moved through it without pretending there's a clean finish line. If you've ever felt like your story doesn't fit the script, I hope you'll listen. Search The Life Shift wherever you get your podcasts – or find me at the links below. 🌐 thelifeshiftpodcast.com 📬 thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com 📱 @thelifeshiftpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some stories don’t begin at the hardest moment. They begin with what comes after it. Scott Martin was 35 years old, coaching at the collegiate level, rubbing elbows with national team players at a Nike camp outside Chicago, when his body quietly started failing him. A fever. A bad night. A doctor who said drink Gatorade and sent him home. By the next morning, he was in a coma. A month later, he woke up as a quad amputee. If you’re listening to figure out how someone survives that, you will. But what this conversation is really about is everything Scott carried in the years that followed. The way he worked instead of grieving. The discrimination he faced trying to return to coaching. The night he lost a $10 million malpractice trial, pulled into his garage, and sat alone in the silence with thoughts he doesn’t sugarcoat. And then, instead, made a list. That list became a road. The road eventually led to a coaching job he worked for free, five adopted children from Romania and Ethiopia, two state championships with kids no one believed in, a soulmate he’d let go at 19 and found again 40 years later, and a book called Play From Your Heart published by Simon and Schuster. Scott didn’t heal in a straight line. None of us do. But he kept choosing the next thing, and this is what that looked like. What You’ll Hear: The moment Scott realized in his hospital bed that his life as he knew it was over, and how his mind responded Why he buried himself in work for years after his amputation, and what that avoidance was protecting him from The night he lost everything at once, and the choice he made in his garage that changed the direction of his life How a news segment about adoption pulled him toward five children he never planned for The parallel story of coaching a team of overlooked 12-year-olds to a state championship, and what they gave back to him Why Scott believes the pieces of his life fit now, even with all the gaps and loss and detours in between Guest Bio: Scott Martin is a soccer coach, teacher, author, and father of five adopted children. After becoming a quad amputee at 35 following a near-fatal illness, he rebuilt his life through coaching, fatherhood, and eventually writing Play From Your Heart, a memoir published by Simon and Schuster. Scott lives in Wisconsin, coaches at the club level, and is passionate about using his story to support the disability community and anyone who has had to start over. His book is available for pre-order now wherever books are sold. Reach Scott at reader.playfromyourheart@gmail.com. — Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ – life after amputation, rebuilding identity after trauma, disability and resilience, overcoming depression, quad amputee recovery, coping with grief and loss, starting over in your thirties, adoption as transformation, identity after illness, shame and disability Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some moments don't announce themselves. They arrive as headaches you explain away, as an MRI you schedule between school pickups and client calls. And then your phone rings ten minutes after you get home, and everything you thought you knew about your life gets quietly rearranged. Jen Dary was 35, a business owner and new mom to two babies, when a neurologist told her she had a lemon-sized brain tumor sitting behind her left eye. What followed wasn't just a medical crisis. It was a complete unraveling of who she thought she was supposed to be, and a slow, surprising reconstruction of who she actually wanted to become. In this conversation, Jen talks about the strange calm that preceded brain surgery, the spiritual visions that carried her through, and the grief that arrived weeks later in a coffee shop. She shares what it looks like to release the identity that doesn't fit anymore, and how she came to understand her life less as something that happened to her, and more as something she might have chosen. What You'll Hear: The phone call that changed everything, and the strange quiet before she told anyone How Jen organized, planned, and kept moving as a way to survive the shock The visions and spiritual experiences that shaped her recovery and her new book What survivor's guilt looks like when you meet someone whose tumor wasn't benign The shift from type-A responsibility to living like you don't need permission How writing her memoir helped her leave something of herself for her sons Guest Bio: Author Jen Dary is a highly sought-after leadership coach, entrepreneur, brain tumor survivor, podcast host, and mom. As founder of the coaching firm Plucky, she has coached professionals from over 200 companies, including Google, Facebook, Slack, Code for America, The New York Times, and many more. She has shared her expertise with the Wall Street Journal, and as guest on multiple podcasts including Harvard Business Review's Women at Work. She has written for Harvard Business Review online and was published in Harvard Business Review's Work Smart Series. Jen was a Virginia Center for the Creative Arts resident and is active in the DC writing scene. Jen's first book "I Believe in Everything: A Memoir of Illness, Motherhood and Magic" will be released January 2026 (Daring House, LLC). Jen lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and two young sons. More at: jendarywriter.com/ and https://linktr.ee/jendarywriter "I Believe in Everything" Official Website: daring.house/i-believe-in-everything Jen Dary on IG: @jendarywriter --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- brain tumor survivor, life shift moment, identity after illness, brain surgery recovery, spiritual awakening, finding purpose after trauma, survivor's guilt, meningioma, radical acceptance, living with intention Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Somewhere along the way, most of us learned to take better care of other people than we do of ourselves. We know the right things to say. We show up. We hold space. And then we go home to the version of our life we haven't quite told anyone about. Misha Brown spent years doing exactly that. A performer from a tiny one-stoplight town, he built a life that looked full from the outside, travel to over a hundred countries, a career on cruise ships and stages, a laugh that could fill any room. But behind the shine was a quiet, persistent loneliness, and a drinking habit that had become the costume he wore instead of a self. The shift came on Christmas Eve in a New Jersey hotel room. Empty cans, a makeshift ashtray, and a phone call with his best friend who was struggling. After hanging up, Misha looked in the mirror and asked himself a question that changed everything: why can't you be your own friend? It wasn't a dramatic moment. It was a quiet one. And sometimes that's exactly what breaks something open. What You'll Hear: How a missed college audition planted the first seeds of a fractured identity Why performing became both a superpower and a way to disappear The Christmas Eve hotel room moment that became an eight-year turning point What it actually felt like to get sober, without a support group or a clear plan The structured self-love framework Misha created for himself that became a book How social media helped him find his people, and his purpose Misha Brown is an undeniable entertainment powerhouse who excels as an influencer, podcast host, and performer. With a knack for captivating audiences, he shot to notoriety on TikTok in 2021 with the viral Lessons in Not Crossing a Gay Man series, amassing over 6 million followers. Named Motivational Creator of the Year and honored by the Webby Awards for social impact, he also earned a Best Comedy Podcast nomination from the Podcast Academy. Misha’s work has been spotlighted by People, USA Today, and Good Morning America, cementing his status as one of the most compelling voices online. His debut book, Be Your Own Bestie: A No-Nonsense Guide to Changing the Way You Treat Yourself, is available wherever books are sold. He lives in Texas with his husband and a collection of pets he is deeply devoted to. You can find him everywhere at @yourbestie_misha. --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ --- self-love, sobriety, identity, recovery, performing arts, belonging, inner child, self-worth, authenticity, friendship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some moments arrive quietly. This one arrived with teeth. Tim Thomas spent most of his life moving through the world one decision at a time, eyes forward, gut leading. Fighter. Special Forces operator. A man who found clarity in high-stakes moments and chased them because that was the only place he felt fully present. It worked. And it also kept him from seeing almost everything that mattered beyond the edges of his own experience. Then a shark bit him off the coast of Sydney, and something opened up. Not because of the danger. Because of a friend's eyes in the water. Because of one second where the stress fell out of his body and something unexpected arrived in its place. Peace. Not because the situation was okay. Because another person had his back. Tim calls it the moment he realized we don't need more stuff. We need more trust. What You'll Hear: The shark attack that rewired how Tim understands human connection How living only through your own eyes leaves you unconsciously cut off from others What Tim discovered about loneliness, fatigue, and why they're more dangerous together than either is alone The "golden question" that broke his isolation during one of his lowest seasons Why authentic conversations, not weapons or strategies, are the most powerful thing we carry How breathwork and sleep became the tools that brought everything else back Guest Bio: Tim Thomas is a Father of two, former MMA fighter & Australian Special Forces Commando who now helps people reclaim their energy and mental clarity through sleep and breathwork. After working with veterans struggling with PTSD and noticing that real change began the moment their sleep improved, he created Breathwork in Bed to make better sleep simple and accessible for anyone battling exhaustion and overwhelm. His mission is helping people move from surviving their days to actually living them with peace, power, and presence. Tim Thomas wants to gift you 28 days of great sleep. Sound good? These links are for immediate and natural sleep improvement; They’re Tim’s company's online resource called - The ‘Breathwork in Bed’ app. The app will guide you to sleep with peace and out of bed with power. Enjoy! Apple: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6575362285?pt=127061224&ct=BIB50K&mt=8 Google: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.breathworkinbed.bibsleepapp20&hl=en https://breathworkinbed.com.au/ https://www.instagram.com/breathworkinbed/ https://www.facebook.com/breathworkinbed https://www.tiktok.com/@breathworkinbed?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc https://www.linkedin.com/in/bettersleepbetterworld/ ---- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ trust and connection, near-death experience transformation, veteran mental health, sleep science, breathwork for sleep, overcoming isolation, freediving mindfulness, internal compass, authentic conversation, loneliness and fatigue Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of us build an entire life before we realize the foundation was made of survival, not solid ground. If you have ever pushed hard, achieved big, and still felt like something underneath you was quietly trembling, this episode is for you. Kathleen McKune grew up in a home marked by abuse, neglect, and a kind of chaos that required a five-year-old to climb up to the stove and start making dinner for her siblings. She became a high-achieving entrepreneur, a strategic facilitator, a co-founder, a mother, and an author. She did all of it with what she calls "steeled up Kathleen": walls up, eyes forward, purpose driving every step. The struggles were internal. The world only saw the results. In 2017, Kathleen was facilitating a trauma training in Kansas City when a slide went up showing the Adverse Childhood Experiences scale. She assumed most people in the room would score close to her. Most scored zero, one, or two. She had written down an eight to fib a little, knowing she was actually a nine. That moment, at 56 years old, was the first time Kathleen understood that not everyone grew up the way she did. It did not break her. It gave her language. It gave her science. And slowly, years later, it gave her permission to begin asking who she actually is underneath all the survival. What You'll Hear: How perfectionism rooted in childhood fear shaped Kathleen's entire professional identity The moment a data slide cracked open sixty years of assumed normalcy What it felt like to write a book with her twin sisters and learn, in detail, what had happened to each of them The difference between managing trauma and actually healing, and the question that finally forced her to reckon with it Why dancing is the first piece of her authentic self she has found, and what that means for the journey ahead How Kathleen chose the purpose that was once given to her, and what it means to finally own it About Kathleen McKune Kathleen Harnish McKune is a co-founder and CEO of Team Tech, a strategic facilitation firm, and the CEO of Remarkably Resilient, a nonprofit dedicated to trauma-informed resilience education. She co-authored the book Remarkably Resilient: Community Matters alongside her twin sisters Sharon and Karen, sharing the neuroscience of trauma and a framework for building resilience. Kathleen works with state and local governments, corrections, child welfare agencies, and incarcerated populations across Kansas, and brings both lived experience and rigorous research to her mission of helping people understand what happened to them, and how to move through it. You can find her at remarkably-resilient.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ childhood trauma recovery, adverse childhood experiences, ACEs score, breaking generational cycles, trauma-informed resilience, healing authentic self, survival perfectionism, high-functioning trauma survivor, neuroscience of trauma, what happened to you Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a kind of grief that never gets to happen out loud. It stays pressed down inside you, shaped by the people around you who couldn't hold it. Matin knows that grief. She found out her mother had died by reaching for a hand that didn't reach back. She was thirteen. And then the world she had counted on, her mother's family, her father's warmth, the permission to even cry, quietly fell away. What followed was years of building a life on her own terms. Studying in secret. Sleeping on hard surfaces just to avoid going home. Moving from Iran to Japan to finally have room to breathe. She did it without anyone telling her she could. She did it by becoming her own closest companion, the kind of friend who says, I remember when that happened, and we got through it together. Matin is a plant molecular biologist who studies mangrove trees, organisms that live between land and sea, in conditions most things can't survive. She sees herself in them. In this conversation, she shares what it took to finally reach peace, and why she believes all of us should talk about our stories, not as something brave or rare, but as something ordinary and necessary. What You'll Hear: Growing up with a father who was both deeply loving and unpredictable, and what that did to a child's sense of safety The moment Matin discovered her mother had died, and being told not to cry Losing her entire maternal family in the grief that followed, and the deep loneliness that set in How she secretly studied through high school, skipped dinner for four years, and fought her way to college just to survive Building an academic career across continents, including surviving a violent assault in Japan, and still choosing not to become defined by her pain What turning forty felt like, and the inner bond she credits with getting her here Guest Bio: Matin Miryeganeh grew up in Rasht, Iran, and is now a plant molecular biologist based in Japan, where she has lived for sixteen years. She studies mangrove trees, and the connection she feels to these resilient organisms runs deeper than science. Matin is also the author of All Is Well, a memoir in which she shares her journey through loss, isolation, and the long, quiet road to peace. You can find her book on Amazon and Goodreads: https://www.amazon.com/All-Well-memoir-survival-strength/dp/B0FHH898H6 Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ childhood grief, mother loss, growing up without support, finding inner peace, resilience, trauma healing, isolation, self-connection, immigrant journey, life transformation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you grew up loving someone who was always somewhere else. Always present in the house but somehow out of reach. If that landed in a part of you that still carries it, this episode might feel like a long exhale. Matt Fogelson grew up wanting more of his father than his father knew how to give. When his dad died unexpectedly during Matt's college years, the grief that followed wasn't just about loss. It was about all the conversations they never had, the closeness that always felt one step away. Matt went to law school, followed the family blueprint, wore his father's suits to work, and spent years trying to fill a hole that kept its shape. Then he brought his own son home for the first time. The baby wouldn't stop crying. The dog was barking. Nothing was working. And without thinking about it at all, Matt started singing. What came out was a Grateful Dead song. It wasn't logical. It was just true. And that small, strange, middle-of-the-night moment quietly became the beginning of something he'd been waiting his whole life to start. What You'll Hear: The specific moment of grief that intensified when Matt became a father himself Why music became a bridge to a part of himself he'd put away How singing the same song to his son for 14 years shaped their connection The bar mitzvah moment that made him realize he was repeating his father's patterns What writing a memoir taught him about understanding and forgiving a man he never fully knew The advice his aunt gave him after his father died, the advice he rolled his eyes at, and why he wishes he'd heard it sooner Matt Fogelson is an author, former attorney, and lifelong music obsessive who spent decades navigating the emotional distance passed down through generations of his family. His memoir, Restrung: Fatherhood in a Different Key, traces the journey from grief to presence through the language of music. He lives with his family and can be found at mattfogelson.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ father son relationship, grief after losing a parent, emotional distance in families, fatherhood and identity, music as healing, inherited trauma, becoming a present parent, memoir writing as grief, breaking family patterns, unresolved loss Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've done something you're not proud of. Maybe you've done it more than once. And maybe the hardest part wasn't the doing, it was the sitting with what it said about you. Nick Gomez grew up moving fast, through friendships, through relationships, through versions of himself he wasn't sure he believed in. Raised in Cancun with a lot of freedom and very little guidance, he learned early that if no one found out, it didn't really happen. That belief followed him into adulthood, into relationship after relationship, until one moment changed the math entirely. This is a conversation about what it actually takes to tell the truth when you know it's going to cost you. About the patterns we carry from childhood without realizing it. About grief, writing, the strange relief of finally saying the thing out loud, and what it looks like to slowly, imperfectly become someone you actually respect. What You'll Hear: Why Nick kept repeating the same pattern across three relationships, and what finally broke it The three months he spent deciding whether to confess, and what helped him find the courage How writing a memoir in 30 days helped him process what he'd done and understand why The role his father's death played in reshaping who he wanted to be What honesty looks like now, in dating, in friendships, in how he shows up for himself Why grief so often goes unspoken, and what it actually looks like to support someone who's losing someone Guest Bio: Nick Gomez is an author, filmmaker, and coach based in the United States. Originally from Cancun, Mexico, Nick has written multiple memoirs exploring identity, honesty, and the messier parts of being human. Two of his books are available as free audiobooks on YouTube. He approaches his work, and his life, with a commitment to authenticity that took years to build and that he keeps rebuilding every day. You can find him at https://www.realnicholasgomez.com/ Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ self-sabotage, relationship patterns, emotional honesty, cheating and confession, childhood neglect, self-worth, identity, memoir writing, psychedelic therapy, grief, father loss, authenticity, codependency, personal transformation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you know this feeling. Someone died and you kept going, because that was what you were supposed to do. You stayed busy, you stayed capable, and somewhere along the way you convinced yourself that you had handled it. Rebe Huntman lost her mother to cancer at 19. The grief counselors told her to move forward. So she did, with discipline and determination and a full, successful life. But 30 years later, on the edge of turning 50, she realized she had never actually let herself miss her. Not really. This episode follows Rebe's pilgrimage to Cuba, a country where the dead are not gone, where ancestors are spoken to daily and the veil between worlds is treated as thin and navigable. What she found there, in the dances, in the drumming, in the quiet workroom of a spiritist in El Cobre, was not magic for its own sake. It was permission. Permission to stop moving past her grief and start staying in it. What You'll Hear: How Rebe mastered the art of moving forward and the cost it quietly carried The moment in Cuba when her understanding of death, grief, and ancestry completely shifted What it felt like to reimagine the hospital room scene she had been carrying for 30 years How a country with a different relationship to death gave her a new way to love her mother The small, daily rituals she brought home from Cuba and what they have meant for her healing Why showing up fully as yourself can become a quiet gift to everyone around you Guest Bio: Rebe Huntman is a writer, former Latin dancer, and choreographer who has spent her career at the intersection of movement, storytelling, and spirit. She spent decades running a professional dance company and teaching college and high school before turning her full attention to writing. She splits her time between Delaware, Ohio and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Her debut memoir, My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic and Miracle, was published in 2025 and chronicles her transformative pilgrimage to Cuba in search of her mother and herself. Find her at rebehuntman.com and on Instagram @rebehuntman. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ grief after mother's death, ancestral healing, Afro-Cuban spirituality, pilgrimage and transformation, learning to talk to the dead, disenfranchised grief, mother loss, life after 50 identity, Santeria and healing, memoir of magic and grief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you have had a moment where your body tried to tell you something and you looked the other way. A small signal, easy to explain away. This episode is for anyone who has ever dismissed a whisper, and then had to reckon with what that whisper was trying to say. Shruti grew up as a working mom in Melbourne, living a normal, full life, when tingling in her feet gradually became something she could no longer ignore. Over years, that quiet signal grew into a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, a progression from walker to wheelchair, and a complete reshaping of her career, her home life, and her sense of self. What she found on the other side was not what most people might expect. She found strength, not the performed kind, not the kind someone else told her she had to have, but a deep, steady resilience that rose out of the hardest circumstances of her life. This is a conversation about what it means to carry an invisible illness through a world that cannot see it. It is about traveling alone to Kerala to try Ayurvedic therapy on nothing but hope. It is about reliving your hardest moments to write a memoir, and about looking back at all the worry you carried before, and finally letting it go. What You'll Hear: How Shruti's MS symptoms progressed over nearly a decade before a turning point shifted her entire life What it felt like to lose her job, her mobility, and her previous identity, and how she moved through that The solo trip to Kerala for Ayurvedic treatment, and what she found there beyond the therapy itself How writing her memoir, My Invisible Battles, helped her discover a version of herself she had never met before The connection between stress, chronic illness, and finally releasing the need to overthink everything Why she believes strength is not something anyone can teach you, and where it actually comes from Guest Bio: Shruti Ghate is an author and mother of two based in Melbourne, Australia. After years of living with multiple sclerosis, she published her memoir, My Invisible Battles, to offer guidance and solidarity to others navigating an invisible autoimmune illness. Her work is grounded in the belief that sharing our stories can reach farther than we imagine. Find Shruti and her book at www.shrutighate.com, and on Amazon Kindle worldwide. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ living with multiple sclerosis, invisible illness, chronic illness resilience, autoimmune disease journey, progressive MS, finding strength, wellness memoir, identity after diagnosis, invisible battles, caregiver support MS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a particular kind of grief that does not announce itself. It arrives in the middle of an ordinary drive, through a phone ringing on a Sunday afternoon, in the voice of a stranger delivering news your brain simply refuses to hold. If you have ever felt the world keep moving while you were standing completely still, this episode will find you. Stephen Panus lost his 16-year-old son Jake in August 2020, on a weekend trip that started with a peace sign from the driveway and ended in a parking lot, screaming to the sky. What followed was not a clean journey through stages. It was survival. One hour, then one day. The weight of holding a family together when you could barely hold yourself. The rage that comes when someone else’s carelessness takes everything. And the strange, hard-won realization that forgiveness was not about letting anyone off the hook. It was about releasing himself. In this conversation, Stephen talks about what grief actually does to a body, a marriage, a family. How his wife and son experienced the same loss and walked entirely different paths through it. How the Jake Panus Walk On Scholarship grew from a house full of flowers into something that keeps his son’s name alive in the world. And what it means to show up for someone in pain, when there are no right words and showing up is the only thing that matters. What You’ll Hear: The moment Stephen received the phone call that changed everything, and what happened in the minutes after The complexity of grief when anger, self-blame, and love are all happening at the same time Why the second year of grief was harder than the first, and the role of therapy in keeping his family together How the Jake Panus Walk On Scholarship grew from an impulse to honor a son into a living legacy The difference between knowing you lost someone and actually accepting it What Stephen would say to anyone who doesn’t know what to do when someone they love is suffering Guest Bio: Stephen Panus spent his career as a sports marketing executive, building brands behind the scenes. In August 2020, his 16-year-old son Jake was killed in a car accident on Block Island, Rhode Island. In the years since, Stephen has become a speaker, an author, and the creator of the Jake Panus Walk On Scholarship, a series of three scholarships honoring Jake’s spirit of compassion and lifting others. His book, Walk On, is available now and all proceeds support the scholarships. Stephen lives in Connecticut with his wife Kelly and son Liam. https://www.stephenpanus.com/ Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Keywords: child loss grief, father losing a son, grief and forgiveness, sudden loss, grief guilt shame, surviving the loss of a child, grief therapy, learning to live after loss, grieving father, walk on scholarship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a moment in Nick Prefontaine's story where the doctors step outside the hospital room to deliver news they don't think he can hear. His mom stops them. She knows better. Even in a coma, she believes her son is taking things in. That one act of belief, quiet and firm and unwilling to accept the ceiling others had set, shaped everything that came after. Nick was fourteen when a snowboarding accident put him in a coma for three weeks and rewrote the map his future was supposed to follow. The doctors said he might never walk, talk, or eat on his own again. What they didn't know was that Nick was already setting a different goal. Before he could even form words, he was mouthing them. He was going to run out of that hospital. This episode is about what it looks like to recover not just a body, but a sense of self, a purpose, and a calling. Nick shares the four-part framework he unknowingly used at fourteen and has spent decades refining. It's not a system built for winners. It's built for people in the middle of the worst thing that's ever happened to them. What You'll Hear: The snowboarding accident that changed everything and the series of unlikely moments that kept Nick alive What his mother did in the hospital room that set the tone for his entire recovery The internal voice Nick heard before he could speak, and how he's learned to trust it as an adult The STEP system: Support, Trust, Energy, Persistence, and how Nick applied it without knowing it The long quiet after the fanfare faded, and what it felt like when regular life resumed How Nick finally said yes to the calling he'd been putting off for years and what happened when he did Guest Bio: Nick Prefontaine is a speaker, coach, and founder of Common Goal. At fourteen, a snowboarding accident left him in a coma with injuries so severe that doctors doubted he'd walk again. He did. He ran. And eighteen months later he was door-knocking in neighborhoods, beginning a career in real estate that would eventually make room for the work he was always meant to do. Today, Nick works one-on-one with trauma survivors, accident victims, and people in the middle of life crises, sharing the STEP system he used to recover and helping others find their next step when they can't see it yet. You can find him and download the full STEP system at nickprefontaine.com/step. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've felt it too. That sense that if you just did everything right, the story would unfold the way it was supposed to. That the checklist would protect you. That the guardrails were there for a reason. Evan Boyer followed the plan. He was competitive, driven, self-focused in all the ways that tend to work well in corporate America. And then Christmas morning 2021 arrived, and the plan was gone. His wife was rushed to the OR. His daughter was born eleven weeks early, two pounds and six ounces. And Evan sat alone in a hospital room for an hour, waiting for news about whether both of them were okay. Seventy days in the NICU has a way of teaching you things no checklist ever could. For Evan, it planted a seed. And when a second pregnancy and a professional setback arrived at the same time, that seed broke open. He left his corporate job, launched his own PR firm, and started building something that felt like his, for the first time. What You'll Hear: What it felt like to stand beside his daughter in a hazmat suit, not knowing if his wife was okay How seventy days in the NICU quietly rewired his relationship with control The moment two life events collided and made staying put feel riskier than leaving What the first slow days of entrepreneurship actually looked like (and why he doesn't pretend it was seamless) How he found community in the NICU parent world by simply reaching out when he was scared Why he thinks the version of him sitting in that waiting room needed to hear that change is okay Guest Bio: Evan Boyer is the founder and CEO of Leaders PR, a boutique public relations firm he launched after years in corporate communications. A husband, father of two, and former competitive golfer, Evan lives in North Carolina and brings a grounded, energy-forward approach to everything he does. He is active on LinkedIn and can be reached at evan@leaderspr.com or leaderspr.com. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maybe you've built your whole life around being the one who shows up. The one who runs toward the hard thing when everyone else steps back. You know the feeling of being needed. What you might not know is how long you can keep that up before you lose track of who you actually are underneath it all. Dr. Tony Dice spent years chasing the highest version of that identity, from a remote mountain town in Northern California to the Navy SEALs, from the brotherhood of elite service to the unraveling of a nine-year addiction. What looked like strength from the outside was quietly hollowing out everything beneath it. And the moment it all became undeniable wasn't some dramatic public collapse. It was a phone pushed under a bed. A call from a daycare. A son who needed him, and a room he couldn't leave. This conversation is about what happens after that moment. Tony has been in recovery for fifteen years, earned his doctorate, returned to the very treatment center that saved his life, and built a career helping veterans, law enforcement, and high performers face the thing they've been outrunning. His story doesn't wrap up neatly, and he wouldn't want it to. It just points somewhere real. What You'll Hear: The moment Tony's addiction became undeniable, and why he couldn't get out of that room How the identity of "the hero" became both a lifeline and a trap What the decision between the SEAL teams and his addiction actually felt like in the body The small, unlikely moment in a treatment center that redirected the rest of his life Why he believes addiction is far more universal than most people are willing to admit What it feels like to watch someone's guard finally come down, and why that's the work he was built for Dr. Tony Dice is a Navy SEAL veteran, 15-year recovery advocate, professor of counseling at Old Dominion University, and founder of Bishop and Dice Defense, a veteran-owned business that pairs tactical training with mental health services. He is the author of After the Trident, a raw, memoir-style account of shame, addiction, and the recovery model he developed over more than a decade of working with high performers. https://bishopdicedefense.com/ Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some shifts don't arrive all at once. They come slowly, over days and years, asking you to let go of things you weren't ready to release. If you've ever had to reimagine who you are after something took a version of you that you loved, this episode will feel like a hand on your shoulder. Deb Meyerson was 53, healthy, and doing meaningful work as a Stanford professor when a stroke began on a drive to Lake Tahoe. What followed wasn't a quick recovery. It was a slow reckoning with the body, the voice, the professional identity, and the quiet realization that some parts of the old life weren't coming back. Her husband Steve walked every step alongside her, navigating his own grief as a care partner while trying to hold the family together. Together, they eventually found a way to transform the loss into something that now helps thousands of stroke survivors feel less alone. This is a conversation about the kind of grief that doesn't announce itself. The kind that shows up on your happiest days and in your proudest moments, reminding you of the distance between who you were and who you are now. It's also a conversation about what it looks like to keep creating meaning when the old map no longer works. What You'll Hear: How Deb's stroke unfolded slowly over a Labor Day weekend, and what the overnight "slow fall off a cliff" felt like for both of them The moment three years in when Deb had to leave Stanford, and how that second loss broke something open What it actually means to hold multiple identities at once after trauma, and how Deb navigated the "yes and" of still being herself The grief cycles that don't end, including the morning after their grandson was born How writing a book became the most affordable therapy Deb never expected, and what led them to start Stroke Onward What Steve learned about being a care partner, and why that role is so rarely seen or supported Guest Bio: Debra Meyerson is a stroke survivor, author, and co-founder of Stroke Onward, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting stroke survivors and care partners through the emotional journey of recovery. A former tenured professor at Stanford, she wrote Identity Theft with her son and husband Steve after her own experience of rebuilding identity in the wake of a stroke and aphasia. Steve Zuckerman brings decades of experience in business, economic justice, and nonprofit leadership to his role as co-founder and care partner. Together, they work to ensure that the emotional side of stroke recovery gets the attention it deserves. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some stories start with a loss so early that you don't even have the words for what happened. You just carry it. You carry it into every room, every relationship, every quiet moment where something feels off but you can't name why. That's where Wendy's story begins. She was seven years old when her father died, and nobody sat down to explain it. Nobody said you're allowed to be angry. Nobody said you can talk to him in the moon and the stars. The world just kept moving, and she learned to move with it. What Wendy didn't know until she was 62 is that her instinct of not quite belonging had an answer she hadn't even thought to look for. A DNA test. A buried secret. A biological father who had come to her house while her dad was at work, and a mother who had spent a lifetime protecting everyone except the one person who most needed the truth. This is a conversation about what it costs to grow up without language for your own grief. It's about the way a body holds on to what a family refuses to say out loud. And it's about what happens when the truth, as painful and as complicated as it is, finally lands. Wendy wrote her memoir, My Pretty Baby, as a call to action, not just a personal story. Because 64% of adults have experienced some form of adverse childhood experience, and most of them were never given permission to talk about it. What You'll Hear: What it felt like to lose a parent at seven when no one gave grief a name The moment in an acting class in her 20s when 20 years of buried anger finally surfaced How growing up with an alcoholic stepfather shaped her sense of self and blame The DNA discovery at 62 that reframed her entire life and answered the question she didn't know she'd been asking What it means to feel validated by the truth, even when the truth comes too late for some conversations Why she wrote My Pretty Baby as a call to action and what she hopes readers carry with them Guest Bio: Wendy B. Correa is a writer, yogi, speaker, and advocate for honest conversations about adverse childhood experiences. Her memoir, My Pretty Baby, traces her journey through childhood loss, family dysfunction, and the identity-shifting discovery that her biological father was not who she believed him to be. She is committed to breaking the silence around ACEs and helping others find language for the things they were never allowed to say. You can find her at www.wendybcorrea.com and on Instagram at @WendyBCorrea. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are moments that don't give you any warning. You're living your life, things are working, and then something happens that makes you question every single thing you thought you knew. Including yourself. That's where Chris Magleby found himself in 2017. A small piece of a pot brownie triggered a full psychotic episode, one that landed him zip-tied in his front yard, fighting cops he didn't recognize, hearing sounds that weren't there. It was terrifying. And it was, in a strange and quiet way, the beginning of something. Chris spent the next two and a half years working through acute anxiety, a manic episode, and the slow, painful process of rebuilding a relationship with his own mind. What came out the other side was a man who understood the difference between controlling life and actually living it. Now he's channeling all of that into Mindless Labs, a mental health startup built for people who know what it feels like to be lost inside their own heads. What You'll Hear: How a childhood marked by his parents' divorce shaped his relationship with control and safety The night a psychotic episode cracked everything open, and what those terrifying hours felt like from the inside Why the two and a half years after were, in some ways, harder than the episode itself How Chris found his way to mindfulness, meditation, and Eastern philosophy as tools for survival The difference between pushing through and actually feeling your way through What it means to turn your hardest experience into something that might help someone else find the light Guest Bio: Chris Magleby is the co-founder of Mindless Labs, a mental health startup with an apparel line that funds mental health resources and an app built around professional-led content for people navigating their own mental health journeys. He's been married for nearly 22 years, is a father, and brings to all of it a hard-earned understanding of what it means to fall apart and come back differently. You can find him and Mindless Labs at mindless.org or on Instagram at @mindlesslabs. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of us spend years learning how to look okay when we are not. We get good at reading rooms, making ourselves small, keeping quiet. Not because we want to, but because it felt like the only way to stay safe. If that sounds familiar, this episode might feel like someone finally said the quiet part out loud. Eugene Z. Bertrand grew up navigating a home shaped by domestic violence. For most of his childhood and into early adulthood, survival meant masking. It meant saying he was fine when he was not. It meant watching and waiting and staying alert. And then, just days after graduating college, something happened that nearly took his life. And the most unsettling part was how calmly he described it afterward. In this conversation, Eugene talks about what it felt like to say it out loud for the first time, to sit with radical acceptance, to forgive not because the other person deserved it but because he did. He talks about EMDR therapy, about the friends who held space for him, about vulnerability as a superpower, and about the book he wrote, five to ten pages a day, just to keep moving forward. What You'll Hear: What it felt like to grow up in a home where uncertainty was the norm, and how that silence shaped who Eugene became The moment he almost lost his life, and why it took a friend's reaction to help him truly understand what had happened How radical acceptance and EMDR therapy helped him move through trauma without staying trapped in it What it actually felt like to choose forgiveness, including the morning after when he was not sure he had made the right call Why Eugene believes vulnerability is your greatest superpower, and what happens when you finally stop hiding your story How writing a book became a form of healing, and what he hopes other survivors of domestic violence find when they read it Guest Bio: Eugene Z. Bertrand is a survivor, author, and social work student at Columbia University. He is the author of Resilience: Breaking the Chains, a fiction-based exploration of domestic violence and the long road toward healing. Eugene is a mentor, speaker, and passionate advocate for vulnerability as a form of strength and for creating spaces where survivors, especially men, feel safe enough to tell the truth. If Eugene's story moved you, send him a message at eugenezbertrand.com or pick up his book, Resilience: Breaking the Chains, on Amazon. And if you want more conversations like this one, subscribe to this newsletter and never miss an episode. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is a version of grief that nobody warns you about. It is not the loud kind. It is the quiet kind, the one that creeps in slowly until one day you are walking your dogs on a trail you love and you realize you no longer feel connected to the ground beneath your feet. That moment, as small and ordinary as it sounds, was the one that changed everything for Dianette Wells. Dianette has lived her life reaching toward something higher. She grew up in flat Southern California, looking at snow-capped mountains from her backyard and knowing, in the way some people just know, that she was meant for something beyond what she had been handed. That instinct led her to Mount Whitney, to Kilimanjaro, to all seven summits, and eventually to ultramarathons across the world. Movement was not just her passion. It was her language, her therapy, her way of sorting through whatever life threw at her. And then her son Johnny died. He was 23. He was a wingsuit pilot and a base jumper and the kind of person who had climbed the seven summits before he was legally allowed to do most of the things he loved. His death stripped the sparkle from the world for a long time. And Dianette had to find her way back, not to who she was before, but to someone who could hold the grief and still choose to live. What You'll Hear How a girls' trip up Mount Whitney cracked open a hunger for adventure that Dianette had never known she had The quiet devastation of losing her son, Johnny, and how grief made the world feel physically different Why she believes year two of loss is harder than year one, and what finally shook her out of just existing Her honest take on grief without a roadmap, and why there is no right way to do any of it How movement, travel, and even a plant medicine journey became her path back to herself What it means to honor someone you lost without feeling obligated to perform that grief for the world Guest Bio Dianette Wells is an adventurer, author, and mother who has spent decades pursuing the kinds of experiences that most people only dream about. She has climbed the Seven Summits, run ultramarathons around the globe, and lived in Malibu before relocating to Park City, Utah, where altitude and single-track trails became both her home and her healing. After losing her son Johnny Strange at age 23, Dianette channeled her grief into continued movement, memory-making, and writing. Her book, Another Step Up the Mountain, is available at dnatwells.com and is now moving to a new publisher, Flint Hills Publishing. Johnny's story is documented in the film American Daredevil on Peacock and Born to Fly, Johnny Strange on Tubi. https://dianettewells.com/ Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is someone in your life whose story you have not asked about yet. Maybe you keep meaning to. Maybe you figure there is time. This episode is a quiet reminder that time is the one thing none of us actually have on hold. Cristian grew up in Paraguay, surrounded by family lunches that stretched into the afternoon, stories layered on top of stories, and a kind of closeness that most of us only read about. He carried all of that with him, through Stanford, through Google, through the blank whiteboard moment of figuring out what he was actually supposed to build. And then, a few weeks before a trip home to finally sit down with his grandmother and record her story, she had a stroke. The conversation he had been saving for later became one he would never have. What came out of that loss was not just a product. It was a reckoning. Cristian built Autograph, an AI-driven platform that interviews people about their lives, so that the stories we keep meaning to capture do not quietly disappear. This episode is about grief, yes. But it is also about what happens when you stop waiting and decide to become the author of your own life. What You'll Hear: Why the stories we never say out loud are the ones we lose forever How growing up in Paraguay shaped the way Cristian thinks about family, identity, and belonging The moment his grandmother's stroke became the catalyst for everything What it actually feels like to become the main character of your own story How grief and technology can hold hands without losing the human part Why your story matters, even if you have never once believed that it does Guest Bio: Cristian Cibils Bernardes is the founder of Autograph, a platform that uses AI to help people record, preserve, and share their life stories with the people who matter most. He grew up in Paraguay, studied symbolic systems at Stanford, and worked at Google before stepping back to figure out what he was actually building toward. The answer, it turned out, had been waiting in his own family all along. Learn more at autograph.ai. --- Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have ever loved someone so deeply that the thought of losing them rearranged everything, this conversation is for you. It is for the moments when you try to stay steady while the ground is already shifting beneath you. It is for the quiet questions that surface when life no longer follows the plan you thought you were living. Kathleen Quinn shares a story shaped by devotion, sudden illness, and the long unfolding of grief. She speaks about caring for her husband through a devastating diagnosis, about choosing presence over denial, and about the many small decisions that come with loving someone at the end of their life. This is not a story about moving on. It is a story about staying open. About learning how grief and joy can exist side by side. About discovering that the life you are living now may still hold meaning, tenderness, and purpose. This episode is a gentle reminder that there is no correct way to grieve. Only your way. And that honoring what was lost does not mean closing yourself off from what still remains. What You’ll Hear Loving someone through a terminal diagnosis without turning them into a patient The quiet weight of anticipatory grief and how it shows up unexpectedly Choosing presence in moments that feel unbearable Letting go of rules about how grief is supposed to look Staying open to life after loss without rushing yourself How grief reshaped her relationship with worth, joy, and purpose Guest Bio Kathleen Quinn is a mindset coach and former philanthropy leader at Stanford. After more than three decades working closely with high-achieving and high-net-worth individuals, she now helps people explore the deeper questions of worthiness, wealth, and fulfillment. Drawing from her professional experience and personal journey through loss, Kathleen guides clients through meaningful transitions rooted in self-trust, clarity, and impact. Listen and follow: www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com/follow Support the show for ad-free and early-release episodes: www.patreon.com/thelifeshiftpodcast Subscribe to the newsletter: https://thelifeshiftpodcast.beehiiv.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is part of The Things We Carry, a solo series shaped by the themes that stay with me after more than two hundred conversations on The Life Shift. Today I am talking about the small moments that end up changing everything. Not the dramatic events we can point to, but the quieter shifts. The split second where you choose something different. The small yes or no that later becomes a turning point. The thought you almost ignore until it finally lands. In this reflection, I talk about the tiny, almost invisible choices that shape who we become. The gentle nudges. The slow clarifying moments. The things that do not look important at the time but reveal themselves later as the start of a new chapter. Change is rarely loud. Healing is rarely obvious. Most of the time it happens underneath the surface, long before we can name it. If you are feeling stuck or wondering when your own shift will show up, I hope this episode helps you notice what is already happening inside you. Look for the little things. The small questions. The subtle pull toward something new. Those moments matter more than you think. They might be the beginning of your next life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices