Smoothly, professionally, I approach with "I really enjoyed your presentation on AI." Luckily, it's true, and Michelle gets that, so we had a great introduction, which led to lunch, a ping-pongy conversation, a friendship and this podcast. Wait until you hear about her foot and the subway door, her solo Odyssey in Asia, her lumpy bumpy road to her here and now.

Michelle clarifies and illuminates each time she focuses on any idea. We are riding a tandem bike. But it's side-by-side, not front-and-back. Have a party with us, okay?

"Doesn't work up to expectations" was inscribed repeatedly on my report card. Heather's too. She's danced professionally, I coincidentally, and we both love it. We talk about raising thinkers, loving what is whether we like it or not, discovering and working the shift that makes us feel better, and moments of humanity.

A community of two, old friends rediscovered, two people finding themselves in the same lifeboat and figuring out how to row, though not identically, together, and, of course, realizing that of course it's non-linear.

Join us.

Please.

"You may have to wait to talk, but you never have to wait to listen."

Every back2different podcast starts with a 5-10 minute story - the guest's answer to "How did you get here?" That's all we need to move forward together. Just notice and connect.

Jenlyn UNBN and I travel together for an hour and explore grieving, "the gray zone," our core selves, circumstance and experience, sexuality, kidnapping, EMS service, shamanism, and "I cannot give from an empty cup."

Tag along for a bit and ride with as as curiosity becomes audacity.

We had a wonderful journey together, Sarah and I, as we shared her blossoming, awakening, I guess, as an adult. As she says, "I found my voice at 40."

A classically trained singer, she was invited to sing in a surf band her husband had started and suggested "I can't do rock and roll." Guess what happened next, right?

Give us a listen, please, and find out why she was advised to "Land the plane, Sarah!"

I was never diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. Of course, the label didn't exist until 1980, so I simply received more than one report card that said, 'Seems to have difficulties following direction."

As a lifelong teacher, I often clashed with the administration, who struck me as hidebound and beset by a "let's not make waves" perspective. My biases.

Amy Gallie has been a school administrator for much of her life. She's smart, candid, fun and loves, loves, loves children. We talk about single-gender classrooms, failing forward, the gap between teaching and administering, having at least one silly project to avoid burnout, and high responsibility coupled with low autonomy - a frustration of administrators that had never occurred to me. Listen along as I meet and engage a wonderfully principled principal.

I have always suspected that lots of planets lined up identically for Victor's and my births. We don't finish each other's sentences, but we do finish each other's paragraphs.
Contemplatives, dogma, dynamism, solipsism, belief systems, impressions and projections, impersonation, human spirit progression (with a long gestation and difficult birth) gave us some things to talk about, and then we took a breath and forged ahead.
Victor is a delight and a wonder, a gentle soul who shares with me the beckoning light of curiosity.
Take a journey with a couple of Globs of Energy.

I met Gina Mazza during an online conversation about creativity. Took us a bit of back-and-forth to get to recording, and then a few delays to mix and load. With every minute.
She's had a variegated career - something we share. We speak on God and the church, meaning and work, and the evidence for a major evolutionary shift in human kind's consciousness. Join us as we agree that we're not here to be stagnant.

Via my wonderful friend Craig James arrived Maggie Jackson. So here's a tiny sample of our journey together:

The unease of uncertainty is actually a gift.
Ambivalent CEOs are actually better performers.
It's fear of uncertainty that sets you back, not uncertainty itself.
Try on the Unknown.
What does it mean to be human now that we are married to these technologies?

That's just for starters. Come join us, please, as we explore the rich and wonderful topography that abides between The Islands of our Knowledge.