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Dr. Keith Hersey spent more than twenty years behind the pharmacy counter. Then he did something most pharmacists never do — he stopped focusing on dispensing pills and started coaching people to need fewer of them.

In this episode, Dr. Keith sits down with Jelani Gonzalez to trace the full arc: caring for his grandmother after her strokes, discovering his own type 2 diabetes from a free glucose check at a pharmacy convention, opening an independent pharmacy in the middle of the 2020 pandemic, and ultimately bridging conventional and functional medicine to help people take back control of their health.

They get into the GLP-1 wave — Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro — what "mastering" one of these drugs really means, the role of ultra-processed food, and why he believes type 2 diabetes can be prevented, mitigated, and even reversed.

An honest conversation about denial, resilience, and the difference between sick care and real health.

About the guest: Dr. Keith Hersey — pharmacist of 20+ years turned diabetes coach, founder of an independent pharmacy, and host of the Destroying Diabetes podcast.

This conversation is for general education and is not medical advice. Always consult your own physician before making changes to medication or treatment.

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Tom Hunter didn't plan any of this. He started as a primary school teacher in London, burned out, and Googled "how to make money without a degree." That search led him into recruitment — and nine years later, he walked away to build Story Recruitment, a firm placing the CFOs and senior finance leaders behind fast-growing startups.

In this episode, Tom sits down with Jelani Gonzalez to talk about the long road from the classroom to founder: why he bet everything on storytelling, how a LinkedIn audience of 30,000 became the foundation of his business, and why he believes finance is a commercial partner — not a back-office function.

He also opens up about the hardest year of his career, the loss that shaped his resilience, and the mission behind his podcast, which reached 100,000 listeners in season one.

A conversation about reinvention, relationships, and finding the story behind the person.

About the guest: Tom Hunter, Story Recruitment — first-CFO and first-finance-hire search for Australian tech, fintech and deeptech startups. Host of the CFO Track Podcast. Storyrecruitment.com.au

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Manny Hernandez grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, in a world that no longer exists — and left in 2000 as the country changed around him. Years later, a routine checkup in the U.S. led to a diabetes diagnosis, and then a misdiagnosis: he was told he had type 2, when he actually had LADA, sometimes called type 1.5, a form that's often missed in adults.

In this episode, Manny sits down with Jelani Gonzalez to trace the full arc — the shock of diagnosis, the pizza-and-insulin-pump meeting where he first realized he'd found "his people," and how that single moment of not feeling alone became the seed for everything that followed. He co-founded the Diabetes Hands Foundation, built the TuDiabetes and EsTuDiabetes online communities, later handed them to Beyond Type 1, and today leads The Diabetes Link, supporting young adults ages 18–30 living with all types of diabetes.

Manny is candid about the parts people don't see: winding down the foundation to care for his mother, an unforgettable send-off in a San Diego bar, the honest limits of diabetes technology, the fight over access and the Insulin Act, and why — after 24 years — he still hasn't "figured it out." His message stays simple throughout: find your community, and take it one day at a time.

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Naresh built the kind of business most people are told doesn't exist: one that funds his life instead of consuming it. In this episode of Behind the Story, he sits down with Jelani Gonzalez to trace the road from a Duke degree and a coveted banking offer to becoming a self-described “laptop landlord” — a work-from-home founder running two companies, raising two sons, and owning nine investment properties he scaled up starting in 2017.

He opens up about the real mechanics of a lifestyle business (and why he stopped chasing the “get acquired” dream), the intrapreneur years that gave him a safety net before he went out on his own, and the five books — including a #1 bestseller with a foreword by Philip Kotler — that became his real business card. He also shares his four-part “focus formula” for physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental health, and why he's no fan of retirement.

From there the conversation opens up into something rarer: an honest, good-faith exchange about media, culture, and how we lost the ability to tell fact from opinion. A former journalist, Naresh explains why he trades news for books, and he and Jelani — who calls himself an independent with libertarian leanings — disagree, agree, and think out loud about politics and belief without the usual heat. It's a two-part story: how to build a life of focus, and how to keep your head clear while you do it.

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Theresa Garcia didn't set out to become a coach — she set out to survive. After losing her fiancé and her mother six months apart, she rebuilt her life from the ground up, eventually writing the book Warrior of Light and founding Ruby's Positive Empowerment. In this conversation, Theresa opens up about the difference between survival and real strength, the years-long crisis that forced her to shut down her business and start over, and why she believes healing doesn't have to be as hard as we make it. She shares the exact process she uses with clients to find the gift in painful experiences, why alignment — not hustle — is what actually moves the needle in her life and business, and the hardest truth she had to face about her own role in her chaos. A raw, honest conversation about resilience, reinvention, and choosing light on purpose.

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Why do so many smart, capable, successful people still feel disconnected from their work? Sarah Aviram has spent her career answering that question — first as a director of talent development, then as the person who convinced her CEO to let her work from 12 countries in 12 months (before remote work was normal), and now as an author, keynote speaker, and leadership coach.

In this conversation, Sarah unpacks the six core drivers of fulfillment at work, why raises and promotions rarely fix burnout, why some high performers quietly check out instead of quitting, and how hybrid and return-to-office policies have created new equity gaps — especially for women. She also shares the personal side of her year abroad: the Buddhist monastery in Thailand, the flamenco dancers in Spain, and the surprising life lesson tying it all together in her new memoir, The Scenic Route.

If you've ever felt successful on paper but empty in practice, this episode is for you.

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Sam Daley-Harris spent twelve years as a professional percussionist and a career as a music teacher before a single question changed the direction of his life: does your member of Congress know your name? In 1978, he asked 7,000 high school students, classroom by classroom, if they could name their own representative. Fewer than three percent could. That gap became the anti-poverty lobby RESULTS, and nearly five decades of work teaching ordinary citizens how to find and use their power.

In this conversation, Sam and Jelani trace his path from music to movement-building — co-founding the Microcredit Summit alongside Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, and developing the idea of "transformational advocacy," where the people who show up to change something are changed themselves. Sam shares the stories of two volunteers, Maxine Thomas and Ellie Sparks, whose journeys from "clueless" and "climate trauma" to "euphoric" and "sacred and profound" illustrate what's possible when citizens are trained, not just recruited.

They also talk about what Sam calls the "American Slumber Party" — the pattern of low civic participation he's tracked since the 1970s — and how small, organized groups of trained volunteers have recently helped shape the outcome of proposed federal budget cuts to programs like the EPA and global maternal and child health funding. It's a conversation about cynicism, hope, and the practical, unglamorous work of reclaiming a voice in your own democracy.

Chapters:
00:03 — From percussion to purpose: Sam's unlikely path into activism
02:45 — The question that started it all: naming your member of Congress
06:25 — Co-founding the Microcredit Summit and meeting Muhammad Yunus
13:17 — Transactional vs. transformational advocacy
13:47 — Maxine's story: from "clueless" to "euphoric"
14:44 — Ellie's story: from "climate trauma" to "sacred and profound"
21:19 — Three questions to ask someone you disagree with
33:53 — How organized advocacy shaped a maternal and child health funding decision
39:02 — How a small grassroots network engaged on a proposed EPA budget cut
44:11 — The eighteen commitments behind transformational advocacy
53:15 — Where to start tomorrow: reclaimingourdemocracy.com

Guest's book: Reclaiming Our Democracy — reclaimingourdemocracy.com

Get connected with an advocacy group near you: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdCQuqj-4O2eh4Sfy_E-dfVntbPlqg1A4T4oQ8E2J0nuZbD-w/viewform

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Dr. Neelam Perry spent over two decades practicing internal medicine and treating HIV/AIDS patients before a personal health crisis changed the direction of her life. After surviving seven strokes and fighting to access a costly medication she says her insurance wouldn't approve, she made a decision: leave medicine and try to fix the system from the inside.

In this conversation, Dr. Perry talks with Jelani Gonzalez about her path from the exam room to the campaign trail, her 2024 congressional run, the election-integrity concerns she says she witnessed firsthand, and what's driving her current U.S. Senate campaign in Florida. The two also dig into her positions on federal power, healthcare policy, and where she stands with the current administration.

This is a conversation about resilience, conviction, and what happens when a healer decides the healthiest thing she can do is challenge the system itself.