JR Rennie spent nearly forty years running a custom software company. In 2015 the revenue dried up almost overnight. He kept the doors open so his employees and clients were covered, and he stopped paying himself. Ten years later that income is still gone. What he found instead was a calling: BrushFires Ministry, which he and his wife Buffy run to help believers discover the work they were built to do.

In this conversation we talk about what happens when the plan stops working. JR shares why he chose his team over his own paycheck, the day he said out loud, "I know you're behind this. What do you want?", and how months of prayer, scripture, and writing turned frustration into peace. He is honest about the hard parts too: marrying young, raising a son who has lived with epilepsy for forty years, and why faithful people still face tests.

JR unpacks the new wine and new wineskins metaphor, explains why he never prays for patience, and gives his short answer to how to be happy: love God and love other people. Michael shares the car crash that reminded him he was never alone.

Find JR at brushfires-digital.com. Free registration includes four books and a Romans 12 spiritual gifts assessment. The Design WorkShop helps you put your purpose into words.

This is a value-for-value podcast. Support the show at eagertobehealthy.com/support.

Always consult your healthcare provider before making changes based on health content.

Takeaways

- Happiness follows circumstances; joy grows from loving God and loving others

- A hard season can point you toward your real calling

- Faithful people still face tests, and God stays present through every one

- Shema: listen with the intent to act

- Serving others is the surest way out of your own misery

- Your purpose has no expiration date

- Daily bread covers your needs; gratitude covers the rest

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

01:30 Have you always been healthy?

03:08 The year the revenue stopped

03:48 Employees first, paycheck last

06:55 Where faith came in

08:09 Faithful people still get tested

11:59 How his prayer life changed

13:14 Michael's car crash

18:09 Why JR never prays for patience

19:19 Love God, love others

22:01 The fruit of the Spirit

24:08 No expiration date on your purpose

27:19 "Your best days are ahead of you"

28:33 New wine, new wineskins

31:48 A ministry without a congregation

33:02 Happy comes from happenstance

34:47 Shema: listen with intent to obey

37:55 Waiting in survival mode

39:25 Daily bread, not filet mignon

40:33 Where to find JR

42:23 Closing

Find JR Rennie: brushfires-digital.com

Free: four books and a Romans 12 spiritual gifts assessment with registration

Host: Michael Scott Eger · eagertobehealthy.com

Elizabeth Kipp is a chronic pain management specialist, addiction recovery coach, Ancestral Clearing® practitioner, and bestselling author of The Way Through Chronic Pain: Tools to Reclaim Your Healing Power. After more than forty years of severe chronic pain, anxiety, and panic attacks, and more than thirty years of prescribed opioid and benzodiazepine dependence following back injuries and surgeries, she got herself out first. Then she built the map so other people could follow.

In this conversation we talk about chronic pain as a nervous-system problem, not just a tissue problem. Pain is a signal the brain interprets. Stay in it long enough and the pathways rewire: more stress response, more hypersensitivity, more fight-or-flight. Long-term opioids and benzos can mask that signal without resolving it, and they often tax gut motility, breath, sleep, and the very neuroplastic recovery you need.

Elizabeth walks through de-identifying from pain: moving from "I am my diagnosis" to "this is sensory information moving through my body." She covers safety as a physiological requirement (you cannot digest well in fight-or-flight), trauma-informed breathwork and somatics for rapid down-regulation, Ancestral Clearing® for inherited survival stress that keeps the nervous system stuck, and practical recovery tools she used herself: sleep rhythm, anti-inflammatory nutrition, yoga, Tai Chi, and rebuilding trust in her own body.

Find Elizabeth at elizabeth-kipp.com. Book: The Way Through Chronic Pain. Free resource: 5 Ways to Relieve Stress, Anxiety, & Fear (https://bit.ly/5WaysToRelieveStress).

This is a value-for-value podcast. Support the show at eagertobehealthy.com/support.

Always consult your healthcare provider before making changes based on health content.

Takeaways

- Doing fine with chronic pain is not the same as being well

- Pain is a brain-interpreted signal; chronic pain rewires the nervous system

- Long-term opioids and benzos often mask symptoms without resolving root signaling

- De-identify from pain: sensory information, not identity

- Safety first: digestion, breath, and recovery fail in fight-or-flight

- Ancestral Clearing® and trauma-informed breathwork can release stuck survival patterns

- Small daily practices (sleep, food, breath, movement)

rebuild capacity

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

01:26 Have you always been healthy?

07:21 Nervous system, safety, and walking on eggshells

11:11 Decades on opioids and benzodiazepines

12:58 The brain cannot tell one pain from another

14:09 Sleep, breathwork, yoga, and anti-inflammatory food

18:17 Benzo withdrawal and rebuilding appetite

28:00 Inputs you can still control

35:13 Taste buds change when sugar leaves

39:57 Detox in a toxic world

44:50 The Way Through Chronic Pain

48:58 Where to find Elizabeth

50:30 Closing

Find Elizabeth Kipp: elizabeth-kipp.com

Book: The Way Through Chronic Pain: Tools to Reclaim Your Healing Power

Free: bit.ly/5WaysToRelieveStress

Host: Michael Scott Eger · eagertobehealthy.com

Dr. Radhika Achari is a board-certified behavior analyst with more than fifteen years of clinical work. She has spent her career helping other people build better lives. Her education in wellness did not happen only in a clinic. It happened through years of IVF, and then through raising a neurodivergent son.

In this conversation we talk about the difference between doing fine and being well. Radhika grew up physically healthy and active. The self-care part came later. A lot of us treat self-care like a fire extinguisher. We grab it after everything is already burning. She wants fireproofing instead: the boundaries you set before you are resentful, the rest you take before you are depleted.

Motherhood was not the plan she practiced for. Unexplained infertility. IVF. Hope and grief on a loop. A son through IVF. A daughter eighteen months later. Then a diagnosis that was not a surprise, and still not the plan. Functioning and being happy are not the same thing. You cannot pour from an empty vessel.

What she built from that is Analyze and Act, and an eight-week program called Bridge to College Independence. Parent track and teen track. Remote. She helps families hand over the real stuff on purpose: appointments, school, identity, when and how to disclose. The work is as much about parent burnout as teen skills. Autonomy, practiced early, becomes who you are.

We also get into Spoon Theory, the word "yet," task analysis, and why a palm tree outlasts an oak in a storm. I told her the truth about my own social awkwardness, the anxiety loop, and what changed after I learned to forgive myself.

No book. Website: analyzeandact.com. Free college readiness checklist. One-on-ones, and the eight-week course. Always consult your own provider before you change something real.

This is a value-for-value podcast. Support the show at eagertobehealthy.com/support.

Takeaways

- Doing fine is not the same as being well

- Self-care as fireproofing, not a fire extinguisher

- Functioning and happiness can live in two different rooms

- Hand independence to a teen on purpose, before college

- "Yet" turns a wall into a ladder

- Track what fills you and what drains you. No shame. Just data.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome

02:14 Have you always been healthy?

05:18 Have you always been happy?

06:36 IVF, motherhood, and a plan that would not hold

11:36 How her son's diagnosis actually shows up

19:26 Analyze and Act / Bridge to College Independence

26:00 Autonomy, self-forgiveness, and the doomsday spiral

28:45 Spoon Theory and the social battery

32:33 ACT, "yet," and breaking a mountain into steps

39:34 Biggest life skill: oak trees and palm trees

42:04 Where to find her

43:05 Closing

Find Dr. Radhika Achari: analyzeandact.com

Host: Michael Scott Eger · eagertobehealthy.com