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  • Midlife: The Night He Asked If He Would Fold

    Midlife: The Night He Asked If He Would Fold
    2026/09/02
    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
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    1 時間 4 分
  • Blissful Ignorance: The Character Who Saved His Life

    Blissful Ignorance: The Character Who Saved His Life
    2026/08/30
    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
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    1 時間 10 分
  • Cancer: The Diagnosis That Stopped the Reinventing

    Cancer: The Diagnosis That Stopped the Reinventing
    2026/08/26
    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
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    55 分
  • Devotion: Writing Someone Else's Story to Find Your Own

    Devotion: Writing Someone Else's Story to Find Your Own
    2026/08/23
    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
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    1 時間
  • 147 Days: Raising and Losing My Sister

    147 Days: Raising and Losing My Sister
    2026/08/19
    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
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    1 時間 7 分
  • Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began

    Rock Bottom: Where the Most Fulfilling Life Began
    2026/08/16
    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
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    53 分
  • Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay

    Starting Over: You Can Lose Everything and Still Be Okay
    2026/08/12
    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
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    1 時間
  • Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking

    Anger: The Drink I Never Stopped Drinking
    2026/08/09
    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
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    54 分