Eric Austin spent more than thirty years in classrooms across North Carolina and South Carolina. Kameelah Howard moved through child protection, international flights, and massage therapy with the same through-line of service. Amber Gregory turned her own healing into books and tools for families raising children who have lived through trauma. Their jobs look nothing alike, and each of them made the same choice: stay present when someone needs a steady person.

Showing Up for the Quiet Ones: Eric Austin

Eric Austin (Ship’s Log #16) is a lifelong educator and wrestling coach. His episode is called Captain of the Class. He has been named Teacher of the Year and earned Teacher of the Month more than once, but what he talked about most were his students.

Eric teaches the way a good coach shows up for an athlete, especially for students who are quietly struggling. It shows. About thirty kids chose to spend their free time in his room.

He understands those kids because he was one of them. Eric lost his father to ALS at the start of ninth grade, and that grief shaped the kind of teacher and man he became. He remembers neighbors who checked in, coaches who kept him and his brothers out of trouble, and the work of learning to cook for themselves. Later he tried to be that presence for thousands of kids who needed someone in their corner. He kept his door open and his room safe enough that kids kept coming back.

Eric closed our conversation with a line he lives by:

“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”

Eric champions many charities that work with children, animals, and veterans, including K9s For Warriors, a Northeast Florida group that pairs rescued dogs with veterans facing PTSD.

Service Across Every Port: Kameelah Howard

Kameelah Howard (Ship’s Log #22) is a massage therapist, former flight attendant, and social worker in training. Her episode is Every Port a Purpose. She has spent her adult life in service: as a Child Protective Specialist on the front lines in Brooklyn, as an international flight attendant navigating chaos at altitude, and as a licensed massage therapist offering physical relief and human presence to people facing serious illness.

What she named as the common thread was trust. People let her into vulnerable moments, and she treats that trust as an honor. She asks a clarifying question before hard conversations go sideways — are you calling to vent, or for feedback? She told me about a friend who let her in at his lowest point, and what that taught her about showing up.

Her path to bodywork started at home, with a toddler climbing across her tired sister’s back. Kameelah’s life experiences have taught her to look for inspiration everywhere — even at a Beyoncé concert, which became the nudge that sent her back to school for a Master’s in Social Work, with medical social work ahead.

Across three careers, Kameelah’s everyday leadership looks like presence under pressure — on a Brooklyn doorstep, in a cabin aisle, or beside someone who can’t carry their pain alone.

“It is a true honor and gift to be able to assist those people at that moment, at that very time. I believe in divine timing… that always will stay with me — knowing how important it is to always stay in gratitude whenever a person is vulnerable with you, because they don’t have to be.” — Kameelah Howard

Helping Families Survive and Thrive: Amber Gregory

Amber Gregory (Ship’s Log #13) is an author and child-trauma advocate. Her episode is Weathered the Storm. She wrote Little Sweetheart about surviving childhood sexual abuse, and Learning to Be Loved about helping adoptive families rebuild trust with children who have lived through deep attachment wounds.

Amber is also an adoptive mother to two children from Russia. She talks about how trauma-informed parenting changed her relationship with her daughter when frustration and exhaustion had crowded out compassion. Education is her lever. She wants parents to understand grooming, the cycle of abuse, and how attachment wounds show up at home — so families can move past surviving the hard seasons and into actually thriving.

Amber recognized the need because she lived it. When she was struggling, she grasped for information everywhere she could find it. Her books now offer everyday leadership to adults like her, the ones who stay up late googling what went wrong. She’s pursuing a master’s in theology and ministry with a call to serve foster and adoptive families. You can learn more at ambergregory.com.

“Survive and Thrive.” — Amber Gregory

What These Three Teach About Everyday Leadership

Eric stays for the kid who might otherwise disappear into the hallway. Kameelah shows up for the person who needs a steady human in a vulnerable minute. Amber gives families real tools after trauma has already done its damage.

All three described presence as a set of habits: a room that stays open, a clarifying question before advice, a parenting approach rebuilt on education instead of panic.

Most of them will never stand on a keynote stage, and their stories still change the people who hear them. You don’t have to be famous to be fascinating. Sometimes everyday leadership is simply the decision to stay in the room.

Listen In (or Pull Up a Chair)

You can hear Eric Austin (Ship’s Log #16), Kameelah Howard (Ship’s Log #22), and Amber Gregory (Ship’s Log #13) in full on their episode pages, or wherever you listen to podcasts, including YouTube.

If presence has been the quiet through-line of your own work, I’d love to hear the story whenever you’re ready. Reach out at info@projectcandor.com or tap Become a Guest on the website. If you’d like to see who’s already pulled up a chair, Meet the Guests is a good place to start. What’s your story?

That’s Project Candor.

Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories.

The post When Everyday Leadership Means Staying in the Room first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

I’ve heard that from guests who use story in very different arenas. Yvonne Chotzen brings Hollywood and the courtroom into the same craft. Brynn Breuner helps brilliant people find words that finally match what they do. Paula Casey has spent decades showing how the suffragists won over a nation that had denied them the vote. Together they show what a story can do when it’s told well.

Hollywood Craft in Ordinary Rooms: Yvonne Chotzen

Yvonne Chotzen (Ship’s Log #5) is an award-winning Hollywood TV movie producer, a former federal public defender, and a storytelling coach. Her episode is called Guided By The Stars. She produced The Rosa Parks Story, and she now coaches entrepreneurs to use Hollywood-style storytelling so their message connects without harder selling.

Yvonne treats story as the foundation for being understood, not as decoration. Childhood storytelling, high-stakes courtroom advocacy, and producing true stories on screen all taught her the same lesson: a well-shaped narrative moves people. Entrepreneurs and leaders who learn that craft show up differently in meetings. They sound like themselves, and they invite action instead of drowning the room in features.

“Each of us has a unique gift we came to give — our own zone of genius.” — Yvonne Chotzen

You can find more of her work at yvonnechotzen.com.

Finding the Words: Brynn Breuner

Brynn Breuner (Ship’s Log #11) is a brand strategist and messaging expert with more than thirty years in design, branding, and entrepreneurship. Her episode is Charting the Unknown. As founder of MindSpark Branding, she acts as a messaging mirror for entrepreneurs and change agents who know their work is strong but can’t yet say it cleanly.

Brynn talks about the “poly mind” — people who don’t fit one tidy label. She listens for the threads in a person’s story and turns vision into language that feels alive. In her framing, a strong message is a set of meaningful bites that invite conversation, rather than everything you know said all at once. She has coached TEDx speakers with that same ear for what rings true.

Where Yvonne thinks in scenes, Brynn starts with clarity about who you are and what you actually offer.

“You’ve got brilliance in your bones. Let’s find the words that do it justice.” — Brynn Breuner

Persuasion Without a Ballot: Paula Casey

Paula Casey (Ship’s Log #4) is a historian and advocate who has spent more than thirty-five years educating the public about the Nineteenth Amendment and Tennessee’s role as the “Perfect 36.” Her episode is Against the Tide. She published The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage, helped place suffragist public art across Tennessee, co-founded the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail, and helps lead national trail work that keeps those stories in public view.

Paula’s work is civic communication at its hardest. The suffragists had to win the vote from the men who held it, against powerful forces determined to keep it from them. That took strategy, persistence, and persuasion that ordinary people could carry back into their towns. In Paula’s hands, that history becomes a reminder that participation in government still depends on people who can tell the story of why citizenship matters.

“The suffragists were the greatest politicians the world has ever seen because they WON the right to vote without having it.” — Paula Casey

Their campaign still has something to teach anyone who has to speak up when the stakes are real and the power looks uneven.

What These Three Teach About Storytelling at Work

Yvonne, Brynn, and Paula work in very different arenas, which is what makes them useful side by side.

Yvonne brings craft: structure, emotion, and the courage to sound like a human being in a pitch. Brynn brings translation, listening until the right words match the real work. Paula brings stakes, showing what persuasion looks like in public life when the official tools of power are missing.

What these three share is the ability to tell a story that resonates and carries a strong message — whether it’s a pitch, a meeting, or a piece of history that still asks people to show up. If storytelling at work sounds like a skill reserved for keynote speakers, these three make a good case that it starts with the next email you send.

I started Project Candor because I kept meeting people whose stories deserved a bigger room. You don’t have to be famous to be fascinating, and you don’t need a stage to tell a story that moves people.

Listen In (or Pull Up a Chair)

You can hear Yvonne Chotzen (Ship’s Log #5), Brynn Breuner (Ship’s Log #11), and Paula Casey (Ship’s Log #4) in full on their episode pages, or wherever you listen to podcasts, including YouTube.

If you’ve got a story about a message that finally landed — or one you’re still trying to say — I’d love to hear it whenever you’re ready. Reach out at info@projectcandor.com or tap Become a Guest on the website. If you’d like to see who’s already pulled up a chair, Meet the Guests is a good place to start. What’s your story?

That’s Project Candor.

Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories.

The post When Storytelling at Work Changes the Room first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

Mosongo Moukwa left senior corporate leadership and had to rebuild purpose through early entrepreneurial failures. Louis Swart tried to sell a business and learned it was worth nothing because everything still ran through him. Joel Salomon ran a hedge fund on Wall Street and became the “Money Doctor,” helping people change the stories they tell about money. They came from different industries, and each of them faced the same question: what do you do when the win stops feeling like a win?

Uncovering Purpose After the Title: Mosongo Moukwa

Mosongo Moukwa (Ship’s Log #6) is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and business strategist. His episode is called Beneath the Surface. He helps small business owners improve revenue and find peace by reigniting passion and building companies that create freedom and legacy.

By any measure, Mosongo had real success on paper. We dug right in to the moment when that corporate success no longer matched his inner life. Immigration, reinvention, and painful early failures in entrepreneurship reshaped how he leads. Clarity, simplicity, and purpose became the drivers he trusts for sustainable growth and personal fulfillment.

If you’ve ever looked at a résumé that should feel like a win and still felt hollow, Mosongo’s episode will sound familiar. He sees that hollow feeling as a signal that it’s time to change course, rather than as a personal failure. He’s also honest about how long the rebuilding took.

“Purpose is not something we invent. It is something we uncover, through trials and triumphs.” — Mosongo Moukwa

You can learn more at www.mosongomoukwa.com.

When the Business Is Worth Nothing Without You: Louis Swart

Louis Swart (Ship’s Log #21) is a business coach for coaches and the founder of Ironbrij. His episode is Worth Nothing at the Dock. He has more than thirty-five years of experience building and selling companies, and he has led teams of up to about 450 people.

The story that opens his episode is hard to forget. Louis went to sell his plumbing business, and the broker told him it was worth nothing, because everything ran through Louis. As Louis tells it, the message was blunt: “Business is worth nothing because I literally have to find another you to be able to do this business.” That wake-up call pushed him toward delegation, systems, and businesses that don’t need the founder in the engine room every day.

We talked about why big-picture thinkers need to hire their opposite, how good systems let a founder step back, and why chasing external markers of success can leave people feeling empty and miserable, even with a designer handbag in hand. Louis now helps coaches escape burnout and build companies that can stand without them.

Louis showed me a different side of success on paper. A business can look like a great asset on a spreadsheet. The moment someone asks what it’s worth without the person who built it, its real value comes to light.

Rewriting the Money Story: Joel Salomon

Joel Salomon (Ship’s Log #19) is a former hedge fund manager turned prosperity coach. His episode is $1M Hanging Over His Rack. Known as the “Money Doctor,” he blends Wall Street experience with mindset work and has written books including The 9 Money Rules Millionaires Use, Infinite Love and Money, and Mindful Money Management.

Joel managed a large portfolio at Citi and later founded his own hedge fund, SaLaurMor Capital, named after his daughters. Over his years managing money, he noticed a link between his emotional state and his financial performance. That observation sent him into the inner game of money — beliefs, gratitude, and the quiet stories people tell themselves, including lines like “I’m not good with money.”

He challenges the idea that hard work alone creates wealth. Flow, leverage, and aligning action with belief matter too. For Joel, a strong portfolio without a healthier money story is only half the picture.

Through the wins and the losses, Joel kept coming back to a line from Napoleon Hill:

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive, and bring himself to believe, he can achieve.” — Napoleon Hill

You can find more of his work at salaurmor.com.

What These Three Say When Success on Paper Stops Fitting

Mosongo names the inner mismatch: the title looks right, and the life doesn’t. Louis names the structural trap: a business that only works if you never leave. Joel names the belief layer under the numbers: the story you carry about money can set limits that never show up on a résumé.

Achievement alone isn’t enough. Money alone isn’t enough. Mosongo, Louis, and Joel each learned that the hard way. They changed their definition of winning, and they’re more successful for it.

That kind of honesty is a big part of why Project Candor exists. You don’t have to be famous to be fascinating, and you don’t need a corner office to rethink what winning means.

Listen In (or Pull Up a Chair)

You can hear Mosongo Moukwa (Ship’s Log #6), Louis Swart (Ship’s Log #21), and Joel Salomon (Ship’s Log #19) in full on their episode pages, or wherever you listen to podcasts, including YouTube.

If you’re rewriting what success means in your own life, I’d love to hear the story whenever you’re ready. Reach out at info@projectcandor.com or tap Become a Guest on the website. If you’d like to see who’s already pulled up a chair, Meet the Guests is a good place to start. What’s your story?

That’s Project Candor.

Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories.

The post When Success on Paper Stops Fitting first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

I’ve hosted enough Project Candor conversations now to notice a pattern. The guests who work with teams for a living rarely talk about pizza Fridays. They talk about fear, small rituals, and how a team only gets honest once the leader goes first. Three of them — Jason Maraschiello, Michael Kerr, and Dr. Freda Brazle — each handed me a different piece of that picture.

What Gets in the Way of Honest Team Dynamics

Before the fixes, it helps to name the snag. Communication on a team often fails for reasons that have nothing to do with PowerPoint skills. People freeze because of hierarchy. They adapt until they burn out. They watch leaders preach values they don’t practice. Or they quietly check out while still showing up. Each of these three guests has spent years working on one of those snags.

Speaking Up Without Fear: Jason Maraschiello

Jason Maraschiello (Ship’s Log #14) is an award-winning team-building facilitator, corporate coach, and DISC expert. His episode is called Break the Wake.

Jason has spent more than a decade facilitating corporate team-building and coaching, including work with organizations like Bell Canada, AstraZeneca, the City of Toronto, and Amazon. He came to that work the hard way. After corporate burnout in his twenties, he traveled to study mindfulness and meditation, then rebuilt a career around emotional intelligence, communication, and what he calls self-restoration.

Jason doesn’t believe another training session fixes a struggling team. People often stay quiet because of fear, hierarchy, or pressure nobody has said out loud. Tools like DISC help teams see different communication styles and notice when someone is stretching so far outside their natural style that burnout is next.

He also talked about presence: noticing the person next to you as well as the agenda. On a team where nobody feels seen, that kind of attention can change a whole meeting.

"True prosperity starts with the individual, expands to the team, and strengthens the entire organization." — Jason Maraschiello

Culture Without the Poster: Michael Kerr

Michael Kerr (Ship’s Log #15) has spent more than two decades helping leaders build healthier workplaces. He’s a Hall of Fame speaker and the author of nine books, including The Jerk-Free Workplace, Small Moments, Big Outcomes, and The Humor Advantage.

His episode title is Time to Set a New Course, and he treats culture as a company’s real competitive advantage. In Michael’s framing, culture lives in everyday actions, rituals, communication, and values, and leaders have an outsized impact on it, for better or worse.

We talked about hybrid and remote work, and how easily people get left out unless someone makes a point of including them. We talked about small gestures that punch above their weight, and about inviting people to share ideas and then actually using them. Humor and playfulness came up too, as fuel for engagement and creativity.

"Life is too short to work in a soul-sucking, fun-sucking workplace!" — Michael Kerr

You can learn more about his work at mikekerr.com.

Leadership That Starts With People: Dr. Freda Brazle

Dr. Freda Brazle (Ship’s Log #17) is a global leadership strategist and transformation coach with more than thirty years across corporate and nonprofit spaces. Her episode is Star Thrower, and she brings a Zambian-American, cross-cultural lens to how leaders show up when everything is moving fast.

Freda’s core idea is that mindset drives performance, culture, and lasting impact, and that strategy works best when it rests on that foundation. She talks about empowering people, building real relationships, and leading with self-awareness. In practical terms, that means facing disengagement and quiet quitting without pretending a new org chart will fix a human problem.

What I appreciated most is how practical she is about leadership. To her, it comes down to how we show up for others. She’s just as direct about relevance:

"If you don’t stay relevant, you will become irrelevant." — Dr. Freda Brazle

She is also an executive coach, President of Strategic ShEOs, and founder of the ZLA Foundation, which empowers the diaspora to serve as a catalyst for youth empowerment. In her book What’s Your Relationship?, she challenges readers to rethink how they see themselves and to examine the thought patterns that shape their choices. She also researched and authored Healthcare Case Management: Using Big Data to Reduce Costs and Improve Outcomes. Across all of her work, she holds relationships and strategy side by side.

What These Three Say About Team Dynamics Together

Put Jason, Michael, and Freda side by side and a clearer picture of healthy team dynamics emerges.

Jason’s focus is the individual: why someone won’t speak, how people stretch until they snap, and how psychological safety gets built in small, vulnerable steps. Michael pays attention to the room itself — rituals, humor, inclusion, and the leader’s daily example. For Freda, it starts inside the leader: mindset, relationships, and the willingness to keep growing without losing sight of the people.

Their quotes make good reminders, but the work they describe happens in small moments: a check-in that invites an honest answer, a little humor that helps someone feel they belong, a leader who notices when someone has gone quiet. Healthy team dynamics are rarely dramatic. They’re built in moments like those, repeated until people trust them.

I suspect you already know what your own team feels like on a hard Tuesday. You don’t have to wait for a reorg to change how you show up in the next meeting.

Conversations like these are why Project Candor exists. The people who taught me the most about working together weren’t on magazine covers. You don’t have to be famous to be fascinating.

Listen In (or Pull Up a Chair)

You can hear Jason Maraschiello (Ship’s Log #14), Michael Kerr (Ship’s Log #15), and Dr. Freda Brazle (Ship’s Log #17) in full on their episode pages, or wherever you listen to podcasts, including YouTube.

And if you’ve got a story about the team that shaped you, or the one you’re trying to build, I’d love to hear it whenever you’re ready. Reach out at info@projectcandor.com or tap Become a Guest on the website. If you’d like to see who’s already pulled up a chair, Meet the Guests is a good place to start. What’s your story?

That’s Project Candor.

Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories.

The post What Healthy Team Dynamics Actually Look Like first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

Think about this… your life changed instantly, and you could no longer go back to what you perceived as normal. Where would you find the courage to start? What would you say to the people who told you what you’d never do again, and how would you get past them? And on the mornings when it all felt like too much, where would you find encouragement?

When people talk about courage, they usually picture something cinematic, like a burning building or a big speech with swelling music underneath it. I’ve hosted enough Project Candor conversations now to tell you that’s rarely what it looks like. The two guests in this post each had to answer those questions for real, and their answers didn’t come in one dramatic moment. They came slowly, one ordinary day at a time, with nobody filming.

A Pamphlet, a Staircase, and 200 Resumes: Ken Kunken

In 1970, Ken Kunken was a junior at Cornell, studying engineering and playing lightweight football. A single tackle during a kickoff broke his neck and left him paralyzed from the shoulders down. He spent the next nine months and twenty days in hospitals and rehabilitation centers.

Then came the career guidance. The Rusk Institute’s pamphlet for someone with his level of injury recommended selling magazine subscriptions over the telephone. Ken couldn’t even dial a rotary phone.

That pamphlet became the fuel.

Ken went back to Cornell. On his first day back, he was pulled up, and bounced down, nearly one hundred steps in a wheelchair. The campus had no ramps and no curb cuts. It hadn’t been built with him in mind. He went anyway.

He finished his engineering degree and became the first quadriplegic to graduate from the university. He went on to earn two master’s degrees, from Cornell and Columbia, and worked as a rehabilitation counselor, helping people with severe disabilities build careers of their own.

People told Ken he’d never have a career himself. At one point he mailed more than 200 resumes and was rejected by everyone. He earned his law degree from Hofstra in 1982 and became an assistant district attorney in Nassau County, the first quadriplegic to serve as one on Long Island. He practiced law for more than 40 years.

What strikes me about Ken’s story is how much of the courage happens in the boring parts. Mailing one more résumé after a pile of rejections isn’t dramatic. It’s an envelope and a stamp. I’d still put it among the bravest things I can imagine.

And then there’s the part of his story that has nothing to do with work. In his fifties, more than thirty years after his injury, Ken married Anna, who had originally been hired as his personal care attendant. She proposed. It was her idea to try for children through IVF. On January 24, 2005, Ken watched from his wheelchair as his triplets came into the world: Joey, Jimmy, and Timmy.

Ken’s guiding words are a line he once received inscribed on a glass paperweight from Senator Edward Kennedy, after testifying before the Senate:

“Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.”

— George Bernard Shaw, often quoted by Senator Robert F. Kennedy

You can hear it echoed in the title of his 2023 memoir, I Dream of Things That Never Were: The Ken Kunken Story.

Before Sunrise, Every Single Day: Jay Setchell

Jay Setchell’s story starts on a working farm, where nothing came free.

Before sunrise he was mixing powdered milk to feed the calves, and he sorted eggs by lantern for the candling plant. He learned early that time is money, and that a job left half-done isn’t done.

He would need every bit of that. At 31, Jay broke his neck in a drowning accident in a swimming pool. He went in feet-first, not diving, and every medical prediction afterward said he would be paralyzed for good. By then he had already died twice, once at 19 while serving in the Marine Corps and again at 23, when a drunk driver hit him. The broken neck was the third time in twelve years. He has survived more than 70 surgeries since.

You can draw a straight line from those farm mornings to his recovery. After the accident, Jay walked anyway: seventeen years on leg braces, crutches, and canes, then brainstem surgeries, relearning to walk, and eighteen more years on a walker, before three rare spinal conditions eventually put him in a power wheelchair. He told me plainly that the day he decides he can’t move is the day he stops moving. Mind over matter, and he means it literally.

“Sweat dries, blood clots, and broken bones heal. Suck it up.” — Jay Setchell

(He’s a Marine Corps veteran. You may have guessed.)

Our conversation landed on ordinary, hopeful things: a business going international, eight-year-old twins to raise, another book taking shape. He also mentioned a note from one of his readers, a woman of 88 who is already planning her 95th birthday. That’s the kind of detail I love, because it’s what courage tends to leave behind: somebody else, making plans seven years out.

What Everyday Courage Actually Looks Like

Ken and Jay were injured decades apart, one on a football field and one in a swimming pool. Both broke their necks, and both were handed a forecast of what their lives would be from then on.

A serious injury tends to arrive with a script like that: what you won’t be able to do, and what kind of life is “realistic” now. The people writing that script usually mean well. The script is usually too small.

So what did they say to the naysayers? Mostly, nothing. Ken answered a pamphlet and 200 rejections with a degree, then another, then a law career. Jay answered the predictions with about thirty-five years of walking. Neither of them tore up the script in a single dramatic moment. They wore it down with repetition, and with a lot of mornings that looked exactly like the morning before.

And the encouragement? Some of it came from other people, like Anna proposing, or a reader planning her 95th birthday. A lot of it came from somewhere older: a kid with a lantern who learned that a job left half-done isn’t done, and a line on a glass paperweight about saying why not.

Neither of them waited to feel brave. They did the next hard, unglamorous thing their bodies and their circumstances asked of them, and then the one after that. Neither of them would make a very good inspirational poster, either, and I mean that as a compliment. They’re too specific for that.

I suspect you have some of that in your own story, whether it’s a diagnosis you’ve learned to live alongside or a recovery that nobody else saw up close. It might not feel like courage to you. It rarely does from the inside.

That’s a big part of why Project Candor exists. You don’t have to be famous to be fascinating. You don’t have to be a hero to have done something brave, either.

Listen In (or Pull Up a Chair)

You can hear Ken Kunken (Ship’s Log #36) and Jay Setchell (Ship’s Log #35) in full on their episode pages, or wherever you listen to podcasts, including YouTube.

And if you’ve got a story of everyday courage, yours or someone you know, I’d love to hear it whenever you’re ready. You can reach out at info@projectcandor.com or tap Become a Guest on the website. If you’d like to see who’s already pulled up a chair, Meet the Guests is a good place to start. What’s your story?

That’s Project Candor.

Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories.

The post Everyday Courage Doesn’t Always Look Like Courage first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

Let that sit for a second. Before the Bureau, Eric spent twelve years in Christian ministry, including serving as a Baptist pastor in western New York. Then he traded the pulpit for a badge and gave the FBI twenty-four years as a special agent, fifteen of them on SWAT, plus time as a firearms and tactics instructor. The man who started out writing sermons ended up teaching other agents how to shoot.

When Eric sat down with me for Ship’s Log #46, I expected to hear about two separate careers. What I heard instead was one person who had been doing the same thing the whole time.

That conversation sent me back through my notes, because Eric isn’t the only guest who has done this. Some people don’t trade one life for another. They carry two at once, and somehow each one helps explain the other.

Living in Two Worlds at Once: The Guests Who Refuse to Pick One

Most of us are taught to choose. Pick a major. Pick a lane. Pick the answer that fits on a name tag. And for a lot of people, that works just fine.

But every so often a guest shows up whose life won’t fold neatly into one sentence. Their introduction has an “and” in the middle of it, and the “and” is the most interesting part.

I’ve noticed something about these guests. They don’t usually describe themselves as people who switched. They describe themselves as people who kept going and found that a skill from one world worked surprisingly well in the other. The two worlds aren’t competing. They’re having a conversation.

Here are three of them.

From Pulpit to Badge: Eric Robinson and the Power of Curiosity

Eric’s episode is called Preacher. Breacher, FBI Teacher. The subtitle asks a question I’d love you to answer honestly: Would you confess if your FBI agent used to be a pastor?

The thread that ties Eric’s two lives together turns out to be a single skill: getting people to talk. He told me he treats an interrogation like a normal conversation instead of a table-slamming standoff. No theatrics, just curiosity. The line he gave us for the episode says it best:

“I have never regretted going into an interaction with a victim, informant, or criminal and employing curiosity.” Eric Robinson

I loved that, partly because it’s the closest thing to my job description on this show. I just get to practice curiosity with coffee instead of a case file.

And Eric is funny. His resume is heavier than our conversation felt. Agents, he explained, get through the hardest parts of the work by telling each other stories, and he stays self-aware enough not to believe the whole world is as dark as his caseload. His way of putting it: “You’re a bird watcher; of course you find the birds.”

Some of the stories he shared came straight from his ministry years: the couple who got caught making out in the middle of his sermon and the church that held its services in a theater named for Lucille Ball. I can’t think of another guest whose stories range from church-pew comedy to fifteen years on SWAT, and he tells both kinds with the same easy timing.

Eric is now retired and turning those years into a memoir, Irreverend: From Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI, which his website lists as coming soon. Given his storytelling, I’m guessing the title is earned.

Where Science Meets Soul: Sharon Madsen’s Two Worlds

Sharon Madsen’s episode title is She Sails Between Two Worlds, and the subtitle tells you which one: Where Science Meets Soul.

For thirty years, Sharon has done work that’s hard to put on a business card. She is a regulated health professional. She is also a Reiki master teacher and a self-described psychic medium. Most people would assume those identities live on opposite ends of town. Sharon lives at both addresses.

What struck me most is who finds her. It’s usually the people who look the most put-together from the outside: the house, the marriage, the career, and the success. And underneath all of it, a quiet, confusing emptiness.

One story from her practice: during a session, Sharon says she channeled a client’s late father and the private nickname he’d had for that client in a language Sharon doesn’t speak. You can make of that whatever you like. It’s exactly the kind of story that never comes up over small talk.

She also offered the simplest practice I’ve heard on the show: stand at the mirror every day and learn to love the person looking back. It sounds easy. Try it tomorrow morning and tell me how easy it is.

Her line for the episode:

“Somewhere between surviving and achieving, you forgot you were born sacred. Your soul has been waiting in the stillness of your heart for you to remember.” Sharon Madsen

Two Worlds of Healing: Dr. Greg Yuen’s Forty-Year Search

Dr. Greg Yuen’s episode is 40 Years Navigating Two Worlds, subtitled Heal Yourself. Live Longer. His story starts at a funeral.

When Greg was twelve, his grandmother died. At the funeral, as he placed paper money on her coffin and touched her pillow to say goodbye, it hit him that one day he would die too. He handled that fear the way a kid does, with a lot of Snickers bars. And he made himself a promise: he was going to find the secret to living forever.

That promise turned into a life with a foot in each of two worlds. Greg became a psychiatrist, prescribing pharmaceuticals for his patients, while quietly avoiding them in his own life and studying qigong, tai chi, and massage instead. More than forty years later, he’s a psychiatrist, a tai chi instructor, and a licensed massage therapist, and he teaches Do-in, the practice of mindful self-massage.

The idea at the heart of Do-in is that where the mind goes, the chi goes. During our conversation, Greg walked me (and everyone listening) through a hands-on demonstration of feeling your own vital force, right there in your palms.

His message is simple: the tools for your own healing are already in your two hands.

“Through mindful touch, we reconnect and restore our wholeness and health.” Dr. Greg Yuen

Why Two Worlds Can Make One Fuller Life

Looking at these three together, I see people who realized that a second world could make the first one richer, not people who couldn’t make up their minds.

Eric’s years in the pulpit made him a better listener in an interview room. Sharon’s clinical training sits right next to her intuitive work. Greg’s medical career and his tai chi practice ended up pointing at the same question he asked at twelve.

I suspect a lot of us carry a second world quietly. Maybe it’s the accountant who paints, or the nurse who writes music, or the retiree who finally said yes to the thing they always wanted to try. We don’t always mention it, because there’s no tidy place to put it in a conversation.

That’s exactly the kind of story Project Candor was made for. You don’t have to be famous to be fascinating. Sometimes you just have to admit there’s an “and” in your introduction.

Listen In (or Pull Up a Chair)

If you’d like to hear these conversations in full, you’ll find Eric Robinson (Ship’s Log #46), Sharon Madsen (Ship’s Log #43), and Dr. Greg Yuen (Ship’s Log #42) on the Project Candor episodes page, on YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you’re living in two worlds yourself, or you know someone who is, I’d love to hear about it. Reach out at info@projectcandor.com, or tap Become a Guest on the website. Every guest has a story browse Meet the Guests anytime. What’s yours?

That’s Project Candor.

Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories.

The post When One Life Isn’t Enough: Guests Who Live in Two Worlds at Once first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

We were well into our conversation — she’d already shared a full, rich life: her career with the U.S. Coast Guard, her work in theater and television, her path to becoming a speaking coach. And then we got to the part of the show I think of as the exhale. Two Truths and a Lie.

Beverly leaned in and described an ordinary workday that turned into anything but. Nelson Mandela had just been released from prison and was on his way to Yankee Stadium to speak to thousands of New Yorkers. The Coast Guard had brought him through the New York area, and that meant a stop at Beverly’s office. He was exhausted — barely able to raise his hand in greeting as he left. But while Mandela rested, Harry Belafonte put on an impromptu concert for Beverly and her coworkers in the hallway of her office building. Just them. No one else.

I sat there for a second. That’s a story that never gets to come out in ordinary conversation.

That’s the moment I think about whenever someone asks me why I end every episode with a game.

The Thing People Carry Into the Room: Most of the guests who sit down with me have a story they know how to tell. It’s the one they’ve rehearsed—at dinner parties, in interviews, when someone asks how they ended up where they are. It’s polished. It has a shape. It ties up neatly at the end.

I’m not saying those stories aren’t true. I’m saying they’re not always the whole truth.

The whole truth is often sitting a little further back. It’s the experience that’s too unexpected, too hard to offer without the right opening. The one that doesn’t fit any obvious on-ramp in ordinary conversation.

Alan Mallory gave me one of those. I knew going in that Alan had done something almost no one on the planet has done — he and his siblings were the first family in the world to reach the summit of Mount Everest together. That’s the story he knows how to tell, and he tells it well. But during Two Truths and a Lie, a different story came out. During COVID, Alan and his wife sold most of their possessions, bought a fifth-wheel RV, and spent a year traveling across the country with their three kids. They did schoolwork in the mornings. In the afternoons, they biked through red rock canyons and did night rides through the Arizona desert — headlamps on, rattlesnakes and tarantulas moving in the dark around them — because Alan thought that sounded like more fun than sitting still.

He mentioned it almost in passing. Like it was just something they did.

These are the stories I’m always hoping to find. The ones that are so fully lived that the person telling them doesn’t quite realize how remarkable they are.

What the Game Does That a Question Can’t: I didn’t add Two Truths and a Lie to Project Candor because I thought it would unlock better conversations. I added it because I thought it would be fun — a light way to close out what are often heavy, meaningful exchanges.

What I didn’t expect was what it would actually do.

When the frame shifts from “we’re in an interview” to “we’re playing a game,” something changes. The rules are different. In Two Truths and a Lie, one statement is supposed to be false — that’s the entire point. Permission to be surprising, even a little mischievous, is already built in. Guests who have been thoughtful and measured for an entire conversation suddenly become animated. They lean forward. They start to enjoy themselves.

And in that enjoyment, things surface.

Paula Casey told me, almost as an aside during the segment, about the night she sat down to dinner with Margaret Thatcher. At some point during the evening, the former Prime Minister turned to Paula and asked for a personal tour of the Opryland Conservatory at the hotel in Nashville. Paula’s response — without missing a beat — was: I’d be happy to, but you’re going to need better shoes.

Thatcher went and changed her shoes. Paula gave her the tour. People in the conservatory stopped and pointed, saying, That’s Margaret Thatcher.

She told me this story like it was a perfectly reasonable thing that had happened to her. And I thought: how does something like that almost not come up at all?

The answer is that there’s no graceful way to offer it unprompted. “So, Paula, have you ever given Margaret Thatcher a personal tour of a hotel conservatory?” is not a question that comes up in ordinary life. But in Two Truths and a Lie, Paula had a natural place to put it.

That’s what the game creates. A container for the stories that don’t have a natural container anywhere else.

Why This Matters Beyond the Podcast: I think about this a lot outside the recording room.

Most of us are walking around with stories like Beverly’s, Alan’s, and Paula’s. Moments that shaped us, surprised us, or turned out to be stranger and more wonderful than we could have planned. Moments we haven’t quite figured out how to share—not because we’re hiding them, but because we’re waiting for the right moment, the right container, the right permission.

That’s the idea at the heart of Project Candor. Ordinary people are carrying extraordinary things. The job isn’t to extract those stories through clever questions. The job is to create a space where sharing them feels natural—even welcome. (For more on this, see Life Has a Way of Rewriting Plans.)

Two Truths and a Lie is a small, concrete expression of that belief. It says, “We’re not only interested in the experiences you’ve already packaged for public consumption.” We’re interested in the ones still waiting for someone to ask.

And in my experience, when you give people permission to be surprising, a little unpredictable, a little off-script — they tell you the truth. Sometimes truths they didn’t even know they were ready to share.

In conclusion, Beverly’s story about Harry Belafonte was completely unexpected. What made it so incredible is that Beverly and her coworkers and the stars themselves are the only ones who could ever say this happened to them — and the only reason I got to hear it was because of a game at the end of a podcast.

I think about how many stories like hers are sitting in the people around us. How rarely we give each other the kind of space where something unexpected can surface. How often we stay in the lane of polished and purposeful, when the real stuff is just a little further back.

That’s what I’m always trying to build with Project Candor. Not a place where people perform their best selves. A place where they get to share the rest of themselves, too.

If you want to explore what that kind of candid, self-reflective conversation looks like in a one-on-one setting, I’m currently developing Chart Your Next Course, a new offering in development for those who want to do that kind of thinking in a more personal context.

Sometimes it just takes a game to get there.

Call to Action

Want to hear the game in action? The Two Truths and a Lie segment is one of my favorite parts of every episode — you never know where it’s going to go. 👉 Listen to a recent episode of Project Candor

Think you have a story worth telling? Project Candor guests come from every walk of life. If you’ve lived something worth talking about, I’d love to hear it. 👉 Apply to be a guest

About the author: Jeanne Andersen is the host of the Project Candor Podcast.

The post The Stories My Guests Reveal During the Podcast first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

The second question was harder to answer. “Why all the nautical stuff?” It’s a question that, frankly, surprised me at first. I never consciously sat down and decided Project Candor needed a maritime identity. Yet, the language flowed naturally: “charting a course,” “true north,” “dropping anchor,” “ship’s logs.” It felt… familiar. It felt right. This isn’t just another podcast branding personal story; it’s about how deeply our earliest experiences can shape our creative output and the very essence of what we build. As the author Ursula K. Le Guin once observed, “The creative adult is the child that survived.” It’s a fascinating exploration into the subconscious currents that guide our conscious choices, and in this post, I want to share my own journey of discovering the unexpected origins of Project Candor’s nautical soul.

Charting Our Course: The Unseen Currents of Childhood and Lifelong Inspiration

It’s a curious thing, how the seemingly small, unassuming moments of our childhood can lay down deep, invisible currents that guide us through life. We might not even recognize their influence until much later, when a theme or a particular way of thinking feels so inherently us that we can’t imagine it being any other way. For me, the nautical elements of Project Candor are precisely that—a profound example of childhood influences on creativity that were always present, just waiting for the right moment to surface. It’s almost as if our earliest years etch a blueprint onto our hearts and minds, shaping who we become long before we even know ourselves.

Early Navigational Aids: How Childhood Sparks Become Lifelong Guides

One of my favorite childhood television shows was Sailor Bob. Every afternoon, he sat aboard his little tugboat, talking to us kids, drawing pictures, sharing cartoons, and making life on the water seem fun. It wasn’t complicated. It was comfortable. It was an adventure mixed with kindness, curiosity, and imagination. Looking back, Sailor Bob wasn’t just entertainment; he was an early beacon, signaling a world of exploration and genuine connection. He taught me, perhaps without me even realizing it, that wisdom could be found in quiet conversation, and that wonder lay just beyond the pier.

Years later, I joined the Navy and eventually found myself assigned to a tugboat, the USS Waxahachie. The irony of that isn’t lost on me. I doubt Sailor Bob was solely responsible for my career choices, but looking back, I can’t help but smile at the connection. Of course, Sailor Bob wasn’t the only clue. There were summers fishing on the James River, a childhood visit to the Jamestown Settlement, stories about Blackbeard and the Outer Banks, an uncle who served in the Navy, and later my own years in naval service. These weren’t just isolated events; they were cumulative experiences, like individual drops of water filling a reservoir that would one day feed a powerful river. Each one reinforced a fascination with journeys, with the vastness of the unknown, and with the quiet strength required to navigate it. Add in a healthy dose of Star Trek, exploration, and adventure, and perhaps the nautical clues were there all along, patiently waiting for me to connect the dots.

The Silent Architects: Understanding Childhood’s Lasting Imprint

What’s truly fascinating is how these deep-seated origins of creative inspiration manifest. When I created Project Candor, I wasn’t consciously thinking about any of those childhood influences. Yet, the nautical language came naturally. Ship’s Logs. Charting a Course. True North. Anchored in Joy. The Admiral of the Unexpected. It wasn’t a strategic decision to adopt a maritime theme; it was an organic emergence from a wellspring of personal history. This illustrates a profound truth about creativity: often, our most authentic expressions aren’t born from deliberate planning, but from the quiet, subconscious synthesis of our lived experiences. Our past forms a silent architectural blueprint, subtly guiding the structures we build in the present.

This isn’t just a feeling; it’s something many thoughtful observers of human nature have come to understand. Our earliest years, those tender, formative times, are incredibly potent. Our minds, particularly when we’re young, are like fertile ground, soaking up every experience and shaping the very channels of our thinking. What we encounter then – the stories, the adventures, the simple joys – they don’t just fade away. They weave themselves into the fabric of who we are, influencing our interests, our resilience, and even how we navigate challenges as adults. It reminds me of a beautiful sentiment often shared, that “Every child is a different kind of flower, and all together, make this world a beautiful garden.” It gently reminds us that children aren’t just to be molded, but rather “people to be unfolded,” revealing the unique patterns laid down in those early, precious years.

Beyond the Horizon: Finding Meaning in Metaphor and Mission

As I reflected more on why the podcast’s nautical metaphors felt so natural, I realized my fascination wasn’t limited to ships and waterways. I loved being on the water, but I was equally drawn to the journeys, the exploration, and the possibility of discovering something unexpected. This insight was a turning point, helping me understand that the theme wasn’t just a stylistic choice; it was deeply intertwined with the very mission of Project Candor itself.

The Language of the Soul: When Metaphors Choose You

Sometimes, the most powerful metaphors aren’t chosen; they choose us. They emerge from our deepest experiences and intuitively align with our purpose. For Project Candor, the imagery of the sea, of voyages, and of navigation resonates with the very human experience of life itself. We are all on a journey, encountering calm waters and rough seas, charting courses, and sometimes finding ourselves adrift. The authentic podcast voice that emerged from this nautical grounding wasn’t manufactured; it was discovered within.

The idea of “coming alongside” a guest, exchanging experiences, lessons, laughter, and perspectives, then each continuing our separate journeys a little richer for the encounter – this is the essence of a shared voyage. It’s not about me, the host, being the sole guide, but about a mutual exploration. This organic connection between my personal history and the podcast’s theme ensures that the podcast branding and personal story is not just skin deep; it’s woven into the very fabric of every conversation. It’s why the show feels genuine, because it is genuine, rooted in a lifetime of observation and curiosity about the human journey. As Albert Einstein wisely stated, “The only source of knowledge is experience.”

Project Candor’s True North: Exploring the Human Condition

What keeps me curious is that there is always something left to discover. Some guests are new to me. Others are people I’ve known for years. Yet every conversation uncovers something unexpected. I’ve learned that everyone is interesting. We just don’t always know how interesting they are until we sit down, ask a few questions, and listen. That’s what Project Candor is really about. It’s an ongoing expedition into the depths of human experience, guided by the compass of candor.

I’m truly honored to sit down with people from all walks of life. Some are adventurers. Some are educators. Some are entrepreneurs, veterans, authors, artists, or community leaders. Others are simply people with experiences worth sharing. What fascinates me is not the title, résumé, or accomplishment. It is what I discover about the person behind it. Explorers searched for new worlds. Pirates searched for treasure. Sailors looked beyond the horizon to see what was waiting there. In my own small way, I suppose I’m still doing the same thing. The difference is that today, I’m not searching for new places. I’m searching for what makes people uniquely themselves. And after more than two dozen conversations on Project Candor, I’ve discovered that there is always something worth finding. This deep, personal connection to the theme allows Project Candor to offer more than just interviews; it offers a shared journey of discovery, reflecting the very personal story behind the podcast’s identity that birthed its identity.

Conclusion

The journey of understanding “Why do I think this way?” has been as insightful for me as any conversation I’ve shared on Project Candor. It underscores a fundamental truth: our creative endeavors are rarely born in a vacuum. They are deeply rooted in our personal histories, shaped by the currents of childhood influences on creativity and the subtle nudges of our subconscious. The nautical grounding of Project Candor isn’t just a theme; it’s an echo of a lifelong fascination with exploration, discovery, and the unexpected turns of life’s vast ocean. It’s a testament to the power of our personal stories in shaping our purpose and our voice. By embracing these deep-seated influences, we not only create a more authentic podcast voice, but we also connect with our audience on a more profound, human level. As T. S. Eliot eloquently put it, “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

Call to Action

Ready to embark on more voyages of discovery?

• Listen Now: Tune into the latest Project Candor episode and let our guests’ journeys inspire your own navigation! Listen Now →
• Share Your Story: Do you have an unexpected story of resilience, reinvention, or a pivotal life lesson to share? We’re always looking for new voices to set sail with us. Be a Guest →
• Subscribe: Don’t miss a single voyage! Subscribe to the Project Candor newsletter for exclusive insights, updates, and behind-the-scenes glimpses. Subscribe Now →

The post Why Do People Think A Certain Way? first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.

Coming Alongside

The Navy has a term called “coming alongside.” It means bringing one vessel alongside another so people, supplies, mail, fuel, or information can be exchanged safely.

What many people don’t realize is that coming alongside is never done casually. It requires intention. Both vessels must carefully match speed and course. Trust matters. Communication matters. The goal is simple: create a brief opportunity to exchange something valuable before each ship continues on its own journey. I’ve often thought of Project Candor in much the same way.

Every guest who joins me is navigating waters I have never traveled. They have weathered different storms, visited different ports, celebrated different victories, and faced different challenges.

For an hour or so, our paths cross. We come alongside one another. We exchange stories, lessons, wisdom, laughter, and sometimes a few hard-earned truths. Then we continue our separate voyages carrying something we didn’t have before the conversation began.

When I picture Project Candor, I don’t think about microphones, cameras, recording software, or interview questions. I picture a large galley table, a fresh pot of coffee, and genuine curiosity.

My role is simply to provide a place where that exchange can happen.

Life Has a Way of Rewriting Plans

If there is one theme that seems to appear again and again on Project Candor, it is this: very few people end up where they originally expected to be.

As children, many of us imagine a straight line between where we are and where we hope to go. We choose a destination, chart a course, and assume that determination and hard work will get us there.

Then life happens.

• A door opens that we never expected.
• A door closes that we desperately wanted to walk through.
• An opportunity appears.
• A diagnosis arrives.
• A relationship begins.
• A relationship ends.
• A move, a loss, a mentor, a chance encounter, a phone call, or a single decision changes the direction of the voyage.

Sometimes the change happens in a moment. More often, it happens so gradually that we don’t recognize it until years later. Looking back, however, we can often see connections that were invisible while we were living them.

That’s one of the reasons I love hearing people’s stories.

The Stories I Didn’t Expect

One of the greatest joys of hosting Project Candor is that I never know where a conversation will lead.

I’ve spoken with a man who became a quadriplegic and built a remarkable life anyway. I’ve met a woman who sang her way through cancer. I’ve talked with a scholar whose pursuit of a doctorate unexpectedly led him into the world of espionage training. I’ve met people who climbed Mount Everest, walked the Appalachian Trail, became championship fishermen, owned the rights to the Rosa Parks story, and even made one of life’s biggest decisions with a spreadsheet.

Those stories are fascinating on the surface. They’re certainly great conversation starters.

However, the accomplishments themselves are rarely the most interesting part.

• What fascinates me is everything underneath.
• What kept someone moving forward when the path disappeared?
• What gave them courage when they were afraid?
• What did they learn about themselves that they couldn’t have learned any other way?
• How did their understanding of success change over time?
• What would they tell the younger version of themselves standing at the beginning of the journey?

Those are the stories that stay in my heart and mind long after the microphones are turned off.

More Laughter Than Tears

People often assume that meaningful stories must be heavy stories. Sometimes they are. Yet many of my favorite moments have involved laughter. I’ve heard stories about unexpected adventures, family traditions, travel mishaps, chance encounters, lifelong dreams, and moments that still make people smile decades later. Those stories matter too.

A life is not measured only by its hardships. It is also measured by friendships, memories, experiences, acts of kindness, moments of courage, and the people who share the journey with us.

Certainly, challenges shape us. However, joy shapes us as well. The conversations around the Project Candor table often include both.

Why I Keep Asking Questions

People sometimes ask what kind of guests I am looking for. The truth is, I’m not looking for a particular type of person. I’m looking for stories. More specifically, I’m looking for people who are willing to reflect honestly on the experiences that shaped them. The title on a business card isn’t what interests me. The turning points do. The detours do. The lessons do. The moments when life refused to follow the original map do.

Every guest brings a perspective I don’t have and wisdom I haven’t earned. As a result, every conversation teaches me something new. I get to collect souvenirs from places I’ve never been.

Around the Project Candor Table

For an hour or so, we gather around the table and explore a journey together. Then we share that story with listeners who may discover a piece of their own life reflected in someone else’s experience. Perhaps they find encouragement. Perhaps they find perspective. Perhaps they simply realize they are not the only person whose plans have been rewritten along the way.

Life has a way of changing our trajectory. The route changes. The destination evolves. The voyage surprises us.

Yet if Project Candor has taught me anything, it is that some of the most meaningful chapters of our lives are often the ones we never planned to write.

That’s Project Candor.

Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories.

The post Life Has a Way of Rewriting Plans first appeared on Project Candor Podcast.