The Courage Coalition

Most of us are waiting for permission. Permission to dream. Permission to rest. Permission to say no, to speak the truth to the people we love most, or to walk away from something that once fit beautifully but doesn't anymore. We keep waiting for someone to hand it to us. But what if the permission we've been waiting for was never supposed to come from outside of us at all? This is my fi...

We rarely give ourselves permission to pivot. Not because we don't know we need to, but because pivoting means admitting the plan we built, the identity we've worn so well, might not be the whole truth anymore. In this week's solo cast, I found myself sitting with that exact discomfort about Awaken 2026, and coming to terms with something simple and terrifying at once: even if I hav...

Somewhere along the way, most of us were taught that impact has to be measured in numbers. That unless you change hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of lives, it doesn't really count. So we take the thing that sits heavy on our hearts the children, the veterans, the elderly, the animals, the cause we cannot stop thinking about and we let it stay there. Because it feels too big. Because we do...

Courage isn't born curiosity is. Every one of us came here with it: that small whisper that says huh… what would that be like? And most of us have gotten very good at pushing it back down, because somewhere we learned you don't move until you can see the whole staircase. If I don't know how it ends, I'm not starting. But I think we have it backwards. Curiosity is your knowing....

We are quick to label a child's anger. The fifteen year old throwing a tantrum, the panic attack in the hallway, the screaming at someone who barely brushed past. We call it a behavior and we try to correct it, when what we almost never do is get curious enough to ask what happened to you instead of what is wrong with you. My conversation with Trinity Riffle cracked that wide open. Adopted at...

Here is the thread that runs through all of it. Everything we do, from the first blessing of breath each morning, is a choice, and our life is a reflection of those choices. They are not easy choices. Sometimes they feel overwhelming. But they are choices all the same, and no law written anywhere says you have to stay in the job, the relationship, or the version of success that is draining you. Th...

This morning we are seven days deep into the backcountry of Glacier, carrying everything we need on our own two shoulders, tired in a way that reaches the bone. Before we left, I posted a poll asking how many bears we would see, and people worried. They let the fear of a bear question whether we should go at all. But here is what I keep sitting with out here. Yes, the bears are predators. They cou...

For years I have been quietly playing small in my own story. I have brought you experts and foster parents and former foster children, and I have let their voices carry the weight, because it felt safer than standing all the way up in my own. But there is a Muhammad Ali quote I keep returning to: impossible is just a word people throw around who believe the life handed to them is their only choice...

We tell ourselves a comforting story about children. We believe that if a little one is ever left alone in this world, surely someone would step in. Surely a neighbor, a teacher, a stranger with a soft heart would look at a seven year old, a ten year old, a child with a whole life still ahead of them, and say, I will take this one home. But my conversation with Ashana Kaiulani cracked that story w...

One of the greatest misconceptions about foster care is that healing is simply a matter of making better choices. If someone truly wanted to change, we tell ourselves, they would. But what if the very systems designed to help have also become places where shame, power, and survival quietly replace safety, connection, and hope? This week's conversation reminded me that trauma is not always the...

The foster care conversation often feels overwhelming. The numbers are staggering. The stories are heartbreaking. It's easy to believe the problem is simply too big for any one person to make a difference. But what if we've been asking the wrong question? Instead of asking, "How do we fix foster care?" what if we asked, "Would I do it for one?" Because that's whe...

There is one relationship that shapes every other relationship in your life the one you have with yourself. We spend so much time talking about what we want to change, what we hope to become, and the dreams we carry in our hearts. But those dreams aren't built through grand gestures. They're built in the quiet, daily moments when we choose to keep the promises we made to ourselves. Every...

There comes a moment in life when the whisper becomes too loud to ignore. It isn't always a crisis. Sometimes your life is beautiful. The marriage is good. The business is thriving. The kids are growing. And yet, somewhere beneath the titles, responsibilities, and identities you've carried so faithfully, there is a quiet knowing that says, there is more. More truth. More joy. More of you...

This episode left me thinking about something I have wrestled with for years: the answer to foster care is not simply more homes. The answer is better support, better training, and a system that truly prioritizes the healing and stability of the children it was designed to protect. In my conversation with foster mom Miranda Green, we talked about the realities that so few people see the heartbreak...

In today's fast-paced world, many people find themselves overwhelmed by their finances, often feeling restricted by the idea of budgeting. But what if I told you that budgeting is not about limitations, but rather a pathway to freedom? In this post, we will explore how gaining clarity in your financial situation can empower you to make informed decisions and live a life aligned with your valu...

There are moments in life that don't make sense when we're living them. Seasons of pain. Seasons of striving. Seasons where we are desperately trying to prove our worth, earn our place, or understand why our hearts keep pulling us toward something we can't fully explain. Looking back, though, I've begun to see that life isn't random. The pieces were always forming a pictur...

This episode isn't just about foster care. It's about grief. It's about identity. It's about what happens when a child loses not only their home, but their sense of safety, belonging, and sometimes even themselves. Solange Carlson's story is one that stayed with me long after we stopped recording. As a child, she was removed from her home and placed into a world she didn&a...

There is something powerful that happens when we stop looking at relationships as something we “have” and begin looking at them as something we actively choose, nurture, and participate in every single day. In this episode of The Courage Coalition, I sat down with relationship coach and TEDx speaker Melissa Nanavati to have one of those conversations I believe we need to be having more often. Not...

My heart was so full recording this episode of The Courage Coalition with my dear friend Judy Martin and when I say dear friend, I mean lifeline. Judy was our certifier when Chad and I became foster parents, but she was so much more than a checkbox on a system form. She’s also an adoptee, an adoptive mom, and she’s spent years inside the foster care system as a caseworker and certifier. And when y...

We spend so much of our lives chasing the checklist. Performing. Achieving. Becoming who we think we’re supposed to be so we can finally feel accepted. But what if the real question was never “What do you do?” What if the real question has always been “Who are you?” Because from the moment we take our first breath, we are taught—subtly and loudly—that love, safety, and belonging are earned through...

Some conversations do more than inform us, they remind us that healing rarely looks the way we expect it to. My conversation with Heather Gibson was one of those. What struck me most was not just that we share the foster and adoptive journey, but that her story reveals something so many people miss: behind foster care is trauma, and behind trauma is often a desperate need for connection, safety, a...

There are over 400,000 children in foster care in the United States right nowand if we’re honest, most of us don’t feel that number… because we’ve learned not to. We’ve learned how to look past it, how to believe it’s too big, too broken, too far removed from our own lives to matter. But here’s the truth: these are not statistics. These are children, children who have been moved, uprooted, and res...

There’s a moment, if you’re willing to sit in it, where you realize this was never just about money. It was never just about the numbers, the accounts, or the strategy. It was about safety. It was about what you were taught, what you witnessed, and the quiet beliefs you built along the way about what you are allowed to have. For so many of us, growing money feels overwhelming not because we aren’t...

There are some conversations that remind you why courage matters so much, and this one with Diana Gleason was exactly that. What struck me most was not just the success she has built a thriving remote bookkeeping firm with a powerful team and strong revenue but the path she took to get there. She did not begin in accounting. She began as a dancer. A creative. A woman who knew what it meant to be t...

The word budget has been misunderstood for far too long. For most people, it immediately brings up feelings of restriction what do I have to give up, what do I have to go without, what does this say about me? But what if we flipped that entirely? What if a budget wasn’t about limitation, but about direction? Because when your money has no job, it creates anxiety. It leaves you reacting instead of...