The Curious Introvert

Fraidy Reiss is the founder of Unchained At Last, an organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the U.S. In this episode, she shares her personal experience of being forced into an abusive marriage, how she finally escaped with the help of a cereal box & the work Unchained is doing to end child marriage in the US. This is a remastered episode that originally aired on Septemb...

Dr. David Tolin is the Founder & Director of the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Institute of Living, the author of over 200 scientific journal articles & even received the Award for Lifetime Contribution to Psychology from the CT Psychological Association, but you may recognize him from the reality TV series Hoarders, The OCD Project or My Shopping Addiction. In this episode he shares wha...

Kim Lee (a pseudonym) is a psychotherapist, married swinger & an author. In her book, The Swinger in the Mirror, she chronicles her rollercoaster of self-reflection & relational entanglements. In this episode, through her story & psychological expertise, we chronicle the pitfalls of unspoken expectations, making & re-making the rules of commitment & communication. You’ll also h...

Jenny Radcliffe is a professional con woman & people hacker who uses social engineering to test the vulnerability of professional security systems. She shares how she got started in her teens, avoided a life of crime & how we can all be less vulnerable. You’ll also hear about her favorite break-in, the biggest security mistake we’re all making & her hot take on Anna Sorokin. This episo...

In 2016 the Canadian government passed the C14 bill, allowing some individuals to have assistance from a medical practitioner in ending their own life. Jan Ditchfield is the founder of a non-profit called Bridge C14, A Network of Peer-to-Peer Connections and Community Supports Through All Stages of Medical Assistance in Dying (AKA Maid). She is also someone with first-hand experience with how the...

Jay Alders is an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary fine artist, photographer, and designer whose distinctive style has been seen on album covers like Slightly Stoopid and 311 and in media outlets like Forbes, Surfer Magazine, and Penthouse. He's also a husband and dad of 3, and he's always expanding his mind and his passion projects. In this episode, we explore how to make time...

Dr. Kate Mangino holds a Ph. D. in human rights & social development & is the author of the book, "Equal Partners: Improving Gender Equality at Home." She covers how to know if you’re the cognitive laborer, why gender equality is critical for boys & girls, society vs biology, the right and wrong way to divide chores & how to start a conversation with your partner without...

Kashif Khan believes healthcare shouldn't be about waiting to get sick. After watching his father’s health deteriorate & eventually cause an early death, he found himself as the head of his household at age 17. Later he developed 5 chronic conditions with no answers from doctors. This pushed him down the path of human biology & DNA, allowing him to not only cure himself but found The...

Nikki Eisenhauer is a licensed professional counselor, chemical dependency counselor, and professional psychotherapist. She is also an incest & abuse survivor. In this episode, we discuss if trigger warnings are a tool for healing or a crutch for victimhood, we explore symptoms that your entire childhood may warrant a trigger warning, what actual trauma is, how not to manipulate ourselves &amp...

Chris Bledsoe is considered the most credible experiencer in the world of phenomenon, someone whose experiences have been studied by NASA, the CIA, academics & the defense intelligence agency. he is set apart from many other experiencers in that he is a deeply religious man who continues to experience rejection & judgment from his spiritual community for sharing his message. But what other...

The Ysleta community of El Paso sits near the Mexico border & is known for its paranormal activity. Leon Baker was a border patrol agent for 23 years where he experienced paranormal activity like ghosts, shadow people & unexplainable thermal readings. In this episode, he shares his ghost stories as well as a few surprising immigration stories. This episode originally aired Oct, 3, 2022. If...

Brenda McPhail is at the intersection of technology, civil liberties & human rights. Her PhD is in the social impacts of tech, with a focus on surveillance & privacy in areas like workplace surveillance, health information privacy, & AI regulation. She’s currently the Acting Exec Dir of the Master in Public Policy in Digital Society program at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. In...

Nina Teicholz, journalist & author of the New York Times’ Best Seller, The Big Fat Surprise, shares how college professor, Ancel Keys, was at the root of the widely unquestioned nutrition policy of the diet-heart hypothesis that states low fat, low cholesterol is THE heart health anthem of the USA since the 1950’s, yet heart disease killed 700,000 Americans in 2020.  In this remastered episode...

Dr. Elaine Kasket is a cyberpsychologist whose private practice & daily life frequently puts her at the intersection of technology & psychology. She’s ALSO an American Mom living in the UK, who wants nothing more than to display her own pride in her child & stay in touch with stateside relatives. In this episode, we talk about sharenting: the impact of curated personas, parasocial rela...

Kym Wootton was a 42-year-old C-suite executive, running 3 departments & making a six-figure income in Boulder, CO when she wondered if life could look different. In January of 2023, she began an adult gap year – a hard reset, leaving her company of 13 years. In this episode, she shares about tolerable levels of unhappiness, the stigma on those who work from home, & downshifting from the g...

Dr. Michael P Masters is a professor of biological anthropology at Montana Tech University. Part of his research draws on anthropology, astronomy, physics & astrobiology to investigate UFO phenomena, specifically the premise that aliens may be our human descendants, returning from the future to visit & study their own hominin evolutionary past. We discuss why thinking about this is more th...

To celebrate our 200th episode, I’m answering listener questions & sharing three life lessons podcasting has taught me & how they can help you too. Episodes mentioned in this episode: Ep. 131 | Active or Passive Curiosity? Cultivating Confidence, Adventure & Reward Hormones Ep. 128 | Is a 4-Day Work Week Coming? Recalibrating Balance (PART 1) Ep. 36 | Paid to Adventure: Travel Show Hos...

Hope Kelaher is a licensed clinical social worker, friend therapist & the author of Here to Make Friends: How to Make Friends as an Adult . She believes that meaningful friendships should be staples, not accessories. In this episode, you’ll hear the three types of friendship & how to make new friends after a job change, a family change (like divorce) & retirement. She also covers human...

Casey McGuire Davidson was an ambitious corporate achiever who always had a full schedule & anxious energy. She felt wine was the glue holding her life together until she realized it wasn’t. She later found serenity in sobriety, but it wasn’t without some social hiccups. In this episode, she uses her expertise as a certified life & sobriety coach to show us how to keep our friends in the t...

Russ Jones is an ADHD coach & ADDer himself who helps adults with ADHD get their shit together & have a better life through his 1 on 1 coaching, online course & forum & his podcast, ADHD Big Brother.  We thought a forthcoming discussion about our ADHD epic fails might encourage you that you’re not alone & our can’t live without hacks & tools might help you, so we made a swa...

David Grusch was an intelligence officer in the UAP task force established to investigate sighting reports of what most still call UFOs. In June 2023, he has now become a whistleblower against the task force saying they illegally withheld information from Congress about retrieved intact & partially intact crafts & pilots of non-human origin. In this episode, I talk with retired United Stat...

Scott Stern is a scholar, author & public interest lawyer who was launched into a 7-year investigation into the buried history of The American Plan, the mass incarceration of women during the First World War deemed “suspicious” all for the sake of containing venereal disease. And the laws that permitted the round-up….still exist today. You’ll hear why no one has ever heard of this, how women w...

Marina Chapman is a Colombian-born British woman who at age 4, was abandoned in the jungle after a kidnapping gone wrong. She’s going to share how she survived in the jungle for 5 years with a family of monkeys, how getting out of the jungle nearly killed her & what life is like now. If you like this episode, you’ll also like episode 48: FORCED MARRIAGE IN AMERICA? Guest: https://www.instagram...

Dr. Kevin Fontaine hopes to find sustainable solutions for both cancer treatment & prevention through his over 30 years of experience in conducting obesity-related lifestyle modification trials. He’s a Professor & Chair of the Dept of Health Behavior in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama Birmingham & the author of over 150 scientific articles. In this episode, he...

Dr. Kyler Shumway is a licensed psychologist, TEDx speaker the President and Chief Clinical Officer at one of the largest mental health practices in Texas. He has been featured by Forbes, The New York Times & CNN for his work in combatting the loneliness epidemic. In this episode, we discuss how to improve your adult friendships by being a better friend. Tyler shares 7 red flags that you might...