Absolutely Sure, No Idea

For the last episode of the season, two guests from season one came back to check in. Melanie Mishler — manifestation coach, somatic healer, author of Women Who Want More, and host of the Manifest with Melanie podcast — is now living full-time in Belize, turning 50, and quietly considering a two-year Peace Corps assignment in Peru working with women entrepreneurs. And documentary filmmaker and Nat...

If you've ever kept the woo parts of yourself separate from the professional parts — or wondered whether those two things could ever actually live in the same room — this conversation is for you. Kris Prochaska has spent over a decade building a practice at the exact intersection of clinical psychology and things most therapists won't touch, and she makes it look deceptively easy. Today, Piper and...

"God can't catch you if you don't jump." Krylon Superstar has been living by that principle since she left San Diego for New York in the nineties with no plan and a patchwork dress made of spray paint patches safety-pinned together. What followed was a life that looks like it couldn't possibly belong to one person. Today, Piper and David sit down with Krylon Superstar — performer, artist, witch, m...

Keenan Newman built a filmmaking career on the belief that stories have power. Then he stood in a Yup'ik village in Alaska filming people tear down their homes — and started to wonder about the limits of that belief. Today, Piper and David sit down with Keenan Newman — documentary filmmaker and photographer based in Ventura, California, whose work has taken him from a Yup'ik village in Western Ala...

The ache that something more is possible is easy to ignore — until it isn't. Manifestation coach and somatic teacher Melanie Mishler had a successful wedding photography business, a home in Belize, flexibility most people dream about. She was also quietly suppressing the work she actually felt called to do, and her body knew it before she did. Today, Piper and David sit down with Melanie Mishler —...

Most people who love music stay fans. Jeff Bratton started reaching out to labels he loved while still working corporate PR — and just kept leaning into whatever door had give. That was the late 2000s. Cascine Records came out the other side of it. Today, Piper and David sit down with Jeff Bratton — founder of independent record label Cascine and artist manager for Yeule, Casey MQ, and Com Truise....

Abstract painter Kim Manfredi ran one of Baltimore's most beloved yoga studios for 15 years. Before that, a decorative painting company for 15 years. She was just waiting for the moment to say yes to painting again. This one's for anyone who's walked away from an opportunity because something else needed them more — and wondered for years whether that was the right call. Today, Piper and David sit...

DDM has been building a creative career in Baltimore — a city he'll be the first to tell you wasn't designed for it — for over two decades. He's done it mostly on his own terms, mostly with his own money, and with a clarity about the difference between art and fame that most people spend their whole career trying to figure out. Today, Piper and David sit down with Dapper Dan Midas, a.k.a. DDM — Ba...

Jinji didn't go into this thinking she'd own a business. She arrived, looked around, and thought — how has this even happened? Thirteen years later she's still asking that question, just from a much deeper place. This conversation covers what it actually feels like to stay inside something without a plan, let it evolve, and trust that the next version of it will make sense when it gets here. Today...

When burnout finally catches up with you, it doesn't always arrive as exhaustion — sometimes it arrives as a blood transfusion and a doctor telling you your heart might stop. Musician and mental health advocate Terra Lopez has spent over a decade making music as Rituals of Mine, building a career in an industry she loves, and quietly burning out doing it. Today, Piper and David sit down with Terra...

Making a living as a documentary photographer has never been easy — but right now, it's a different kind of hard. National Geographic contributor Amy Toensing has spent over two decades doing the work anyway, and this conversation is about what that actually costs, and why she keeps doing it. Today, Piper and David sit down with Amy Toensing — award-winning documentary photographer, visual journal...

Some people take the conventional path and spend years wondering what the other one looked like. Some people take the unconventional one and spend years wondering if they made a mistake. This show is for the second group. Absolutely Sure, No Idea is a podcast about creative people, creative career changers, and unconventional entrepreneurs who chose a path without a roadmap — and are still figurin...

TRAILER — Absolutely Sure, No Idea If you've ever made a life path decision you couldn't fully explain — changed careers, bet on yourself, walked away from something that looked great on paper — you already know what this show is about. Absolutely Sure, No Idea is for the person who's already made some version of the leap. Not the wide-eyed beginner. The one who's been in it, had some wins, taken...