Awkwardly Awesome w/ Jason Freeman

Sidewalk Diamonds is a band who plays what they call "Garage Americana,” a soulful blend of rock and Americana with a raucous spirit, across venues in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area of Minnesota. What I find to be exceptional about this band is that from the moment I clicked play on the first track featured on their website, I felt my mood lighten. Honestly, I just felt good. Discovering more about...

“Is this the right dream for me? Is my head truly in it? How about my heart? Does it meet my needs and values?” ~ David Spader   It seems like some people know the answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” practically from the moment they leave the womb. For others, like my next guest, the answer takes a bit more exploring. David Spader majored in psychology and theology a...

“Even when you go into remission, you still have a journey in front of you.  It’s like someone tacked on another 10 miles to the cancer marathon right as you reach the finish line.” ~ Nick Wendell    There’s nothing like having cancer twice to build your resilience muscle, just ask Nick Wendell.   I had the pleasure of seeing him deliver his TEDx talk, “Notes on Survival” in Sioux Falls recently. ...

“My passion is a place beyond question.  When I know I’m right and my passion and heart are aligned, either help me out, get out of my way and be invisible, or stand in my way and look stupid.”   Many people have heard of the game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), but few know the profound academic and therapeutic benefits it possesses.  Fortunately, for the 1,200 or so middle school students who ha...

You know, the results I created in my grade school art classes definitely encouraged me NOT to be a painter.   In retrospect, even more than lack of talent, I didn’t have the patience to work with watercolors, oils and acrylics.  Yet, somehow, I still managed to find appreciation for the skill itself and the artists who master it. A while back, I went  to an event where former Awkwardly Awesome gu...

"Shoot For The Moon. Even If You Miss, You'll Land Among The Stars." ~ Norman Vincent Peale   Our guest this week is a WSET level 3 sommelier, who has a passion for attending to tables and connecting her patrons with new wines and dishes that have the potential of expanding their enjoyment of life. Maddie Wadman is no stranger to trying new things, she’s been doing it her whole life.  Her parents...

“All the baggage that comes with deep, intimate relationships ends up around the bedside at the end of life.  So it can become an impromptu reunion tour.” ~ Kristine Kopperud    What do these things have in common?  Advocating for the needs of a child who is a neurodivergent learner;  Determining when business partners should go their separate ways;  Communicating patiently and clearly with doctor...

“The dreaming we do by day is so important because it gives birth to a deeper purpose and is what ultimately forms our future.” ~ Carol Spader   I was out with a group of people on a brutally cold January afternoon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  It was miserable, the type of weather where dreams wither up and die.  But, on this particular day, spring seemingly light years away, I met Carol Spader,...

“There’s no ladder for the kind of career I’ve had.  I would like to just play one instrument, but hey I do what’s needed.” ~ Erik Paparozzi   Once Erik Paparozzi embraced his love of music and dedicated himself to honing his talents as a multi-instrumentalist, his entire life changed.  Over the course of one year, he went from playing in a karaoke band to opening for Gnarls Barkley and the Flamin...

“I didn’t realize how important art was for me until I had to get through some really tough times in my youth.  Sometimes when you have no words to express what you are feeling it’s easier to create some form of visual representation of your emotions than to write about them.  Art itself is an emotion.” ~ Kristine Reiner   I was eating with a group of friends at a cafe recently when a trip to the...

Some weeks ago a colleague and I were at the South Dakota Special Education Conference offering a breakout session designed to inspire teachers to recognize the profoundly positive effects their efforts can have on their students throughout their lives.   During the conference, I opened a door into a room I hoped contained breakfast.  Instead I walked into Chase Mielke’s keynote address.  I was im...

“Life is not always easy, but I do desire to encourage everyone to find what brings them peace and calm, and to remind people that we all have gifts and talents to share that make this world a better place!” ~ Meagan Justus   I was introduced to Meagan Justus by a college friend who told me that, “she’s on a quest to live her best life, one stubborn health challenge at a time.” Meagan experienced...

I met Lucas Michaels a little over a year ago while enjoying some wonderful Italian food at Maribella Ristorante.  What impressed me was the amount of heart he put into his work.  He seems to dedicate himself to focusing on doing his best down to the smallest detail, all the while bringing an energetic delightfulness to his work.  This level of detail and focus might belong on the resume of an ent...

In third grade, my next guest asked her Mom if she could cut her hair short.  Embracing the curiosity and exploration present in her daughter, her mom obliged.  But Cuyla Coogan’s confident first steps along this path quickly turned stressful after her haircut led to her being called a boy and sometimes mistaken as one.   So began Cuyla’s journey with anxiety.   In high school she grew her hair lo...

“Life has handed you new puzzles to solve and an adventure that people rarely experience. But you're never alone. We're in this together.”  Ty Vuong on what he would tell someone who has been newly diagnosed as a quadriplegic.   What do we do when our reality suddenly changes in a fundamental way?   The local news is ripe with stories of horrible accidents and the people who survive them, but how...

I have to admit, Matt Krall is my next guest on Awkwardly Awesome Podcast due to a case of mistaken identity.  Let me explain, between sessions at a conference I attended recently, I noticed someone wearing a shirt with “ND” emblazoned on it.  Being from South Dakota my mind instantaneously thought it was initials for our northern counterpart, so I approached and asked, “Did you go to North Dakota...

Do you ever notice how easy it is to only focus on one dimension of a person’s life when you first meet them?  A lot of times it's “Nice to meet you, my name’s Jason, what do you do for a living?”  And gradually over time you just start thinking of that person solely based on that.  Each time you talk it’s “How’s that one dimension I know about you going?”   I fall into this pattern more than I ca...

Hollywood is a place, at least according to the stereotype, which is always right except for when it’s not, where glamor reigns supreme and actors and actresses get facelifts rather than contemplate mortality.  But, maybe that goes for all of us in a way. Mariam Azolyan and Gaspar Tovmasyan both grew up in California and met in Hollywood, they fell in love, married and had three wonderful boys.  G...

“Here’s the deal, if you don’t say ‘no’ at some point in your life, ‘no’ will end up being said for you by default, and if you don’t say ‘no’, then you will end up saying ‘no’ to the people you love the most.”  ~ Terry Hershey   The power of a person’s words can travel far and wide.  They certainly did from my next guest, Terry Hershey, all the way from the Puget Sound in Washington State to littl...

I’m not sure exactly when poetry had its heyday, but it was probably about a century ago, or so.  In this day and age, it’s not a cake walk being a committed poet.  Poetry just can’t hold a candle to TikTok or scrolling Reels; even movies and music are going through a massive transformation, and books, well they seem to be headed the same direction as poetry.  I say this as someone who fell in lov...

I’ve known my next guest, Josh Munce, since we were in highschool together.  His life’s ambition at that age was one he’d carried with him since childhood: He wanted to be a big time movie director.  Josh followed his dream into film school in Montana, but during his first semester there he was overcome with a strong sense that he needed to return home to South Dakota.   He returned just in time t...