Bold Becoming

Sherry Richert Belul never remembers being happy as a child. Three things troubled her. Feeling out of place because she was different. Her father’s abandonment. And the tremendous amount of heartbreak in the world. Sherry hated herself and thought she was “born wrong.” Depression invaded her life and kept her from joy for years, causing her to contemplate suicide ongoingly. Her reality was that o...

At age 15, Robert Murray joined a study group. The leader wanted to see if they could make a business that was a “force for good.” They would use a management model based on respect, safety and consensus-type decision making. A company was born and it became wildly successful for 20 years. During this time, Robert worked at the company and it was so much fun "it didn’t feel like work." But then on...

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A sheriff lived across the street from Charlie Cardin but never did anything when the yelling and screaming was happening. Nor did anyone else. Apart from assaulting her mom, her dad sexually abused Charlie when she was little. Then he allowed his friends to “touch and do whatever they wanted with me” when she was a young teen. Charlie was a little girl who never even got to know who she was “beca...

What’s it like to live 36 years knowing you’re disconnected to your biological identity? Damon Davis knew he was adopted and “was perfectly comfortable with it.” He's Black American, as were his adoptive parents Veronica and Willie and therefore, his adoptive status was only revealed at will. He had a great upbringing and didn't search out his birth parents. Until a couple of factors led him to th...

Becca Rae can’t remember how many times she was voted Teacher of the Year. Then, after she couldn’t get rid of a sinus infection for months on end, and a few other things happened, she saw a new, albeit fuzzy, vision of her life trajectory. Join us as we discuss the wide range of experiences Becca Rae had as she navigated Family Medical Leave, a lack of feeling valued on her job, and her re-discov...

Damiun Moore was a typical kid who needed a close and satisfying relationship with his dad. As a 12-year-old boy, he had a strategy to get just that. He’d become a pro basketball player like his cousin, who had the level of connection and dedication with his own father that Damiun so craved. That plan fizzled out as soon as it began when his father’s role fell short of expectations. But reality di...

Jill and Linda were a happy couple. They went about their lives and built a strong family with their three adopted foster children. They both knew a bit about grief and loss — Jill did hospice grief work and grief therapy, and Linda was an emergency room nurse. So when Linda got diagnosed with breast cancer, and survived, and then a 100% fatal pulmonary disease, they knew what to do — anticipatory...

For Josh Perry, getting a brain tumor diagnosis at 21 wasn’t what took all the courage he had. That forced him to look inward and evaluate his life and yes, that took courage. So did his string of new tumors and treatments. And being a pro BMX athlete. What took all the courage he had was choosing to give up the identity of a BMX athlete. He came to a point where that identity was the thing holdin...

Bandz Mabuse was a driven young man with high ambition. All set to deliver on his and his parents’ expectations, a few mortality motivation moments piled onto each other and changed his trajectory. A channel to his inner whispers opened up. One day, he lost track of time reading personal development books instead of his law books. That was when he decided law wasn’t for him, landing him in an iden...

This story’s about identity loss because of “vaccine” mandates. It describes angst due to a decision backed by the Nuremberg code and other moral, ethical and legal concepts. The story focuses solely on identity transition. We do not discuss views about the context itself. We recorded a few weeks before Thanksgiving 2021. When she lost her job because of “vaccine” mandates, Susan McDonnell’s life...

“I’m screaming with everything in me that I need help and nobody can hear me.“ That sums up Susan Deitrick’s first 20+ years. Susan's the epitome of the rebound effect. No matter how many times her identity is stripped away, she builds back stronger and better.  Growing up in a family with violence and addiction, at the age of two she wanted to build an igloo, got to sleep in it and never wak...

As a little girl, Lori Linford didn’t believe she was good enough. So she became an overachiever. And adding shame and secrets to who she was, she held her dignity together while the target of molestation. But in her first marriage, a sense of unworthiness stripped away any semblance of belonging to herself. One day, looking in the mirror, she said “I have no clue who you are.” When that marriage...

What if fun could transform your life? Thomas Edwards Jr. had made it to the top of the world. He was The wingman, helping people from all over the world create romantic relationships. Before he knew it, success was at his doorstep. When his mother showed him the article about him in the Wall Street Journal that was proof. The peak was his interview on the Steve Harvey Show. And his fall was at th...

What do bathroom towels have to do with identity? Cristina Stephenson had to replace everything after her ex emptied the house into a moving truck. Yoga had given her the courage to admit her marriage was unhealthy. “Yoga saved my life.” And when she needed a towel to take a shower, standing in the aisle of Target, she realized exactly how much she’d lost kowtowing to him, living for his happiness...

“Is this really happening…is this my life right now?” Arletha stayed late at work because her husband called saying he could pick up the kids. Then everything changed forever. Five minutes from home, an Amtrak train hit her husband and their two children and they all died. In utter despair, Arletha asked God what to do and the message was loud and clear: “LIVE.”  Arletha’s taken that to heart...

What happens when administration gets in the way of doing your job? Not just how you do your job, but eviscerates the very core of what you're there to do… On one of his teaching jobs Andy Browne, (Julie’s dad), was thwarted from his life’s mission of passing on his values of curiosity, learning and growth. The administration treated students more as criminals than young learners, with futures ful...

What happens when your last child will never leave home? Jean Olney discovered that when Gabe was born with a traumatic brain injury. Her freedom from motherhood, that she could almost taste, was tragically dashed, catapulting her into an unfamiliar and unimaginable role as a forever full-time caretaker for a totally dependent child. Gabe cannot walk, or transfer from the wheelchair to bed or bath...

What’s a girl to do? From corporate America to unemployable, unable to even go to the grocery store on demand… A car accident nabbed Janelle’s life as she knew it, leaving her on a slow and painful journey to … who knows where ... Living with a disability is one thing. Accepting it is a whole other can of worms. And interfacing with others is another level of distress. Janelle’s wisdom about how t...

What happens when a parent loses their son to murder…over a soccer game?!? What happens when a country normalizes murder as a way of problem solving? In this week’s podcast episode Don Jaime, my Colombian bespoke jacket-making teacher, tells his story. He lives in the Colombian neighborhood where Pablo Escobar housed his assassins — Manrique, Medellín. Three years after the height of Escobar’s rei...

Vernita Bowe had sunk so low from putting others first that she was drowning. It took years to recover what she’d lost of herself in an emotionally abusive marriage. She’d become co-dependent, had no sense of self-worth, and could no longer access her confidence and courage to speak her mind.    She calls herself a “recovering perfectionist.” Her determination to fix things and make ever...

Note: This interview took place on February 8, 2022, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine Surviving a string of atrocities, Lena Cebula tells her story of life in Ukraine after the Soviet Union collapsed and with it, her country’s economic and social systems, normalizing addiction, rape and abuse. Her story is one of hope when there’s none in sight.  She no longer feels like she could be roa...

What does the infiltration of child sexual abuse’s effects into every aspect of life (for a lifetime) look like? Why don’t people recognize it’s happening? Who’s perpetuating these crimes? What’s the one thing these children need most? Ms. Neicee Jordan, author of Behind Closed Doors, describes the impact on her identity from her stolen childhood innocence and later, her harrowing escape from mari...

Haysing Han’s identity as a strong, insightful corporate leader crumbled before her eyes. Feeling isolated and unsupported in the very place where she poured out her heart and soul, the Kool-aid she drank to become part of something bigger than herself started to turn sour. Never imagining that something at work could profoundly change her world view, her career success devolved into a brush with...

Autoimmune disorders chose the wrong person when they tried to take down this former professional basketball player. And health wasn’t Amy’s only battle. Retired at age 30 from a super sports career, she rebuilt her worth from the ground up when prospective employers, unaware of the work it took to be a pro athlete, deemed her “unqualified.” This double whammy stripped Amy of everything she knew,...