Extraordinary Stories

Some people seem unusually grounded long before life expects them to be. Isabelle Cutuli is one of those people. As Director of Canyon Angels and a student preparing to graduate into an uncertain future, she reflects on leadership, ambition, faith, and what it means to keep moving forward without having all the answers. Throughout the conversation, Isabelle shares how disappointment reshaped her u...

B. Taylor has lived a life that almost sounds impossible. A college athlete turned Navy sailor, he expected his future to be defined by football. Instead, one split-second decision—blocking the Secretary of the Navy's shot during a basketball game—set off a chain of events that carried him from military service to Motown, Snoop Dogg's family, and a career built on music, philanthropy, and service....

Dr. Velma Trayham knows what it means to build from nothing. Raised in poverty by her grandmother, she became the first entrepreneur, first college graduate, and first millionaire in her family. In this conversation, she shares why those accomplishments were never the destination—they were preparation for a larger purpose: helping others create opportunity through entrepreneurship. Rather than hid...

Episode Description Jeremy Barker has built one of the world's most recognizable hidden door companies, but his story didn't begin with success. Before Murphy Door became an industry-defining brand, Jeremy had already made—and lost—millions, lived out of his pickup truck, and wrestled with the belief that he had failed at life. In this conversation, he shares how those experiences reshaped the way...

What makes someone unforgettable? Speaker, author, sailor, and communication coach Ryan Foland believes it has very little to do with expertise and everything to do with embracing what makes you unmistakably human. In this conversation, Ryan shares how the very traits he was teased for growing up became the foundation of his identity, his relationships, and ultimately his life's work. As the conve...

Tom Schneider has lived several lives in one lifetime. He’s a four-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, a former World Series of Poker Player of the Year, a songwriter, comedian, author, and fractional CFO. But beneath the résumé is a simple question that has shaped his life: What happens when you stop talking about what you want to do and start doing it? In this conversation, Tom shares ho...

Derrick Mains spent much of his life operating inside a worldview built on certainty. Raised in a deeply religious environment that discouraged higher education and framed the world in absolutes, he never saw himself as particularly intelligent, let alone extraordinary. It wasn’t until adulthood—after mentors challenged his assumptions and helped him develop skills he’d never been taught—that he b...

Nicole Zeno has spent much of her life refusing to fit into a single box. Entrepreneur, fractional executive, podcaster, ultra-marathon runner, and global traveler, she built a life around movement, curiosity, and possibility. But beneath the adventure was a deeper question: How do you build a life that feels fully your own instead of one designed by someone else's expectations? In this conversati...

For most of his life, Hugh Lytle has been drawn toward leadership because he felt compelled to step into difficult situations and help move people forward. From quarterbacking championship football teams in Indiana to building healthcare companies in Arizona, his story is one of challenging systems, questioning assumptions, and following a path that rarely fit neatly inside established institution...

Ben Lyon spent years helping large organizations navigate change, only to run into the same problem over and over again: nobody was actually learning from corporate training. The videos were watched on mute, the quizzes were clicked through, and the information rarely stuck. Instead of accepting that reality, Ben became curious about why people willingly spend hours learning on YouTube while avoid...

Bree Aesie didn’t set out to build a life in Barcelona. A backpacking trip after university became a marriage, a family, and a career built around helping people tell better stories. Along the way, she discovered something simple but profound: the stories that stay with us are rarely about achievement. They’re about transformation. In this conversation, Bree shares how years of interviewing people...

Aashay Arora didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur. He set out to solve a problem. As a civil engineer and material scientist, he was fascinated by the challenge of making infrastructure last longer. What began as university research into cracking concrete eventually became EnKoat, a company developing advanced materials designed to protect roads, buildings, and critical infrastructure from ext...

LeGrand Crewse didn’t set out to build a defense technology company. But after years of entrepreneurship, hard lessons, and watching his younger brother search for a way to make a meaningful impact, he returned to Arizona to co-found Corvus Industries. Today, they're tackling one of the newest challenges in modern warfare: creating miniature missiles designed to stop drones. Yet beneath the techno...

For most people, becoming a CEO means climbing a corporate ladder. For Nick Labinsky, it meant honoring a promise. After joining Premier Research Labs as a young microbiologist, Nick spent sixteen years learning every corner of the business under the mentorship of founder Dr. Robert Marshall. What began as a job became a calling rooted in a company born from tragedy, built around quality, and dedi...

Dave Walzer spent much of his life believing the world was something to defend against. Growing up around scarcity, distrust, and survival instincts, he learned to keep people at arm's length. Today, he's known as one of Arizona's most connected community builders, bringing thousands of people together through events designed to foster genuine relationships. But that transformation didn't happen o...

For more than two decades, Carrie Chandler has worked at the intersection of leadership, people, and workplace culture. But beneath the titles and responsibilities was a deeper personal journey—one that led her from chronic people-pleasing and burnout toward authenticity, self-awareness, and a desire to help others make the same transition. In this conversation, Carrie reflects on the slow awakeni...

Santana Vega Yturralde has spent years studying human performance from multiple angles: neuroscience, communication, spirituality, athletics, and business. But beneath those interests is a much deeper question: why do some people change while others stay trapped in familiar patterns? In this conversation with Forbes Shannon, Santana explores the invisible forces that shape our behavior, our relati...

Paul Kirchhoff has spent much of his life chasing horizons. Raised between cultures, economic realities, and worldviews, he learned early that people are far more complicated than the labels we place on them. That perspective would eventually lead him to sell nearly everything he owned, move into a bus with his wife, and spend years building a life centered on freedom, curiosity, and human potenti...

Bryce Prescott spent years searching for certainty. Raised Mormon, immersed in self-development, entrepreneurship, and coaching, he followed every path that promised answers. Instead, he found himself confronting a deeper question: what happens when the thing you've spent years chasing finally arrives and leaves you feeling empty? In this conversation, Bryce shares the unlikely journey that reshap...

Forbes Riley has lived a life that sounds almost too improbable to be true. Before becoming known as the “Queen of Pitch,” she was a kid from Long Island who couldn’t speak clearly for two years because of a painful orthodontic device, watched her father lose his hand in a printing press accident, and grew up feeling like an underdog in almost every room she entered. What followed became a lifetim...

For years, Alex Koupal looked like someone who had it figured out. She had the career, the travel, the athletic discipline, and the reputation for getting things done. But underneath the surface was chronic pain, burnout, fear, and a growing realization that the life she had built no longer fit who she really was. In this conversation, Alex opens up about rebuilding her identity after divorce, inj...

What if stress isn’t just emotional… but physical? What if the voice in your head is shaping your reality more than you realize? In this episode of Extraordinary Stories, Craig Goldberg joins Forbes Shannon and Christine Butler for a conversation about frequency, consciousness, anxiety, and the nervous system. What starts as a discussion about sound therapy turns into something much deeper: how pe...

Dr. Greg Eckel thought he understood medicine. Then his wife began forgetting where she was in her own home. What started as small moments became a devastating neurodegenerative disease that rapidly took away her ability to speak, eat, and function. In this conversation, Dr. Eckel shares the deeply personal story that transformed him from a physician searching for answers into someone challenging...

What happens when the thing that looks like failure becomes the beginning of your actual life? In this episode of Extraordinary Stories , Forbes sits down with Alan S. Adams, a former Royal Navy engineer turned business strategist whose path into entrepreneurship started during one of the lowest moments of his life. After divorce, debt, bankruptcy, and years of believing he was “stupid” because of...

What happens when your dream starts in the basement of a Taco Bell beneath Arizona State University? For comedian Michael Turner, it turned into a 14-year journey built on bombed sets, long drives, self-funded projects, and learning how to trust himself under pressure. In this conversation, Michael reflects on the strange, beautiful chaos of building a creative life from nothing while trying to st...