FINE is a 4-Letter Word

Jodi Scott fell off her bike. That's how Green Goo started. Riding the same Texas road she rode every day, her laces caught in the spokes, and she looked up at an overgrown driveway leading to a white Southern colonial estate she'd somehow never noticed before. The next day, a for sale sign appeared. Her realtor grandmother told her she'd never qualify for the loan and that no one goes to Kyle, Te...

What do you do when you get offered the top job in your industry and you turn it down anyway? Will Steel did exactly that. He grew up in rural Yorkshire, delivering milk at the age of three alongside his mother, who ran the family's milk round for 40 years just to cover the grocery bill. He worked for a stonemason from age 12 to 16, digging graves and mending roofs. He talked his way into an engin...

Candice Van Dertholen did not arrive at her work in energy healing by reading about it. She lived through it. In this episode of Fine is a 4-Letter Word, host Lori Saitz sits down with energy practitioner Candice Van Dertholen for an unflinching conversation about single parenthood at 22, a Texas maximum security prison career she stumbled into out of financial desperation, an abusive marriage tha...

Everte Farnell spent seventeen years married to a partner he now believes had borderline personality disorder, enduring verbal, emotional, and eventually physical abuse before everything came to a head in his own kitchen. In this conversation, he opens up about why men rarely report abuse, what changed the night his daughter stepped in, and how he rebuilt his health, his confidence, and his life f...

You're not failing because of lack of skill or effort. You're failing because of patterns you picked up before you were old enough to choose them. Dr. Kevin Mays, leadership coach and author of Lead Yourself First, built a career helping executives see that the behaviors driving their success are often the exact same ones quietly sabotaging what they're trying to build. What You'll Learn Why child...

Scott Lackey grew up as a free-range kid roaming the woods and building forts, convinced he had all the time in the world. Then three questions from three people in the span of two weeks turned everything upside down. What followed was a winding path through the military, a failed invention, a Ponzi scheme, and a long list of promises he kept breaking to himself — until one sleepless night during...

Raised in a household steeped in integrity, respect, and love, Dr. Andrena Phillips credits her upbringing and the strong leadership modeled by her Marine father and telephone company manager mother for shaping her approach to life. Those early foundations became the fuel for a lifetime of showing up authentically, keeping her word, and encouraging others to live by values that go farther than any...

From a childhood shaped by the loss of her father and the blending of deeply religious family values, Kym Coco developed an early appreciation for spirituality as a lived sense of connection and empowerment. Her journey began with the awareness that we are spiritual beings within physical bodies, a notion both comforting and inspiring when navigating life’s difficult moments. As Kym grew older, es...

What if everything you’ve gone through in life — the chaos, the loss, the addiction, the grief — was the exact preparation you needed to save someone else's life? Dan Flanagan grew up surrounded by strong values of integrity, hard work, and loyalty, anchored in the rhythm of small-town Ohio life and Catholic faith. His childhood had a kind of Norman Rockwell quality to it — a baseball field in the...

Welcome to the celebration of five years of fine is a four letter word. I'm your host, Lori Saitz, and man, what a ride it has been. Five years. I don't know that I could have said five years ago that I would expect to be still doing this show five years later. mean, man, that's like another lifetime ago. Think of everything that's happened in your life in the past five years. I mean, I had differ...

What would you do if your business partner, the woman who recruited you, trained you, and believed in you before you believed in yourself, didn't come home from vacation? That's exactly what happened to Nicole Milone, wealth advisor and founder of Solaris Strategic Wealth. Raised as the oldest of three in an entrepreneurial family, Nicole Milone internalized the values of compassion, curiosity, an...

What would you do if you woke up one day to find the California Attorney General was suing you for $60 million — and you hadn't done anything wrong? That's exactly what happened to Shane Barker, digital marketing expert and founder of TraceFuse.ai, and the way he navigated it says everything about who he is. Shane was shaped by the loving, free-spirited energy of his family in Sacramento, Californ...

What if the secret to being an exceptional leader isn't about being stronger, working harder, or having all the answers — but about being the first one in the room to say *I need a break*? Sounds counterintuitive, right? Maybe even a little reckless. But stick with me here. Vanessa McDowell-Atlas grew up deeply rooted in the values of faith, family, and community, shaped by her upbringing in Madis...

What happens when your life looks successful and you keep telling yourself it is… but then you find yourself pulled over on the side of the highway with clammy hands and unable to breathe? Growing up in a loving, hard-working family deeply rooted in farming traditions, Melissa Coloton learned early on the importance of honesty, compassion, and the power of expressing love. Unlike most families, he...

What happens when the thing you pride yourself on most… is the very thing quietly breaking you? Janice DaCosta grew up in a world where excellence wasn’t optional. You hold it together. You don’t fall apart. You make it work—no matter what. Until one day, standing in front of a mirror with scissors in her hand, she couldn’t hold it together anymore. What followed was a complete Control, Alt, Delet...

We’re more connected than ever… and more lonely than ever. Because connected online is very different than connected offline. In this solo episode, I'm exploring the quiet epidemic of loneliness and why it shows up in places most leaders overlook. If you’re interested in being successful – whether you’re running a business or working for someone – no matter what your definition of success is… and...

Shaped by a childhood of resourcefulness and grit, Barry Bradham’s story moves beyond your usual rags-to-riches narrative. Raised in a family where money was often scarce, his parents displayed both strong work ethics and unconventional life choices. Barry started honing his sales skills at just eight years old; he was trading toys and selling bubblegum and baseball cards from a table on the corne...

If your body pulled the emergency brake tomorrow, would you wish you’d slowed down sooner? Growing up on a dude ranch in the remote town of Utica, Montana, Lindsey Korell was immersed in a world where hard work, family, and a curious eye toward the wider world set the tone for her upbringing. Surrounded by international guests drawn by her grandfather's innovative marketing and her father's relent...

What if the moment you tell yourself “I’m fine” is the exact moment you should be paying closer attention? Rooted in the core values of hard work, family, and emotional restraint, Emma Collyer grew up with the unspoken rule to “just get on with things.” This principle followed her well into adulthood. Raised in the UK and now residing in Canada, she learned early how to be dependable, observant, a...

What happens when the life you worked relentlessly to build suddenly stops feeling like you belong in it? From the outside, Ali Brown had it all. An epic brand. Massive influence. Serious revenue. The kind of success most people spend their lives chasing. But from the inside, something was missing. Growing up, Ali Brown was surrounded by the stability of a working father and a creative, stay-at-ho...

What happens when you get everything you thought would finally make you feel okay… and it doesn’t? Anthony Spark grew up in chaos, learned independence early, and chased financial freedom with relentless focus. He did what so many people are told will fix everything: worked harder, made more money, built businesses, climbed the mountain. And then he discovered something he didn’t expect. Success d...

Growing up in Iowa, Allie Jones was immersed in a culture of “Iowa nice,” a brand of politeness defined by being helpful, agreeable, and perpetually pleasant. So not surprisingly, niceness became a core value for Allie, one that was reinforced by her community, but also complicated by its shadow: the tendency to avoid hard conversations and uncomfortable truths in favor of small talk and surface-l...

Raised in a hardworking, Catholic family that seemed picture-perfect from the outside, Andrew Quebbemann learned early on the value of self-reliance and doing things for yourself. But it was during a pivotal moment at age sixteen—choosing not to get confirmed into the church—that he first exercised the courage to honor his own convictions over societal or familial expectations. That decision, view...

Stef Warlick grew up with the kind of values that leave a lasting imprint. Guided by a mother who came from a strict Catholic upbringing and believed deeply in championing the underdog and showing relentless kindness, Stef was immersed from a young age in principles of empathy, hard work, and accountability. “If you can’t change something, change your mind about it” was a guiding family mantra. Th...

Kathryn Eipl spent much of her professional life doing exactly what she was trained to do: keep everything together, move forward no matter what, don’t feel too much, and definitely don’t let anything fall apart. Raised in a household where emotions were weaponized as jokes and communicating risked having your vulnerabilities shared with the entire extended family, Kathryn learned early to guard h...