Intrepid Storytelling

How do you go from earning $10.94 an hour as a substitute paraeducator to becoming the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer of an entire county?   Wil Johnson’s path to leadership was paved with profound challenges, reinvention, and resilience. After dropping out of college and serving as a U.S. Army medic in Alaska, Wil faced a harsh reality during the 2008 recession: despite his milita...

How do you break a generational cycle of severe trauma when you were raised in the darkest of environments?   Janus Vallejo grew up enduring severe trauma and profound boundary violations at the hands of the very people who were supposed to protect him. After surviving unimaginable horrors in his childhood and later during his military service, his unhealed wounds and profound dissociation manifes...

What happens when your timeline for finding "the one" runs out, but your dream of becoming a mother is stronger than ever?   Nicole Orr knew she wanted to be a mom since she was a little girl, mapping out a plan to have a husband and four children by her early twenties. But when a difficult childhood, past trauma, and a grueling dating scene left her without a partner by age 30, she took her famil...

What happens when you sit down with your abuser to ask them about their own horrific childhood trauma?   In this raw and powerful episode of Intrepid Storytelling, Deanna Powell sits down with retired disability attorney and author Jason Prokowiew. Jason shares the harrowing history behind his memoir, War Boys, tracing his father’s journey from a ten-year-old orphan in Nazi-occupied Belarus to a d...

Can someone truly change after spending 23 years deeply embedded in the criminal underworld?   David Boggs spent over two decades living a high-stakes life, navigating international borders, and utilizing his fluency in seven languages to build an illicit enterprise. But after receiving a five-year prison sentence, he found himself isolated and reflecting on the widespread damage of his choices. T...

How do you find your way back to life when you're sleeping in a freezing tent in a trap house backyard, and the drugs make you forget you are even a mother?   Madyson's life began to spiral after her parents separated when she was twelve years old. What started as running away and adolescent rebellion led to a harrowing eight-year fight for survival on the streets. Unable to care for her children,...

Have you ever felt like your life was suddenly interrupted, forcing you to rewrite your entire future from scratch?   Laurie Hardie stepped away from a burgeoning radio career to build her dream family, but in a single season, her life collapsed. While pregnant with her third child, her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury, she was in a severe car accident on the exact same day, and soon afte...

What happens when the group that promises to save you turns into a trap designed to control your entire life?   Adopted at birth and struggling to navigate the intense isolation of her teenage years, Mandi Pagliarini was desperate for connection and understanding. After a traumatic incident and a subsequent stint in a psychiatric facility in the 1990s, she was introduced to a seemingly vibrant and...

What happens when you dedicate your life to a church, only to realize you’re trapped in a highly manipulative organization that controls your marriage, your money, and your freedom?   Mitch Cunico was an assistant in church leadership, a massive, multi-billion-dollar South Korean religious group with 4 million members worldwide. Pressured into an arranged marriage, forced to work grueling 70 to 12...

Do you have to wait for the "perfect partner" to start the family of your dreams?   For Shae Beaudoin, the answer was a resounding no. Realizing early on that she had no desire for a traditional romantic relationship, Shae faced a crossroad: abandon her lifelong dream of becoming a mother, or chart her own path. In this honest and deeply personal episode of Intrepid Storytelling, Shae opens up to...

How do you keep a devastating secret while running a business and raising a child completely on your own?   Kate French’s life looked perfectly fine from the outside. As a single mother and business owner, she appeared to have it all together. But behind closed doors, she was fighting a deeply lonely and silent battle, unable to look at herself in the mirror without breaking down. Carrying the hea...

What happens when you achieve your wildest dream, only to discover the system was designed to keep you out?   Mona Das immigrated to the U.S. from India at eight months old with a family who had only $6 to their name. Growing up in rural Pennsylvania in the 1970s, she never saw leaders who looked like her, leaving her to believe her only acceptable career options were becoming a doctor or an engin...

What happens when the religion meant to save you becomes a prison, and the drugs you use to escape become a death sentence?   Derek Lambert, host of the MythVision podcast, spent his early life terrified of hell and desperate for divine approval. Trapped in a cycle of religious guilt, shame, and a desperate need to be a "good boy," Derek turned to substances to numb the overwhelming noise in his h...

What happens when the people meant to protect you become the ones who cause the deepest wounds?   In this raw and deeply moving episode of Intrepid Storytelling, Forrest Lang shares his story of surviving childhood sexual abuse, grooming, and abandonment while in foster care. At just 12 years old, Forrest was placed in a situation no child should ever endure, left unprotected and unheard by the ve...

What if you were treated like a terrorist simply for saving a tortured puppy from a testing lab?   Growing up, Amanda Olejarz was relentlessly bullied for her deep empathy and refusal to eat animals. Inspired by her grandmother, who reasoned with a soldier to save her grandfather from Auschwitz, Amanda learned early on that direct action works. That realization eventually transformed her from a qu...

How do you build a beautiful, stable life when your early years were defined by chaos?   Jessica Decker spent her early childhood trying to survive, stepping in to care for her younger siblings while living in a highly unstable environment. At just ten years old, she was removed from her home and thrust into the foster care system, leading to heartbreaking separations from the siblings she had hel...

How do you find your voice when you were taught your entire childhood to stay silent?   Angelina Mojica grew up in a traditional household where she learned early on to keep quiet and meet impossibly high expectations. Seeking an escape, she married at just 19 years old, only to find herself trapped in a pattern of toxic relationships, betrayal, and profound hardship. After facing her darkest mome...

How do you keep leading others when your foundation is shaken by hidden family secrets and unimaginable loss?   Michael Fornerette is known for his intense competitive drive, elite leadership, and unwavering commitment to professional standards. But behind the structured exterior of this highly successful mortgage executive lies a profoundly human story of resilience. Growing up as a "forgotten" m...

How do you react when life hands you a terminal diagnosis? For Michel "Mitch" Pinard, the answer was simple: you keep going. After being diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, Mitch decided that while his condition might be "incurable," his spirit certainly wasn't.   In this deeply moving yet surprisingly uplifting conversation, Mitch joins Deanna Powell to discuss the beauty of "living with cancer"...

"I didn't stop being afraid in life until other people became afraid of me." ⛓️   How does a six-year-old child, conditioned by solitary confinement and physical abuse at home, find his way back to humanity after decades behind bars? Jacob Ivan Schmitt isn't just a survivor of the carceral system; he is a man who had to reverse-engineer his own soul in a place designed to strip it away. In this ra...

What happens when you realize that no one is coming to save you, and you must become your own greatest protector?   Erin Alexander, founder of the marketing agency Finally Social, didn’t have a simple path to the life and business she loves today. From navigating a difficult upbringing in Oregon to rubbing shoulders with Andy Warhol in the drug-fueled New York City club scene of the 1980s, Erin li...

What happens when your "rock," your protector, and your only link to your biological past suddenly turns into your greatest threat?   At just 6 years old, Jay Barbanel was a survivor. Adopted from a high-stakes environment in Costa Rica alongside his older brother, Jay thought they had finally found safety in the U.S. and Europe. But while Jay adapted and thrived, his brother was harboring a dark,...

What do you do when the life you built with your soulmate is suddenly shattered by the unimaginable?   Michelle Bruto da Costa achieved the American dream, rising from her roots as a first-generation American to become a top 1% mortgage loan originator nationwide. She built a beautiful life with Mark, her soulmate of 23 years, raising five children together. But everything changed overnight when M...

What happens when the only way to survive your childhood is to numb the pain, until the numbing becomes its own nightmare?   Sebrina grew up in a constant state of survival mode, facing repeated evictions, shut-off utilities, and an unpredictable environment shaped by her mother’s active drug use and an absent father. To cope with the overwhelming uncertainty, she turned to alcohol at a young age,...

What is the cost of leaving everything you've ever known? When the rug is pulled out from under you, losing your community, your faith, and your financial stability all at once, how do you rebuild?   In Part 4 of her powerful journey, Lacey Gallear sits down with Deanna Powell to discuss the painful aftermath of leaving the Mars Hill church and realizing she had been in the "cult of Amway". Sudden...